Comments on Map of the week: Personalized Metro travel time map - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by Marshall

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:16:57 EDT

So the map has issues, yes, but I still think it's cool. For those upset/confused by the breaking of lines, I think the intended point is to show the fastest route where there is more than one transfer option. For example, Union Station and Judiciary Square are not connected--because if going from Georgia Ave to Union station, it's faster to transfer via Ft Totten, but if going to Judiciary Square, it's faster to transfer via Gallery Place.

Comment by PamD

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:16:38 EDT

Is it really the intention of this map to say screw Shady Grove, Rockville or Franconia Springfield!

Comment by Don R

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 10:23:10 EDT

The future is here, of course, but is currently proprietary. Delivery companies like UPS generate "personalized" maps every day to dispatch their drivers in the most efficient path to complete their deliveries for that day. This technology is advancing rapidly and will soon include the capability to make real-time adjustments for changes in traffic flow, street work, weather conditions and so on.

Comment by Travel mapper

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 09:08:47 EDT

@MLD:

I would personally add a time scale every 90 degrees here too. Network adjustment is indeed a better alternative but it would be much more complicated to implement. Who is up for the challenge?

Comment by MLD

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 08:11:38 EDT

@Travel mapper:
MLD: If the "concentric circles" were actually circles you would need to adapt the transportation network to fit the time layer. You run the risk of deforming the network. In this way is much easier to establish an algorithm and make it personalized to everyone.

Right, but the base variable we care about here is time - this map is supposed to be based on a time layer and show us how much time it takes to get places. So the network SHOULD be deformed in order to show how the places relate on a time scale.

I get that it's easier to show it this way, but it also means I have to count rings every time I want to figure out how far away (in time) a station is. If the base layer of the map (time) were to scale, then you could just put lines at 5/10/15/20 minutes and be able to easily tell just by looking at the map the difference in time between the stations.

Comment by Adam

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 08:08:14 EDT

I'm not that big a fan of the disconnected distortion this provides. Seeing the same color line broken into many fragments is just a bit disorienting to me.

What I find most bothersome though is how limiting this winds up being regarding alternate itineraries. For the example shown of Petworth, it shows a path of Yellow/Green to Red to Orange as the means to get to Clarendon. Every time I make a similar trip to this, I will always ride to L'Enfant to connect to the Orange, even though it involves back tracking simply because it is a less complex itinerary and involves one fewer transfer and wait.

Last week. I was going from Pentagon City to Silver Spring and planned on taking the Yellow to the Red, but as I got there, the Blue line was pulling up and the PIDS display was showing 12 minutes for the next yellow. Hopping on the Blue instead of waiting for the more direct yellow got me to Metro Center in perfect time to connect to a Red Line train and get to Silver Spring in better time than waiting for the Yellow, even though my time traversing rails was longer. A similar map from Pentagon City would invariably show the Yellow as being THE gateway to getting the Red Line, with the Blue line likely stubbing to a truncation at around McPherson Square.

Comment by Travel mapper

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 06:56:48 EDT

Nice map!

MLD: If the "concentric circles" were actually circles you would need to adapt the transportation network to fit the time layer. You run the risk of deforming the network. In this way is much easier to establish an algorithm and make it personalized to everyone.

Comment by andrewi31

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 22:18:50 EDT

It's an interesting idea an no offense to the creator at all, but lets be real this map is an atrocity to me. Everything from the counting of circles, to how stations like King Street and Pentagon are handled is unacceptable. It fails space and time and some other dimension I can't quite put my finger on. If personalized to my neighborhood and used as intended, it would would be far worse than any other tools out there.

But then again, that's not why I personally use maps. I use them for places I rarely go or never have been, or when I want up to date information of what is around me. Other things are so much better for learning how to get somewhere, the time it takes, and how much it costs.

Personalization to me is selective disinformation, and I would always question the source, just like it has been surveying me. "Eat here! You'll like it!". I can see utility in that if elegantly executed, but it does get exhausting always being the center of a universe. I think that's why I love of all types of maps but not so much the concept of personalized ones.

Comment by David Alpert

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 17:06:34 EDT

Shopsa01: I've fixed the link. Thanks.

And great points about buses. It's so much harder to make a bus map than a Metro map, but the point about personalization is even more apt for them. While you might ride all 5 Metro lines from time to time, you almost surely will only use a small fraction of bus lines at all, and a map showing Metro plus those could be tremendously useful.

Peter Dunn's great spider map showed what could be, and it could do even more with personalization. But that requires a lot of work into developing software that can generate those, which is not easy at all.

Comment by MLD

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:33:25 EDT

@nettie

It probably takes 45 minutes because you are counting when you leave your house (and look at the clock) to when you arrive at work (and look at another clock).

Pull it up on the trip planner - it's about 23 minutes not counting transfer time, so during rush hour probably 25-31 minutes. Again that's just depart to arrive, so it doesn't count getting from outside into the station, or back out again.

Comment by nettie

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:22:40 EDT

This is awesome and YAH! for Petworth. I think the timescale is off a bit, I live in Petworth and work in Van Ness. There is no way it would only take me 26 minutes via Metro. Try 45 on a good day.
I bike to work, and it only takes 20 minutes even though it's uphill each way!
This map a great concept!

Comment by MLD

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:20:17 EDT

I think this kind of travel-time map would be more useful if the "concentric circles" were actually circles. It should stretch the lines accordingly to a circular graph. That would make it much easier to read.

Comment by Shipsa01

Thu, 23 Aug 2012 16:08:28 EDT

The link to the spider map doesn't seem to be working.

But that was the ideal map (spider one) I envision when I think of personalized ones. I really like the concept of this map, though I question the usefulness. If you're going from Petworth to Cleveland Park are you really going to take Metro? Probably not - you'll probably take an H bus or maybe bikeshare or something else? Like David said, if it's going to be a truly personalized map, it should / needs to include all options.

Finally, while this is nice (and I don't mean to get up on a soapbox) it perpetuates the stereotype that buses aren't a transportation option for 'newcomers' or tourists. We have a fantastic bus system and more people need to discover it. These types of maps - and esp the H Street spider one showed how - could go a long way towards helping get people to ride them and help relieve the Metro system.