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Today, Second Ave Sagas linked to a digitized copy of Massimo Vignelli’s 1970 graphics standards manual for the New York City Subway. The photographed pages of the manual describe, in exacting detail, the graphic look and feel and philosophy of wayfinding signage for the Subway. While Vignelli’s schematic map (a scan of the map can Continue reading Graphic standards on the Subway – a lesson for Metro as it evaluates the future of ‘Metro Brown’ Last week, the Washington Post featured a lengthy profile of WMATA’s head architect, the man behind the concepts in Metro’s recently unveiled ‘station of the future‘ concept. The article offers some insight into the thinking behind the proposed re-design of the Bethesda station, as well as some of the pushback Metro has received already from the Continue reading What’s wrong with ‘Metro Brown?’ This week, WMATA unveiled a concept for their “station of the future.” The press release and accompanying video flythough of the pilot station (Bethesda) for these improvements lists the reasons for these changes, including “improved lighting, better information and improved customer convenience.” And who would be against those things? All three have been criticisms of Metro Continue reading Metro’s ‘station of the future’ – why mess with what works?
Brookland Metro Station – photo by author. While in the midst of repacing the old terra cotta tiles at the Brookland station (the most colorful of all Metro stations) with the newer concrete tiles for outdoor stations, Metro was kind enough to build some temporary wood benches for customers. This week, Greater Greater Washington highlighted WMATA’s latest iteration of their new bus map (as post on the first iteration is here), which opts for a diagrammatic representation of the bus network, highlighting frequent, all-day bus services over infrequent and irregulat coverage bus routes.
The new map is a huge improvement of the old Continue reading Metro highlights frequency in new bus map WMATA’s recent service change, branded as Rush Plus (probably over-promising things just a bit as “rush hour reinvented”), involved deviating from Metro’s fairly straightforward delineation of lines and services via color. Metro’s increasingly complicated service pattern is getting to the point of requiring a similarly robust nomenclature for services. When a rider speaks of the Red Line, they Continue reading Wayfinding challenges for WMATA’s Rush Plus Two items worth sharing: 7000 Series Metro Cars: Over the weekend, WMATA released a few pictures and some videos (complete with a soundtrack that would make Michael Bay jealous) of the prototype of the 7000 series, currently under assembly in Japan.
The front end of the cars looks sharp – the black background with the Continue reading Links: Metro’s disco inferno; the power of ports CC image from Yutaka Tsutano Rail to Dulles: MWAA Board member Robert Brown suggests eliminating the Dulles Airport rail station and replacing it with a people mover to connect to the Route 28 station as a means to save costs. Yonah Freemark finds the concept intriguing, offering some operational considerations that could make it work. However, Continue reading Links: iPhones and airports With Rail~volution complete, several recaps of conference sessions have sparked some interesting discussion. One panel posed the hypothetical question – what would DC look like today if we had never built Metro? WMATA’s Nat Bottigheimer emphasized the linkage between high capacity rapid transit and the ability to support dense urban development, drawing a contrast to the Continue reading The evolution of infrastructure: 4-track subways and parking decks Virginia’s tourism folks have saturated Metro Center (located, of course, in DC) with ads: As a DC resident, I’m not sure if I’m bothered by Virginia riding DC’s coattails, or if I should be happy for the free advertising. |
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