Customer Reviews

Transit Maps of the World

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're like me, and enjoy poring over maps, you'll find this book a treat. If all the book had were reproductions of current urban rail maps, it would be worth at least 4 stars. But there's much more. There is a short history of urban rail from its earliest days, and then you have maps and text for about 200 cities around the world. You get narratives on the history of each system, but the emphasis is on the evolution of the transit maps themselves. For some cities, up to about 20 maps are reproduced, and some of these date back to the 19th century. There's a wonderful sense of the conflict between having maps that are aesthetically pleasing and maps that are pleasing to someone trying to find their way around.

The book is divided into 6 zones (rather than chapters), with the distinction based primarily on the evolution of the maps:
zone 1: 8 cities, 4 pages per city. Example: Paris, 17 maps dating back to 1900.
zone 2: 15 cities, 2 pages per city. Example: Boston, 5 maps dating back to 1926.
zone 3: 28 cities, 1 page per city. Amsterdam, 4 maps.
zone 4: 16 cities, 2 cities per page, usually 1-2 maps per city.
zone 5: 18 cities, 1-3 cities per page, mostly 1 map per city.
zone 6: 140? cities, about 12 cities per page, often without maps, very short narratives.

The one problem you'll have is that many of the original maps were very large, and so when the transit map of Greater New York is faithfully reduced to two-thirds of a page in the book, you'll either need remarkable eyesight or a very strong magnifying glass to make out details. But the book is not intended as a catch-all way to actually find your way around, but rather as a paean to maps--you're intended to enjoy looking at the maps, not using them for transit purposes. A real delight!

A timely update to the first edition in 2003 with a new Zone: 6, listing all the latest and proposed subway systems around the globe. This extra Zone now includes hybrids like tram-trains, monorail or light rail and they all need maps. The other five Zones in the original have had their contents revised also.

I think the beauty of the book is in looking at the way various transit companies have approached the problem of communicating (sometimes complex) information in a simple way for passengers yet each map has its unique points. The book's authors rightly trace the origins of the modern designed transit map to London Transport's Harry Beck. His genius was to discard the geographic location of stations and have route lines as either vertical, horizontal or at forty-five degrees. It's amazing to see how many maps of the dozens in the book still follow this general principal.

However, creating a map that might look graphically stunning is not always enough. New York's MTA got Massimo Vignelli to design their map and it looks a visual treat but passengers weren't impressed and found it confusing so the MTA revised it. Vignelli's 1979 map and the latest 2007 MTA one are shown together on a spread in the book, two maps with the same information yet looking so different.

This update has a few more train and station photos to fill the space that was frequently left blank in the first edition and there is a nice touch with a spread near the back that includes some fantasy maps. If I have a fault with the book it is that in the new Zone 6 section many of the maps are so small that I don't think they were worth including.

I thinks it's worth pointing out that Transit Maps is not designed as a reference guide for travelers to cities around the world but as a celebration of the beauty that is inherent in these colorful diagrams.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

As you can tell from the title, I was drawn to this book from two of my interests. This book is great! It gives samples of current and historical maps from transit systems all over the world, and it is a treat to look at. I have only two minor faults to find -- not enough to detract from the 5-star rating: 1. some of the maps are reproduced too small (I wish he had made the 1911 Brooklyn elevated map full page size, for example) or too dark (a Chicago transit map from the late 1940s is very hard to read) and 2. (very much my own personal taste) I wish he had included some historical maps from Philadelphia (he only has a current map of that city, one of my favorites).

One thing that does seem a bit strange: Although it is no surprise that the author, a native of London, writes in British English, it is rather odd that he seems to find it necessary to translate the *names* of American transit companies into British English, changing "transportation" to "transport" and "railroad" to "railway." Most people would, I think, leave the official names alone!

I hope the author reads this comment so he might be able to take it into account if he comes out with a revised edition -- I know this one has already been revised from the original.

If you are a fan of rail transit systems, cartography, or functional graphic design, then this book is for you. It contains very up to date images of all of the greatest transit maps in the world. It also provides quite a bit of historical insight for the larger systems. The only thing I thing that would improve this book is if it were in a larger format. Then you could actually appreciate the maps even more. Considering some of the maps illustated are diplayed 6 feet high on subway station walls, any extra size bigger they could print this book, the better.

If you are a fan of maps, subway culture, city life, and mass transit (these things tend to hang together, I suspect), then this book is it! Jackpot! I have been searching for a book with this breadth and depth for nearly a decade, ever since I read the incomparable "Subway City" by Michael W. Brooks. Trust me, if you think diagrams, logos, and maps can be beautiful AND thought-provoking, then know that this is THE book to get.

Let me add a few other thoughts in addition to what other reviewers have already said. First, this book is a good example of why books still matter... that is, I have been searching the Internet for years collecting jpegs and pdf files of the various transit systems of the world; I've ordered transit maps and guides from various cities on ebay... BUT, here is all of it in one place! In this sense, the authors have provided a great service by bringing order to a chaotic jumble of information on the Internet.

The other piece I'll add is that this book (as all good books should be) is a mind-opener. As I've said, I've been interested in this very subject for years, but I never imagined there were THIS MANY subway systems in the world! Wow! How could I have known - I didn't have this book!

I bought this book for my son who is autistic. He is fascinated by trains, subways, trollies, and buses. He loves to look at the maps of various transit systems and memorizes the portions of the systems he would like to ride on. This was absolutely the perfect gift for him.

This book fulfills one of my top dreams -- to be more exact, I could not have dreamed of such a book! Reading maps and riding subways have been two of my favorite hobbies, and it is definitely awesome to see more than 200 cities' urban transit maps juxtaposed and compared in one book. Even better, the author gives detailed introduction to the history and includes many interesting anecdotes of those storied urban transit systems such as Berlin, Chicago, London, Madrid, Moscow, New York, Paris, and Tokyo. I use this book to remind my boy about the cities and places we ever visited, and teach him how to use a transit map to quickly find a route to any destination. We have been enjoying it so far, and I believe lots of fun will continue to flow out from it.

I took one look at the evolution of the BART maps in the two pages devoted to San Francisco's transit system and knew I had to purchase this soft-cover coffee-table book. A writer with an obvious passion for cartography, Mark Ovenden has put together a most intriguing and idiosyncratic design history book examining the maps that depict the world's transit systems. This is not an in-depth book for urban planners or for anyone interested in the workings of a transit system for that matter. Rather, it looks specifically at how transit system maps have been designed to meet the needs of commuters and travelers alike. For travelers especially, these maps often represent the first impression of the geographic breadth of a city. Instead of organizing the maps in alphabetical order of the nearly one hundred cities included, Ovenden cleverly breaks down the maps into six zones. On one end is Zone 1, which covers the eight most elaborate metropolitan systems, all with extensive histories and maps that evolved in style over time.

Particularly fascinating is the evolution of the New York subway from the intricate 1905 map that places Manhattan on its side to the nearly unreadable 1948 version to the austere, straight-angle design by Massimo Vignelli in 1972 to the current version that attempts to minimize the inevitable clutter. The other Zone 1 cities are predictably Berlin, Chicago, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris and Tokyo. On the other end of the spectrum, Zone 6 itemizes maps for relatively new systems or those still in development. Thumbnail maps are provided for these cases. In between the two zones are cities with subway maps that look surprisingly similar in their diagrammatical design, a likely intentional decision based on usability ease. Consequently, Ovenden gives good reason for not making topographical accuracy a top priority. Maps become unwieldy and inevitably more difficult to read in a hurry. He supports this reasoning by lucidly sharing key aspects of urban transportation history that have culminated into a general preference for the angular, Beck-style diagrams. Map enthusiasts will find this all quite enthralling.

I'm not going to echo what countless others have said about this book. It's five stars all the way and a joy doubtlessly not just to those of us who share the author's perverse fascination with transit maps but also to a somewhat wider ken. In short, if you've made it this far and are for whatever reason curious about this book or wondering if it's for you, just GET IT. You'll be glad you did.

That said, like a true pedant, I'm going to harp upon some things that I think could have been improved. This is all nitpicking nonsense. I'm telling you that it's nitpicking nonsense, so don't yell at me for nitpicking since you've been warned in advance that picking nits is exactly what I'm about to do.

Basically, the British author has in his mind that the epitome of metro diagrams is Harry Beck's london underground and its subsequent improvements. Yes, it's an excellent diagram and system and a key touchstone (perhaps the key artifact) in metro mapping. However, to judge everything else against this standard often misses the point and negates contributions from other areas.

For example, the author rather perversely notes/compares the Seoul map to London's while apparently being blissfully unaware of the obvious Tokyo influence on the Seoul map. Indeed, the author's familiarity with Asia seems to be very thin - the examples chosen for Tokyo are particularly poor and in many ways atypical (I cringed when I saw the short lived "oedo-line-circle-centered" map included in the book). There are far better Tokyo metro/transit diagrams in wide circulation with far more interesting features that would have been of interest in the book. Amazingly, the author goes out of his way to berate a Tokyo chart which shows stair location in stations, even though as every Tokyo residents know, location of such is vital to making the most of your commute. London Underground, arguably, despite its history, the worst major metro in the world, would have a LOT to learn from Tokyo if it only had the sense to stop navel-gazing (and yes, I live in England).

Next, some monumentally interesting maps are not included. The author seems to know a bit about the Moscow Metro and gushes about it enthusiastically. While the Moscow metro has heavy use, it badly fails its users - its monumental station entrances, while architecturally interesting-ish, wastes commuters time.. so much so that I think the author could have done better than to gush as he did. However, beyond that, I'm in shock and awe that the author could apparently know so much about the Moscow metro and yet he couldn't be bother to include a diagram of the (admittedly speculative) "Metro 2" in there. "Metro 2" (look it up in wikipedia if unfamiliar) is a fascinating story, and its diagram would have fit perfectly in the book, regardless of whether it exists.

Pyongyang's metro deserved far better treatment than it got in the book. I know the author had to pick snd choose, but this one and its maps and associated stories are far more interesting than some of the more routine ones that got more coverage. That said, given that the author doesnt seem to have any particular knowledge of Asian metros, maybe this is not a bad thing (though look me up for version 2 and maybe we can improve the asian metro coverage!)

Finally, the author pays too much homage to the idea of "pure" metro systems because of his pro-London Underground biases. Of course, my views are contrastingly biased with the fact that I think the Underground is horrible. A "pure" metro by the standard of the book and apparently certain transport enthusiasts, is one that is self-contained (by which i mean no particular links to other systems), is (ideally) entirely underground, and doesn't use interoperable rolling stock and equipment. In other words, the "pure" metro is the london underground system with its claustrophobic cars and decrepid stations. It takes a good ten to fifteen minutes to get from a east coast mainline train at king's cross station to an ammoniac-steched underground train at the same station. What, ideal, exactly, are we celebrating here?

By comparison, it takes no time to get from, say, the Odakyu, Keio, and many other rail operators in Tokyo to that city's metro because of smartly designed inter-running. This is what should be celebrated - not some arbitrary aesthetic of a "pure" metro that just happens to be well exemplified by the author's favourite london system.

Ok. Enough carping. It's an excellent book. And actually, this is a true story--I was reading it while flying first class on an airliner for a four or five hour flight accross america. The title of the book is prominent and I, being a true connissur, would spend several minutes looking at most of the maps. The flight attendant was convinced that I was reading it because I had nothing else to read. Repeatedly he brought / suggested to me several magazines that he had on offer. Finally, I had to explain to him that I actually liked the book and I wasn't reading it at a glacial pace just because I was bored. He didn't get it.

I suspect you will, however, if you've made it this far in my review. Highly recommended.

"Transit maps of the world" by Mark Ovenden.

This unique atlas contains at least one map of every urban "mass transit" system in the world. That includes heavy rail (subways/metros), light rail, elevated rail, monorail, and even some streetcars, trams and trolleys. Suburban/commuter rail is included only for a few large cities that have no subways.

Most of the maps come from official sources. For the more important networks there are both modern and historical maps. For each city there is a broad description of the network and the metropolitan area served. But the emphasis is as much on the widely varying designs of the maps as on the transit systems that they represent. Most are diagrammatic, using straight lines rather than geographically scaled curves.