The Official MBTA System Map

[TheRatmeister]

The only way may be to enlarge the gap between OL and BL (especially OL and SL3) in this area, which does align with the geography, aka Everett being a big transit desert inbetween. But this may be too late for you at this stage of the map.

I was about to say: "The problem there is that I'm out of horizontal wiggle room, which always ends up being the limiting element with the square transit map form factor. The Riverside is as far left as it can go, and Wonderland is as far right as it can go." But upon looking at the D branch again I do have about .3 inches of wiggle room left, and this would be a good spot to use it. Fortunately moving things around here isn't too bad, especially not compared to the Green Line where I needed more space for Lansdowne and then had to reconfigure almost the entire map.

But it's .3" out of 44", so I'm not expecting miracles.

 

[Riverside]

I, too, started to tackle the northeast quadrant yesterday, and I too have regrets.

 

[Stlin]

I was about to say: "The problem there is that I'm out of horizontal wiggle room, which always ends up being the limiting element with the square transit map form factor. The Riverside is as far left as it can go, and Wonderland is as far right as it can go." But upon looking at the D branch again I do have about .3 inches of wiggle room left, and this would be a good spot to use it. Fortunately moving things around here isn't too bad, especially not compared to the Green Line where I needed more space for Lansdowne and then had to reconfigure almost the entire map.

But it's .3" out of 44", so I'm not expecting miracles.

I don't know how you feel about compound curves, but You may be able to create some more space in that gap if you bend Green and Orange together to the West, shifting N. Station westward, having Orange bend back to the north to create separation for Community College. You could also repeat that - bend the OL back westward such that CC parallels Lechmere, and bending it back northward for Sullivan and beyond.

Also, while I'm looking at this bit of the map, maybe move the Union Sq branch further down the line? Where it is now feels too close to the Charles yet too far from Harvard.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Also, while I'm looking at this bit of the map, maybe move the Union Sq branch further down the line? Where it is now feels too close to the Charles yet too far from Harvard.

I have moved the Union Sq branch up a lot since that revision to (try to) make the 47, 96, and 109 all work out. I think () I have all the bus routes worked out nicely now so hopefully that should speed up progress quite a bit.

 

[Riverside]

View attachment 53164
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't regretting trying to get all the BNRD key bus routes on here. If anyone has any suggestions for making this look less awful I'm all ears.

To be honest, I actually don't think this looks that bad, at least if you are intent on reusing the existing map's visual language (which I think has fundamental flaws, but I see the appeal of.)

In general, I think you could stretch things upward into the whitespace. I was gonna try to write out suggestions, but realized it might just be faster to draw with a stylus (forgive the messiness):

(Yes, I know the 116 is slightly closer to Box District, that was a compromise needed to make the bus transfer hub at Bellingham Sq/Chelsea City Hall work. It's close enough that I don't consider it a major inaccuracy.)

Actually pretty strongly disagree with you on this one. The 116 is an easy 2-minute walk to Box District; it's a much more annoying-looking 7-minute walk to Bellingham Sq station. I think they need to be shown separately.

(I'll also note that one downside of the official style is that it makes it ambiguous where routes go east of Everett Square. OTOH, fitting labels in there will be a real headache.)

EDIT: Looking now, yes I am suggesting broadly reusing the current official map’s approach to the bus connections to Wonderland.

 

[TheRatmeister]

Actually pretty strongly disagree with you on this one. The 116 is an easy 2-minute walk to Box District; it's a much more annoying-looking 7-minute walk to Bellingham Sq station. I think they need to be shown separately.

It's about 3 minutes walking, about the same, maybe slightly further, than the walk from the next stop up to Box District. (Although if anything I think the main point this brings up is how bad the transfers are to the SL3)

To be honest, I actually don't think this looks that bad, at least if you are intent on reusing the existing map's visual language (which I think has fundamental flaws, but I see the appeal of.)

I'm not thrilled with how the existing style does buses and I would like to have a look at changing that at some point, not least because brown is not an appealing color, but right now I'm focusing on step one which is to just get a map with all 27 BNRD key routes working at all. I have been making some small changes though, I've reduced the font size on the stations from 30pt to 25pt to make it easier to work with, and I'm using the same font size for CR stations as for rapid transit stations. I've also been trying to fix a lot of the ambiguity on the current map with which routes run where (See Ruggles for an example) but it's probably not going to be possible to make that 100% perfect without a lot of major style changes. Looking at your previews it seems like you've gone with a parallel lines approach which seems like it makes congested areas like Longwood more clear at the expense thinner lines that are less clear everywhere else, I might try either adopting or adapting that approach. (Edit: Having now tried it 3pt thickness lines are a lot better than the current 5pt for buses, I'll definitely be making that change.) Different colors for the bus routes would also help a lot but I'm not really sure how to color code that in a way that makes any sense.

In general, I think you could stretch things upward into the whitespace. I was gonna try to write out suggestions, but realized it might just be faster to draw with a stylus (forgive the messiness):

I suppose a bit more geographic accuracy here is probably warranted, and that makes the node at Revere Center clearer.

 

[Riverside]

It's about 3 minutes walking, about the same, maybe slightly further, than the walk from the next stop up to Box District.

Oops, you're totally right -- I didn't think to measure from the City Hall stop, only from the Greenway. I think the line-of-sight transfer at Box District is still probably friendlier, but you're absolutely right.

(Although if anything I think the main point this brings up is how bad the transfers are to the SL3)

You and I actually talked about this a bit at the end of last year; I agree and further suggest that it's partially a byproduct of the corridors at play: there is almost a hexagonal radial network, roughly centered on Chelsea City Hall... except that the east-west corridor is displaced to the north by a little less than 800 feet. And in turn, that means that the two northern radial corridors (on Broadway and Washington) intersect the cross-corridor a little less than 700 feet apart. 800 feet, 700 feet... these sit right on the edge of being reasonable transfers, but they're also just a little bit too close for rapid transit stop spacing.

All of which is to say, I think most possible solutions here will be varyingly imperfect.

Looking at your previews it seems like you've gone with a parallel lines approach which seems like it makes congested areas like Longwood more clear at the expense thinner lines that are less clear everywhere else, I might try either adopting or adapting that approach. Different colors for the bus routes would also help a lot but I'm not really sure how to color code that in a way that makes any sense.

I've been cagey about showing full previews because of how experimental (and currently unsatisfying) my efforts are, but yes, my current attempt uses one line per service (mostly -- 71/73 are almost certainly going to be consolidated, as will the cumulative corridors in Quincy, Point-of-Pines, and Roslindale). Originally I actually went with relatively thick lines for all key BNRD routes, which certainly made for a very busy Dorchester, but worked better than I expected in a lot of ways. (There are lots of small details not yet included here, including transfer bars, some more careful details at line-ends, and bus route labels.)

However, on the northern end of the map, this approach just gets too crowded. So now I am experimenting with thinning most of the routes, but keeping the highest frequency routes in this thicker style.

I had been using a thin white line down the middle of the bus route (the way TfL shows its mainline routes), but it's possible that I can get away without it in this "thick + thin" framework -- I'm not sure.

My gut says that the no-line version ultimately won't be distinct enough; on the other hand, I want to make sure I don't make it look like there are, e.g. two parallel thin routes that both just happen to go from Ruggles to Ashmont on the same route. I think I may be able to use the stop indicators to resolve the ambiguity; I haven't gotten to it yet, but my plan is for the thick routes to have the white line down the middle with white circles for stops (as in the first example above), and the thin routes to have colored circles for stops.

To your question about color-coding, I am continuing to experiment with coloring routes based primarily on the hub they terminate at -- Ruggles routes are orange, Kenmore + LMA + Copley routes are green, Harvard + Kendall routes are red, etc. I think this has proven the most helpful in Dorchester, but again struggles a bit in the northern half of the map, where there are more criss-crossing orange routes and red routes.

But, to your last point about finding an approach that makes sense, the official bus map uses a random (pseudo-random) coloring for its bus routes, which... I dunno, maybe is worth trying? (I also wonder if there is anything to draw from the four-color theorem here.)

I suppose a bit more geographic accuracy here is probably warranted, and that makes the node at Revere Center clearer.

This speaks to something I realized late last year when working on my previous redesign: sometimes the physical geography of the network actually provides the most parsimonious solution for creating a simplified diagram. Like, yeah... sometimes you need a line that hits 3 different points while avoiding 3 other points, and sometimes the real-world geographic version of that line is actually the simplest way to draw it (even if you aren't actually aiming for geographic fidelity).

 

[Delvin4519]

To be honest, I actually don't think this looks that bad, at least if you are intent on reusing the existing map's visual language (which I think has fundamental flaws, but I see the appeal of.)

In general, I think you could stretch things upward into the whitespace. I was gonna try to write out suggestions, but realized it might just be faster to draw with a stylus (forgive the messiness):


View attachment 53175

Actually pretty strongly disagree with you on this one. The 116 is an easy 2-minute walk to Box District; it's a much more annoying-looking 7-minute walk to Bellingham Sq station. I think they need to be shown separately.

(I'll also note that one downside of the official style is that it makes it ambiguous where routes go east of Everett Square. OTOH, fitting labels in there will be a real headache.)

EDIT: Looking now, yes I am suggesting broadly reusing the current official map’s approach to the bus connections to Wonderland.

Shouldn't the 110 be aligned directly at Revere Beach Station of the Blue Line? Also the 116 in the north should be 1 stop further north than Wonderland (but 1 stop south of Oak Island if BLX ever comes). Wonderland is in the middle of the pit between Revere St. and Beach St and doesn't hit either street.

 

[Riverside]

Shouldn't the 110 be aligned directly at Revere Beach Station of the Blue Line?

That's a good point -- the BNRD system map makes it look like there isn't a good transfer, but it definitely would be reasonable enough to show.

Also the 116 in the north should be 1 stop further north than Wonderland (but 1 stop south of Oak Island if BLX ever comes). Wonderland is in the middle of the pit between Revere St. and Beach St and doesn't hit either street.

Fair enough, but I personally think that's the sort of thing that can be simplified out of a diagram like this, if needed for simplicity.

 

[Teban54]

That's a good point -- the BNRD system map makes it look like there isn't a good transfer, but it definitely would be reasonable enough to show.

I had long wondered how many riders on the 117 use Revere Beach to transfer to the Blue Line as opposed to Wonderland, so I used this as an opportunity to do some data wrangling.

In Fall 2022, on an average weekday:

Direction	Inbound (boardings)	Outbound (alightings)
Wonderland	300.5	335.4
Opp 1456 North Shore Rd (inbound)	34.7	N/A
Beach St @ Nahant Ave (inbound)	115.5	N/A
Beach St @ Walnut Ave (outbound)	N/A	65.6
Beach St @ N Shore Rd (outbound)	N/A	197.8
(Sum of stops near Revere Beach)	150.2	263.4

Spoiler: Stop explanations

On inbound 117, two stops around Revere Beach have equally tedious walks to the BL station. The stop on North Shore Rd is 570 ft from the station and takes a 2-min walk, but I suspect most riders will favor the next stop at Nahant Ave, which is further apart at 765 ft, but saves a little bit of time on the bus. However, Nahant Ave gets into the nearby neighborhood deeply enough that riders could simply be coming from there, instead of making a Blue Line transfer.

Outbound 117 has a clear transfer stop: Beach St @ N Shore Rd. This stop is only 335 ft from the BL entrance. I included data for the preceding stop, Walnut Ave, in order to estimate demand from the neighborhood, as it's only a block away from Nahant Ave.

Combining the two pairs of stops (each within 500 ft of the opposite direction's corresponding stop), the 117 gets at least half as many riders from the Revere Beach area as from Wonderland. That's actually quite impressive given a somewhat underwhelming transfer, both in official signage and practicality (especially inbound).

These riders include both BL transfers and nearby residents, sure, but I imagine a sizable chunk is from transfers. A key factor supporting this hypothesis: Outbound 117 has ~110 more daily riders alighting around Revere Beach than inbound 117 boarding from here. This may be explained by two reasons:

• Outbound 117 has a much more convenient transfer stop, Beach St @ N Shore Rd, than either of the inbound "transfer" stops.
• Outbound 117 is more likely to get opportunistic riders from Revere Center and Broadway, who are seeking any Blue Line connection on either the 116 or the 117. If the next bus is a 117, they can get off at Revere Beach instead of Wonderland. On the other hand, for an inbound trip from the Blue Line, it's more prudent to wait at Wonderland for either bus, than to use either of the (rather inconvenient) stops at Revere Beach and get worse frequencies on the 117 alone.

My very rough estimate is that 100-200 daily riders may be connecting to the 117 at Revere Beach, compared to ~300 at Wonderland. That's quite impressive, given Revere Beach's almost nonexistent official acknowledgement of being a transfer point, and the physical and operational challenges working against it. In a world where the only connecting route is a vastly improved 110, I'd expect even greater patronage of the transfer.

I can do a more fine-grained analysis by time if there's demand, or I can also look at the 110. (For example, this may separate out Nahant Ave riders from the neighborhood -- who are more likely to go inbound during AM and outbound during PM -- from those transferring from Revere Center to the Blue Line, who will likely travel in opposite directions.)

 

[Riverside]

I had to completely rework my northeast quadrant this morning to get the 110 to connect to both Revere Beach and Wonderland. On the plus side, though, I think it does actually look better now, so at least there's that!

 

[Riverside]

Alrighty, here we go. It is not totally finished; there are a number of small details I still want to tweak (including trying to adjust the spacing at the top to make it even just a little bit less cramped), plus I need to add a key and I do plan to add the ferries.

(Also the water is not at all the way I want it, so will probably rework that significantly.)

But the overall idea is here.

View attachment System Diagram Redesign Summer 2024 DRAFT.png

There are two themes of this redesign. The first is promoting the key bus routes into fully fledged members of the transit "family". In particular, there is a small set of routes which, in the Bus Network Redesign, are proposed to have all-day frequencies below 10 minutes, which are indicated here with the "double thickness" bus route language (though I grant that the stark difference in visual language overstates the difference between 6 min/9 min peak/offpeak frequences vs 8 min/11 min peak/offpeak). You'll notice that the labels for bus stops are identical in size and font to the rapid transit stops; this was intentional, as part of an overall effort to design the diagram around the bus routes as much as around the rapid transit routes.

The second theme, which emerged somewhat organically in order to accommodate the large volume of routes in the South End, Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, is an expansion of the "grid" formed by Park-DTX-State-GC downtown. The parallel Blue and Red lines are now joined (in order) by the 9, 8, 1, 12, 47, 28 & 22 & 12 & 66 & 15, 23 and 22 again, 28 & 32 (south of Blue Hill), and finally the 31. (Yes, the 31 is an odd distortion, bowing to the needs of practicality.) The parallel Green and Orange lines are now joined by the Ashmont + Mattapan Lines, the 16, Fairmount, SL4, Orange, 39, E, 28 & 12 & 66, the "Fenway Branch," and portions of the C and B. (The Blue Line also recapitulates the "north-south" axes of the Green + Orange.)

A separate grid is articulated in the northwestern quadrant of the map, where the 101, 47, 109, and 96 (oops, mislabeled!) create the rungs of a ladder formed by Red, GLX, and 101 again. As opposed to the 90-degree grid in the lower half of the map, this grid uses 60-degree rhombuses.

The northeastern quadrant is the odd one out (and, as mentioned above, became one of the hardest parts of the design), in that it has a 3-axis grid rather than 2-axis. Revere Center, Everett Square, and Bellingham Square create a triangle, from each point of which lines exit in 60-degree increments, creating a hexagonal grid, bounded by Blue and Orange. It definitely feels cramped, though.

One unexpected upside of coloring bus routes by "hub" while simultaneously dividing them into two tiers is that (I think) every route that flows through the Roxbury Crossing nexus actually has a unique appearance:

• Silver thin: 12
• Orange thin: 15
• Green thin: 22
• Orange thick: 23
• Green thick: 28
• Red thick: 66

This pattern holds broadly true in the rest of Roxbury/Dorchester/Hyde Park, where virtually no visually identical routes go anywhere near each other.

Finally, it's worth articulating the design constraints I put on myself:

1. Must fit within frame of existing official map
2. Must use same font sizes and line widths as official map (for accessibility)
3. All labels must be horizontal
4. All labels must be entirely on a solid background, without overlapping lines or water

Objectives 3 and 4, I believe I acheived.

Objective 2 was achieved, to the best of my knowledge; the thin bus routes are the same width as the key bus routes on the official map, and my hope is that having them in color doesn't disrupt their legibility, though I don't know for certain. I'm also not entirely sure that my bus labels would pass muster, although, again, they seem to be just as good if not better than the current map's light bronze.

I think I achieved Objective 1... barely. As mentioned, the top of the map is quite cramped. I think I can probably scooch up the stuff at the bottom of the map and then shift the frame upward to create a little extra space at the top. I also need to go back and check whether I've used the margins too aggressively compared to the official map.

Like I said, it's not done, but I figure it's done "enough" to start and discuss.

 

[Brattle Loop]

Like I said, it's not done, but I figure it's done "enough" to start and discuss.

Obviously a ton of work's gone into this, so I'm a touch hesitant to immediately dump a bucket of cold water, but I'm getting major NYC Subway map vibes, and not in a good way.

The double-thickness bus routes concept is, I think, quite a good way of visually indicating something that's more than standard bus service, but not officially rapid transit. But I'm struggling with that concept mixed with the decision to color the bus routes by hub. It makes it easy to get confused and think that those are some kind of transit lines, especially if you're looking at a smaller version of the map, or are unfamiliar with the system. I get for wayfinding purposes it's better that the bus routes aren't all the same color, but I wonder if there's a solution that doesn't so closely resemble the colors of the transit lines.

I think you did a really good job, especially with how nightmarishly difficult it is to try and deal with both the Green Line branches and the northeast quadrant of that map in a (partly) geographic map, but it kind of reinforces the comparison to the New York map (which distorts the shape of the city pretty good). You've done an excellent job trying to force-fit the lines into the geography, but it's still kind of a visual mess, because the geography is so messy. To me at least part of why the original spider map worked so well was that it was really mainly just a schematic map that didn't much care about the geographic particulars, which made it a lot more straightforward to use and understand. I get you're trying to include a lot more information, and you've done it well, but the impression I get at first glance is a bit of 'information overload' - but considering your project objectives, I think it's really cool.

(And if we're nitpicking, are the bus route numbers meant to be in a different font? It's obviously not Helvetica in a way that is absolutely meaningless from a functional standpoint but that immediately stands out to me, so I kinda have to ask.)

 

[Riverside]

[I'm battling some covid brain, so hopefully this below isn't total nonsense.]

Obviously a ton of work's gone into this, so I'm a touch hesitant to immediately dump a bucket of cold water, but I'm getting major NYC Subway map vibes, and not in a good way.

You're very considerate, and I appreciate it! The comparison to NYC seems apt, for better and worse, in part because of this:

To me at least part of why the original spider map worked so well was that it was really mainly just a schematic map that didn't much care about the geographic particulars, which made it a lot more straightforward to use and understand.

I am also a huge fan of the original spider map. I'm sure it will always be among my top favorites. But... the spider map omitted a huge quantity of information. Just straight up removed it from scope, most notably almost all of the stations on the D Branch (along with the surface stops on the B/C/E plus Mattapan which today's map opts to show). The spider map also was not designed to accommodate a "branching" of its central orange line (i.e. into the SW Corridor + Silver Line), nor transportation in the Seaport. It does not accommodate the Fairmount Line.

If you start to exclude as much as the spider map did, you get something that looks more like this (really rough sketch, just for the purposes of conversation):

Or even something like this:

Unsurprisingly, these versions are much less overwhelming. But I think it's important to keep perspective on just how much was excluded from the spider map, if we are going to use it as a point of comparison.

But this brings us back to the NYC Subway example: what I've concluded is that, yeah, if you want to show all the rapid transit routes, all of the surface stops, all of the key bus routes, all of commuter rail lines and stations, all of the ferries... my conclusion is that that will always require a diagram that is pretty complex, just like a diagram of the NYC Subway is always going to be complex, because the underlying system itself is complex. (Any diagram where the atomic "unit" is Back of the Hill, where Back of the Hill needs to be afforded a fully fledged label, stop indicator, and whitespace buffer, is going to be overwhelming.)

The double-thickness bus routes concept is, I think, quite a good way of visually indicating something that's more than standard bus service, but not officially rapid transit. But I'm struggling with that concept mixed with the decision to color the bus routes by hub. It makes it easy to get confused and think that those are some kind of transit lines, especially if you're looking at a smaller version of the map, or are unfamiliar with the system. I get for wayfinding purposes it's better that the bus routes aren't all the same color, but I wonder if there's a solution that doesn't so closely resemble the colors of the transit lines.

In some ways, the potential for mistaking the bus lines as branches of the rapid transit lines was not totally unintentional. I'm tacitly arguing that, e.g. the 1 should get just as much publicity as the Red Line.

Adjusting the colors of the bus lines is an interesting idea though. I've been hewing to the official diagram colors for the most part, but it would be interesting to see what kind of difference that might make. Were you thinking slight adjustments like Red -> Pink, or more extreme like Red -> Lime?

(And if we're nitpicking, are the bus route numbers meant to be in a different font? It's obviously not Helvetica in a way that is absolutely meaningless from a functional standpoint but that immediately stands out to me, so I kinda have to ask.)

Not intentional. Hopefully something I would have picked up eventually in proofing!

 

[Brattle Loop]

In some ways, the potential for mistaking the bus lines as branches of the rapid transit lines was not totally unintentional. I'm tacitly arguing that, e.g. the 1 should get just as much publicity as the Red Line.

Adjusting the colors of the bus lines is an interesting idea though. I've been hewing to the official diagram colors for the most part, but it would be interesting to see what kind of difference that might make. Were you thinking slight adjustments like Red -> Pink, or more extreme like Red -> Lime?

I like the double-line effect giving, effectively, greater presence to the bus lines, and thus more emphasis than the decidedly secondary treatment they get from the official map, and I get the intention of having them get put on a similar plane. That said, because of that plus the colors, I think there's a significant prospect of confusion, particularly because the buses generally don't share the same parts of the stations.

I'm not entirely sure how to solve it, because there's only so many colors. I wonder if something like a desaturated color variant would work. So, orange-bronze for the orange-hub buses, a more muted red, a greyer green, that sort of thing. Maybe lighter silver for the silver line (sort of like the difference between the shuttles and the L train in New York)?

I knocked together a little version of part of what I'm talking about. Obviously that green doesn't contrast enough, but the orange and bronze-orange give an idea. You keep the connection to the hubs based by color, but make it a little easier to tell at a glance that these are separate - and mildly subordinate - services.

 

[TheRatmeister]

I like the double-line effect giving, effectively, greater presence to the bus lines, and thus more emphasis than the decidedly secondary treatment they get from the official map, and I get the intention of having them get put on a similar plane. That said, because of that plus the colors, I think there's a significant prospect of confusion, particularly because the buses generally don't share the same parts of the stations.

I'm not entirely sure how to solve it, because there's only so many colors. I wonder if something like a desaturated color variant would work. So, orange-bronze for the orange-hub buses, a more muted red, a greyer green, that sort of thing. Maybe lighter silver for the silver line (sort of like the difference between the shuttles and the L train in New York)?

I knocked together a little version of part of what I'm talking about. Obviously that green doesn't contrast enough, but the orange and bronze-orange give an idea. You keep the connection to the hubs based by color, but make it a little easier to tell at a glance that these are separate - and mildly subordinate - services.

View attachment 53486

I have to agree that the shared colors between buses and rapid transit make the map quite difficult to follow at times, and I would argue that they lean too far in the other direction from showing the buses as lesser service compared to rapid transit, with the double thick lines they seem almost equal, which anyone who has sat in traffic on the 1 can tell you is not really true. I've been pretty heavily influenced recently by UrbanEric's latest design that has generally convinced me of the merits of having very thin bus lines. Around rapid transit they seem small and insignificant, but show up well and seem very important when compared with the CR or the great white emptiness of the background. (I also plan to borrow his idea for terminating bus routes because that's something I've really struggled with and this is easily the best solution I have seen so far.
View attachment 1722725426437.png
I've made some more (slow) progress on my map as well, and I think the thinner lines have worked wonders to making bits like Dorchester and Chelsea more legible:

 

[Riverside]

Covid sucks. Brevity here because brain, not because annoyed/rude.

I like the double-line effect giving, effectively, greater presence to the bus lines, and thus more emphasis than the decidedly secondary treatment they get from the official map, and I get the intention of having them get put on a similar plane.

Yeah, this is the philosophical angle I've been exploring. I really want to make a map that treats the bus routes as primarily as the subway.

That said, because of that plus the colors, I think there's a significant prospect of confusion, particularly because the buses generally don't share the same parts of the stations.

I'm not entirely sure how to solve it, because there's only so many colors. I wonder if something like a desaturated color variant would work. So, orange-bronze for the orange-hub buses, a more muted red, a greyer green, that sort of thing. Maybe lighter silver for the silver line (sort of like the difference between the shuttles and the L train in New York)?

I knocked together a little version of part of what I'm talking about. Obviously that green doesn't contrast enough, but the orange and bronze-orange give an idea. You keep the connection to the hubs based by color, but make it a little easier to tell at a glance that these are separate - and mildly subordinate - services.

I like this idea (and I want to really like it -- I'm a fan of muted colors). I will experiment with this in a subsequent iteration.

I would argue that they lean too far in the other direction from showing the buses as lesser service compared to rapid transit, with the double thick lines they seem almost equal, which anyone who has sat in traffic on the 1 can tell you is not really true.

Yeah this is 100% a valid point. Diagrams are a form of art, and art is inherantly political. And the political statement I guess I'm trying to make is that the 1 is as integral to the network as the Red Line, and we shouldn't take "slow zones" for granted on the 1 any more than we should tolerate them on the Red Line.

I've been pretty heavily influenced recently by UrbanEric's latest design that has generally convinced me of the merits of having very thin bus lines. Around rapid transit they seem small and insignificant, but show up well and seem very important when compared with the CR or the great white emptiness of the background. (I also plan to borrow his idea for terminating bus routes because that's something I've really struggled with and this is easily the best solution I have seen so far.
View attachment 1722725426437.pngo

That is a damn fine map, wow. Yes, his deployment of this technique is very effective.

I've made some more (slow) progress on my map as well, and I think the thinner lines have worked wonders to making bits like Dorchester and Chelsea more legible:

That is also a damn fine map, nice! I particularly appreciate the consolidation of lines/curves/angles -- it makes the system "feel" simple, in a way that reminds me (positively) of the WMATA map. I think the northeast looks solid (small quibble in that the E in Everett is hard to read against the purple). I think Dorchester is looking good, but is revealing some of the fundamental limitations created by not having Orange and Silver be parallel; Nubian and Roxbury X'ing are very close together IRL, and moving them apart in turn limits the available space in Dorchester for the more complicated bus network.

On a different note, I made a proof-of-concept of my map with thinner bus lines. Loses some of that political statement, but undeniably looks cleaner.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

I wouldn't say that's clean. It still looks like someone spilled a bowl of spaghetti on the map. The edges of the map feel very cramped, especially the top right. If you must have all this information on the map, then at least enlarge the canvas and give this information room to breath.

 

[TheRatmeister]

(small quibble in that the E in Everett is hard to read against the purple).

Getting Everett Sq to work out at all was a miracle, whenever 3 lines meet it's always a nightmare getting the spacing to work, so that is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

I think Dorchester is looking good, but is revealing some of the fundamental limitations created by not having Orange and Silver be parallel; Nubian and Roxbury X'ing are very close together IRL, and moving them apart in turn limits the available space in Dorchester for the more complicated bus network.

It's a blessing and a curse. The Silver Line doesn't have that neat 'every other parallel stop' symmetry that the GL-E does with the OL, so pushing them closer makes things... difficult. Plus it would require making the SL extra bendy and as you have indeed figured out, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid.

 

[Delvin4519]

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The 111 is incorrectly drawn is going via Charlestown even though the 111 has ZERO stops in Charlestown.

It is extremely misleading for riders, especially newcomers. Imagine if someone wanted to get to the USS Constitution or the Bunker Hill Monument, only to be taken across the highway to the other side of the Mystic with no way back to Charlestown without going all the way to Encore Casino or to Downtown Boston.

I need to repeat this again, the 111 makes ZERO STOPS in Charlestown. This is the only FBR bus route to have an "express" portion.

The 111 is technically an "express bus" since it makes stops in suburbs outside of Boston and then proceeds to drive directly to downtown Boston. As quoted from the MBTA bus guide:

Local Buses only travel within Boston and the communities in the immediate area. Express buses make stops in suburbs and communities outside the city and then drive directly to downtown Boston.

Read that carefully. Doesn't the 111 fit this description of "express"? I think it does. The first stop off the 111 inbound past the highway is just across the street from North Station. In the outbound direction, the last chance top get on or off the 111 is also, just across the street from North Station. After that, the 111 expresses directly to Chelsea.

The MBTA system map is notorious for it's inaccuracy of the 111, but it's a slap in the face that almost NONE of the user fan made maps ever fix this horrible inaccuracy. This inaccuracy even extends to analysis of frequent transit coverage; including from the MBTA itself. Charlestown is incorrectly shown as having frequent service in the MBTA's state of the bus system, even though it doesn't.

The correct way to display the 111 is either to:
A) cut the 111 route in half (i.e. cut off the 111 at the Tobin on ramps, and the North Washington Street Bridge). This is best suited for frequency coverage maps

For spider maps and subway diagrams, other ways to display the 111 could be:
B) Draw the 111 as cutting across Boston Harbor instead of Charlestown
This has a benefit of allowing the line to simply use existing lines, as it is only merely rerouting the line to run across the harbor. It also better reflects the 111 running express to Chelsea

C) Use a dashed line for the 111 between Chelsea and North Station
This allows the existing 111 route to display in it's existing route through Charlestown, but indicates it is an express bus. This requires a footnote somewhere explaining why the line is partially dashed, though; unlike every other bus line.