please empty your brain below
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I think we're at the stage where TfL needs to throw Beck out the window, start again and design the map from scratch. Not that Beck would even recognise the aberration that we have today.
Someone on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:24 p.m. | #
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That looks horrendous
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:25 p.m. | #
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It really is trying to cram in far too much information now - Have we reached "Peak Beck"?
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:26 p.m. | #
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It’s all very silly now.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:27 p.m. | #
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Anyone now longing for the days where the Tube map just (mainly) covered the Tube only?
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:28 p.m. | #
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They’re overthinking it just a bit these days,
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:29 p.m. | #
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I think they're beginning to stretch Harry Beck's genius map to the limits now...
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:30 p.m. | #
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It’s supposed to be a tube map, overground and Liz line are not underground services, they just happen to go underground at some points.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:31 p.m. | #
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I think it is time TFL had a rethink regarding how they show step-free access at each station/line.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:32 p.m. | #
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Harry Beck must be turning in his grave by now! Just keep it simple.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:33 p.m. | #
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Scrap it and start again. Nobody needs the Croydon Tramlink on the tube map, and I say that as someone who used it every day for a year.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:34 p.m. | #
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Long past time the tube map was completely revised. This is a nonsense.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:35 p.m. | #
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Might as well put bike lanes on too. And every Pret location. Maybe mark out the underground utilities.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:36 p.m. | #
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I am becoming increasingly convinced that our beloved tube map, without more substantial changes to its design, is becoming unfit for purpose. I also suspect that there are folk inside TfL (as well as well-documented folk outside) who have their crayons out trying to resolve it.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:37 p.m. | #
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What a mess.
Someone else on Twitter | 07.11.22 - 11:38 p.m. | #
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Sure, the map is getting progressively uglier and harder to decipher, but as a resident of a capital city with one (1) metro-type railway líne, having so many underground lines you can't fit them neatly onto a map looks to me like an enviable problem!
BWB | 08.11.22 - 7:24 a.m. | #
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Sympathetic as I am to graphic design fastidiousness this seems to be a thread of ‘first city’ transport problems. Places in the north can only dream of worrying about how to fit all the services neatly into one map.
Someone else on Twitter | 08.11.22 - 7:28 a.m. | #
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What a state that is.
Time to start over, Beck's map was consumed a long time ago.
Plenty of talented designers in the world whom I'd sure would love to give it a go.
Kevin | 08.11.22 - 8:20 a.m. | #
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Just start again, TfL unable to respect Becks legacy to London. TfL lines only map ridiculous, only an all rail map has any future.
Someone else on Twitter | 08.11.22 - 8:24 a.m. | #
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Is it time to retire Harry Beck and start again? I know there would be an outcry about dumping a design classic but this mess is not what he would have drawn if he was still with us.
Also, although the printed map is still important, can a case be made for switching to a digital version whereby the viewer can select what items to show(tube, National rail etc), large modern interactive displays are all over the place now and if placed on each platform and entrance could easily replace the large posters and they would not need reprinting every six months. The same could be done on the trains themselves.
Mobile phone users would then have a map suitable for the size of their screen with unwanted details taken out.
John G | 08.11.22 - 8:48 a.m. | #
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An App-based solution** may be better here, giving info targeted to individual journeys, rather than cramming it all onto one map?
**Yes, I know not everybody has smartphones etc etc.
Someone else on Twitter | 08.11.22 - 8:53 a.m. | #
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Do other countries still issue pocket maps? I suspect lots of them just offer an A4 size at the minimum. Want it smaller? Fold it up yourself.
Kirk | 08.11.22 - 8:55 a.m. | #
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Places in SW London are also envious
Timbo | 08.11.22 - 9:20 a.m. | #
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The pocket tube map, some years ago now, was a slighter larger in size. A return to that size would go some way to allow for better clarification.
Barry Coppock | 08.11.22 - 9:24 a.m. | #
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Maybe we need a separate central London Tube Map, so that this key area for visitors is large enough to be clear.
Mikey C | 08.11.22 - 9:40 a.m. | #
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I think the time has come for it revert to its original purpose - a tube map. This could have symbols at interchange stations for Crossrail, TfL rail, etc.
Produce a separate diagrammatic map for Crossrail, Tfl rail, etc.
Any train running through London could display both maps. Ditto all stations.
The new map is a mess and therefore defeats its raison d'être.
Frank Funster | 08.11.22 - 9:49 a.m. | #
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They are still wasting space putting a legend down the right hand side rather than underneath, when the map needs as much horizontal space as possible.
I know geographic accuracy is not an aim, but the distortion is in some places ridiculous and the map could be simplified by straightening out some bits where they should be and putting the bends where they should be. There are some places where this easy without breaking the traditional rules.
There is no attempt to represent where best to change lines, eg Mile End looks difficult and Charing Cross looks easy.
Kev | 08.11.22 - 9:57 a.m. | #
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TFL seem so obsessed with insisting that the Elizabeth line is 'not a tube' that it's leading to poor choices.
Cross rail should now be the predominant east to west line and for god sake make it a full block purple to stand out
Daniel | 08.11.22 - 10:01 a.m. | #
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Whatever design changes are made, the pocket map needs to be larger. The print is already too small for a large proportion of the population to read.
Keith | 08.11.22 - 10:05 a.m. | #
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Why does the Victoria line at Euston connect to the Charing Cross branch on the Northern line, when the cross platform interchange is with the Bank branch? I think it used to be correct before the King's Cross blobs changed.
A vertical blob between the Victoria and the Northern lines would be more accurate, although equally as clumpy.
Euston user | 08.11.22 - 10:45 a.m. | #
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Having only white blobs would help, but it needs a total redesign at this stage. Main thing is trying to cram so much conflicting information. The Mark Noad 2020 map is a much better map.
Chr0me | 08.11.22 - 11:10 a.m. | #
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TfL should print a map for zones 1&2, and then a separate map for the outer zones to make for clearer maps.
Adrian | 08.11.22 - 11:29 a.m. | #
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Now the designers have put Nunhead in its correct geographic position, could they do the same with Bethnal Green Overground, which is still shown as being north of the Underground station.
winklepicker | 08.11.22 - 11:46 a.m. | #
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The whole point, winklepicker… The. Whole. Point… is that the map doesn’t have to be geographically correct.
(sigh) | 08.11.22 - 12:01 p.m. | #
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I don't know if this is just due to reproduction of the map extracts, and I can't check as I (sadly) don't have any recent paper versions of the tube map, but it seems to me that the colour saturation of the individual lines has also changed (softened).
It is now much harder to differentiate individual lines at a quick glance, and I don't think this has helped clarity.
Blue Witch | 08.11.22 - 12:24 p.m. | #
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The link from WB Barbican to Farringdon Elizabeth line is omitted altogether
100andthirty | 08.11.22 - 12:27 p.m. | #
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They have also embraced the common TfL thing of just making stuff up. Renaming stations King’s Cross and St. Pancras International and Heathrow T2&3 when they are not the station names…
Sinners | 08.11.22 - 1:09 p.m. | #
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I have a lovely framed 1973 quad royal Garbutt map on the wall at home. It's a thing of beauty. I appreciate that the rail landscape had changed in the last 49 years, but it's hard to imaging anyone ever wanting to display the current map in the same way.
Stuart R | 08.11.22 - 1:12 p.m. | #
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I see Kings Cross St Pancras has a new name. It's now called Kings Cross & St Pancras International.
Good luck fitting that on a roundel!
Thomas Day | 08.11.22 - 1:44 p.m. | #
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Really needs a complete overhaul - the symbol for a metro station on a network shouldn’t be 2 different coloured wheelchairs embedded in a sprawling blob.
Someone else on Twitter | 08.11.22 - 2:53 p.m. | #
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Stuart R. I would.
Jon Jones | 08.11.22 - 3:35 p.m. | #
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Show the map be truncated to show the central core? Maybe. But you'd want to include Heathrow so tourists know how to get around. But if you include Heathrow, where do you draw the line? Exclude the extremities of the Met & Central lines? Only to hear cries of "But we've always been here, you can't cut us off!". So what about the Croydon tram? Then you get complaints from those south of the river that, once again, London public transport is biased against them.
Maybe we simplify the blobs and remove the information about individual step-free platforms. But then you're discriminating against those who are mobility impared - and aren't we, as a society, trying to be more inclusive nowadays?
If the answers were easy, I'm sure we'd have a "better" map by now. But the answers aren't easy. They're flipping hard and I pity the poor TFL map designers who, every six months, put out a new map only to get it slated by the arm-chair designers who keep on telling them how wrong they are.
Jon Jones | 08.11.22 - 3:45 p.m. | #
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It would be interesting to know how many people use the map as their primary journey-planning tool. Pretty well everyone I know never looks at a tube map when deciding how to get from A to B in London. I wonder how the split is with visitors.
Map admirer | 08.11.22 - 3:49 p.m. | #
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To be honest, I'm not sure it needs completely redoing. Simply splitting up. For example, a paper copy could have a purely Tube map on one side and a non-Tube services map on the other - potentially making use of the little indicators they have in carriage maps to show what other lines/services you can change to, if possible. Oh and also get rid of that horrible Zone 2/3 mess.
Euan | 09.11.22 - 12:19 a.m. | #
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If I didn't know and love the tube as well as I do I'd be genuinely scared by this map. God knows what first time visitors to the capital make of it.
Someone else on Twitter | 09.11.22 - 7:20 a.m. | #
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In my view none have bettered Jug Cerovic's attempt to untangle the map. It's not perfect but better than the current map.
E | 09.11.22 - 11:39 a.m. | #
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Crossrail makes the problem of interconnected stations more obvious. IMHO it would be better if such connections (along with Bank to Monument) are depicted as solid black connectors (like the walking links but solid). However Northern Line being solid black means this option (which on other cities' maps would make perfect sense) is not very viable.
Patrickov | 09.11.22 - 5:04 p.m. | #
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The idea of removing the step free access symbols and having a separate map for showing accessibility comes up now and then. But many of the people who benefit from the symbols aren’t always going to plan ahead and find a separate map: they may be visitors, or only occasional tube users, or are unable or unwilling to use an app or find someone to ask.
So whilst it undoubtably makes the map more complicated and less elegant, the symbols should stay. They don’t necessarily give everyone all the information they need (there’s a separate map online which has even more detail on platform gaps) but they’re a lot better than nothing.
(As an aside, I’d like to see a version of the map which shows stations which have no steps but may have escalators. When I’m pushing a child in a buggy, escalators are fine by steps are hard work! Not suggesting this should be added to the main map though.)
Frankie Roberto | 09.11.22 - 10:52 p.m. | #
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