TfL are proposing a small change to bus route 350 in Hayes, diverting it to terminate alongside new flats on Nestles Avenue rather than outside Asda. It's not a particularly controversial consultation, nor indeed terribly interesting unless you live very locally.
However as part of the consultation they've produced this map titled 'Proposed change to route 350 in Hayes' and I rather like it. I think it's a surprisingly clear summary of local bus services.
It's not perfect, obviously.
» Three bus routes are missing - the 195, SL9 and U5. (Maybe it wouldn't look so good if three more routes were shoehorned in)
» The arrows are unnecessary. (You could just put a blob at Uxbridge and a blob at Harrow Weald and it would be fine)
» Somebody can't spell Northolt. (Does nobody check these things?)
But as a summary of bus services in Hayes - something quick to consult to see what goes where - it's surprisingly effective. Need a bus to Greenford? Easy. Heathrow? Simple. Hounslow or Hillingdon? Sorted.
Imagine having something like this posted at Hayes & Harlington station to help passengers work out where to go next, or stuck up in a timetable frame by the shops to boost sustainable travel.
I'm not saying these kinds of maps should replace spider maps, more augment them. But Hayes & Harlington doesn't even have a spider map any more, it was extinguished in the Great Haemorrhage of 2019. The only local map is for a bit further north where the Superloop doesn't actually stop.
Also TfL have fiddled with spider maps in Hayes before, back in 2017 when they introduced ghastly diagrammatic simplifications (here and in Barkingside) which continue to despoil bus shelters to this day. Change is not always for the better.
Alas these days TfL's cartographic team only seem interested in producing maps for consultations, often of changes that won't actually happen, and hardly ever of the wider networks that result.
So I'm not expecting to see this new style of map anywhere in the real world, more the usual exhortation to plan every journey in an app, but it might be nice if these summary diagrams were used more widely as appropriate.
