Tag: subways

New York City Subway Map Gets a Complete Makeover

Published on by Jonathan Crowe
Photo: MTA Chair & CEO Janno Lieber, NYCT President Demetrius Crichlow, and Chief Customer Officer Shanifah Rieara unveil a major redesign to the New York City Subway Map at Times Sq-42 St on Wednesday, Apr 2, 2025.
Marc A. Hermann/MTA. CC licence.

New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has announced the first major redesign of its system map since 1979. The new map adopts a diagrammatic style, in common with most other transit maps around the world, for the first time since Massimo Vignelli’s controversial (and ultimately abandoned) 1972 map. Indeed, the MTA is openly acknowledging the influence of Vignelli’s design, along with the colours from the replacement maps designed by Michael Hertz.

The new map was designed by the MTA’s Creative Services Mapping Department and, like many major subway systems around the world, utilizes a diagrammatic style, employing bold, straight lines making it much easier for the eye to follow and more suitable for digital users. The white background, bold colors, horizontal writing and use of black dots make the map more ADA-friendly and easier for people with low-vision or cognitive disabilities to read.

Designers also focused on text legibility, keeping text on one line wherever possible and making better use of open space to alleviate crowding and using a black subway bullet with a white character to provide maximum contrast for easier reading.

A complete New York City Subway map from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
MTA

This isn’t a complete surprise: the MTA started testing a map similar to this one in a few stations back in 2021.

I’ll be very interested to see how this new map will be received. The design of the New York subway map has been contentious for as long as I’ve been alive. Will it continue to be?

Urban Caffeine on the NYC Subway Map

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

“I remember the first time I saw the New York City subway map. I called an Uber.” On her Urban Caffeine channel, Thea looks at the oft-maligned, controversial and complicated New York subway map. Her take is informed by her experience growing up in pre-GPS, pre-Google Maps Manila, which she frankly found easier to navigate; by contrast, she finds New York’s map too cluttered and information-dense and more in tune with the needs of New Yorkers than visitors and tourists.

Geographical on the NYC Subway Map Debate

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Geographical magazine has a short history of the New York City subway map and its controversies. This has been a fraught and hotly contested topic for most of the last 50 years, and Jules Stewart’s article can’t go into nearly enough depth to capture it all, but it could serve as a decent entry point for those not in the know. Drawing rather heavily on the expertise of Peter Lloyd (previously), Stewart covers the subject from the first subway maps to where the MTA goes from here.

Previously: A Naïve Look at New York’s Subway Map.

Colour and the New York Subway Map

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

Gothamist looks at how colour has been used on maps of New York’s subways: first to to distinguish between subway companies, then to distinguish lines from one another. The post talks to, and draws on the work of, Peter Lloyd, who’s been studying the history of subway mapping in New York and gave a talk last Saturday on the subject of colouring the map’s subway lines. See Peter’s blog post on the subject from this time last year.

More on the New York Subway Map Debate

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

This roundtable discussion about The New York Subway Map Debate, a book about the April 1978 Cooper Union debate over the design of the New York subway map (previously) and related subjects, featuring John Tauranac himself (who participated in the 1978 debate), alerted me to the fact that an audio recording of that debate is available online. (A discussion about a book about a debate: this all feels a bit recursive.) [Kenneth Field]

New York’s MTA Is Testing a New Subway Map

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

MTA Customer Information Pilot Maps
The MTA’s new geographically accurate (left) and diagrammatic (right) subway maps, now being tested at nine stations. (MTA)

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority is experimenting with new network maps that adopt a diagrammatic design that harkens back to Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 design, or (frankly) to designs used by most other transit systems. The new maps appear in nine subway stations side-by-side with geographically accurate maps of the MTA system, and embed QR codes so riders can submit feedback. If the maps are positively received, they could replace the MTA’s current network map—but New York being New York, and New York’s map wars being what they’ve been for the past fifty years or so, it’s anyone’s guess how this will shake out. More at Gizmodo.

The New York Subway Map Debate

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

The New York Subway Map DebateBack in 1978, Massimo Vignelli and John Tauranac debated the future of New York’s subway map. That debate—which in many ways never quite ended—is now the subject of a book coming out later this month. Edited by Gary Hustwit, The New York Subway Map Debate includes a full transcript of the debate and subsequent discussion (thanks to the discovery of a lost audio recording), plus contemporary photos and new interviews. Paperback available for $40 via the link.

Underground Cities

Published on by Jonathan Crowe

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Mark Ovenden has made a career of publishing books about transportation systems and their maps that are both comprehensive and copiously illustrated. These include books about transit maps, railway maps and airline maps, as well as books about specific transit systems like the London Underground and the Paris Metro.

His latest, Underground Cities (Frances Lincoln, 22 Sep), is in some ways a natural progression from his past work: in the introduction he muses on the link between transit geekery and wondering about “what else lies down there beyond the walls” (p. 6). But in other ways this is quite a different book.

Continue reading “Underground Cities” →