The Official MBTA System Map

Overall feedback, it looks very clean and is quite easy to read. I have one aesthetic issue, and two points regarding missing information:
  1. Aesthetically, it bothers me that the geographic features make Boston look like a river city and not a river plus coastal city. It's not a big deal, but it would be nice to see some of Dorchester bay reflected in the geographic template.
  2. Is it possible to extend the regional rail lines so that their arrows are past the last subway transfer point? It would be useful to see the connections at Forest Hills, JFK/UMass, Quincy Center, Braintree, Malden, and Oak Grove.
  3. It is probably too much of a space management challenge, but it would be cool if the D line could line up more accurately with C, in the same way that the C and B line up together. Washington/Washington Square show as parallel, but then Beaconsfield, which is just as close to Washington Square as Washington, doesn't look like it is anywhere near the other station.
Anyway, big thumbs up, I really do like the clarity and am quite impressed by how much thought and effort you've put in to the design.
 
Overall feedback, it looks very clean and is quite easy to read. I have one aesthetic issue, and two points regarding missing information:
  1. Is it possible to extend the regional rail lines so that their arrows are past the last subway transfer point? It would be useful to see the connections at Forest Hills, JFK/UMass, Quincy Center, Braintree, Malden, and Oak Grove.

I second the feedback about the Regional Rail lines. Every T-Subway station that connects to regional rail is shown with a "RR" except Porter Square in Cambridge. I noticed the RR was missing. Also, I think you could easily walk from Landsdowne on RR to Fenway on Green line. So, it seems like it should have some dotted lines to indicate that.
 
I second the feedback about the Regional Rail lines. Every T-Subway station that connects to regional rail is shown with a "RR" except Porter Square in Cambridge. I noticed the RR was missing. Also, I think you could easily walk from Landsdowne on RR to Fenway on Green line. So, it seems like it should have some dotted lines to indicate that.

Depending on whether this map assumes current or prospective service, Riverside could have an "RR" as well.

Then again, if that service is assumed to be running, it would probably need to be shown like the Fairmount and that would blow up your whole map.
 
Just as general observation, there is a ton of white space in Cambridge, the Charles, and Back Bay. Perhaps you can rethink the size and orientation of the legend and redistribute some of that white space. If it helps at all, GLX Medford branch can really be compressed - this makes it look like E Somerville and Gilman are important. Lots of white in the lower right corner too.

I really like this concept of compressing less important information at the edges. I think you could deemphasize the geography a little more to make a stronger diagram.

Also, I find the bus coloration very confusing. I think customers will stare at this map for a long time without ever figuring out that the colors don’t mean anything at all. I don’t think that is good map design. Using gray or brown for all buses will give a simpler and clearer message
Great thoughts. Yes, the excess white space in certain parts is a challenge. I want to compress Cambridge further; ideally, I'd have the Red Line run entirely in a straight line from Charles/MGH to at least Harvard. But I'd ideally like to keep the T1 in as much of a straight line as well, so there's a bit of a conflict there. The Charles and Back Bay look like they could be compressed, but I've found that I need to put "Hynes Convention Center" on three lines, which limits how much I can compress the space between the Green Line and the river.

Agreed about compressing the Medford Branch. It gets a little messy in terms of fitting in the bus destination labels, but I think there's room to experiment there.

I personally agree about the potential for deemphasizing geography further, though I'm less confident where I could really do so. I am open to suggestions. I'm also mindful (as discussed somewhere around this point in this video) that there are apparently some voices at the T who feel quite strongly that there should be a geographically accurate shoreline, so I'm trying to make a design that walks that tightrope.

Re bus line colors: theoretically, I've color-coded them based on the rapid transit route they terminate at or otherwise feed into; e.g. all of the Harvard and Kendall routes are red, the Kenmore and Copley routes are green and so on. In general, I like this idea because I think it helps clarify the structure of the network.

In practice, I think it makes the map look livelier, which is fun but also potentially distracting or overwhelming. If it wasn't self-evident to you that the lines were color-coded based on "parent" rapid transit route, then perhaps the idea just simply isn't viable.

I did a quick test of using silver and bronze (bronze = 15 min or better all day, silver = 10 min or better all day, see here), and it definitely does make the bus lines more muted. (Apologies for the low-res screenshot.)

1683221361624.png


Dividing up into a "high-freq" and a "super-high-freq" is somewhat arbitrary -- I don't necessarily care about communicating the frequency info, but I would like to avoid making all the routes the same color, because I think that looks overwhelming. But maybe it's not worth the confusion of multiple colors?

Overall feedback, it looks very clean and is quite easy to read. I have one aesthetic issue, and two points regarding missing information:
  1. Aesthetically, it bothers me that the geographic features make Boston look like a river city and not a river plus coastal city. It's not a big deal, but it would be nice to see some of Dorchester bay reflected in the geographic template.
  2. Is it possible to extend the regional rail lines so that their arrows are past the last subway transfer point? It would be useful to see the connections at Forest Hills, JFK/UMass, Quincy Center, Braintree, Malden, and Oak Grove.
  3. It is probably too much of a space management challenge, but it would be cool if the D line could line up more accurately with C, in the same way that the C and B line up together. Washington/Washington Square show as parallel, but then Beaconsfield, which is just as close to Washington Square as Washington, doesn't look like it is anywhere near the other station.
Anyway, big thumbs up, I really do like the clarity and am quite impressed by how much thought and effort you've put in to the design.
Thanks for the kind words!

Sacrificing Dorchester Bay was part of the compromise I saw necessary to convert the southern Red Line into the diagrammatic style -- showing too much of the coastline would suggest geographic fidelity in an area I was trying to avoid doing that. (I also removed it because I realized it could save me from having to show City Point, which made it easier to compress the eastern edge of the map.)

That being said, I like your point about Boston being a river + coastal city, so let's try this:

1683222136832.png


The Regional Rail arrows are placed along the same circumference as the bus lines; RR stops within the "loosely geographic zone" are marked with a "tab" similar to today's map (see Ruggles, Lansdowne, Back Bay and Porter). Once you move into the diagrammatic zone, they're marked with the same style as the buses. For the most part, I'm not married to this idea -- it would be trivial to extend the Haverhill, Lowell, Providence, and Old Colony Lines; what gives me pause is the Newburyport/Rockport Line and needing to show the connection at Chelsea. Unlike the others, which are parallel connections, that would be a perpendicular connection, and a bit messier.

Do you and @Java King not feel that the purple "RR" labels next to the transfer stations are sufficient indicators?

I second the feedback about the Regional Rail lines. Every T-Subway station that connects to regional rail is shown with a "RR" except Porter Square in Cambridge. I noticed the RR was missing. Also, I think you could easily walk from Landsdowne on RR to Fenway on Green line. So, it seems like it should have some dotted lines to indicate that.

As mentioned above, Porter, Ruggles, Back Bay, South Station, and North Station lack the "RR" label due to being within the "loosely geographic zone".

Yeah, I think either Fenway or Kenmore (or both) could merit a dotted line. I did consider it but one reason I opted against it was that I wasn't sure whether it would be considered a "recommended" transfer; at six minutes, Fenway would be longer than any other indicated transfer (except for Riverway - Brookline Village and possibly Ruggles - MFA). And it wasn't immediately obvious to me what journeys are enabled by a RR <> GL transfer there, but I guess there are some. (The other reason I opted against it was because it seemed like it would be hard to add in! But probably it's not as hard as it looks.)
Depending on whether this map assumes current or prospective service, Riverside could have an "RR" as well.

Then again, if that service is assumed to be running, it would probably need to be shown like the Fairmount and that would blow up your whole map.
It's meant to indicate current service, with as much future-proofing for prospective service as possible. In theory, frequent service through to Auburndale could be shown without huge changes to the map, using the "dangling diagram" approach used elsewhere on the map. For example, as an extremely rough sketch:

1683225422049.png


(This is a conversation for another thread, but I believe that Riverside itself will never see rapid transit frequencies from the B&A. There's high enough demand on the main line further out, e.g. Framingham, Marlboro, Worcester, such that you'll already be seeing modestly high frequencies at Auburndale. What's more likely, I think, is a light filler service that terminates, perhaps, 2 trains per hour at Riverside in order to max out the cumulative frequencies once the branch rejoins the mainline. So, the service should be marked, but I don't think it would be reliably "turn up and go".)
 
Alright. It's not pretty, because I literally used copy and paste to stitch the two versions together. But I think this layout of lines is the most promising:

1683228604422.png


Lots and lots of small errors and visual artifacts in this one, so don't look super closely. But in general, it looks like it is possible to fit in "dangling" versions of the Red Line and Fairmount Line, a decompressed SL4 and legible Dorchester network, the original version of the LMA which I think is a bit clearer, the reworked Green Line branches (with B and C labels on opposite sides), and with some room to spare.

With Silver Line Way moving on to the SL2 "dangle", I'll probably use that as a chance to shift the SL2 branch over to the right a bit, and move the Red Line a bit further to the right as well, so as to create a little bit more more space between the Ashmont Branch and the Fairmount Line (both vertical space, but also some horizontal space -- I will try to move Ashmont up a little bit so it's not quite so squished against Newmarket).

But yeah... I'm feeling somewhat optimistic about this.
 
This was going to go into an edit of the above post, but I hit a char limit:

Sorry, @HenryAlan, forgot to reply to your last comment about spacing on the Green Line branches. Definitely that's an area I still want to play around with, so I would consider the current spacing tentative at best. The far end of the C Line is tricky because you have to balance
  • Reservoir and Cleveland Circle being close enough together
  • but then having Brookline Village and Riverway close enough together
  • Beaconsfield maybe being shown with a walking transfer to Dean Rd
  • but also having very long station names in Englewood Ave, Cleveland Circle, Chestnut Hill Ave, and Reservoir
I opted to deprioritize the Beaconsfield - Dean Rd connection because it didn't seem to offer a lot of unique benefit -- almost all transfers would be better at Reservoir. I suppose I could try flipping the C labels to the left side, and move the C Line itself over toward the right, maybe with a sharper turn right after Coolidge Corner; that would also help the Washington Sq vs Brookline Village conflict I have going on right now. There is also room to push the B Line toward the left to provide additional space.
 
That being said, I like your point about Boston being a river + coastal city, so let's try this:

View attachment 37410
Perfect, that's exactly what I had in mind. The harbor and bay are really just a border, but it's great seeing it as a blue border.
The Regional Rail arrows are placed along the same circumference as the bus lines; RR stops within the "loosely geographic zone" are marked with a "tab" similar to today's map (see Ruggles, Lansdowne, Back Bay and Porter). Once you move into the diagrammatic zone, they're marked with the same style as the buses. For the most part, I'm not married to this idea -- it would be trivial to extend the Haverhill, Lowell, Providence, and Old Colony Lines; what gives me pause is the Newburyport/Rockport Line and needing to show the connection at Chelsea. Unlike the others, which are parallel connections, that would be a perpendicular connection, and a bit messier.

Do you and @Java King not feel that the purple "RR" labels next to the transfer stations are sufficient indicators?
Regarding the arrows, I kind of retract my comment. I hadn't previously noticed the labels that Java King pointed out, and when reading your response to Fat Tony about the buses, I better grasped the overlying logic. The way it is configured works, and though I would prefer if the commuter rail lines reached all the transfer points, as you note, that would be really challenging with Chelsea. Given that there is an overriding logic and it's applied to all non rapid transit elements of the map, I'd say keep it as is.

Regarding the buses, I think it looks better to associate the routes with the RT routes with which they are systemically aligned. But I am curious as to how you select a color for routes that touch two or more lines. I'm thinking about T28, for example, which you show as green, but could arguably be red or orange. Similarly, T16 is shown in red, but could certainly be seen as part of the OL system, etc.
 
I opted to deprioritize the Beaconsfield - Dean Rd connection because it didn't seem to offer a lot of unique benefit -- almost all transfers would be better at Reservoir.
Yeah, I don't think anybody would use that as a transfer. I wasn't thinking about it in those terms particularly, more in the sense that Beaconsfield is close enough to Beacon St., that somebody might legitimately choose it over Washington Square or Dean Street, even if one of those were a shorter walk. When I lived in Washington Square, I used all three branches, depending on where I was going, or whichever one came first if I were boarding at Kenmore or further inbound. Similarly, when I lived in Brookline Village, I used the E branch from time to time, even though I was closer to the D. Most maps are not very good at showing that kind of flexibility. Indeed, it was only after about a year of living in Washington Square that I realized Beaconsfield was so close to me.
 
But I am curious as to how you select a color for routes that touch two or more lines. I'm thinking about T28, for example, which you show as green, but could arguably be red or orange. Similarly, T16 is shown in red, but could certainly be seen as part of the OL system, etc.
How do you figure red for the T28?

My logic was arbitrary, but something like this:
  1. If a bus route is indelibly connected to a particular subway line (e.g. T39 or T57), use the color of that line
  2. If only a single transfer point (e.g. T71), use the color of the transfer point
  3. If multiple transfer points on a radial service (eg T28 or T16), use the color of the transfer point closest to downtown
  4. For pure circumferential routes, use the color of the “heaviest” hub
  5. As a final tiebreaker, choose a color that is used less (either in that section of the map, or overall), and/or the color that will aid visual distinction of the lines
(I'm not totally sure I applied that logic with 100% consistency though.)
 
This map seems to skip the details/geographic accuracy in Dorchester+Mattapan that you provide in Cambridge+Somerville.
 
^ Yes, to a certain extent that is the point of this design: the inner sections of the network (out to a radius between 2 and 3 miles from downtown) are shown with (higher) geographic fidelity, and everything beyond that is shown with minimal accuracy in favor of a diagrammatic approach. This is done mostly due to the increased complexity of the inner network, which means (in my opinion) that the "simplest" depiction of the network's shape is probably pretty close to simply recreating a geographically accurate version of it.

Dorchester's bus network is the exception to this pattern, which is why I included a (slightly compressed) depiction of Warren St, Columbus Ave + Seaver St, and Blue Hill Ave down to Franklin Park (as far away from the core as Harvard and Porter are).

As I've noted above, Cambridge and Somerville definitely are over-represented in my current design, and as I've mentioned I would like to compress them further to better distribute the whitespace to other areas on the map. But like I said, there are some limitations to how much compression can be applied while still keeping the subway lines and bus routes as simple and as straight as possible.
 
"As mentioned above, Porter, Ruggles, Back Bay, South Station, and North Station lack the "RR" label due to being within the "loosely geographic zone"

OK, I get that now. However, for a new user to the system map, what tells the user they are in a different geographic zone compared to the outer stations such as Quincy Center, Malden, Oak Grove, etc. You list JFK/UMass in your outer geographic zone with the RR label, yet I would think JFK/Umass is closer to the center of Boston compared to Porter.

I guess it just wasn't clear to me why Oak Grove had a RR label and Porter did not. It just seems like there should be some graphic indicating the "inner geographic zone" shown if you are going to label things differently. That's just my two cents.

Oh, and I goofed up. I mentioned Fenway to Landsdowne as walking distance, but I really meant Landsdowne to Kenmore as you pointed out.

Overall, nice job!
 
Moving the T111’s arrow into the Charles seems problematic because I’m trying to avoid putting (non-ferry) labels against the colored backdrop of water. I would probably instead put the arrow on the downtown side of the river, and not even show it crossing the water.

I could explore using a dashed segment to indicate non-stop service through Charlestown, but I don’t really want to add new visual language for just that one stretch.

Alright. It's not pretty, because I literally used copy and paste to stitch the two versions together. But I think this layout of lines is the most promising:

Lots and lots of small errors and visual artifacts in this one, so don't look super closely. But in general, it looks like it is possible to fit in "dangling" versions of the Red Line and Fairmount Line, a decompressed SL4 and legible Dorchester network, the original version of the LMA which I think is a bit clearer, the reworked Green Line branches (with B and C labels on opposite sides), and with some room to spare.

With Silver Line Way moving on to the SL2 "dangle", I'll probably use that as a chance to shift the SL2 branch over to the right a bit, and move the Red Line a bit further to the right as well, so as to create a little bit more more space between the Ashmont Branch and the Fairmount Line (both vertical space, but also some horizontal space -- I will try to move Ashmont up a little bit so it's not quite so squished against Newmarket).

But yeah... I'm feeling somewhat optimistic about this.

Maybe it might be better to either have the 111 display "Express from North Station to Woodlawn via Bellingham Sq", displayed in Charlestown.

The other way is might be to modify the Charlestown/North End coastlines to fit the 111's destination text there.
 
"As mentioned above, Porter, Ruggles, Back Bay, South Station, and North Station lack the "RR" label due to being within the "loosely geographic zone"

OK, I get that now. However, for a new user to the system map, what tells the user they are in a different geographic zone compared to the outer stations such as Quincy Center, Malden, Oak Grove, etc. You list JFK/UMass in your outer geographic zone with the RR label, yet I would think JFK/Umass is closer to the center of Boston compared to Porter.

I guess it just wasn't clear to me why Oak Grove had a RR label and Porter did not. It just seems like there should be some graphic indicating the "inner geographic zone" shown if you are going to label things differently. That's just my two cents.

Oh, and I goofed up. I mentioned Fenway to Landsdowne as walking distance, but I really meant Landsdowne to Kenmore as you pointed out.

Overall, nice job!
Yeah, figuring out how to create a useful but not overbearing inner zone/outer zone distinction has continued to be challenging. I know what you mean about JFK/UMass being close enough to be "inner zone"... the thing is that it's not just a function of the geographic distance -- it's also partially just a matter of the complexity of the network. JFK/UMass, I'd argue, can be sufficiently illustrated using a diagram with bus labels next to the station name. Porter maybe could, but Harvard definitely can't, due to the wider variety of circumferential routes.

Hmm. Maybe I should play around with a design that foregoes all of the bus routes, and just uses the "flags" through the system, including in the core.

But yeah, I agree that it's somewhat unclear why some stations get flags and others don't. For a number of reasons, I don't want to visualize a hard-and-fast border between the inner and outer zones, but it does create some confusion.

Re Lansdowne: I was surprised to find that Fenway is actually apparently a slightly shorter walk than Kenmore! So I do think both options have merit.

Thanks for the kind words and feedback!
Maybe it might be better to either have the 111 display "Express from North Station to Woodlawn via Bellingham Sq", displayed in Charlestown.

The other way is might be to modify the Charlestown/North End coastlines to fit the 111's destination text there.
Yes, I think I'm going to increase the size of the North End by shifting the river upward a bit, and place the text there.

EDIT: On closer inspection, I wonder if I am giving up too easily on fully mapping all of the connecting bus routes, even with the compressed edges. The T77, T71, T70, etc I'm fine with just leaving as arrows going off the edge of the map. But going down the list:
  • T39: easy to connect to Forest Hills
  • T57: arrows
  • T66: easy with resized legend
  • T70, T71, T73, T77: arrows
  • T96: probably doable, especially if the Red Line is shifted a bit to right and the labels flipped to the left side
  • T101: probably doable, would need to interface with the T96
  • T109: radial extension which is easy, but needs to interface with a couple of circumferential routes, which may be hard
  • T111: straightforward radial extension
  • T116: straightforward radial extension that cuts over to Wonderland at the end
  • T104 and T110: these give me the heebie-jeebies to try to map
  • T7 and T9: mapped in previous version
  • T16: should be easy enough to link Andrew, Franklin Park, and Forest Hills, no need to interface with Fairmount Line
  • T8, T15, T22, T23, T28, T32: this is where things are hard, if we want to include connections to the Fairmount Line -- in the current draft, they'd need to cut down to the Fairmount Line stop and then cut up to reach the Red Line (and the Mattapan Line throws a wrench in here as well)
    • selfishly, this is an area I'd like to do better than the current official map on, because I dislike its current approach
I've considered using a "Dorchester inset" in the past -- perhaps I should revisit that.
 
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Re Lansdowne: I was surprised to find that Fenway is actually apparently a slightly shorter walk than Kenmore! So I do think both options have merit.
And once the new multi-use path opens, there will actually be a direct, off street pedestrian route between the two stations, making for a very easy transfer.
 
I've known about this for a little while, but finally put together some visuals.

The MBTA has official Brand Guidelines, which include official color values for the rapid transit, bus, ferry, commuter rail, and paratransit services.

The thing is... the official map (or at least the one uploaded to the T's website) doesn't use those colors. Most of them are close, and the Silver Line is almost identical but still not quite.

Official System Map vs Brand Guidelines.png


(On the left is an excerpt of the official diagram; I've written the RGB values in colored text next to each line, which you can compare to the official guidelines on the right. I've also added a small line crossing each subway line with the "official" color. The difference is subtle but sometimes visible.)

Now, it well may be that these changes were intentional; the design needs for a mutimedia diagram -- printed on a variety of materials and a variety of screens -- are going to be somewhat different than those for signage and other uses.

That being said, to my largely untrained eye, the differences are still extremely subtle and I don't think make for a particular difference in usability & legibility:

Official Diagram vs Brand Guidelines.png


The brand guidelines do make the map look slightly darker and have less "pop". But like I said, the difference seems very very slight.
 
I've known about this for a little while, but finally put together some visuals.

The MBTA has official Brand Guidelines, which include official color values for the rapid transit, bus, ferry, commuter rail, and paratransit services.

The thing is... the official map (or at least the one uploaded to the T's website) doesn't use those colors. Most of them are close, and the Silver Line is almost identical but still not quite.

View attachment 46209

(On the left is an excerpt of the official diagram; I've written the RGB values in colored text next to each line, which you can compare to the official guidelines on the right. I've also added a small line crossing each subway line with the "official" color. The difference is subtle but sometimes visible.)

Now, it well may be that these changes were intentional; the design needs for a mutimedia diagram -- printed on a variety of materials and a variety of screens -- are going to be somewhat different than those for signage and other uses.

That being said, to my largely untrained eye, the differences are still extremely subtle and I don't think make for a particular difference in usability & legibility:

View attachment 46210

The brand guidelines do make the map look slightly darker and have less "pop". But like I said, the difference seems very very slight.
Good, something else to slightly bother me whenever I look at the map, like Revere Beach's non-existant bus transfer.

Another highlight from the brand guidelines: "The MBTA logo deserves to be treated with respect and used in a manner that doesn’t alter or diminish its equity."
 
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Please tell me there is a hidden layer with the RLX to Arlington.
Unfortunately no. But there are other fun oddities. For example, Bowdoin and some of the downtown GL lettering is part of the "Ferries" layer, and the text with a white backdrop is actually double-stacked, there's a Text-White-Text sandwich going on.
 

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