The New Hub Spider Map

That map I posted yesterday?  I slept on it and I realized it was hideous, so I took another whack at the info boxes and I think I've come up with a usable final version of the Hub Spider Map.  Since I'll be in town this week, the map's going up at the Hub sometime over the next few days.

Since we've already discussed spider maps, I'll leave the general subject out of this post. Suffice it to say that my map shows all the regular bus routes departing from the San Anselmo Hub.  Routes to the Hub are not included, so the 22's once-per-day meandering north through Mill Valley stays off.  The purpose is to give people an idea of where they can go from the Hub without the clutter of geography.

The principal changes in this map are:

  1. Route start/end markers.  One critique I got from the first map was the difficulty in keeping track of which color corresponds to which line.  To make it easier, I've put colored markers with the route number at each endpoint.
  2. Redesigned major stations.  The old map had large, ungainly boxes for the Hub and the San Rafael Transit Center.  To streamline the map, I converted them into elongated versions of other transfer stations elsewhere on the map.
  3. Straightened the angles.  I converted all angles to the standard 45 degrees for the sake of elegance and to make it easier on the eyes.
  4. Removed the regional transit map.  Though I'd like to have the regional transit map available, it needs to be so small on a legal-sized sheet of paper that it become illegible.  Rather than deal with an illegible map, I've taken it out entirely.
  5. Reworked the info boxes.  Scheduling, directions to other destinations, and a fare information box have all been added and moved around.  The Financial District map has also moved to give space to the scheduling box.
  6. Removed Muni transfer information.  It cluttered the San Francisco portion of the map too much, and Muni buses typically don't share stops with GGT anyway.

Though it's not the best transit map in the world, I'm certainly not a graphic designer.  In all, I feel confident that the map will help riders from the Hub to understand the system better.  I suppose we shall see.