Back in September of 2009, I reported on the new station vicinity maps that were appearing throughout the TTC subway system. These new maps were intended to replace older maps that were often decades out-of-date. Unfortunately, the TTC made an embarrassing mess of these new maps, with long-gone landmarks shown (such as Ed’s Warehouse), some major destinations completely disappeared (SkyDome nowhere to be found on the St. Andrew map), and missing streets maps not-to-scale.
The TTC was embarrassed into quickly removing all the offending new station area maps (though one can still find the first-generation maps hanging around in a few places – at least one of which still shows the 77 Spadina bus). Now, nearly a year later, the TTC has come up with new editions of these neighbourhood maps and are now posting them at a station near you.
Steve Munro has already commented on the new Christie Station map. I have now seen these new maps at College, Bay and St. Andrew Stations, so I will add my own voice.
These new maps are an improvement over the September 2009 maps, as there appears to be nothing factually wrong in the new maps that I have seen. Yet there’s still a lot of work to be done and these maps don’t cut it.
While many landmarks are correctly labeled, and the street grid appears to be correct, there are still many glaring omissions. Once again, connecting surface transit routes and stops are missing from the maps, and I do not understand why this feature was overlooked. Steve Munro and I both noticed that the several hotels (Four Seasons, Marriott, Park Hyatt, Intercontinental) near Bay Station (see map below) are not mapped, something that one would think would be very useful for tourists. The underground “Mini-PATH” system connecting the commercial buildings around Bay and Bloor is missing.
Parks are shown in green, but such a pale colour that they are hard to see on this rather plain background. Streets are shaded, but are in a very light grey colour as to be hard to distinguish from the white space. Building footprints are inconsistent. Finally, for the first time, the map projection has changed to defer to “true north” rather than the common, perceived north that nearly every professional map adheres to; if the STM in Montreal used the same conformity to a map projection, Ste-Catharine Street would run almost exactly north-south and St-Laurent east-west and would confuse everyone!
I remain unimpressed by the TTC’s mapping efforts. Perhaps the TTC should have just updated the original 1990s-era station vicinity map designs — apart from being sometimes comically out-of-date, they were better designed and more useful than anything produced since.
8 comments
Ugh, how ugly. Maybe when I get some time I’ll work on a couple of maps and post them online or send them to the TTC.
Heck, they could’ve just printed out OpenStreetMap’s data and it would’ve been exactly what they wanted…
Or contract this out to a professional map service…
Could the blue-ribbon panel on improving the TTC get this problem fixed or would it just wind up as another item on their To Do list? I’m honestly not sure whether throwing some more media scrutiny on this particular problem will expedite matters. For those completely fed up with the maps it wouldn’t surprise me if people took matters in their own hands and corrected/updated the maps themselves and just slapped it on top of the inferior ones that are being produced.
…I just have to say once again how amazed I am at the difference between the STM and the TTC. The STM station maps are incredibly well done, showing entrances, underground passageways, bus connections, quasi-3d images of taller or important buildings, points of interest, even taxi stands and cycle paths and addresses.
That’s okay, if you want a good laugh, take a look at Vancouver’s station maps: http://www.translink.ca/en/Schedules-and-Maps/Transit-Maps/SkyTrain-Station-Maps.aspx
What is so appalling here is that the layout is the same sort of crappy job they did the last time around including the icons that vaguely show the entrances. This looks like someone sat down and laboriously copied Google Maps, but left a bunch of things out. Why can’t the TTC just buy commercial maps? Are they trying to make a special effort to prove their incompetence just before the Customer Service report comes out?
Oh yes, you may be interested to know that the building, that nice shiny one at College and University, the one that Ontario Hydro built and its successor Ontario Power Generation still occupies is, according to the TTC, the Intact Building. Presumably this comes about because Intact Insurance rents part of it, and has arranged to have their name show up on Google Maps. They also name the Government of Ontario buildings north of Grosvenor, but not south. I am sure the Minister of Finance in the Frost Building will remember the TTC in his Christmas Card list. Typographically, the maps are a mess with no consistency in the font size used for different elements. I said this last fall, and I say it again now, somebody needs to be fired. Maybe the TTC can offer the guilty party as a sacrifice the next time Rob Ford comes calling.
I think the real issue here is what this says about TTC quality control as a whole.
Occasional lapses can happen even in the best-run organizations; but normally, when they do, the management is embarrassed and chastened, and works hard to make damn sure they aren’t repeated.
In the TTC’s case however, this is at least the third time in recent years that they have had exactly the same problem – i.e. produced maps that are pathetic failures – and yet management still won’t make the minimal effort required to fix the problem.
Given that degree of laziness and incompetence, why should we have any faith that the TTC is making an honest effort to solve some of the more intractable problems which seriously affect the level of service, and value for money, which the TTC provides?
It would probably cost less to buy every station an iPad and glue it to the wall rather than try and produce something decent internally.
Seriously, stop reinventing the wheel TTC and just outsource it! The inward-looking mentality which served so well for solving issues like keeping ancient buses and streetcars running when the outside world had no answers does not work so well when dealing with tasks that are common to many places and better done by someone else.