I reviewed the new subway map for @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social. Check it out! www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/new... - ThreadSky

lostsubways.com • 33 days ago

I reviewed the new subway map for @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social. Check it out!

https://www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/new-yorks-new-subway-map

Comments

2feet2bucks.com•32 days ago

This review gets it says map veteran and NYC hometown boy

lostsubways.com•33 days ago

One thing I didn't really get into because of the word limit is just how wrong the new map gets the geography of #NYC.

Second Ave on the East Side is east of First (wtf?) 2/

roosefella.bsky.social•33 days ago

the MTA calls it a "Subway Diagram" not a "map"

lostsubways.com•33 days ago

The subway map shows Central Park is a square running east-west, not a rectangle running north-south as in real life...

3/

lostsubways.com•33 days ago

and it doesn't distinguish between easy same-station connections to other transit and hard transfers. The PATH stations on 6th Ave are shown the same way as the Nostrand Ave LIRR, but while PATH and the subway share stations, the Nostrand LIRR is three full blocks from the A/C.
4/

lostsubways.com•33 days ago

There's also two totally different ways of showing transfers even though the rider experience is the same for both.

5/

roosefella.bsky.social•33 days ago

I cannot figure out what this is for and it is my #1 complaint!

bsquiklehausen.com•33 days ago

It's not entirely consistent (Jackson Heights - Roosevelt Av/74 St - Broadway has the white blob), but it seems like the white blob is used for complexes that share a name and the line is used for differently named but connected stations.

It should all be consistent.

lostsubways.com•33 days ago

These are nitpicks, though, because the MTA got one thing hugely right: each route now has its own line, instead of forcing you to do a double-take to make sure that a station is express.

6/

lostsubways.com•33 days ago

Bonus points: the new subway map is much more aesthetically pleasing than its predecessor, that's for sure. There's definitely work to be done, but it's definitely an improvement on the old map.

/7x

chrisquixote.bsky.social•31 days ago

I’m unconvinced, and this is where I think we differ:
“This is a major victory for clarity, because the first task of any transit map is to get riders to their destinations.”

chrisquixote.bsky.social•31 days ago

Implied is the idea that riders’ destination is a subway station. It is not. A riders’s destination is somewhere in the real world (not the transit world), and the map does a poor job of relating stations to actual places.

chrisquixote.bsky.social•31 days ago

And the review finally acknowledges this all the way at the bottom:
“[T]he neo-Vignelli map gets the geography plain wrong, often egregiously so…. Geographical distortions like these do little to aid the below-ground passenger, and make it harder for riders to reach their final destination.”

chrisquixote.bsky.social•31 days ago

*This is the whole point of a subway system, and by extension the map*: getting people where they want to go. Which is the Bronx Zoo, not (I assure you) the Pelham Parkway station.

The failure to connect the subway to the real world ought to be the lede, not the kicker.

tedgrunewald.bsky.social•27 days ago

Excellent points. Couldn't agree with you more...
https://bsky.app/profile/tedgrunewald.bsky.social/post/3lmurgtnk7s23

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