A Re-envisioned Denver Transit Map

[denverryan]

Well, embarrassingly, it has been a few years since I got around to updating this map. Thankfully, RTD moves at a similarly glacial pace. I worked on my map quite a bit today, and while it needs a lot of refinement still, I'm happy with the direction that it's headed.

Any feedback would be really appreciated! I bet there are 30-50 little mistakes in here, and because it's 11:38pm and I've had a bottle of wine, I'm not seeing them. Help!

[jubguy3]

Originally Posted by denverryan

Well, embarrassingly, it has been a few years since I got around to updating this map. Thankfully, RTD moves at a similarly glacial pace. I worked on my map quite a bit today, and while it needs a lot of refinement still, I'm happy with the direction that it's headed.

Any feedback would be really appreciated! I bet there are 30-50 little mistakes in here, and because it's 11:38pm and I've had a bottle of wine, I'm not seeing them. Help!

I'm a ute so I won't be able to nitpick the map, but WOW THAT IS A DAMN SEXY MAP!

SLC is plagued with the countries ugliest map. I'll show a pic of how bad our graphic design team is in an edit. This map is beautiful, and easy to understand. It feels clean and modern like your system, too.



Ok, so this is what we had during the Pioneer Day parade. It's like a 50 year old woman designed the thing in word. It screams unprofessional and disappointing. I keep asking them when everything gets a graphic overhaul and as the twitter responses are becoming increasingly vague and off topic (people will ask questions and get unrelated answers) from them, we will never know (soon they say, and then it's a fucking nightmare when they "do" update the maps). There are so many things with both RTD and UTA that are too small to go noticed, like the lack of canopies at major UTA stations like courthouse (sardines when it's snowing, and the twitter reps won't answer my fucking question), the awful graphic design of websites, way finders (I've found 10 different styles of fonts at use at stations, including both comic sans and helvetica. Uta also names stations things like "1940 W North temple" and "4778 West Old Bingham Highway"... Not governement, or 48th/Old Bingham, like they should be), general media (everything is shockingly inconsistent for UTA), and vehicles. We also have yet to get a much needed U-Airport line and UTA is infamous for running trains specially after service hours for RLS but before the RSL game is over... And the one train that does arrive is a fucking nightmare to use. It's the little things they ignore that drive me crazy, I almost want to go in to the planning office and punch some of the people who decide BRT is not suitable for our wide roads but heavy west valley service (where UTA is based) is absolutely necessary.

I live 5 miles from my job. My only option is UTA. it takes me an hour to take a bus to the stadium, a train to courthouse, and from there to triad.

[Cirrus]

It's a great map. So creative.

I think I'm sold on the idea of going full diagram and distorting the geography so much. It solves a lot of problems. But I still worry that people who don't have the FasTracks system permanently ingrained into their memories (ie normal people) will have trouble orienting themselves without any geographic clues. I wonder if the map would work better with some added geography. Like, maybe remove the fare zones and replace them with county borders, to help orient people.

Anyway, awesome job. But you asked for feedback

[BG918]

Great map, and a huge improvement over what RTD has currently. Can you send this to them for consideration?

A couple questions:
1. Where is the extension up Downing to 38th & Blake? Or is it not on there because it's not fully funded or could be a streetcar?
2. Is the MetroRide not eventually going to be extended south to 12th & Lincoln/Broadway?
It's correct for what is currently in service though.
3. Any way to add the time to Union Station from more end of line stations than just the airport?
4. Is the East Line really going to be A Line?

[denverryan]

Originally Posted by BG918

Great map, and a huge improvement over what RTD has currently. Can you send this to them for consideration?

A couple questions:
1. Where is the extension up Downing to 38th & Blake? Or is it not on there because it's not fully funded or could be a streetcar?
2. Is the MetroRide not eventually going to be extended south to 12th & Lincoln/Broadway?
It's correct for what is currently in service though.
3. Any way to add the time to Union Station from more end of line stations than just the airport?
4. Is the East Line really going to be A Line?

Thanks for the feedback! I'll attempt answers to your questions:

1. As I was making this yesterday, I listened to audio of the public meeting about extending the D line, and it felt pretty clear they have no clue what to do—or at least no firm plans— to extend the line to 38th and Blake. I had that connection in there in the 1.0 version, but I took it out for this one to make it a little bit more realistic as to what I picture we would actually have by 2018.

2. I think there are still plans to extend the MetroRide, but I left it off for now. It's also in the 1.0 version.

3. I put the time to the airport only for the Airport line just because I think it will help people plan a little bit better as they try to use transit to make a connection as a part of a larger trip. It felt like one of the rare situations where a lot of people would be going from one end of the line to the other. Plus, I travel for work a few times a month and I thought this would be helpful for out-of-towners especially. I'll see if I can add it to the other lines without it getting too cluttered. Thanks for the suggestion!

4. As far as I know, the reason the current naming convention for light rail lines starts with "C" is because they wanted the A line to stand for "Airport" and the B line to stand for "Boulder." Who knows if the B line will ever actually make it to Boulder. Unfortunately, RTD is ridiculously bad at naming lines with any consistency. The A, B, and W lines will all carry some kind of meaning (Airport, Boulder, West), but the other ones will not mean anything. It's needlessly confusing: W stands for West but E does not stand for East.

[denverryan]

I updated my map! The key changes:

— Revised to match the new (proposed) RTD fare structure
— Removed zones and added county lines instead
— Modified a lot of information to match the new Flatiron Flyer service
— Added the L-Line, which is now no longer a D-line extension
— Changed colors around so that Flatiron Flyer could be dark blue
— Other minor cleanup, typo fixing, etc.

If you notice any other screw-ups or have any other suggestions, let me know. I lost the original files for the map in a computer theft and had to remake it from a really old version, so I may have introduced new errors. I'm planning to write an article and publicize this a bit within a few weeks, so I'd be grateful for your criticism. Thanks everyone!

[denverryan]

As a side note, I'm thinking about removing the county lines in favor of time-based zones. (e.g. a zone for 10 mins from downtown, 20 mins from downtown, etc.). Does anyone have any thoughts about that? I feel like it would be more helpful than the county lines.

[EngiNerd]

Terrific map...just makes way too much sense for RTD to ever use. I like the idea of time "zone" based contours, especially since it is scale the way it is geographically.

[PLANSIT]

Excellent, excellent stuff. Really dig it.

A few edits/thoughts:

1. Civic Center Station is a bit off. I think if you were to move it a little more SW, you could then include a nice transfer "oval" between it and the Free MetroRide. Anything to emphasize its importance as it will be and is, the second busiest station in the system (bus-wise, I think - may be Boulder Junction in future...).
   
2. The fare structure section is a great touch, but it's ever evolving and the latest iteration is recommends a consolidation of of Express and Regional into a REX service. Rail also changes from 4 zones to two. So, basically there will be 3 zones for bus (local, REX, and Airport) and 3 zones for rail (local, REX-ish, and Airport). Airport Rail/Bus is recommended to cost $9.00. Also, some recommended changes in monthly/yearly rates.

Check out the latest from the RTD Board worksession (thanks Zmapper)

[denverryan]

Awesome, thanks for the feedback! I'll make updates tonight and re-post with changes.

[EngiNerd]

Denverryan, here is the central rail extension study should you need any more info on the new 'L' line.

http://www.rtd-fastracks.com/cc_54
https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5xa8hx9yj...eport.pdf?dl=0

To save you the trouble, they settled on alternative 3A/3B, which will need to be studied further *again* to determine which one they go with. They are essentially the same as far as your diagram is concerned though.

[Octavian]

denverryan, your map is amazing.

How do we get this in front of RTD?

[seventwenty]

Double check the N Line station names To ensure they match RTD's new names.

Still wish that every terminal station had the estimated time to downtown, not just the A. Line.

Overall, still wonderful.

[bunt_q]

Really, really nice. I actually kind of like the county lines. I worry if you try and incorporate "times to downtown" it'll either be confusing or throw the scales completely out of whack. Be interested to see where those lines fall.

Along with pulling Civic Center Station down a little, I wonder if a similar note as you have at Union Station would help? ("Transfers to local and express buses" - or whatever. Especially if one of the Boulder buses actually terminates there.). I know it's a rail map so I think it's helpful to have some explanation of what this other station is, that isn't connected to the rail system. Also might allow you to take out the "some" from the Union Station note, which reads clunky.

Really great, though.

Do we know anymore about the lettering/route identification on the "Flatiron Flyer" - is it going to be BX, BV, etc. Or is 1, 2, 3... or what they are going with?

Can we add Bustang to Union Station now? Service starts in July, right?

I'm surprised nobody has asked you to label Stapleton I would support that, if only to not confuse visitors who get off at the least-central Central Park in the history of park naming.

[wong21fr]

I love this map and the opportunity to once again point out how infuriating RTD's current map is design-wise. Great job, man.

As mentioned by others, I think that both Union and Civic Center Station should be identified as being key transfer centers to go from rail to bus. Simple language like, "Transfers to local, regional, and express buses" with Amtrak also mentioned for Union Station.

We probably don't need to mention Greyhound at Union Station- it's a minimal number of buses and the space on the map could be better suited for mentioning Bustang in all it's glory.

[Pedalrob]

This is an awesome map! My one suggestion is to adjust Welton so that it's perpendicular to the numbered streets. I have no idea how you'd do it, but to me it's a bit confusing since it looks like it goes NW when it actually runs NE.

But this map is so much better than what RTD is putting out. Great job.

[J Church]

Hi folks, just popping up to ask Ryan, I guess, whether the new RTD map is in any way his doing ...

http://www.rtd-denver.com/LightRail_Map.shtml

[BG918]

So once the G and N Lines are operational who wants to take bets on the next line to open or be extended? My guesses in order of when they open:
1. E/F/R line extension to Ridgegate and Lone Tree Town Center
2. B line extension to Downtown Westminster, possibly Church Ranch?
3. D/C line extension to E-470/Lucent
4. L line extension to 38th & Blake
5. G line extension to Downtown Golden

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by BG918

So once the G and N Lines are operational who wants to take bets on the next line to open or be extended? My guesses in order of when they open:
1. E/F/R line extension to Ridgegate and Lone Tree Town Center
2. B line extension to Downtown Westminster, possibly Church Ranch?
3. D/C line extension to E-470/Lucent
4. L line extension to 38th & Blake
5. G line extension to Downtown Golden

I'll play. Here are my guesses:

1. E/F/R line extension to Ridgegate and Lone Tree Town Center (2019)
2. L line extension to 38th & Blake (2021)
-I can see Denver ponying up $10-20M for this project to get the initial connection to 38th & Blake and a longer term goal of adding another train loop downtown.
3. B line extension to Downtown Westminster, possibly Church Ranch? (2025
4. N Line extension (2025)
4. D/C line extension to E-470/Lucent (2075)
- I think that RTD will just go with putting a big-ass parking garage at the Mineral Station and call it good. Highlands Ranch doesn't seem terribly eager to put up a significant amount of funding to extend the line.
5. G line extension to Downtown Golden (2075)

[seventwenty]

Cirrus, do we have to be nice to the new mod?

Wong, how do your projections take into account rail from Pueblo to Ft. Collins? I have Front Range Rail being a reality in 2118 with an updated Hyperloop.