Going Underground

There's been a lot of stuff about metro maps over recent weeks...and before.

Over on Xblog, some interesting stuff on a 3D Tube map this week. There are issues with 3D: on the one hand, people like 3D representations; on the other, they in practice generally find them less comprehensible/useful for finding their way around.

Tom Smith has pointed to Edward Tufte's exchanges on the London Underground map. Tufte's site includes the original map conceived by Beck.

Then this morning, Excess Baggage on BBC Radio 4 had a discussion about metro systems around the world, the way they reflected - or not - their respective overground cities (mental models, anyone?), and the merits of their maps (all, in one way or another, modelled on Harry Beck's London Tube map of the 1930s). Is New York's regularity lost in it's subway map? Is London's disorder rendered into order on the - much changed - Beck map of the Underground? Tufte believes the original has not travelled well to other metro-ed cities.

Other London Underground resources:
The true physical geography of the Underground
London Underground map with 500m walk lines dotted in
Bloggers around the London Underground (and British Rail too)

Integrating: Bus Spider Map with Tube lines
One of the most welcome things on returing to the UK was the 'spider' maps (at each bus stop), representing the bus routes and how they converge and diverge. It's now Transport for London policy to extend these everywhere. Chris Heathcote is now attempting an integration of spider maps with 'other mode' transport information: Underground, river etc. (Useless info: there's now a car that can be used on the river too: courtesy of a New Zealander who wanted to use his vehicle both modes).