Swipes for Years.

In 1998, the MTA introduced free transfers from bus lines to the subway and from the subway to bus lines. A year later, the monthly and weekly Unlimited MetroCards were introduced.

With this new fare structure, NYC transit riders gained the ability to freely transfer between the subway and buses. This eliminated the ‘double fare zone’ for riders who lived far beyond a subway station. It gave people who lived and worked near a subway station an alternative to riding the train. The Subway and Bus system were one system.

Eighteen years after the elimination of the double fare zone, the system has never been presented as one. The MTA rarely advertises the fare integration between subway and bus. It doesn’t announce transfers to bus lines at subway stations. It doesn’t have a single map that shows all of it’s services together.

Today, the transit system is different. People take the subway all the time. For commuting, for pleasure, for dates, for errands, to get out of the rain, whatever. Subway ridership has reached record levels.

At the same time, bus ridership has dropped.

Do riders not know they have other options? Options that they already pay for with their Unlimited MetroCards or via the free transfers with their pay-per-ride card?

Or are they are so flummoxed by the bus they just ignore it. Is bus service so unreliable that people with other options don’t want to touch it. And for people who live past subway territory, are they aware of all the bus options they have?

Waiting.

We’ve all done this: you just kinda stare at the subway map while you’re waiting for the train. Just stare. You’ve got time to kill, so you stare. And you think, “Oh, that’s where Jefferson St is”. Or “I wonder what Avenue X looks like?”. Or “There’s two DeKalb Av’s that are nowhere near each other”. Or “If this L train doesn’t show up I could take the 4 or the 5 to the J to A back to the L to get home?”. This staring and pondering is how people learn their subway options.

Bus riders don’t get this option. When you’re standing around waiting for a bus, there aren’t maps. At bus stops around the city, no bus map. In Jamaica, Pelham Bay Park, or Flushing, the biggest bus hubs in the city, you won’t find bus maps near the bus stops. Even at the new Select Bus Service stations, there’s no bus map.

In the places where people are waiting there to ride the bus, you can’t find the map to navigate it.

And let’s talk about these maps. They’re real maps, so they show every, single turn and maneuver. They label everything. It’s a lot of information to take in. They’re great actually — for bus drivers.

But they’re clunky and dense and not pleasant to look at (in my opinion). It’s hard to follow lines across the map. Dense areas are murky and then shown off to the side as inset maps. Lines that travel across boroughs are easy to lose. And buses that travel from borough to borough change color from map to map. There’s a separate map for each borough. If you’re taking a bus from Brooklyn to Queens, or the Bronx to Upper Manhattan you need to get or download two separate maps.

MTA’s Bus Map

In my opinion, the current bus maps fails from a way-finding standpoint. Subway stations are tiny specks. Bus terminals and destinations aren’t clear. Route directions aren’t clear. Transfers between routes and to the subway aren’t clear.

My map, the Bullet Map.

Getting On.

To make a bus map that’s a clear to read and as a good subway diagram, I needed a good base layer. My theory is that people in NYC know 1. major streets and 2. Subway stations. Most people can triangulate and figure out how to get around knowing those two things.

I started making a bus diagram and a subway diagram at the same time. For the subway diagram, I included the new Select Bus Service lines. The frequency and speed is close enough to subway service that it’s proper to put them together. Plus the MTA hasn’t released a map showing all SBS lines. So it’s an added bonus of this project.

I laid out these parameters around the map.

Know the Audience:

My audience is people who live in NYC and who frequently ride the transit system. This isn’t a tourist map.

Jamaica and it’s immediate environs

Make it Simple:

The riding public doesn’t need to know every single turn and every single street. But they need to know most of the turns and most of the streets. Relative distance relationships between lines and stations is important to communicate.

But Not too Simple:

Focus on Subway lines, streets with buses, arterials and secondary streets. Include the relevant info needed to help people get around like expressways, rivers and big parks.

Stay in Bounds:

Include only services that are paid with an Unlimited MetroCard or offer the free transfer with a Pay-per-Ride MetroCard.

This includes the services of the NYC Subway, all NYC Transit and MTA Bus lines, NICE Bus (Long Island) and Bee-Line Bus (Westchester). Excluded are PATH, LIRR, MNR, Express Buses and EDC Ferries.

Design:

Create one graphic system that works for both the subways and buses. Be true to existing NYCT standards for route bullets, typesetting and language:

Use station name + neighborhood to denote a terminal No abbreviated names. Properly label stations regardless of how much space could be saved by dropping all the, say, “Av” or “St”.​ No inset maps for dense areas. The densest parts of a transit diagram are the most important. Everything is displayed at one scale, together.

Starting from the bottom.

So here it is in full. A full NYC Transit system map. All of those hundreds of bus lines, subway stations. Transit for everybody in NYC together on one map.

The Subway & Select Bus Diagram