The Official MBTA System Map

Delvin4519 said:
Seeing this map makes one realize how dumb and silly it is for the MBTA to have the 22 duplicate the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square. We already have the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square, so the MBTA's decision to keep the 22 between Jackson Square and Ruggles is redundent and an unnecessary waste of buses, with how anemic the bus network is. If you want to get between Ruggles and Jackson Square, the Orange Line already exists as the more reliable option. Huge missed opportunity to reroute the 22 from Jackson Square to Brookline Village to alleviate pressure off the 66 and provide the extra crosstown connectivity.
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...which is why the BNRD sends the 22 to LMA.
 
TheRatmeister said:
...which is why the BNRD sends the 22 to LMA.
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I'm mainly referring to the Heath St. corridor that only gets hourly bus service between Heath St and Jackson Sq. Meanwhile the 22 still duplicates the Orange Line north of Jackson Square. Tremont St already has several bus routes going through it, and Heath St. would provide a more direct routing to reach LMA rather than the routing that duplicates the Orange Line to get from Jackson to LMA. It'd give Brookline Village a OSR to Jackson Sq., which would provide faster trips between west and south.
 
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Ah I see, I had to look up the maps again since there's like a bajillon routes on Tremont St., but there really shouldn't be any buses on Columbus Ave. at all between Jackson Square and Roxbury Crossing.
 
Delvin4519 said:
Seeing this map makes one realize how dumb and silly it is for the MBTA to have the 22 duplicate the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square. We already have the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square, so the MBTA's decision to keep the 22 between Jackson Square and Ruggles is redundent and an unnecessary waste of buses, with how anemic the bus network is. If you want to get between Ruggles and Jackson Square, the Orange Line already exists as the more reliable option. Huge missed and wasted opportunity for the MBTA reroute the 22 from Jackson Square to Brookline Village to alleviate pressure off the 66 and provide the extra crosstown connectivity.
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Don't be so train-brained. The reason the 22 goes to Ruggles is all the bus connections at Ruggles.

Any modification to that means the trips connecting at Ruggles to the 22 becomes like a 3 seat trip from a 2 seat trip.
 
Delvin4519 said:
Seeing this map makes one realize how dumb and silly it is for the MBTA to have the 22 duplicate the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square. We already have the Orange Line between Ruggles and Jackson Square, so the MBTA's decision to keep the 22 between Jackson Square and Ruggles is redundent and an unnecessary waste of buses, with how anemic the bus network is. If you want to get between Ruggles and Jackson Square, the Orange Line already exists as the more reliable option. Huge missed and wasted opportunity for the MBTA reroute the 22 from Jackson Square to Brookline Village to alleviate pressure off the 66 and provide the extra crosstown connectivity.
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I don't think the parallel service is for the sake of people going between Ruggles and Jackson Square. It's for the sake of people transferring from another bus and going from there to Dorchester. I suppose it might be worth studying the idea of skipping Jackson, but even if they do that, the bus is still going to be routed exactly as it is now.
 
HenryAlan said:
I don't think the parallel service is for the sake of people going between Ruggles and Jackson Square. It's for the sake of people transferring from another bus and going from there to Dorchester. I suppose it might be worth studying the idea of skipping Jackson, but even if they do that, the bus is still going to be routed exactly as it is now.
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Mainly the 47, which is an important crosstown route now and even more with the BNRD. That's presumably why the 22 ends at Brookline Ave rather than Brookline Village.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Mainly the 47, which is an important crosstown route now and even more with the BNRD. That's presumably why the 22 ends at Brookline Ave rather than Brookline Village.
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Right, with the CT2 and 47 to LMA and CT3 and 47 to BMC, the connections are Ruggles for anyone along the 22 are much more favorable than chancing the connection at Nubian to the 1.
 
Quick Dorchester revision because I can't help myself

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Made a few adjustments (after which I'm definitely calling it on this iteration this map -- other stuff I want to work on too!):

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View attachment MBTA System Map Reimagine Oct 2024.png
  • Adjusted bus stop placement at Nubian
    • Still don't like how far the label is from the Silver Line stop, but alas
  • Reworked the commuter rail lines near East Somerville, which definitely helps make that area much cleaner and readable
  • Added the Back Bay <> Copley walking transferback in, which in turn required some significant rework of the bus routes
    • I think it works well enough, but, assuming I do someday make a new map (which, let's be honest, will inevitably happen at some point), I will build the map more centrally around accommodating this part of the network
  • Added in a walking transfer between the 9 and SL4 to handle the unidirectional pairs
    • On the one hand, it's sorta inaccurate
    • On the other hand, "on average" it's correct: Herald and East Berkeley are only 4 minutes apart
  • Reworked the Bellingham Squaretransfers
    • Good grief this corner of the BNRD is gonna be such a pain to make simplified diagrams for. Everything's kinda close to each other but not exactly "close"
  • Reused the Chinatown unidirectional station arrow for the Logan Airport Terminalsto show the looping service
    • This seemed most parsimonious, but I don't love it
 
Riverside said:
Good grief this corner of the BNRD is gonna be such a pain to make simplified diagrams for. Everything's kinda close to each other but not exactly "close"
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Yeah it's not surprising the official map looks like this.
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They've done something more similar to your map with the double dots at Bellingham Sq (albeit without the walking dashes), whereas I went for the simplified option that just lies a little bit. But my god even that took take ages to get working and it's so sensitive to change, moving basically anything on the northern half of the map screws it up somehow. (I dread SL3X and its FIVE new stops, there's a fun challenge for the masochists out there.)
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The MBTA is launching 3D station way finding maps this year at select stations: https://links-2.govdelivery.com/CL0/https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MADOT/2024/10/03/file_attachments/3020074/240917%20BusBerthMap%20Airport.pdf/1/0101019267e27c97-d1673211-023c-4bdc-b2b5-a3e7fd7c1d55-000000/09dp_M8wZCidlfhcyY2JsFTKLQoWZJGlGKyd5ZWgYDg=373

Also PDF of the new official subway map: https://links-2.govdelivery.com/CL0/https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MADOT/2024/10/03/file_attachments/3020029/240822%20RTL%20Bus%20Map%202024%20-%20FINAL%20PRINT%20READY.pdf/1/0101019267e27c97-d1673211-023c-4bdc-b2b5-a3e7fd7c1d55-000000/s8yVFYaqjcAPJ142GW-PBxYBb7Inprtro52a2zxXbZU=373

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Edited to add that some of the colors came out odd the way I converted those PDFs to PNGs, the raw PDFs have the correct colors. The station blob layer is definitely missing though in the PDFs.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Edited to add that some of the colors came out odd the way I converted those PDFs to PNGs, the raw PDFs have the correct colors. The station blob layer is definitely missing though in the PDFs.
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You probably exported in RGB instead of CMYK or vice-versa. I tried opening in Illustrator but they actually remembered to flatten it for release this time so I couldn't just un-hide the station blobs.

Still don't like the new map, but the 3D diagrams are super helpful.
 
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Definitely looks like they forgot a few layers when exporting!
 
Here's an upload of the proper map, courtesy of mbtagifts
Screenshot 2024-10-08 at 02.04.52.png



More things I dislike about this map that I've just noticed:
  • A mistake, nobody is immune: Readville has a stray dot
  • Why does Ashmont not get a terminus icon? Are we back to pretending the Mattapan Line is an extension of the RL?
  • Why are the West Medford and Roslindale Village accessibility symbols way up there?
  • wtf is up with the northern rapid transit terminals? Oak Grove and Medford/Tufts look awful but at least they're consistent with each other in how they're awful. Why does Alewife get to be bad in its own unique way? Wonderland and the southern ones are all fine though, why was just doing that on the northern side so hard?
 
TheRatmeister said:
Here's an upload of the proper map, courtesy of mbtagifts
View attachment 56617


More things I dislike about this map that I've just noticed:
  • A mistake, nobody is immune: Readville has a stray dot
  • Why does Ashmont not get a terminus icon? Are we back to pretending the Mattapan Line is an extension of the RL?
  • Why are the West Medford and Roslindale Village accessibility symbols way up there?
  • wtf is up with the northern rapid transit terminals? Oak Grove and Medford/Tufts look awful but at least they're consistent with each other in how they're awful. Why does Alewife get to be bad in its own unique way? Wonderland and the southern ones are all fine though, why was just doing that on the northern side so hard?
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Also the accessible icons are missing from the rest of the D branch stations, they will be complete by the time phase 1 is complete.
 
TheRatmeister said:
Yeah the directional arrows, station blobs, Amtrak symbols, and some (but not all, looks like poor layering discipline) of the black bus lines are all missing. @HelloBostonHi where did you get the PDF from btw?
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It was in an email from the MBTA, they issued a correction email today.
We apologize for the issues in the previously attached subway map, that issue has been corrected and updated in this message.
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HelloBostonHi said:
It was in an email from the MBTA, they issued a correction email today.

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Didn't fix Readville or the missing D branch accessibility symbols that mean this map will literally never be accurate while they were at it but maybe that was expecting too much.
 
Have you ever tried to take that #47? You'll be in traffic on the BU Bridge for days.

It is still quicker to take the #66 bus and just go inbound. Take the #1 and go outbound.(though this is getting much much slower since bike lanes on the Mass Ave Bridge.)
Or take the Red Line to Green and go outbound. OR-- try to blend in with the students and use Harvard/MIT's LMA shuttles. These cuts out all the tons of stops and thus picks up some time. Or take Uber/Lyft direct from home which is the fastest option and you'l have less stress plus a guaranteed place to sit.
TheRatmeister said:
Mainly the 47, which is an important crosstown route now and even more with the BNRD. That's presumably why the 22 ends at Brookline Ave rather than Brookline Village.
Click to expand...
 
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