Click on a station, and you can find out whether the elevators and escalators are working. Drag your fingers apart, and you’ll zoom in to see multiple routes in each tunnel springing out, widening into parallel bands - making visible individual service changes, closures and openings, and reroutings. Pinch your fingers on the screen, and you can zoom out to see your whole line or borough, as the lines resolve into single strands. It’s so thoroughly up-to-the-moment that you can watch individual trains move around the system on your phone. The new map, however, is literally contemporary, writes Bonanos:

Hertz and Tauranac’s map functioned pretty well as a map to getting around town but inspired comparatively little delight,' writes Bonanos to describe the precedent map designs. 'Vignelli’s diagram was a joy to look at and was nearly useless as an aboveground navigation tool. Christopher Bonanos reports: ' Today, the MTA is unveiling its new digital map, the first one that uses the agency’s own data streams to update in real time.'Īfter giving a background on the historical precedents for the new map, Bonanos suggests that the map is perhaps the best of both worlds: a combination of the aesthetic accomplishments of the map designed by Massimo Vignelli in the early 1970s, and the more practical, user-focused approach designed by Michael Hertz Associates later the same decade.

Mta subway map