Reid Beels

Subway Speed 2 on Vimeo

With 468 stations, more than 700 miles of track, and over 6,400 cars, the New York subway is one of the largest and most complex transportation systems in the world. As someone who has long been fascinated with railroads, maps, and public transportation in general, interacting with the subway on a daily basis has been a highlight of my stay here.

Time has worn heavily on the subway but even in the deteriorating spaces created by years of lacking maintenance, the iconic simplicity of Massimo Vignelli’s wayfinding system shines through. Each line is represented by a letter or number in a circle or diamond. Lines that share a route are grouped by a common color.

This color coding is arguably the system’s most powerful component. By breaking the network down into chunks that serve a similar function, the colors place the incredibly complex network within the paradigm of The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two.

I assumed people would refer to these lines by their color codes, but they don’t. It’s not “the blue line”, but always “the A-C-E.” I don’t know where this naming convention originated, it actually ends up increases the usability of the system greatly by providing a nemonic device for the contents of each group.

All of this wayfinding is great on its own, but is tied together by the ubiquitous subway map. The map has taken many forms over the years, which I’ll be discussing in my next post.

This post was originally written as part of a blogging project for PNCA about my time in New York.