Anyone who has ever lived in or traveled to New York City can relate to the experience of staring into the city's iconic subway map in an effort to navigate one of the most daunting (and functional) mass transit systems in the world. Next month, that unmistakable image of taupe-and-blue overlaid with a rainbow grid of train lines will get a makeover—the goal being to improve clarity and help passengers get where they need to go.
The New York Times just released a fantastic interactive graphic highlighting the changes to the map, which The Times notes, "continues to buck the trend of the angular maps once used here and still preferred in many other major cities." One fun map fact is that Manhattan will appear twice as wide as it is in real life (the practice of widening the city's most famous borough has happened on MTA maps since 1939). For those who argue that New York already occupies too great a space in our cultural consciousness, this redesign won't help matters.
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