Over the last couple of weeks we have spent extensive time whinging about quite how bad the new version of London’s tube map is. (Yes, we’re obsessed, but let’s not pretend, dear reader, that you are otherwise.) It’s cramped, it’s unclear, and it just isn’t very pretty.
Well. Over the weekend it came to our attention that someone else out there felt similarly. But they, unlike us, had decided to actually do something about it.
This anonymous hero, a Hong Kong resident who goes by the name of “SameBoat”, has been posting their own re-jigged tube map to Wikipedia since last August. Unlike Transport for London’s version, this one basically abandons the 80-year old template we’re all so familiar with and starts again. It retains the map’s straight lines and 45 angles where appropriate; but isn’t afraid to abandon them where necessary.
You can see the full version, at the correct scale, here. But to give you a flavour, here’s central London on the official map:
And here’s SameBoat’s new version:
Here are some other things we like about the map:
It actually bothers to show different Overground lines in different colours
One of our biggest complaints about the new Tube map is that it shows TfL’s increasingly cumbersome Overground empire in a single shade of orange, thus making it hard to tell which line you’re looking at at any one time.
SameBoat’s version corrects that, showing new fewer than seven different Overground routes:
We’re not convinced by the names. (The old East London line is now the South Chord? Really?) But at least this version has names – and more importantly, colours, to make it clearer where there are direct trains on offer.
It shows out of station interchanges
There are a pairs of stations that are close enough to each other to make useful interchanges, and where the ticketing system will allow you to change trains – yet which the official map has kept secret. This new map makes those changes visible:
Some of these are more useful than others. It’s not hard to think of journeys that could make use of the short hop from Camden Town to Camden Road, for example; whereas the long walk from Ickenham to West Ruislip is far less likely to come in handy. Ideally the map would communicate the length of the walk required, too.
But, you can’t have everything, and since those are official interchanges, it seems better to show them than not.
It shows the correct geographical relationship between the two Bethnal Green stations
No more pretending that Bethnal Green Overground is north of Bethnal Green Underground, which was always lunacy.
Now, if we could just get TfL to rename one of them.
It shows all the new lines and extensions currently in progress
That includes the new Watford branch on the Metropolitan…
…the new Battersea branch on the Northern…
…the Overground extension to Barking Riverside…
…and of course, Crossrail.
That means that, unlike TfL’s designers, the people behind this map are unlikely to be wrong-footed by the arrival of a new line that’s only been planned for the past 30 years.
It doesn’t show that sodding cable car
Nuff said.
There are inevitably aspects of this map we’re less keen on too. It’s simplified the design in part by abandoning attempts to show wheelchair accessibility, which – were it to happen on the real map – would be seen as a backward step. And in places this new map sends outer branches through weird 90 degree turns – so the Central line heads east from Loughton to Epping, that sort of thing. It’s a clever way of keeping the map compact, but still looks weird to our eyes.
The fact that the Chingford line trains don’t serve London Fields or Cambridge Heath is shown, but doesn’t make much sense if you’re not already aware of this fact. Similarly, while it’s great to see Tramlink on a tube map at last, it’s a bit of a shame it doesn’t have any stations on. But that said, there are numerous versions of this map available on Wikipedia, suggesting that it’s a work in progress. Perhaps these things will be fixed in a future version.
On the whole, sacrilege though it may be to say it, we much prefer this version of the Tube map to the proper one. SameBoat, if you’re reading this: we salute you.
PS We’ve just noticed that, on the proper version of this map, you can click on a line in the key and it’ll flash cheerfully at you from the map. So that’s pretty cool, too.
PPS This is a representation of the interchanges that’ll be available at Canary Wharf once the new Crossrail station opens. We think it’s accurate. It’s also bloody horrible.
Can someone please do some renaming or something to sort this mess out? Okay thanks bye.
All images courtesy of SameBoat, under Wikimedia Commons.
