The Official MBTA System Map

TheRatmeister said:
View attachment 54352
First full, essentially final draft, with the exception of mistakes because I'm sure there are plenty.

And one more for the park minimalists:
View attachment 54353
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I will say I prefer the fewer parks version. Also, i don't know if it's just a symptom of WiP, or if it is intentional to accommodate the bus lines / other routes but the relationship between station name and it's dot seems... Rather inconsistent, across the map and it caught my eye immediately, and is particularly noticeable on the E branch.

As far as ferries go, the Lynn and Quincy routes do technically have numbers - F5 and F6 respectively. I get that they're the seasonal routes, but it feels odd for them to not have the bubble. Perhaps a lower saturation to indicate seasonality? Also, I feel if you want the ferry inset, it needs more detail to be useful for wayfinding - there's not enough context there to know where the stop actually is. I'd say it needs the harborwalk path, in scope roads and building silhouettes if you go down that path.

That said, I generally question the need for an ferry inset - a schematic map isn't intended for you to identify where your stop actually is in the world, just where it is in relation to the system and city at large. Therefore, I'd almost rather see three separate dots representing the waterfront ferry terminals, without the inset. It just feels like doesn't provide the amount of informational value relative to the amount of space it takes up. I'd almost rather that inset show the geographically accurate relationship of station stops downtown.

And Edit; Any reason to leave out the Winter St. Concourse? I know it's not the most useful piece of infrastructure, but still.
 
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Stlin said:
or if it is intentional to accommodate the bus lines / other routes but the relationship between station name and it's dot seems... Rather inconsistent, across the map and it caught my eye immediately, and is particularly noticeable on the E branch.
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I try to keep them consistent where I can, but parts of the map make that rather challenging. The 39/57 are probably the worst to deal with. Particularly on the B branch keeping the labels in the same spot makes it harder to tell which stop is which, especially where the 47 crosses at BU Central. There is no good solution here and I've attempted to come up with the one that's the least bad but ultimately that's subjective.
Stlin said:
As far as ferries go, the Lynn and Quincy routes do technically have numbers - F5 and F6 respectively. I get that they're the seasonal routes, but it feels odd for them to not have the bubble.
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You're right, I couldn't find those while I was making the map but if you google "MBTA F5" they do come up, although only on the Wikipedia page (Which isn't totally consistent) and the "Beginner's Guide to the Ferry" official page.
Stlin said:
Therefore, I'd almost rather see three separate dots representing the waterfront ferry terminals, without the inset.
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3 dots already gets pretty crowded around downtown, and adding a fourth for the seasonal East Boston ferry is just not possible. That's the main problem the inset is trying to solve, not necessarily a need to navigate accurately to each ferry pier. You're right that a bit more information there might be good, some streets/buildings and the harborwalk, but I don't really want to go overboard.
 
TheRatmeister said:
I try to keep them consistent where I can, but parts of the map make that rather challenging. The 39/57 are probably the worst to deal with. Particularly on the B branch keeping the labels in the same spot makes it harder to tell which stop is which, especially where the 47 crosses at BU Central. There is no good solution here and I've attempted to come up with the one that's the least bad but ultimately that's subjective.
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That's totally fair - the constraints of the information you're trying to show drives compromises. (Also, I just realized that you might want to double check your text generation - it's seemingly got a random baseline, especially around lowercase "a"s and "o"s. See Boston Landing, where the B and L are out line with the rest of it, or Harvard, where the as decend below the baseline.)
TheRatmeister said:
You're right, I couldn't find those while I was making the map but if you google "MBTA F5" they do come up, although only on the Wikipedia page (Which isn't totally consistent) and the "Beginner's Guide to the Ferry" official page.
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The T admittedly doesn't use them consistently, but they appear on the PDF versions of the schedules.
TheRatmeister said:
3 dots already gets pretty crowded around downtown, and adding a fourth for the seasonal East Boston ferry is just not possible. That's the main problem the inset is trying to solve, not necessarily a need to navigate accurately to each ferry pier. You're right that a bit more information there might be good, some streets/buildings and the harborwalk, but I don't really want to go overboard.
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Fair enough - I do think you could fit three conjoined dots, or just eliminate them and simplify to the lozenges you are already showing in the area around waterfront ferry terminals - just add a slash in them for the additional routes.

Also, idk if you caught the edit, but Winter St Concourse? It's not the best piece of T infrastructure, but it is technically an available post paid transfer.
 
Stlin said:
(Also, I just realized that you might want to double check your text generation - it's seemingly got a random baseline, especially around lowercase "a"s and "o"s. See Boston Landing, where the B and L are out line with the rest of it, or Harvard, where the as decend below the baseline.)
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ugh, I thought I fixed that. It renders correctly in Illustrator but not when it's exported so it might be an issue with the Helvetica font I downloaded, I'll try a different one and hope that fixes it for good.
Stlin said:
Fair enough - I do think you could fit three conjoined dots,
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I should have clarified, the dots themselves aren't the problem, it's the amount of text and the spaghetti of dotted lines.
Stlin said:
Also, idk if you caught the edit, but Winter St Concourse? It's not the best piece of T infrastructure, but it is technically an available post paid transfer.
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oops, can't say I didn't warn about mistakes.
 
TheRatmeister said:
ugh, I thought I fixed that. It renders correctly in Illustrator but not when it's exported so it might be an issue with the Helvetica font I downloaded, I'll try a different one and hope that fixes it for good.
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I agree it's probably something to do with the font, though if that doesn't fix it I've sometimes managed to fix Illustrator font-rendering issues with the "create outlines" function to convert the text to objects, I think Illustrator has less trouble rendering those consistently.
 
Fixed the major issues (And some minor ones):
  • Englewood Ave and Dean Rd are now the right way around
  • Winter St Concourse has been added
  • The 12 is now more accurate around Nubian, although unfortunately also uglier
  • Added both phases of Columbus Ave bus lanes, BHA doesn't have the stops finalized yet so it will have to wait.
  • Added F3, F5, and F6 blobs
  • Cut back on the parks
  • The font is still broken on higher resolution exports but 72 ppi works fine for some reason.
    Illustrator_Realistic_Map_FullDraft2.png
 
Super minor point: I didn't see the little pedestrian symbol mentioned in your legend. I assume the number is minutes?
 
While you're revising, can the number be larger? It's nearly illegible at screen resolution.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Fixed the major issues (And some minor ones):
  • Englewood Ave and Dean Rd are now the right way around
  • Winter St Concourse has been added
  • The 12 is now more accurate around Nubian, although unfortunately also uglier
  • Added both phases of Columbus Ave bus lanes, BHA doesn't have the stops finalized yet so it will have to wait.
  • Added F3, F5, and F6 blobs
  • Cut back on the parks
  • The font is still broken on higher resolution exports but 72 ppi works fine for some reason.
    View attachment 54802
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The parks are looking alright (though I still think you should skip them).

One thing that has been off, though, is the Emerald Necklace connected to the Esplanade. On your map, it looks like you should be able to walk directly from one to the other, but you can't. The actual Emerald Necklace follows the Commonwealth Avenue Mall to connect the Fens to the Public Garden.
 
Not to rehash old topics, but would you be open to respacing/unstacking the station names some? Honestly the Brookline Village and Blandford have been my pet peeves for awhile so I just gave a shot at shifting them as an example 😅 I know there are limitations elsewhere but these one seemed solvable to me.

ezgif-3-b930ec5e57.gif


I also respaced the names along the B branch to be equal (used the ADA symbol and made a roughly consistent offset from the 57 line). Just a quick photoshop and I'm sure you could get it more precise in Illustrator or whatever you're using.

Overall your progress looks great!
 
New revision, thanks @Java King, @ceo, @ritchiew, and @Bananarama

Changes:
  • Changed Englewood Ave, Blandford St, and Brookline Village text
  • Cut the Emerald Necklace back to the GL
  • Walking distance numbers are now 20pt, the same as the bus numbers and visible from a reasonable, maybe slightly far, distance (6ft ish) away at full size (I checked)
  • Changed the bus numbers at BMC, I decided the 1/12 numbers between Mass Ave and BMC were both redundant and ugly
  • Added the one way stop symbol, limited CR service, and walking connection to the legend
  • Changed Readville and added Endicott and Dedham Corporate Center

Illustrator_Realistic_Map_V5.png
 
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And a version with BNRD Phase 1, the current Silver Line, bus routes, GL stops, and non-accessible stations:

current_map_redesign_V1.png


And a version without the BNRD at all:
current_map_redesign_noBNRD.png
 
TheRatmeister said:
New revision, thanks @Java King, @ceo, @ritchiew, and @Bananarama

Changes:
  • Changed Englewood Ave, Blandford St, and Brookline Village text
  • Cut the Emerald Necklace back to the GL
  • Walking distance numbers are now 20pt, the same as the bus numbers and visible from a reasonable, maybe slightly far, distance (6ft ish) away at full size (I checked)
  • Changed the bus numbers at BMC, I decided the 1/12 numbers between Mass Ave and BMC were both redundant and ugly
  • Added the one way stop symbol, limited CR service, and walking connection to the legend
  • Changed Readville and added Endicott and Dedham Corporate Center
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It's fantastic! This is such a tiny thing maybe not even worth it: On the Roxbury Crossing Busway junction, you've reduced the size of the turns while also keeping the black thru-line. However, there are no thru-line buses (even smaller routes) so why keep the black thru-line instead of emphasizing the turnouts? I don't think the busway yellow needs to cut, but the interface lines are inaccurate.
 
jbray said:
It's fantastic! This is such a tiny thing maybe not even worth it: On the Roxbury Crossing Busway junction, you've reduced the size of the turns while also keeping the black thru-line. However, there are no thru-line buses (even smaller routes) so why keep the black thru-line instead of emphasizing the turnouts? I don't think the busway yellow needs to cut, but the interface lines are inaccurate.
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I did increase the turn size on the current maps and I'll probably backport that to the full BNRD one. You're right that there shouldn't be a black through-line though.

Edit: Changing the turns looked weird without the black through-line, so I didn't do that.
 
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