Results tagged “subway”

This weekend here in NYC is Transportation Camp. While I can't make it out to what's already sounding like it's been an amazing event, I thought the moment marked a nice time to look back at one of the successes we've seen around open transportation here in New York City.

Last May, the MTA hosted an Unconference for Developers, where I got to moderate a panel before MTA CEO Jay Walder announced the MTA's open data sets that were made newly available for use by developers. There was amazing response from the developer community, as well as accolades from transit geeks like Benjamin Kabak at Second Avenue Sagas (one of my favorite blogs).

Today, less than a year later, it seems like the effort is really succeeding. Just a few weeks ago, Alexander Chen's brilliant, beautiful MTA.ME caught an enormous amount of attention for its combination of realtime subway data and unabashed artistry. You can read Alexander's own explanation, but the core takeaway I got from the popularity of MTA.ME was that he'd succeeded in reaching an audience of people who may not be transit geeks, and almost certainly didn't have to have a prior interest in realtime subway data. That's a measure of exactly the sort of success I think we all hoped to see at the moment the data sets were released.

Just as importantly, countless subway riders each day get to see that the MTA is looking at all of this innovation the right way. Many subway cars have house ads for the MTA, which offer the following explanation of their open data strategy:

Our apps are whiz kid certified. Instead of developing transit apps ourselves, we gave our info to the people who do it best. Search the web for 'NY transit apps' to see what we mean."

It's a subtle point, but note that the MTA isn't advertising that they've made apps themselves, they're promoting that they've encouraged an entire ecosystem of apps to thrive. That shows a prescience and ambition that really gives me hope that the NYC transportation system I love so much actually will get combined with the innovations of the tech world that occupies so much of my professional attention. As somebody who's a life long tech geek and transit geek, that's incredibly exciting.

(Thanks to Alexis Ohanian for the photo.

The way the Métro started its life strongly influenced signage in the stations. In the early days, a number of commercial companies ran the different Métro lines. This is one of the reasons why the inscriptions varied enormously, from enamel signage to big ceramic station nameplates. Sans serifs were mostly used for big signage, and on the carriages, letters were painted in a style appropriate to the carriage design. Early on, it was Art Nouveau forms. At the time, most of the transportation procedure was done manually by rail workers, from the sale of individual tickets, to the semi-automatic door closing. Later, the national rail network, the RATP, took over.

From Métro Type, a history of type and signage in the Paris Metro system.

Last year, when I wrote Draw the Map, Draw the World about the New York City subway map and Massimo Vignelli, one of the signature designers in the map's history, I was surprised how many people were interested in the topic.

There's been some great writing on Vignelli's map:

• Visual Complexity's look at the map, which I linked to last year, is wonderful.
• Design Observer offers Mr. Vignelli's Map, which was published a few years ago in observance of the subway's centennial.

But perhaps one of the coolest recent bits of media about Massimo Vignelli and his work on the subway map is this outtake footage from the documentary film Helvetica. It's well worth a look for those enchanted with the fellow who said, The only thing you are interested in is the spaghetti.

The Sunday New York Times ran a fantastic article by Alex Mindlin, Win, Lose, Draw: The Great Subway Map Wars that details a battle that has brewed, off and on, for the past 30 years.

There are, it seems, at least two distinct systems of belief about what constitutes the proper set of assumptions for the New York City subway map. The core tension between the camps is a debate about the goals of a map this ubiquitous, one so frequently used by millions of people. Should the Metropolitan Transit Authority strive for an idealized conceptual diagram that helps people understand the system at the expense of literal accuracy? Or should the map reflect the true environment that the subway system lives in, providing necessary context even at the expense of superficial clarity?

The right answer, of course, is that we all want both. But the pendulum swings back and forth over decades, based on design trends or the arbitrary caprices that inform the workings of any large, old public institution. The good news is that all this back-and-forth leaves us with a lot of beautiful maps to ponder.

The map used in the 1930s, excerpted above, was fairly uncontroversial. As the Times story notes, the classic London Tube map was an influence on the entire genre. But the heart of the Times story is the debate over the 1972 map, which was the first NYC Subway map I ever collected, and is excerpted here, showing roughly the same area as the 1930s-era map above.

The elegance of this map is even more delightful when you know about the sheer contrariness of its creator, Massimo Vignelli. He's quoted in the Time story defending the liberties taken in the 1972 map:

Of course I know Central Park is rectangular and not square. Of course I know the park is green, and not gray. Who cares? You want to go from Point A to Point B, period. The only thing you are interested in is the spaghetti.

For those interested in more spaghetti, as well as more plate, more cheese, and more tortured metaphors, here's some more NYC Subway map links:

• Visual Complexity's survey of transportation networks includes a look at the 1972 Vignelli map.
• The best independent NYC Subway site is nycsubway.org, where you'll find a
  comprehensive list of maps, including some fantasy maps created by subway fans.
• Also on nycsubway.org is a comprehensive list of links to other subway fansites.
• And finally, the Abandoned Stations site, which I've linked to before but never get tired of exploring.