More About Transport Maps: London & New York

Earlier this month, in a post about the upgrade of the Melbourne tram network map, I mentioned that I really loved the London Underground Tube map and the MTA New York Subway map.

A lot has been written about these maps so I don’t have much to add but here some information are bunch of links about them that you might find interesting.

London Underground Tube Map

Let’s start with the Wikipedia entry for this map which summarises its origins:

The first diagrammatic map of the Underground was designed by Harry Beck in 1931. Beck was an Underground employee who realised that because the railway ran mostly underground, the physical locations of the stations were irrelevant to the traveller wanting to know how to get to one station from another - only the topology of the railway mattered.

...

To this end, he devised a simplified map, consisting of stations, straight line segments connecting them, and the River Thames; lines ran only vertically, horizontally, or on 45 degree diagonals. To make the map clearer and to emphasise connections, Beck differentiated between ordinary stations (marked with tick marks) and interchanges (marked with diamonds). The Underground was initially sceptical of his proposal - it was an uncommissioned spare-time project, and it was tentatively introduced to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. It immediately became popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since.

This is the map that started it all: It was a proper transport system infographic and not a route overlay (underlay?) drawn on top of a geographically accurate aboveground map.

Here’s what the map looks like today:

You can read more about the Underground map on the BBC’s h2g2 website and can see images of it through its history on the Guardian’s website. There’s also more detail about it’s history (till 2002) here.

For something more awesome, check out:

• The Real Underground which morph’s the modern network map to a geographically accurate version of it.
• Matthew Somerville’s Live Train Map for the London Underground which overlays live train position data on a Google Map base layer.

Oh, and if you’re interested, you can get the actual, current map from here.

MTA New York Subway Map

Again, let’s start with the New York Subway’s Wikipedia entry which has this to say about its map:

The current official transit maps of the New York City Subway are based on a 1979 design by Michael Hertz Associates. The maps are not geographically accurate due to the complexity of the system (i.e. Manhattan being the smallest borough, but having the most lines), but are known to help tourists navigate the city, as major city streets are shown alongside the subway stations serving them. The newest edition of the subway map, which took effect on June 27, 2010, reflects the latest service changes and also makes Manhattan bigger and Staten Island smaller.

Part of the reason for the current incarnation is that earlier diagrams of the subway (the first being produced in 1958), while being more aesthetically pleasing, had the perception of being more geographically inaccurate than the diagrams today. The design of the subway map by Massimo Vignelli, published by the MTA between 1974 and 1979, has since become recognized in design circles as a modern classic; however, the MTA deemed the map was flawed due to its placement of geographical elements.

So New York is one of the few large cities whose subway map is more closely tied to its aboveground geography. In his 2006 New York Times article, ‘Win, Lose, Draw: The Great Subway Map Wars’, Alex Mindlin had this to say about why Vignelli’s simpler but geographically inaccurate map didn’t work:

Although designers love to discuss why Mr. Vignelli’s schematic map didn’t fly, no single theory has emerged. The graphic designer Michael Bierut, however, suggests that New York’s street grid was to blame.

“Londoners are actually unclear about how close one stop is to the next,” he said. “But a lot of Manhattanites could tell you authoritatively how long it would take to walk from Fifth and 28th to Seventh and 44th. So the geographic discrepancies in the Vignelli map, which are no more than those you find in lots of subway maps around the world — they’re just glaring.”

Bierut actually explained the problem with Vignelli’s map more thoroughly in his own article on this topic in 2004 (the 100th anniversary of the New York Subway system):

[Vignelli’s map] was a design solution of extraordinary beauty. Yet it quickly ran into problems. To make the map work graphically meant that a few geographic liberties had to be taken. What about, for instance, the fact that the Vignelli map represented Central Park as a square, when in fact it is three times as long as it is wide? If you're underground, of course, it doesn't matter: there simply aren't as many stops along Central Park as there are in midtown, so it requires less map space. But what if, for whatever reason, you wanted to get out at 59th Street and take a walk on a crisp fall evening? Imagine your surprise when you found yourself hiking for hours on a route that looked like it would take minutes on Vignelli's map.

Here’s what the map looks like today:

For more about the map’s history (as well as that of the the subway system itself), check these out:

• MTA’s official history page
• Transit photographer and historian John Stern’s article on a century of the New York City subway

Another good website on the New York City subway is, of course, nycsubway.org.

For something more awesome, though, check out:

• An animated history of the NYC Subway
• Julie Steele’s story behind Eddie Jabbour’s KickMap, which is an alternative map to the NYC Subway
• Paul Shaw’s article on ‘The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York Subway’.

Of course, if you’re interested in the actual, official, current subway map, you can get that from here.

Melbourne Maps

For more about Melbourne’s transport maps (both tram and train), check out these links:

• ‘Railways in Melbourne’ [Wikipedia]
• ‘Trams in Melbourne’ [Wikipedia]
• Tramroute.com, which are tram routes overlayed on a Google Map base
• Australian Rail Map’s maps for Melbourne
• Railpage Australia and New Zealand, which has good sections on ‘Trams in Australia’ and ‘Melbourne’s Tram History’

Other Maps & Things

If you’ve reached the end are are still reading, here are some more good links to check out:

• ‘Subway systems of the world, presented on the same scale’ by Neil Freeman
• ‘Inscribed in Living Tile: Type in the Toronto Subway’ by Joe Clark
• ‘The Subway Page: Links to World Subway and Other Transportation Information Resources’ by Robert Reynolds

Photos from SlutWalk Melbourne

So today we took part in SlutWalk Melbourne (which I wrote about earlier).

The only half decent report on the Melbourne walk is here but I’m sure there will be others over the next few days. The really good accounts (i.e. the nuanced and non-snarky ones) will, inevitably, be published in blogs.

We started outside the State Library of Victoria on Swanston Street with a few speeches:

The one by Cody Smith was particularly inspirational though others made really good points as well, such as:

"It shouldn't be the responsibility of survivors to educate people about rape."

"It is not the responsibility of women to educate people on sexism"

"If you come from a position of privilege it should be your responsibility to educate yourself and your friends."

Lots of people were carrying awesome protest signs, like this one from James:

And this one from someone standing behind us:

After the speeches we walked down Swanston and Collins Streets to Parliament Gardens. Here are Scott, Nadia, James, and Andrew:

And here are me and Nadia once we got to the gardens:

If you’re curious about the “Hornet’s nest of revolutionary feminism” t-shirt I’m wearing, you can find out more about that on the Tiger Beatdown blog.

(Also, you can see a few more photos from this walk on my Flickr profile.)

Sadly, while the walk made an important statement, raised a lot of awareness, and was lots of fun to participate in, my cold didn’t react very well to two hour out in the cold so I got home a little worse for wear. I’ll definitely be sleeping in tomorrow!

A big thanks to the walk’s organizers and volunteers for making this happen; Samurai AV for the sound system; Victoria Police for coordinating our movement through the CBD; and everyone who turned up today (both in person and in spirit).

Here’s hoping this walk – and, indeed, this whole movement – has a genuine, long-term impact that reduces incidents of victim blaming and slut shaming. If nothing else, the walk has got us all talking about theses issues and that, in itself, is a good thing.

SlutWalk Melbourne is on 28 May 2010

In case you haven’t already heard, SlutWalk Melbourne is at 1:00 PM on 28 May 2010 in front of the State Library on Swanston Street in the CBD.

What’s it all About?

For a quick introduction, here’s what the Melbourne protest’s organizer, Clem Bastow, said about SlutWalk in The Age earlier this week:

The "SlutWalk" phenomenon began in January this year, when a group of Toronto women organised a protest following a local police officer's comments (to university students) that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised".

The organisers' stance was simple: to call for an end to victim-blaming, the idea that victims of sexual assault or rape could somehow be blamed for their attackers' actions based upon what the victim was wearing or doing at the time. Was the victim dressed skimpily? Were they intoxicated? Did they have a large number of sexual partners? Yes? Oh well, that explains it then.

In addition, the walks protested against a culture of slut-shaming. As the founders put it, "Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or work. No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault."

Why Attend?

Nadia wrote a really good blog post about the whole SlutWalk movement which mirrors my own feelings on this topic:

…If you get sexually assaulted, NOTHING you were wearing or were doing is going to be good enough. There will always be some moron going on about how you shouldn’t have gone there or done that or worn such-and-such or had a sexual or professional or intellectual history. The bottom line is that we live in a global society that believes femaleness is a fault and that if something happens to you, well then that’s just what you’re going to get if you insist on existing while female.

So yes, I’m going and I’d encourage anyone of any gender and any orientation who can attend to do so. Because this isn’t about one kind of woman or one kind of world view or even women as a group. Victim blaming and a culture that allows and even expects it are toxic for all of us, whoever we are and wherever we are. It is important then that, when handed the opportunity on a silver platter, we lend our voices to the protest against it.

I recommend you read the whole blog post and I, too, recommend that you attend at the protest walk.

Also, please don’t “slut up” or dress up for the walk. Women get abused, sexually assaulted, and, yes, called sluts regardless of what they do and what they wear. I think it’s important that people of all types, wearing all kinds of clothes attend the protest dressed as they normally would in order to highlight the diversity of people who are willing to stand up against victim blaming and slut shaming.

More Information

• SlutWalk Toronto website
• SlutWalk Melbourne website
• SlutWalk Melbourne Facebook Event Page
• SlutWalk Melbourne Cause Page
• SlutWalk Melbourne on Twitter

New Melbourne Tram Network Map

I love infographics and have a particular fondness for really good transport network maps. So I was very excited when, last week, Yarra Trams (Melbourne’s tram operator) launched a new version of their tram network map.

Old vs. New Map

Here’s the old network map:

And here’s the fantastic new one:

A little application of colour goes a long way, doesn’t it? :)

One Colour Per Tram Route

This addition of colour – specifically, the assigning of one colour per line/route – is an excellent feature that is used by the best transport maps from around the world. Certainly my favourite transport maps – the London Underground Tube map and the MTA New York Subway map – both use this visual cue. So I’m glad Yarra Trams (YT) have added it to theirs. (More on those other maps in another blog post.)

The cool thing is that YT are highlighting this change via a really good marketing campaign (or would you call this a change management campaign?).

For example, yesterday they were handing these out at the Flinders Street tram stop on Swanston Street:

The information in the booklet was useful (an Android version of their awesome tramTRACKER app is coming soon!) and the jelly beans were delicious :)

Route Maps Inside Trams

YT have also gone a step further and placed colour-coded route maps inside trams. Through this, travellers have easy access to more detailed route information for the tram they’re currently on:

The complete network map is also available on a nearby wall, of course.

All in all, I’m thrilled with this latest instalment of KDR’s “TRAMSformation” of Yarra Trams.

Further Reading

If you like this sort of thing, do check these links out:

• ‘Trams in Melbourne’ [Wikipedia]
• A history of Melbourne’s Trams [Railpage Australia]
• Historical Melbourne tram route map [Railpage Australia]
• Slightly out of date but still useful: Melbourne’s tram routes shown on a Google Map [TramRoute.com]

Aussiecon 4: Day 1

I’m attending the 68th World Science Fiction – Aussiecon 4 – that’s being held in Melbourne, Australia from 2-6 September. 

Today was the first day and, so far, it’s been awesome.

Choices, Choices…

The biggest problem with conventions like these are that there are multiple sessions running concurrently (in multiple rooms, of course) so you have to choose which one of those you want to attend.

The organizers do, however, try to make your life a little easier by dividing sessions into topic streams – such as kids, young adults, academic panels, academic papers, writers workshops, film programs, signings, talks from guests, and so on. That way, if you have any special overarching interest in one streams, it makes it a little easier for your to make your choices.

Sessions Attended on Day 1

Today, aside from the opening ceremony, I attended the following sessions during which I learnt the following things (though, of course, this is just a small sample of what was discussed there):

Breaking the fourth wall: Supernatural and its audience

• There are two kinds of ‘fourth walls’:
• one in which the show’s authors are influenced by the fans (e.g. the killing off of Bela in Supernatural season 3) and
• the other in which the show’s characters interact with the audience during/through the show (e.g. the bit after the credits in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).
• Fan influence can be both to the show’s benefit and detriment. In the case of Supernatural the consensus seems to be that the latter occurred.
• It can sometimes be hard for a show’s authors to figure out whether the feedback they’re getting from their fans is:
• just the loudest people trying to get them to write the show they really want to see (e.g. this must happen in the next season because I think that would be awesome!) or
• a genuine fan pointing out a flaw or blind spot in their story or show choices (e.g. all the show’s characters happen to be Caucasian…wtf?).
• American TV networks seem to be shifting the way in which they source and plan for serialized shows. The original model was, for example, a show that had a 5-year storyline with defined milestones for each season. The newer model seems to be the British one of shows being sold with 1-year plans and, if they do well in that first year, being picked up for subsequent seasons.

Perfectly packaged: designing and marketing science fiction

• A book’s cover image should tell you what it feels like to be reading that book
• Some manuscripts are really easy to pick covers for while for others (such as cross-genre one) it’s a much harder exercise
• ‘Less is more’ in book covers and one of the most effective covers is one with big lettering for both the author’s name and book’s title and with only a small image/illustration
• Publishers try to avoid people’s faces on book covers because it leaves more to the imagination
• Black book covers with a single, coloured high-contrast image in the centre (i.e. the Twilight style) is very last year

Things to do in Melbourne when you’re geek

• There’s lots to do in Melbourne when you’re a geek
• Street art is cool, there are lots of bars, and you really should visit the Queen Victoria Market and State Library of Victoria
• Good geeky places to visit in the CBD include:
• Minotaur (“the pop culture megastore”)
• Outre Gallery
• Of Science & Swords (book shop)
• Sticky (‘zine shop)

Sessions for Day 2

Tomorrow I’m planning to attend the following sessions:

• When history becomes fantasy: artistic license and historical cinema
• The Last Airbender: race and Hollywood cinema
• Rethinking SETI: 50 years on – though this has been rescheduled so I’ll have to change my plans accordingly
• The future of privacy or, if I’m one of the first ten to sign up, a kaffeeklatsch (i.e. small group discussion) with Gail Carriger
• Shaun Tan Guest of Honour Speech
• Eowyn and Sam: underappreciated heroes in The Lord of the Rings
• To the stars: the never-ending history of Star Trek
• Academic Panel: These are not the people you are looking for: race in SFF

I’ll also go check out the dealer’s room and go to the Friday Night Filking session (which should be lots of fun).