[HN Gopher] Harry Beck's 1933 London Tube Map
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Harry Beck's 1933 London Tube Map
Author : simonebrunozzi
Score : 51 points
Date : 2022-05-30 06:44 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
| kazinator wrote:
| Unfortunately, these maps remove all intuitions about where the
| heck you are, especially if you're a tourist.
|
| The more scope is included in the map, the less comprehensible it
| becomes, as the layout bears no relation to how the places
| relate, like how relatively far away they are and in what
| direction.
|
| Topological maps conceal truths like you might be able to walk
| faster between these two particular stations than if you take the
| train.
|
| If all you have is a real map that doesn't have transit details,
| and a schematic transit map, it can be hard to have a complete
| picture.
|
| Some middle representation is helpful: a caricature of the
| metropolitan area with the transit grid and stations shown at
| least loosely in the right places.
|
| This article shows two maps of the NY subway system:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_map
|
| The one on the left is like what I'm talking about. The one on
| the right is more detailed. Both are better than a purely
| topological diagram with no relation to the places.
|
| In contrast to something like this:
|
| https://www.tokyometro.jp/en/subwaymap/
|
| In both the NY maps, if you find the station where you're
| dcurrently located, you actually know from either map where in NY
| you are, and about how far it is to other places.
| ldjb wrote:
| Although (to my knowledge) a new version hasn't been produced
| since 2014, the London Connections map [0] does something along
| these lines.
|
| It's primarily geographical, but isn't completely precise, and
| it retains some topological features.
|
| I think most passengers would find it too confusing, but maybe
| there are ways it could be simplified.
|
| See also the unofficial Carto Metro map [1], which is an actual
| geographic map of London's rail network. And also the map of
| key bus routes in Central London [2], which is largely
| topological but represents major parks and attractions.
|
| [0]
| http://web.archive.org/web/20181222165456/http://content.tfl...
|
| [1] https://cartometro.com/metro-london/
|
| [2] https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/bus-route-
| maps/k...
| ghaff wrote:
| The MBTA (Boston) map has long been mostly schematic. There
| were a couple points when I was an undergrad that I took the T
| (subway) and changed lines at least once only to discover I was
| about 2 blocks from where I started.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The latest tube maps include the time it takes to walk along a
| line between stations in the central zones. It's not a to-scale
| map, but it gives some useful hints.
|
| https://tfl.gov.uk/maps/track/tube
|
| The problem with making the London map topographic and to scale
| is that the northwest extension of the Metropolitan line
| stretches far out into the countryside. A to-scale map would
| have to shrink the central area - the most useful part of the
| map - which would make it cluttered and hard to read.
|
| The zone system on the map provides useful hints about absolute
| distance without being perfectly to-scale.
|
| That aside, most people using a metro system need to know how
| long it will take to get somewhere _on the system_ more than
| they need to know exactly where they are.
|
| TFL's app includes journey time estimates.
| kingcharles wrote:
| All good points. Sadly, there is no perfect solution. Which
| ever way you draw the map you are making a compromise.
|
| The London map is by far the easiest I have ever encountered
| for figuring out how to get from station A to station B. On the
| other hand, as you say, there are sections where the distance
| is radically deceptive.
|
| With the maps that show the stations in their real locations,
| they are much harder to read, but you get a sense of distance.
|
| My personal preference is for the London style, because by the
| time I get on the train I generally don't care how long it
| takes, I just want to settle back and get where I'm going.
| Hopefully most tourists to London will get the message
| beforehand, through guides or advice, that nearly every tourist
| destination is easily walkable for able-bodied persons.
| ghaff wrote:
| Pedestrian walking signage on the streets of London is pretty
| good as well.
|
| One of the challenges with "real locations" is differences in
| scale. In the case of Boston for example, a bunch of lines
| come together in a rather dense area of downtown. But then a
| number of lines (even excluding commuter rail) head off to
| terra incognito--OK, I exaggerate but into the suburbs or
| even small cities outside Boston.
| notahacker wrote:
| Scale is one of the main reasons Harry Beck's map worked.
| Central London on an accurate map isn't that confusingly
| laid out at a large enough scale. But the outlying suburbs
| are just so far away, and the schematic is a lot less
| confusing for the intended purpose of getting the correct
| train connection than flipping back and forth between
| different maps and insets at different scale levels
| bombcar wrote:
| You can compromise this by having the urban core (often the
| main tourist area) done in a more "realistic" way and then the
| rest of the outlying lines done schematically.
| arketyp wrote:
| ketzo wrote:
| Why would baby birds be looking at a map?
| [deleted]
| arketyp wrote:
| It was a joke. Jesus.
| ant6n wrote:
| New Yorkers say this stuff all the time to defend their unique
| geographical subway map, ignoring that the map is still so far
| zoomed out and inaccurate that it doesn't help a tourist at all
| with any understanding that is relevant to walking distances.
| At the same time, the nyc subway map is incredibly confusing
| and idiosyncratic, tourists will keep getting confused and lost
| thanks to it while trying to navigate the actual subway system
| the map is primarily supposed to explain. How about making the
| map simpler, removing essentially useless geographical
| information but making sure ppl don't get lost on the way to
| their destination stop.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| To be fair, the NYC subway can be extra confusing for
| tourists from cities with more "predictable" metro systems.
| For example, in the Madrid and Barcelona Metros, all trains
| departing from each given platform are guaranteed to belong
| to the same line and will serve the same stations from A to B
| --no need to think at all. That's also usually the case in
| the London Underground, though some lines may split and there
| are some exchange stations where you need to pay attention as
| to what line the train arriving at the platform belongs to.
| Now compare that to the NYC Subway, with its routes, lines,
| express services, local services, etc. Anyone used to the
| simplicity of Madrid or Barcelona style systems is bound to
| find it confusing.
|
| Not that I have anything against the idea though, it's just a
| different philosophy and it is connected somewhat to the NYC
| Subway's rare 24/7 service. I have fun memories of when I
| went to New York with my parents when I was 18, and they were
| simply unable to understand the Subway in depth and relied on
| me to make sense of it.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| The system diagram drops important information such as how _far_
| a rider is traveling and how _long_ it will take. This
| contributes to the interminable feeling of riding forever under
| the streets of [city name]. It also makes it harder to integrate
| with intermodal options, or walking, because riders are never
| quite sure where they are. The system diagram is ubiquitous, and
| there 's a point to it, but it ought to be just one tool in the
| box.
| kqr wrote:
| In my city there was, for a brief time, a neat combination of
| the two. It was visually stylized with simplified geometry for
| easy reading, but it sorta-kinda indicated real distances and
| directions. I really miss that one -- seemed like the best of
| both worlds to me.
|
| ----
|
| Found it:
| https://people.kth.se/~e95_lra/tunnelbana/bild/linjekarta.gi...
|
| Which is to compare against the highly stylised one:
| http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nSNE5wTaCGA/VDZiVonjldI/AAAAAAAAQ5...
|
| And, well, something more realistic:
| https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BPoNTy6r7UI/VDZiXCe5oEI/AAAAAAAAQ...
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| Transport for London has a variant of the map annotated with
| walking times between the stations too - of course at the cost
| of being more crowded...
|
| https://content.tfl.gov.uk/walking-tube-map.pdf
| kingcharles wrote:
| This is definitely hard to parse. Canada Water to Canary
| Wharf is 144 minute walk on that map LOL. It's a couple of
| minutes by Underground. It is about 2 miles walk, but it's
| definitely not 2 hours and 24 minutes!
| cassianoleal wrote:
| It's about 1h if you take the Rotherhite tunnel, but if you
| use lungs for breathing I wouldn't recommend that.
|
| Otherwise you need to take the Greenwich foot tunnel, which
| adds a lot to the trip. It may not take 2h24min but it's
| about 4.4 miles, not 2.
| notahacker wrote:
| The major shortcoming of that is it doesn't show walking
| times for some fairly easy connections between different
| lines and instead implies a much longer indirect route (e.g
| Angel to Farringdon is a 15-20 minute direct walk which is
| quite reasonable compared to an >11 minute journey involving
| train and platform changes or the suggested 42 minutes
| walking a very indirect route via a station interchange)
| azza2110 wrote:
| For anyone who finds this interesting, I recommend reading
| Underground Maps Unravelled, by Robert J Maxwell:
| http://www.tubemapcentral.com/writing/umu.html
|
| It covers the history of London Underground maps and signage,
| analysis on how/why certain map elements help users, and contains
| a number of painstakingly recreated historical and theoretical
| transit maps to illustrate the points.
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(page generated 2022-05-30 23:00 UTC)