If you live in a city and take public transit, you've probably looked at the system map and thought to yourself, "I wish this thing went everywhere."

You're not alone. There's a whole bunch of daydreamers just like you who've considered the additional subway lines, bus routes, and train tracks it would take to bring more people to more places. Some of them have even mapped these ideas out. The internet is full of these fantasy transit maps, where professional transit planners and dedicated amateurs alike imagine how public transit in our cities could look.

"Some are completely imaginary, some show fanciful future versions of real cities (without regard to cost or planning), others show well-considered views of the future, drawing heavily on actual plans laid out by transit agencies and governments," writes graphic designer Cameron Booth, who collects excellent examples both real and fictional on his tumblr, Transit Maps.

Booth added that people like these fantasy maps because they can spark dialogues about what's lacking in our real-world transit systems. In the dreamy new movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix's character is able to travel by train in L.A. from the beach to the mountains. A background transit map in one scene has led to plenty of online discussions.

"It's definitely got people talking about the role transit plays in L.A.," writes Booth. "Most people love to comment that this fantasy system has three stations at LAX, while the real world still has none — an issue that hugely affects mobility in such a huge city."

. Image: Jake Coolidge

Personally, I have a hard time tearing myself away from such maps, particularly those showing the Bay Area, where I live. The simplified designs recalling Harry Beck's 1933 London Underground map are, in my opinion, beautiful. And ever since I sold my car last year, I've been reliant on walking, biking, and public transit, so a fantasy transit map gets my head spinning with ideas. I could go directly from my house in Oakland to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on a sunny day. Or maybe I'd go on a wine tour in Napa and drunkenly ride BART back. In this gallery, I've collected a few transit map examples that might inspire your own fantasies.

For instance, the Los Angeles 2040 Metro map is a vision of what the City of Angels could look like if it continues to expand its subway and bus network. The map's creator, Nick Andert, explains in a Reddit post that many of the lines on his map are in L.A.'s short- and long-term plans following passage of a 2008 half-cent sales tax increase. One day, the car-clogged city could offer citizens a way to get north, south, east, or west without sitting in freeway traffic.

In Andrew Lynch's incredible take on the future of New York City, the already subway-dense metropolis would get its long-awaited 2nd Avenue line as well as extensions all over the five boroughs. Lynch's map is among the most visually striking, based on the 1972 Massimo Vignelli subway map that irritated New Yorkers.

Other maps represent the things that might have been. Graphic designer Michael Tyznik's Cincinnati fantasy map is a lamentation for what voters decided against when they failed to pass a ballot initiative called MetroMoves in 2002. Since then, the city has endured a bitter struggle involving two further ballot measures and a mayoral election just to get a single streetcar line built. Detroit, one of the largest U.S. cities without any rail mass transit, gets a fantasy subway system created by Jackson Woods.

There are also transit maps that are entirely imaginary, like the detailed system for southeast Michigan conjured up on the Freshwater Railway website that includes fares, transfers, and bus and train timetables. Another of these fantastical maps comes from Booth's revision of the U.S. numbered highway system as a subway. While such a transit system isn't going to happen (and might not be entirely useful if it did) it shows the amount of thought and funding that has gone into moving cars during the last century, while highlighting how little we've considered other modes of transportation.

To get a little philosophical here, I think the appeal of these maps is what they represent. There was probably a time in the 1940s post-war era when owning a car was really synonymous with freedom. A car let you go more places faster and fundamentally changed the way we move around and construct our cities. Nowadays, they say we've hit peak car. A lot of pixels have been lit up by people wondering why it is that folks in my generation are driving less. Yeah, it probably has something to do with smartphones and urbanization and a desire to do less environmental damage. But I think there's more to it. These days a car offers more obligations than independence: Traffic jams, hunting and paying for parking, the dread of knowing that at some point something on this machine is going to break and several hundred dollars are going to just disappear from your wallet. Having places to walk or bike becomes a liberating experience.

Good public transit — a rapid train system or clean and efficient buses — is part of that. Get on at this stop and, whoosh, like magic you're transported somewhere else. Of course, reality is full of train delays, fare hikes, and missed connections. But still, looking at these maps allows you to think, "Look at how much more free I could be."