TTC Cartography, Signage, and Wayfinding

[Dan416]

I don't mind orange, but I think Eglinton should be blue, and DRL red. Orange could be Finch.

 

[innsertnamehere]

I've been using Orange for ages for Eglinton. It has always been the colour used for the line. In the transit city maps Finch was Brown and Sheppard was Light green, looks like they decided to switch that up a little.

 

[M II A II R II K]

Other colours to choose from would be pink, violet, indigo, brown, cyan, teal, sienna, grey, and even white since the map is on a black background.

 

[Electrify]

I hope that they do both: colored lines and extra thickness for frequent routes.

 

[W. K. Lis]

While the rapid transit lines (heavy rail and light rail) are thick lines, the surface lines would be thin lines. However, I think the TTC should show which surface lines on its maps are streetcars. Leave the bus lines as thin red lines, but draw the streetcar lines some other thin line. My suggestion is that streetcar lines should be green or blue. Also, any surface line that has no frequent headway service of 10 minutes or better, its lines should be paler than the lines with frequent service. Pink for infrequent buses, for example.

 

[W. K. Lis]

TTC Maps and Wayfinding

TTC System Map Redesign

From their website at this link:

TTC has undertaken a map redesign to make it easier for customers to read. This includes identifying different services more readily, showing bus and streetcar routes more clearly, and reducing clutter. Design improvements include enlarged map scale, reorganized and new line types for surface routes and a simplified background.

Updates in the redesigned map

Map Scale

• The scale of the map has been enlarged so that the City of Toronto fills the page. This creates more room on the map for clearer representation of routes, route numbers, and other information.

New Look for Surface Routes

• Routes have been reorganized into 5 line types – frequent service, regular service, limited service, express service, and community bus service. Frequent service, regular service and limited service are shown using different line widths and styles; Express service and community bus service are shown using different colours.
  
  
  • Frequent service, a new category, identifies bus and streetcar routes that operate at 10min or better service, weekdays from 7am to 10pm and weekends 9am to 7pm. These routes are shown with a thick red line.
  • Regular service continues to show bus and streetcar routes that run all day, every day until 1am. These routes are shown with a thin red line.
  • Limited service now includes routes previously identified as rush hour only. These routes continue to be shown with a thin red dashed line.
  • Express services are now separated out and shown with a thin blue line.
  • Community bus service is shown with a thin yellow line.
• Where the frequent portion of a route ends, the line type reflects the type of service that continues. In the inset map below, for example, 66 Prince Edward provides frequent, regular service along Bloor St W, Prince Edward Dr and part of Berry Rd. East of Park Lawn Rd, where the two branches separate, regular service is provided on each branch.
  
  
• All routes are now shown separate from each other.
• Route numbers are now placed alongside the lines representing the routes, and in terminal boxes that are placed at the terminal point of a branch of a route, except where the terminal is at a subway station. Small on-street loops have been replaced with a termination box.
  
• The directional arrow for a route has been simplified. The arrow’s location on a loop has been placed as close as possible to its beginning to improve clarity.
  
  
• Where two or more lines are present the route numbers are read left to right, for routes shown from outside to inside.
  
  

Background Map

• Cluttered road network has been reduced to only display street names relevant to surface routes.

 

[Tulse]

It's nice to see the use of the "TTC Subway" font. That said, the station names seem harder to read without the black-box-with-white-text treatment, and the use of the font only for subway stations seems an odd and inconsistent design choice to me.

 

[ShonTron]

Three problems:

1) I still think rush-hour only branches should still be short dashes/dots to differentiate them from limited service routes, of which many even have evening and Sunday service (such as 94 Wellesley, which only does not run west of Wellesley Station Sunday after 10PM, a huge difference from the 84D or 96G.

2) Express routes - there's a huge difference between the 140-series routes and major Rocket routes like the 196 York U (rush hour only/extra fare vs. integral part of the network). Blue is assocated with the "Blue Night" network which is not shown (but could on such a map). I would suggest purple for express routes, rush hour only routes (like the 141 or the 41E) should be dashed.

3) Other connections - apart from the GO rail lines (again, no distinguishing betwen all-day Lakeshore and other corridors), there's no indication of where to transfer to the other agencies. Don't put their lines on the map, perhaps, but show their logos at major places, like Finch (YRT, GO), York U (GO, BT, YRT), the Airport (MT, BT, GO), Scarborough College (DRT, GO).

 

[M II A II R II K]

See the whole thing here:

http://www.ttc.ca/images/fixedImages/TTC_Rideguide_c.pdf

 

[ehlow]

It seems like a big improvement. Emphasizing frequent routes makes sense (I guess they've read Human Transit).

 

[Electrify]

While not a big fan of the pilot project maps on Wellesley, I do think how they drew the subways looked pretty sharp. Wish they had used the full colour dots for stops.

The thing I suggested though was line differentiation for the express routes. As ShonTron said, there is a world of difference between the Rockets and Downtown Express lines in terms of operation.

Overall though it is a much overdue refresh. Very impressed.

 

[doady]

They need to label ALL streets served by TTC. What streets does the 110 loop around? 39G and 131?The 400 series routes are especially confusing.

905 routes should be drawn as grey or something. No excuse not to show them.

Shouldn't 196 be drawn as a thick line? It has 2 minute frequency... how many routes are more frequent than that?

Are they ever going to make a system map for Saturday and Sunday?

 

[W. K. Lis]

How about orange for the streetcar routes, to show up different but almost the same, as the red bus routes? Or a different shade of red streetcar routes?

 

[Johnny Au]

How about orange for the streetcar routes, to show up different but almost the same, as the red bus routes? Or a different shade of red streetcar routes?

Agreed, although in their defence, streetcars already have the 500-series for route numbers for differentiation.

 

[DavidH]

Agreed, although in their defence, streetcars already have the 500-series for route numbers for differentiation.

The 400-series community bus routes are shown in a different colour despite having the numbers for differentiation, so there is no reason streetcars couldn't do the same.

For regular riders it's not needed, but I think a separate colour would help new riders and visitors.