Engineering Icons Tube Map | Hacker News Reader

Engineering Icons Tube Map

londonblog.tfl.gov.uk

44 pointstimthorn9 comments

The more I find out about TFL the more they seem like an interesting org - something of a holdout with a strong engineering and public service ethic.

They're not always popular in London. Maintaining and improving a complex computer railway that's well over a century old in parts and has never been updated properly on an unrealistically tiny starvation budget isn't the easiest of jobs.

But they do seem to make an effort to be practical and engineering-positive in a way that's quite rare in the UK.

At least they credited Harry Beck this time...

Jay Foreman's channel covered the history of the iconic Tube map: https://youtu.be/cTLCfl01zuE

Yet they didn't credit Simon Patterson who has had an almost identical rift on the original map hanging in the Tate for 30+ years. He even had one of the lines specifically denoted as "Engineers".[1]

[1] - https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/patterson-the-great-bea...

I don't know why, but I was expecting a special version of the tube map that replaced the standard iconography with updated items from various engineering disciplines.

Ex: Hazard icons, speed limit signs, etc.

I think tfl has probs the best iconic tube maps in the world. But when you first look at it it’s quite confusing and if you look the route maps for the buses on the bus stops you get even more confused. I’m sure it could be made simpler in terms of helping people find the destination they need.

The argument people often make is that it was iconic in earlier revisions, but has become more difficult as the network has been extended¹. If you look at the historical versions², there definitely feels to me like there is a tipping point where it became more challenging to scan.

I believe there is a genuine beauty when you're in the network and have the lovely design on shorter sections(Olympia branch on Piccadilly/District springs to mind), or the simplistic single line vertical maps on the entrance to individual lines.

Having helped tourists navigate the hotspots it becomes clear that the people most in need of a map often aren't helped by the current complexity in parts. Renaming stations might be a nice idea too. Imagine hearing the Covent Garden message if you're a foreign tourist, or British but new to the word alight ;)

¹ https://londonist.com/2016/05/the-history-of-the-tube-map

² https://www.tube-history.uk/tube-maps.php

Who is Michelle Hicks? And what does he have to do with engineering?

Celebrate national engineering day ... Yesterday

Turing should be at Maida Vale

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