Mini Project: Vancouver Tourist Transit Map
While in Korea I started to explore the idea of making a tourist map because the maps of Busan were utter garbage. Then I started considering a Tourist app for Vancouver. The pot started to boil and before it became a raging inferno, I decided to start small with a simple transit map for Vancouver. After that, I’d see where I was and where I wanted to go.
And so, I’m happy to present the completion of my latest mini-project: The Vancouver Tourist Transit Map. This simple map shows the skytrain lines and most useful bus routes that a tourist might use to move around the city. Then, I added some icons to give a little life to the final product.
I’m quite happy with the way that the map turned out. It was a fun project and I enjoyed the visual art aspect, making sure the lines were neat and tidy and that the stations were evenly spaced. I aimed for simplicity and to make sure it didn’t get cluttered. It’s difficult to geographically show Vancouver because almost everything is clustered around the downtown core so proportionally 90% of the most important stuff is in 10% of the space. At the same time, the Skytrains stretch way out but doesn’t really go anywhere a tourist would be especially interested in. If my map looks familiar, it is because it is somewhat geographically accurate. I had to blow up the downtown and space out some nearby parallel streets but in general, it is how it actually is.
Upon close inspection, you may find that some of the bus routes are incomplete. This is evident in bus #4 and #22 that continue through downtown. I did this intentionally for two reasons. The first is because those parts of the bus routes I’ve never taken and I don’t see why a tourist would continue on the route. The second reason is to simplify the map and make it less cluttered. Going all over the place makes for really confusing bus routes that I think should be eliminated anyways.
For reference, I relied heavily on the Translink Frequent Transit Network in Metro Vancouver map, while taking inspiration from subway maps that I’ve collected on our travels to Tokyo, Osaka, and Seoul. Vancouver doesn’t have enough light rail transit to make a proper transit map so I had to add in what I think are the most useful normal bus routes.
Making the map made it even more obvious how confusing the transit system can be for first time users because every single rail line has a split/merge, the Millennium line crosses back over itself, and the central meeting point (Waterfront) isn’t even in the centre! It’s at the end of all the lines. Unfortunately this isn’t likely to change as the patchwork system expands with the merging of the Evergreen line into the Millennium line and the continuation of the future Broadway corridor as an extension of the Millennium line from VCC-Clark.
I still wonder how cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Seoul are able to make such efficient transit systems in such nice orthogonal grids. Were they more liberal in tearing down buildings and digging up streets to make way for transit? Or did they start “from scratch” after World War 2 with nothing in the way? Also, how are they financed? Vancouver is all tax payer money and so it is made as cheap as possible with limited foresight. We know that in Japan and Hong Kong the transit companies also own malls and are in multiple businesses. This gets quite political and so I try to keep a healthy distance.
A pdf version of the map can be downloaded here.
I can only hope for the best while expecting the worst in Vancouver. With that, I leave you with one last comment: does the map look like a frog to you?
Thanks to Yuki for helping me edit the map. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Updated on community feedback.
