It's out. It's been released. It's the September 2009 TfL tube map. And omigod, have you seen what they've done to it?
Probably not, not yet. There are quite a few poster versions up at stations already, although by no means everywhere. The paper maps are harder to find, although Canary Wharf was well stocked over the weekend. And the new map's not yet linked from the TfL website, sorry. In the meantime you can make do with Darren's blurry cameraphone snap of the new poster map here, and blech's photo of the new card map here [small/big]. The old map from March can be seen for comparison here [small/big]
There's one word to describe the new tube map, and it's a word I never thought I'd be able to use again. It's "decluttered".
No, really. Lots of the surplus extraneous information that's blighted the tube map in recent years has been swept away, erased, vanished, just like that. And what remains is far closer to Harry Beck'soriginal design than has been seen for some time. It's as if TfL finally listened to the groundswell of opinion saying "blimey that's an unhelpful mess" and "too much information is worse than too little", and took a great big axe to several seemingly unbreakable conventions. The result is a huge step forward (although still with a few steps back, because progress is like that).
Here's a long list of some of the major (and minor) changes I've spotted so far. Apologies, it's a bit long, but then this is the most radical redesign of the tube map in decades.
» Omigod, no river! It's been on the tube map since 1932, marking the divide bewteen tube-hungry North London and the tube-desert to the south. For many it's a useful anchor to the real world, but now it's completely drained away. That's going to shock people. When even the Thames is thought to be clutter, you know that this graphic cull is going to be brutal. There remains a slight hint to the river's location because the symbol for "Riverboat service" has been retained at certain stations, but nobody's really going to be taking much notice of that. I can hear the Evening Standard sharpening its knives in abject horror.
» No fare zones: Possibly the hugest change, visually at least, is that all the fare zones have gone. All nine of them, completely removed, and the end result is a map with a clean, sharp, white background - not seen since, ooh, 2002. What a difference! But there is a downside. Some of us like to know where the zones start and finish because it makes a difference to how much our journeys cost. I have a Zone 1-3 travelcard, so I like to know where the Zone 3/4 boundary is so I don't cross it without realising. That's no longer possible. Just to add to my problems, the zones used to be listed in the index on the back of the paper map, and now they're not. The map's gone from an excess of zonal information to absolutely none at all, and this may not be a brilliant move.
» Realigned lines: Once the zones and river had gone, TfL's contracted designers were free to twiddle with the orientation and arrangement of the various tube lines. No longer did they have to ensure that all of Zone 3 hung together, for example, so various un-knottings and straightening-outs were suddenly possible. The Central line now heads due north to Epping without bending to the right after Buckhurst Hill. The Beckton, Woolwich and Lewisham arms of the DLR are straight lines, not dog-legs. There's also more equal spacing of stations, for example on the northern end of the Piccadilly and the eastern end of the District. Because, as Mr Beck realised, what's important is which station's coming next, not what direction it's in. These are the changes on the poster map at stations, whereas the lines on the card map haven't been tweaked like this and so most of the old bends remain. The Hainault Loop definitely looks better on the poster.
» East London Line: Now this is strange. The East London Line closed for major works in 2007, and has since been shown as a series of replacement buses (and future stations). No longer. The buses have disappeared, and all the future stations (such as Hoxton) have vanished even though they'll be open in under a year's time. The map is suddenly about now, and right now the East London Line isn't there. Instead there's a dotted orange strip showing the old route and old stations (with Shoreditch replaced by Shoreditch High Street). It's retro, and it's pointless, but it's a lot better than the bus overload that was there before. In nine months time the complete extended line will have to go back in, but for now revel in the simplicity.
» Simplified interchanges: Over the past few tube maps, certain interchanges have been getting complicateder and complicateder. Ridiculous multi-blob aberrations disfigured by unnecessary text, for example at West Hampstead, Bow and Shepherd's Bush. Now each of these has been simplified, in some cases dramatically, as the emphasis switches from "how do I change here?" to "can I?". The biggest improvement is at Canary Wharf, where the nightmare depicted on the old map has been replaced by a single interchange blob with two lines crossing north/south and east/west. Hurrah. Passengers interchanging at Canary Wharf may, however, be surprised (and annoyed) to discover that there's a five minute walk between the Jubilee and DLR stations. Just because interchange is possible, doesn't mean it's easy.
» Additional interchanges: The unwary tube traveller is also in for a surprise around Paddington. All three Paddington stations are now shown as interchangeable, whereas previously the far-flung H&C station was kept isolated and distinct. Ditto at Edgware Road, where two completely separate stations are now shown as one, which'll surely catch a lot of future travellers out. I suspect that these Paddington and Edgware Road changes are in readiness for the new extended Circle line, arriving before Christmas, for which yet another new tube map will be needed. And if one day somebody could make the uglified interchange at Waterloo look nice, then we'll all be happy.
» Removal of superfluous text: There used to be a lot of unnecessary extra words on the map, telling travellers things they might (but almost certainly didn't) need to know. "Improvement works may affect your journey..." - gone. "East London line is closed..." - removed. Mention of special fares to Watford Junction - deleted. Even the blue textbox at Heathrow Airport has been taken away, and the word "Heathrow" reinstated in each of the stations' names. Every mention of how far one station is away from another has also gone (hurrah!), so you'll have to work out for yourself that Clapham North is 100m from Clapham High Street, or that Southwark's the closest station to Waterloo East. There's no need to read any more that Sudbury Hill has no weekend service or that Greenford has no trains on Sundays. King's Cross St Pancras now has the word "International" appended at the end of its name, rather than requiring a separate line mentioning St Pancras International. But my very favourite deletion is at North Greenwich, where the phrase "for the O2" has been removed (I'm jumping for joy about this one, which sticks the evil branding bandwagon firmly into reverse gear). On the card map much of this additional information is still referenced by daggers, and then explained in more detail in a panel to the side. On the poster map, however, all of this information (and every single dagger) has completely disappeared. And the poster-map index has disappeared too! If you don't know where Bounds Green or Boston Manor are, bad luck, you'll have to scour the entire diagram until you find them. There's room for an IKEA advert across the bottom of the poster but not a station index. Priorities, eh?
» Removal of unnecessary symbols: Only four types of little blue symbol are now deemed necessary to convey additional information on the network diagram alongside the station names. The National Rail symbol is the most prolific, and then there are a few for connections to riverboat services. Next up is the Tramlink symbol, which on this map applies only to Wimbledon and absolutely nowhere else. And finally airports, which is where another major cull manifests itself. On the old map there was a separate symbol for stations beside an airport, and another (inconsistently used) for stations with "interchange with National Rail services to airport". All of the latter have gone, no doubt because they didn't indicate which airport they linked to and so were worse than useless. On the new map only airports themselves are shown, and there are only two of these - one symbol at Heathrow and another at London City Airport. TfL have really thought about this, you know, and the airport solution is elegantly brief. But one bloody ugly symbol remains, and that's the blue blobby wheelchair denoting step-free access from the platform to the street. No matter how graceful the rest of the map, no matter how lovely Beck's interlocking lines, they're all tarnished by these whopping dark circles that draw the eye screaming "me me look at me". The DLR's especially badly disfigured. After all that effort to straighten out the lines and make them look nice, these accessibility blobs leave the DLR network looking like a a daddy long-legs with virulent blue eczema. It's a shame that nobody could come up with a less intrusive symbol, one that wasn't the same size and shape as a normal interchange station. I know it's important at a handful of stations like Waterloo and Bank to make it clear which platforms have step-free access and which don't. But it's only the relative lack of step-free stations outside Docklands that's keeping the latest tube map from blue-blob hell.
A quick example - Blackfriars: Here's what the tube map used to look like at Blackfriars. No underground trains stopping here, but still plenty of symbols beside the crossed-out name. Change here for National Rail (except you can't). Change here for riverboat services (except you can't). Change here for trains to Gatwick Airport (except you can't). And a dagger linking to a comment elsewhere noting that "Blackfriars Underground station is closed until late 2011", which was pretty much exactly what was already stated on the map. Scary useless clutter. And here's what Blackfriars looks like now. A single word crossed out by a red line, and nothing else. Because right now, in September 2009, all you need to know is that trains don't stop here. Nothing more. Simple.
A few other changes: » Peak hour routes: All distinction regarding limited-time routes has been scrapped. At Chalfont and Latimer, Finchley Central, Woodford and Kennington, where once were confusing dotted lines, now much simpler junctions have emerged. » DLR blue: Is it just my copy, or is the DLR now a lighter shade of turquoise than it used to be? » The Uxbridge arm: It looks fine on the poster, but on the card map there's an unnecessary gap inserted between the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines. Mistake, I think. » New cover design: Yes, there's a new Richard Long picture on the front cover. But if you're still excited by that, you've been looking at the wrong piece of art.
So there you have it - a brand new minimalistic tube map for Londoners to get used to. Some will love it, and some will hate it, and most of the rest of us will quite like most of it. Expect the disappearing Thames to create the most aggravation, even though it's the vanishing clutter which is the true headline story. Any bets on how long it'll be before some of this gets reinstated? In the meantime smile, because simple is good, and simple is back. Who'd have ever thought, eh?
There's one word to describe the new tube map, and it's a word I never thought I'd be able to use again. It's "decluttered".
» Realigned lines: Once the zones and river had gone, TfL's contracted designers were free to twiddle with the orientation and arrangement of the various tube lines. No longer did they have to ensure that all of Zone 3 hung together, for example, so various un-knottings and straightening-outs were suddenly possible. The Central line now heads due north to Epping without bending to the right after Buckhurst Hill. The Beckton, Woolwich and Lewisham arms of the DLR are straight lines, not dog-legs. There's also more equal spacing of stations, for example on the northern end of the Piccadilly and the eastern end of the District. Because, as Mr Beck realised, what's important is which station's coming next, not what direction it's in.
» Additional interchanges: The unwary tube traveller is also in for a surprise around Paddington. All three Paddington stations are now shown as interchangeable, whereas previously the far-flung H&C station was kept isolated and distinct. Ditto at Edgware Road, where two completely separate stations are now shown as one, which'll surely catch a lot of future travellers out. I suspect that these Paddington and Edgware Road changes are in readiness for the new extended Circle line, arriving before Christmas, for which yet another new tube map will be needed.
» Removal of unnecessary symbols: Only four types of little blue symbol are now deemed necessary to convey additional information on the network diagram alongside the station names. The National Rail symbol is the most prolific, and then there are a few for connections to riverboat services. Next up is the Tramlink symbol, which on this map applies only to Wimbledon and absolutely nowhere else. And finally airports, which is where another major cull manifests itself. On the old map there was a separate symbol for stations beside an airport, and another (inconsistently used) for stations with "interchange with National Rail services to airport". All of the latter have gone, no doubt because they didn't indicate which airport they linked to and so were worse than useless. On the new map only airports themselves are shown, and there are only two of these - one symbol at Heathrow and another at London City Airport. TfL have really thought about this, you know, and the airport solution is elegantly brief.
A quick example - Blackfriars: Here's what the tube map used to look like at Blackfriars. No underground trains stopping here, but still plenty of symbols beside the crossed-out name. Change here for National Rail (except you can't). Change here for riverboat services (except you can't). Change here for trains to Gatwick Airport (except you can't). And a dagger linking to a comment elsewhere noting that "Blackfriars Underground station is closed until late 2011", which was pretty much exactly what was already stated on the map. Scary useless clutter.
And here's what Blackfriars looks like now. A single word crossed out by a red line, and nothing else. Because right now, in September 2009, all you need to know is that trains don't stop here. Nothing more. Simple.
