Is New York’s New Subway Map a ‘Geographical Mess’?
The MTA recently released a real-time digital map of the city’s subway network, to much fanfare. But some transit map devotees are not impressed.
The New York MTA’s new digital map can show trains moving in real time.
Courtesy of Work & Co.
On Oct. 20, the New York City subway got its first major wayfinding update in more than four decades: a digital map that shows trains moving in real time. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority released the map with a 10-minute documentary featuring slick subway shots, bouncy animations and interviews with creators at Work & Co., the design and technology company that built the map pro-bono.
Media responded with fanfare. Curbed’s Christopher Bonanos wrote that the new digital map “resolves the Great Subway Map Debate,” referring to the controversy over the 1972 subway diagram by Massimo Vignelli. Now an icon of graphic design, the map was also a navigational nightmare, and got pulled out of service after just seven years due to its confusing distortion of the city’s geography. The 1979 MTA map designed by Michael Hertz Associates, which is presently displayed in stations, offers passengers a more realistic, if less attractive, depiction of the city’s layout.