NYC’s new digital subway map

I&#x27;d be curious to hear what someone who is just visiting NYC would think of something like this. From my experience, once tourists enter a subway station, all bets are off in terms of orienting yourself. I feel like the little LED indicators in most stations at least in Manhattan with the line and time-to-arrival is really all you need.<p>Or, instead of investing in a virtual map, invest in better speakers in the actual trains themselves so that people can actually hear &quot;now arriving at 14th St Union Square next stop Astor&quot; instead of &quot;now arcshcshcshcsh Uniocshcsh next cshop cshcshcsh&quot;

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;map.mta.info&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;map.mta.info&#x2F;</a> if you want to actually see the new map.

Pretty, but performance is abysmal.<p>Also looks like it changes the browser history on every interaction, ie any drag and drop, which seems, to me, to indicate some behind the scenes UUID tracking.

I am surprised to see POST requests to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;example.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;example.com&#x2F;</a> in uMatrix and the Network Inspector.<p>Can anyone share why this is happening?

Some other live subway maps:<p>New York City: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;map.mta.info&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;map.mta.info&#x2F;</a><p>Washington DC: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gis.wmata.com&#x2F;metrotrain&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;gis.wmata.com&#x2F;metrotrain&#x2F;index.html</a><p>Chicago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.transitchicago.com&#x2F;traintrackermap&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.transitchicago.com&#x2F;traintrackermap&#x2F;</a><p>Boston: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mbta.com&#x2F;schedules&#x2F;Blue&#x2F;line" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mbta.com&#x2F;schedules&#x2F;Blue&#x2F;line</a><p>I&#x27;d like to see more, but that&#x27;s about all I could find from cities themselves.

Article on why it sucks: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vanshnookenraggen.com&#x2F;_index&#x2F;2020&#x2F;10&#x2F;worst-map-ever&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.vanshnookenraggen.com&#x2F;_index&#x2F;2020&#x2F;10&#x2F;worst-map-e...</a><p>&gt; What is the purpose of having a geographic map base when the subway diagram isn’t going to adhere to it? It’s obvious the coders started with station GIS data and tried to have a computer draw the connecting lines. Google used to do this and things just looked wrong with lines traveling to places they never actually went. Eventually they aligned their lines to their proper course.

I was looking at the sourcemap and it appears that they wrote their own tiling library (see Tiles.ts and related files under js&#x2F;). Is this right? Why not just Leaflet since they&#x27;re rendering PNG tiles? Or Mapbox?<p>The whole thing feels a bit over-engineered to me at first glance.

Map performance is nightmarishly bad on my 2017 15&quot; MBP. Dragging the map ranges from completely unusable in Safari 14 to janky as shit in Firefox 82 to mediocre but at least functional in Chrome 86.<p>The log is filled with CORS violations and requests to example.com.<p>This is not good.

Another good article is <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fastcompany.com&#x2F;90566212&#x2F;nycs-new-subway-tool-settles-the-biggest-debate-in-maps" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.fastcompany.com&#x2F;90566212&#x2F;nycs-new-subway-tool-se...</a><p>(via <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24847963" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24847963</a>)

Slow beyond belief, sparse, and difficult for me to navigate changes. :-( A lot of work still needs to be done on this.

Maybe I&#x27;m just biased by what I&#x27;m used to, (London) but the true-to-geography topography seems to me to make this way harder to read.<p>Compare: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;content.tfl.gov.uk&#x2F;large-print-tube-map.pdf" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;content.tfl.gov.uk&#x2F;large-print-tube-map.pdf</a>

This map doesn&#x27;t bring anything new except for knowing <i>when</i> the next train will arrive. It does a poor job at that... the user has to <i>guess</i> when the train will arrive.<p>This is <i>completely</i> missing the point. No one cares where the train is. They care when it will arrive. Whether it is in a bend, it is waiting or whatever is totally irrelevant.<p>You need 2 things:<p>1) A map, whether digital or printed.<p>2) ETA time.<p>Why are they spending all this time and energy for something that is useless and unnecessary?

I don&#x27;t know if its just me but this loads abysmally slow in Firefox 81 on Linux Mint. I do not have chrome installed so I cant test on that browser.

There is a mini-documentary title, The Map, linked to in the article that is about this whole project, enjoy &gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;470020599&#x2F;74757d3b17" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vimeo.com&#x2F;470020599&#x2F;74757d3b17</a>.<p>&gt; &quot;The Map&quot; (Work &amp; Co x Gary Hustwit, 2020) is a short documentary about a revolutionary redesign of New York City&#x27;s iconic subway map. Filmmaker Gary Hustwit documents the process as digital agency Work &amp; Co creates a new &quot;live map&quot; — one that updates in real-time — to help New Yorkers and tourists better plan their journeys. The film examines the evolution of wayfinding and user interfaces, and shows how good design and the latest digital technology can simplify one of the world&#x27;s most complex transit systems. Featuring Felipe Memoria, Rachel Haot, Sarah Meyer, Joshua Gee, Marcela Abbade, Karina Sirqueira, Robert Penner, and Mohan Ramaswamy

Trains are hard to notice because they blend with the color of the line too much. But the idea of the dynamic map is neat.

The MTA have been behind other rapid transit networks when it comes to making their data available. You can get arrival prediction information on all stops&#x2F;lines now through their API, but that wasn&#x27;t the case until recently. They are still behind the Boston MBTA, where you can get vehicle locations in addition to arrival predictions, and TFL (London Underground) where they have a very well thought out API.<p>We use all these APIs to power our Traintrackr boards[0], processing the predicted arrival data (or departure data if they only provide that) to show trains moving through the network.<p>However, these three APIs are all better than the BART API, which seems to change occasionally.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.traintrackr.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.traintrackr.io</a>

I remember the huge article a few years ago on why train counters&#x2F;timers were not possible in the NYC subway because of the lack of ATC&#x2F;PTC, and the entire system was still pretty much mechanical relay switched and zoned occupancy. [1]<p>Has something changed? Do trains now have transponders or something?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;why-dont-we-know-where-all-the-trains-are&#x2F;415152&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;technology&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2015&#x2F;11&#x2F;why-d...</a>

To me, this map is less readable then the old one (you can&#x27;t see all the stations), it&#x27;s like it was made to look nice, but not usable.

&gt; Today, the MTA is unveiling its new digital map, the first one that uses the agency’s own data streams to update in real time<p>So they have a new data stream and _are not_ using the already provided GTFS stream from the MTA?*<p>*<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;transitfeeds.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;mta" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;transitfeeds.com&#x2F;p&#x2F;mta</a>

Would love to see the public APIs backing this site so that someone could reimplement the map more performantly

As a native Staten Islander, I love that this map is actually drawn to scale. While I understand the arguments for the previous iterations focusing on train density, it is nice to see, for the first time in my life, that you can actually see that SI is over 3x the size of Manhattan by land area.

Pans,resizes slower than s___.

please no.<p>1. very slow, even on FiOS<p>2. super ugly - example: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;photos.app.goo.gl&#x2F;C8h8d39AeNrmEuMx5" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;photos.app.goo.gl&#x2F;C8h8d39AeNrmEuMx5</a>

Page load literally crashes safari on iPad Pro running iOS 13.5. I don’t even get to see it so I can complain how slow and janky it is.

I like it but the trains are too small. It&#x27;s be b better if they where an arrow showing direction and wwre buffet than the line.

It&#x27;s crazy that this was done pro-bono. Perhaps this is why there are a lot of performance issues?

Is this a postlight creation? Heard them talking about something with the MTA on their podcast.

This page took like 30 seconds to open ... and I have a fast computer and fast internet.

Is there an app version of this? Couldn&#x27;t find one.

Don&#x27;t see why this is any better than the existing solutions...