Cameron Booth, a graphic designer based in Sydney, Australia, has been creating updated versions of transportation maps for years on his blog Transit Maps, reimagining such things as the Washington, DC Metro map, or the U.S. highway system in the style of a Vignelli-esque subway map. His maps are fascinating thought experiments, at the very least, and his blog provides insight into the weird and wonderful world of amateur map-makers.
His latest design is a mash-up of two of the best-known transit maps in the world: London's Underground, and the New York City subway. Booth adapted the form and style of the Tube map (which was created by Harry Beck in the early 1930s), but adjusted the shapes and colors of the lines, as well as the stops themselves, to represent the current New York City transit map. (It even extends to include the city's newest stop at 34th St-Hudson Yards.)
It ends up looking not too dissimilar from other iterations of the NYC subway map, though Booth tried to keep some similarities between the two cities' diagrams—namely, choosing colors for the lines in New York that are similar to their London counterparts, and
However, some of the quirks of the London tube map remain, notably:
The other thing to note is that – in true Tube Map style – service patterns generally aren’t shown. This, of course, makes this map next to useless for actually navigating the subway – there’s literally no distinction made on the map between the J and the Z, for example – but that’s the way things roll in London!
Booth also fiddled a bit with the spacing between each stop, which makes for a bit of a cleaner map. You can check out Booth's explanation behind the map at his website, and sound off on what you think in the comments below.
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