Transit Tangents

The London Map That Changed The World

• Louis & Chris • Season 3 • Episode 107

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We trace how London turned a messy rail network into a global template for wayfinding, from the Underground roundel to Harry Beck’s diagrammatic map and the Legible London street totems. We compare London’s cohesive design to New York’s hybrid map history and ask what riders truly need now that apps guide most trips.

• the roundel’s role in unifying London transport
• Edward Johnston’s type and a shared design language
• Harry Beck’s diagram and why straight lines work
• minimal geography versus cognitive clarity
• New York’s Vignelli map backlash and 2025 redesign
• station exits, transfer signage, and rider confidence
• TFL’s cross-mode branding from tube to bikes
• Legible London pedestrian totems and walking times
• apps changing navigation habits and expectations
• how policy, symbols, and maps align for ease


Let us know what you think of London's impact on transit across the globe!

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SPEAKER_00:

Some of you may already know about the history of subway maps, but Chris had the chance to actually travel to London to learn about why this phenomenon exists and why so many transit maps around the world look the same. So, Chris, do you want to tell us a little bit more about your trip and what kind of gave you the idea for this episode?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I was in London and it was my first time there, which if you haven't been to London, I highly, highly recommend it, not only for just the history and it being an amazing city, but if you are a transit nerd, it is such a cool, cool place to be. Um, I absolutely loved everything about the the tube, the underground, uh, and and all of the network. And we'll get into some of the things that I thought were really, really cool uh about that system. But the thing that stood out to me most when I was sort of thinking back about the trip was just how easy it was to navigate London, which we've experienced together on this show. We've definitely experienced on our own in other places. Not every system is easy to navigate.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh we've definitely Yeah, I was gonna say we've definitely had our fair share of kind of being stuck somewhere and not knowing where to go. The the worst instance of it actually on the show I can think of was when we were freezing cold in Kansas City, Kansas.

SPEAKER_01:

Very cold. So cold. We're at a transit tangent's all-time low. Literally. The wind chill is 21 degrees right now, and it's like 30 mile per hour winds and raining. We also were very lost for a while. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Trying to figure out which bus stop we needed to get back. There was like 10 bus stops on this like one block, and it was really unclear which one we needed to be at.

SPEAKER_01:

Um at 40, 50 degrees that day from the start of filming. Yeah, that was a rough tour local. That was a rough day. But yeah, it I I got to thinking about this uh idea of wayfinding in transit systems and was really curious about the history of it because again, as I've said, it's not always the most intuitive thing. I love New York, and New Yorkers may hate me for saying this, but I don't think the map is always the most intuitive, especially if you're not from the city. Uh so being in London and seeing how easy it was, it really just made me think um, what is the history here and uh how has it influenced um other cities around the world?

SPEAKER_00:

Going back to the early 1900s, London's transportation system looked a lot like it did in so many other places around the world. We've talked about in other episodes how it would be, you know, multiple competing railway companies and really private industry kind of building these initial lines out. And as a result of that, you end up with fragmented, inconsistent, and confusing systems that don't necessarily integrate very well, difficult to make transfers, and you really just had to know a lot about the system to be able to navigate it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and then there was a turning point that came in 1908 with the debut of the roundel. This is what most people are going to be familiar with uh in London. Whenever you're looking for the underground, you're going to see uh basically this sign somewhere nearby.

SPEAKER_00:

And that was the first time for those of you just listening, also, uh, that is the classic red circle London Underground that you've probably seen before.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's just a symbol that is synonymous with London. And London was really the first place where you started to see a cohesive design movement around uh transportation. And even though we still had a couple of separate companies, when the roundel was introduced, it allowed Londoners to know okay, this is an entrance to the underground. And so that sign started to be used across the system. This roundel was designed by Frank Pick. This was a design visionary who really believed that uh design could elevate public life. He pushed for this cohesive design language across the network, and he also commissioned folks to help with the artwork that would go into making uh these symbols. That introduces Edward Johnson, who created the what we now call Johnson Sands, which is the typeface that you see on the underground uh roundel, and a typeface that you start to see really pop up all across London. So that is step one in making a really cohesive design language across the system, allowing people to know okay, I see this sign. Now I know exactly what is going to be beneath my feet. The second problem is, as you may also know, when you were underground, it is really easy to get turned around. And one thing that I found incredibly helpful in London was that the wayfinding underground was even better than what you found on the surface. It was a lot easier to orient yourself with the city by looking at the map, which is phase two of creating a better wayfinding system.

SPEAKER_00:

So you would think that a map should be a fairly straightforward decision. We use maps in so many different ways in our lives, whether it be going for a walk, driving in a car somewhere, and obviously navigating transit systems. But the earlier versions of most transit maps do not look like the ones that we see all over the place today. Uh, they were much more focused on geography. So think, you know, more so a map like you might see when you're driving your car. It was a difficult problem to solve trying to make sure that number one, people knew where in the city each of these transit stations were and how to get there, but also which lines to be able to travel on. Uh, and while it doesn't sound complex, it's difficult to visualize just in one image that anyone can understand when they take a look at it.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, think about that if you're visiting a city for the first time and you don't understand the geography of the city, uh, that also just the map doesn't help you if you don't understand you know where things are relative to each other uh for your first time. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And today, like the the easiest thing that I can think of to try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who might have been looking at one of these early subway maps is when you look at a bus map of any city today. Oftentimes when you look at the bus map and compared to uh the subway map of New York or Philadelphia or any other big city in the US or around the world, the bus map looks confusing as hell. Like it's just a spaghetti of lines everywhere, and it's difficult to figure out what is important and what is not. And some of the early rail maps probably would have felt similar um if you were kind of looking at them in that era. Uh obviously today, um, you know, as m we're trying to kind of have a focus on buses in a lot of places in the United States, some cities are shifting to the kind of visuals that we're going to talk about here soon. Um, but that's kind of the closest thing that I can think of to try to put yourself in the in the visual mindset of what you might have been looking at at the time. Anyway, by the 1920s, London's network had grown far too complex to be able to continue drawing these geographically accurate lines on the map. It was getting confusing, and a new style of mapping was introduced by Harry Beck. And this new style became known as diagramic mapping.

SPEAKER_01:

I struggled so hard at saying diagramic the first several times that I read that word.

SPEAKER_00:

Be clear, that was take one for me saying it.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah, good job.

SPEAKER_00:

Give myself a round of applause.

SPEAKER_01:

I think uh the best way to describe a diagrammic map is to think of it not as a map based on geography where you see rivers and landmarks and you know topographical features, but now you're looking at things uh where they they're spatially relevant to each other, but again, not on not on a geographic scale. I'm trying to think of the best way to explain that. But if anybody is familiar with anything related to electrical engineering, this is where this idea came from. Instead of looking at a map as a geographical map, you're now trying to interpret the data closer to what you would see on like an electrical schematic, where the distances between stops or the distances between elements doesn't matter as much as knowing that they connect. And so this is a brand new way for people to really think about their environment instead of thinking it again as the spatial relevancy. It's just you need to know that this line connects to the next station. The tube map in 1933 introduced some revolutionary new design elements to subway maps or underground maps. It introduced, introduced only straight lines, lines that intersected at 45 and 90 degree angles, uh even station spacing. So again, we're not worried about how far away stations are, we just need to know that those stations are on this line, strong color coding. So now you're getting familiar with here's the red line, the yellow line, the blue line, and almost no real geography. So maybe it shows where the river is in relation to your station, but for the most part, all geographical features get stripped. And so it goes from being a map of London to something brand new.

SPEAKER_00:

And this map is basically the standard that we see today. So many major cities around the world, whether it be Paris, Mexico City, Washington, DC, Tokyo, and so many more, have adopted these standards to be able to make their maps. And it makes a ton of sense when you think about it because for the most part, when you are traveling on a subway or a metro in a major city, you know the station that you're going to. That's the piece of information that you're going to get is I need to get to this station, and you're going to walk into whatever station is nearest to you. You want to be able to look at the map, find your station, look at the colors, and it's like, okay, I need to go from red to yellow or blue to green, and I need to go four stops on this one. And it makes it so that you have all of the information that you need, but none of the extra information that you'd find at a on a geographical map that you don't need.

SPEAKER_01:

So these design elements are something that all of us can probably visualize when we think about them. But if you were from the US, you may think of probably the most prominent transit city that we have, which is New York, and start to see: okay, this logic of what London has done doesn't necessarily apply to the New York map. And there is a lot of history there. And anybody who is a big transit nerd or has has followed transit maps for a long time will know all about the controversy of having the map be geographically accurate versus diagramic and the the Central Park debacle about it being a square versus a rectangle. And there's there's all this history behind the New York subway map. And so uh what's interesting about this is that New York at one time did try a very similar map to London, uh, and it did not go over well. It happened in 1972, and I'm gonna mess up this name, but uh Massimo Vignelli's diagramic map.

SPEAKER_00:

That was also Massimo Vignelli. Yes, exactly. It looks it's it looks Italian to me.

SPEAKER_01:

That's the your last name's Italian, right?

SPEAKER_00:

You should be able to pronounce it. It is. That's why that's why I really went for it there.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh Massimo's map was really heavily inspired by London, and it was this beautiful map, but it was very confusing to writers because now all of this geography that they were so used to seeing, you know, the island of Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, uh uh Brooklyn, I'm forgetting all the boroughs, Staten Island, all of these places suddenly didn't look like the places that they were familiar with familiar with. And Central Park became this sort of rectangle off in the corner of the map. Distances felt wrong, neighborhoods were distorted. New Yorkers really, really didn't like it, and they wanted the geography to return to the map. So this map from uh uh Vignelli, uh Vignelli, I think you gotta do the hand thing when you when you say it. Vignelli, yeah. That's too far. It was uh we're canceled in uh in Italy. Yeah. Um it was replaced a few years later by the MTA to go back to a more realistic map, and that one kept the subway recognizable and is probably the map that you would recognize today.

SPEAKER_00:

And honestly, I I do think it makes sense for New York, especially because New York's geography is so uh unique, I guess. I mean, Manhattan is a very unique shape, even some of the other boroughs where they kind of jut in, it it makes sense, and I feel like it is if you live in New York in particular, and even if you're visiting New York, you already do have a rough idea of okay, here's Manhattan, here's the Bronx. Like it is uh such a classic city to like be able to visualize that these kinds of places that I think the hybrid map there does make some sense. And um, I I almost think that the visual is almost more important in some cases because you maybe don't know the station name there just because there are so many stations. Like you're like, oh, I I want to get to lower Manhattan. It doesn't matter if it's this station or that station, I just need to roughly get to this area because there are so many stations so close by to each other. I I think that that might have something to do with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. And and it it has become its own iconic um type of transit map. Uh, and I know there's some people already typing comments saying, hey, the map changed again. In 2025, the MTA introduced uh its first major redesign of the transit map in decades, and this is nudging it back towards more of a diagramic model, uh more of a London style look with uh you know straighter lines, cleaner geography, um, still trying to keep some of the geography to feel like New York, but definitely trying to standardize more of the station spacing and how the lines look. But Lewis, what about you? What do you think between these two different design principles of a geographic map versus a diagramic map? And in your experience, you know, what have you found that's sort of easier to navigate with?

SPEAKER_00:

As someone who loves just like, especially before I go to visit a city, just like staring at maps of it ahead of time, uh, part of me does appreciate having some geographic features. So I I kind of do like the kind of hybrid model, but it also kind of depends on the city, right? So if if a city has a fairly straightforward transit system and there's only two lines on it or something, I feel like I don't necessarily need to have all that much geography. Um, but if you're visiting a a larger city, excuse me, like New York or even Vienna, um I'm I'm struggling to remember exactly what Vienna's transit map looked like. Um but I I do want to say they had some of the like rivers and things like that on it. So having a a bit of the geography um is certainly helpful. But um I do think though that station names is the most important thing. If I'm in a city and I don't know where I'm going, I'm punching into Google Maps, uh, I want to get from here to here. And the main things that I look at on the app is which station I'm getting on at and which station I'm getting off at. Um the transit view actually is pretty good now as well. In Google Maps, I'm I'm looking at what it's recommending for where to transfer and things like that. So it does do some of the heavy lifting for you. But in today's day and age, I think that my experience and how I'm using transit is a lot of the way that other people are. I could be wrong in that. And the just visual diagram with no geography is gonna do that job just fine.

SPEAKER_01:

You brought up a good point. People aren't necessarily navigating the systems in the same way they used to. So I do wonder how these maps um will continue to evolve because I think so many people now just use a transit app or Google or Apple maps to know where to go. And it's less about visualizing your stops on a map and more about okay, I've gotten on, and in four stops, I know I need to get off. Um so people even today probably have less of a awareness of what the map actually looks like versus what they see on their on their phone. And I'm definitely guilty of that in New York. I I rely really heavily on on using my phone, although I'm also looking at the map.

SPEAKER_00:

So and I I think it it leads to something we're gonna talk about a little bit more in the episode, which kind of gets to the importance not just of how easy to navigate like the map is, but how easy to navigate each of the stations are, um, which which to me can be the most complicated part. Um, I've been to plenty of places that do it really well, and other places that don't do it so well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. And that was really helpful in London, is especially if you're using a transit app. It told you once you arrived at your station which exit to take. And the exits were really well marked underground. So it would be named after whatever street corner you were going to, or the station may even have had like an exit number. And that's something that we don't see a lot of in places like New York. That's one of the most complicated parts of New York is knowing exactly which station to go in because they don't always connect across the tracks. And when you get to a larger station, knowing which exit to take. And again, New Yorkers are going to make fun of me for this, but for somebody who doesn't live there, it is very uh hard to navigate that. And so London does a really, really good job of telling you exactly where you are in the station relative to your destination and and what uh what direction to go.

SPEAKER_00:

So after your trip, you also told me about something interesting that I wouldn't have figured, and it's that the London Underground roundel is not only used just for the underground anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So what I was noticing when I was walking around London is that you see this symbol all over the city, but it's not always this red circle and blue bar. Sometimes it's purple, sometimes it's brown, um, all these different colors. And what I came to realize was that they're using this symbol not just for the underground, but for every type of transportation in the city. And so when I looked up the history of that, I found that TFL, which is uh Transport for London, was formed in 2000. And one of the reasons it was formed was to create a more cohesive transportation plan across the city. Um, one of the objectives of that was to create a single design system. It worked so well for the London Underground almost a century ago that why not apply the same logic to every mode of transportation in the city. And so what started with that was we're gonna adopt the Johnson Sands for all transportation modes, and we're gonna adopt the roundel for all transportation modes. And so you see this on bus stations and uh uh fair uh water taxis or ferries, you see it um on bike racks. You know, the London bikes have this uh symbol that says bikes on it. Um, the coach stations, you know, buses that aren't part of a public transportation system but are private, you still go to the coach station and you see this roundel. So every form of transportation is now unified under the same design language, which is also really, really helpful, especially if you're not from the city. But it's also really cool to see that cohesiveness across the city.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And I it's uh it just makes things that much easier. You know what you're looking at. It goes beyond language even. If you don't speak English, you can look, know that that symbol is gonna mean that some form of transit uh is coming, no matter what mode you're you're looking for. So the the symbols in that matter uh do matter quite a bit. And yeah, it's it's nice to see it being continued across all modes. So beyond the subways and other forms of more traditional public transit, you also saw on your trip something that was introduced in 2007, which is essentially a pedestrian wayfinding system.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, this is a system called Legible London, and it's very similar to some systems you've probably seen in other cities around the world. But once again, London didn't just stop at trying to innovate wayfinding below ground and with their transport system, they've also tried to innovate wayfinding for pedestrians and getting around London. And again, if you haven't been to London, it's not always the easiest city to navigate to navigate even above ground because you know you have a lot of crisscrossing streets that's a thousand years old. Uh there's there's a lot of uh inconsistencies on the on the ground as well. So in 2007, uh they did a big study on um you know human behavior and and what would help with people navigating the city, and it came with the introduction of these yellow totems, these yellow top totems. And you see about 1700 of these distributed across London, so not even just the touristy area in you know the central part of London, but even out toward the suburbs. And these uh totems help you navigate the environment around you. Um, they're these forward-facing, like you are here maps that let you know exactly where you are in this neighborhood. The maps show uh key landmarks, they show where you can connect in with the tube network or other big transit hubs. It tells you walking time between destinations. That's a little subjective, as we know. Sometimes we are uh faster walkers than what Google Maps or other things tell us. Um and it gives you this consistent graphic hierarchy, uh, which was really successful with the London Underground system. So they have continued to help uh improve the experience for getting around their city, uh, again, not just underground, but also above ground. And this has led to, you know, programs launching in other cities.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I think that this is another important piece, and and we're not really going to talk about it today, but uh, in addition to the kind of walking wayfinding, I know London has spent a lot of time on bike infrastructure as well and trying to make the downtown area more bikeable. And all of this also kind of spills into another conversation we've had on the channel before uh surrounding congestion pricing. Um, London has congestion pricing. It was often cited when New York was pushing for congestion pricing. And they it's showing that they're putting just as much effort into making it really easy to get around the city, whether it be on the underground, whether it be on uh a bus, whether it be on a bike, whether it be on foot, just trying to make it easy to navigate uh no matter which mode of transit you are choosing, is really important in a like major downtown area like that. So um good to see them leading by example in kind of all different forms.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. It's it's really, really impressive. And to see the impact that London's had on every city around the globe at this point in in you know creating design language around transportation systems is just really, really cool to think about. London was the first underground system uh and continues to serve as sort of that innovative leader in transportation around the world. With that, let us know if you have been to London. Let us know your thoughts on the famous roundel. Um, by the way, if you want one of these, you can get them from the the Transport for London Museum. Uh, it's really cool. I do highly recommend. Um, but yeah, tell us what you think about the London system, what your experiences have been, or you know, maybe you completely disagree with us and geograph geographic maps are the way to go.

SPEAKER_00:

And uh if you want to have a navigate time, I think as Chris said earlier, navigate. Uh if you want to practice your navigation and see if it's navigate, uh, that's uh it sounds like a good trip to be able to go do. Um, if you have not left a comment on this video already, please consider doing so or pressing the like button. It helps us out quite a bit. If you want to support transit tensions directly, you can do so via our Patreon, buy us a coffee or the merch store down below. And with all of that being said, thank you all so much for watching and enjoy the rest of your Transit Tangents Tuesday.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm saving that no public transit favorite, watch me go.