Planner compares rail transit systems at scale

Some dense, others sprawling

Steve Hawley, Jun 02, 09.

Artist and urban planner Neil Freeman has created a series of 36 maps comparing rail transit systems around the world at scale (via Human Transit). While Freeman refers to the systems as subways, Human Transit notes that not all the routes are underground. Instead, it says, the maps depict “transit services that run frequently all day in an exclusive right of way with widely spaced stations—linking centers to each other, for example, rather than providing coverage to every point on the line as local-stop services do.”

Human Transit notes that some of the systems, such as Paris, Tokyo (pictured), and New York City, are very dense, while others such as San Francisco “[extend] over distances vaster than New York City, but with an extremely sparse network.”

In the United States, Freeman has mapped Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

International maps include Beijing, Buenos Aires, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Mexico City, Moscow, Osaka, Seoul, and Vancouver.