Tag: maps

Mapping the Future

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I think most folks know I’m a Roadgeek. After all, I do the “California Highways” page. What got me into this was maps. I used to collect maps, back in the days when gas stations gave them away for free. I have memories of getting maps from Flying A, Texaco, Standard, Shell, Mobil, Richfield, and many others. I certainly have a large number of auto club maps. I could spend hours just reading the maps. I have no interest in photographing signs, or even driving the roads. But reading the maps, determining where the roads go and where they went — that interests me.

Thus, I felt distinctly sad when I read today that CSAA (the Northern California AAA) is closing it’s cartography division. CSAA will still provide paper maps to members, but they will be produced by AAA headquarters in Florida. There won’t be teams of roving mapmakers, ensuring that the local information is correct and complete. This leaves the Auto Club of Southern California as the only regional AAA still producing their own maps.

What killed the cartographer? Digital maps. GPS devices. Even I admit to an addiction to Google Maps: I’ll just find somewhere and go and wander. But it’s not the same as the joy I get from a Thomas Brothers mapbook or a good road atlas. Just as Amazon is very different than browsing in the bookstore, digital maps just aren’t the same thing.

Am I just a luddite (wouldn’t surprise me)? Are paper maps passe? Do you still use and treasure your paper maps?

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Just A Map

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Maps. They are something I have loved since I was a small boy, collecting them from local gas stations. I have a number of maps up on my walls at work, from a Machiavelli game map, to a Caltrans state highway map, to an original Pacific Electric map, to a PE map overlain on the current freeway system, to the original LA Metro Rail plan, to a fantasy Metro Rail Plan.

I mention this all because the New York Times yesterday had a fascinating article on the New York City Subway map, and how it is being redrawn to return to the abstract style it had pre-1979, analagous to the current style of the London Underground map. New York has a complex system, with 378 subway, bus and train lines, including Manhattan Island, which has 17 separate lines running up and down midtown alone. Lines also run local, then express, then back to local along their route, and once was three separate and competing subway systems that were poorly coordinated to work as a whole system.

The new map is pretty, although I have no idea how well it would serve its customers. Locals it would likely serve fine, but they don’t need the map. Tourists would likely be confused, but it does work in London.

As for Los Angeles. We have so few lines no one gets confused, except to wonder what light rail is :-).

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What To Do With Old Maps

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

Today, I received an Email from Mr. Randall McNalley, suggesting the following uses for old maps (and I quote):

  • Use your outdated Road Atlas maps as gift wrapping. First of all, you’re recycling paper, which is green and green is good. Second, you save money by not buying wrapping paper. Third, you probably have an old one in your car that needs to be updated. Go ahead and tear into it.
  • Cover the kid’s table for the big family gathering with an old wall map. Tykes can draw on it, spill juice, and you can toss it at the end of the day.
  • Update the powder room walls or ceiling with maps. Often, there’s a consistent color scheme, such as blue water, that’s soothing and appealing. All you have to buy is wallpaper glue.
  • Buy a large wall map and frame it yourself by gluing it to a plywood board (have the hardware store cut it to exact size specifications) and trim the edge with chair rail molding. Paint the molding first, of course. The hardware store can cut the molding, too. Large framed maps can run into the hundreds of dollars, but a self-framed map like this will cost less than $50 in materials.
  • Cover an inexpensive lamp shade with a favorite map. Glue the edges to an existing paper shade, glue matching fabric trim, and you have light worth studying. Unholster your glue gun!

Such clever ideas, Mr. McNalley. Of course, I actually like looking at old maps. I do know someone that did the wallpaper idea though, and I did once cover a box (which I used to store maps) with old maps decoupaged onto it.

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Comprehensive Rail Networks for Los Angeles

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

An entry in the LA Times Bottleneck Blog has an interesting pointer to a website called Get LA Moving (a project of The Transit Coalition). This website proposed a comprehensive rail network for Los Angeles that includes, among other things:

  • The Bronze Line. 53 Miles of Track (47.3 Miles of New Track). The line begins near the Van Nuys Blvd/Foothill Freeway (I-210) intersection and continues south down Van Nuys to Ventura. East down Ventura to Sepulveda. It then continues down the Sepulveda Pass from Sepulveda/Ventura to the UCLA station at Strathmore/Westwood, with a small diversion to the Getty Center tram station. South down Westwood to Pico; and southwest down Pico to the eastern shoulder of the 405 Freeway. Southeasterly down the eastern shoulder of the 405 freeway to Culver; continuing southeasterly down Sepulveda to El Segundo; and south down the western shoulder of Sepulveda from El Segundo to Rosecrans at-grade. East down Rosecrans to the existing Green line tracks; and southeast down the Green Line ROW to Marine/Redondo Beach Ave. Southeast down the Harbor Subdivision ROW to the western shoulder of the 405 Fwy, continuing southeast to Hawthorne Blvd. South down Hawthorne Blvd. to the Harbor Subdivision ROW at 190th. Southeast down the Harbor Subdivision tracks at-grade to Crenshaw; continuing down the Harbor Subdivision to Normandie. South down Normandie to Pacific Coast Highway. East down PCH, continuing after the Los Alamitos Circle down Atherton to Bellflower, veering southeast to the Cal State Long Beach/Long Beach Veterans Hospital terminus at 7th Street/Campus Drive.
  • The Lime Line. 24.2 Miles of Track (19.7 Miles of New Track). The line would extend west from the Glendale Galleria station down Broadway sharing tracks with the Gold line to the Valley Subdivision/Metrolink ROW, which rusn parallel to San Fernando Road. Northwest up the ROW at-grade to the Coast Subdivision/Metrolink ROW; continuing at-grade down the ROW to Sherman Way. West down Sherman Way to Reseda; and north up Reseda Blvd to Nordhoff. West down Norhoff to the Coast Subdivision/Metrolink ROW; and north up the ROW at-grade to the Chatsworth Metrolink station terminus.
  • The Gold Line. 37.2 Miles of Track (33.5 Miles of New Track). The line would extend west from the Old Town Pasadena station down Walnut to the 134 freeway; continuing west to Colorado Blvd. West down Colorado Blvd to Broadway; continuing west down Broadway to the Valley Subdivision/Metrolink ROW parallel to San Fernando Road. Northwest up the ROW at-grade to Olive Street; and southwest down Olive to North Pass Ave. Southwest under Universal Studios to Ventura/Lankershim. West down Ventura to Wilbur; and north up Wilbur to the southern shoulder of the Ventura (101) Freeway to Canoga Ave. North up Canoga Ave to the Burbank Branch/San Fernando Valley Busway ROW near Vanowen to Plummer; continuing north up the Coast Subdivision ROW at-grade to the Chatsworth Metrolink station terminus.

This would make it easy to get to work. Bike to Northridge Fashion Center, and thenk take the Lime Line to the Bronze Line to the Green Line.

I do think the proposal has some problems. It abandons (or makes into a trolley) the current portion of the green line between Imperial/Aviation to Rosecrans. I’d keep that as an alternate terminus for the Green Line — it is important because of the rail maintenance yards. In fact, the one thing many of these fancy plans do is forget the maintenance and storage yards, especially for lines that have different types of equipment or power. That is a significant concern, especially for lines that move from at-grade to elevated to below-grade. For some, you prefer overhead catenary, and for others, third-rail. I do think the proposal is better in its valley coverage than the proposal developed by Numan Parada, although Numan’s map does a better job for the Green Line. It certainly is an improvement over the current approach.

Will we ever see this? Who knows. But the maps are pretty and fun to look at, and one can always dream 🙂

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Maps!

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

I’m posting this both for m’self, and for all the roadgeeks out there. Today, la_city_nerd has a wonderful post where he links to all sorts of maps about Los Angeles, including some of the maps on my humble pages.

I should also note that bottleneckblog had an interesting post yesterday on proposals for new rail transit in LA, which included this link to a really neat dream map for the LA subway system. I should really scan and post the map I drew about 20 years ago…

[Crossposted to cahwyguy and roadgeeks]

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