New York City’s simpler new subway map is designed to help you not get lost
One of the world’s most iconic and controversial maps just got a major redesign. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York has unveiled the final version of an updated map of its subway system, marking the first time the map has had a full redesign since 1979. It’s a visually bold, user-centric design that, according to the MTA, will make it easier for people to understand where they’re going and how to use the system. The new maps are expected to be installed in train cars and stations over the next few weeks.
The map features bright, color-coded lines for each train line, which criss-cross a stylized map of the city in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal orientations. More abstract than the previous geographically representative map, the new map prioritizes visual clarity and accessible design over pure accuracy. With single-lined black text on a largely white background and black dots representing stations on bright colored route lines, the new map was designed to be easily read by people with varying levels of vision and color perception. “Our approach was to make this map inclusive to all,” said MTA chief customer officer Shanifah Rieara at a recent press conference unveiling the new design.
A big part of the inclusivity is managed by simplifying the geography of the map, using abstracted forms to represent the boroughs and straight lines to represent subway routes that are in fact much more sinuous. It’s an approach that was unveiled in the now-famous 1972 subway map designed by Massimo Vignelli and the design firm Unimark International.
It was a minimalist design that became a source of controversy, and one literal debate. In 1978, Vignelli was pitted on stage against John Tauranac, then chair of the MTA’s Subway Map committee, who wanted the system to have a more geographically representative map. Tauranac’s approach won out, and the so-called spaghetti version of the map with winding routes and geographically accurate depictions became the map that has been used from 1979 until now.
Though the printed map is being put into service as of this week, this design was first piloted back in 2021, and builds on Work & Co’s live, interactive digital map of the system that has a similar Vignelli-inspired aesthetic. When the pilot design was first launched, an MTA official told Fast Company a final version of the map was expected within months.
Four years later, the printed maps are finished. Part of the long gestation has to do with the way the MTA vetted the design, conducting rider surveys to learn more about how people use the map, and the ways some maps make using the system more difficult. Based on this feedback, the map’s design evolved.
The biggest changes relate to some of the most challenging parts of riding a complicated, multi-lined subway system: the transfer. Steven Flamm, manager of mapping for MTA’s Creative Services department, says the map’s design was tweaked to improve the way the map visually explains how to transfer train lines, whether on the other side of a platform, through a tunnel, or across a street.
“You’ll see a different treatment for hubs and complexes that make it more obvious, so people know they can get their trains in that station,” says Flamm.
The MTA sees the new map as a mix of the Vignelli design’s minimalist simplicity and a more geographically accurate approach from the Tauranac version that helps people to navigate the system more easily. Design-minded riders may see more of the Vignelli in this new map, but that doesn’t mean the Tauranac version in use for the last four decades has disappeared, according to MTA chair and CEO Janno Lieber. “The real superfans out there will recognize the colors that were established in the famous Tauranac map,” he said.