DC Metro Map Redesign: Fortes and Flaws
When I moved to DC after finishing school in Maine, I sold my car, planning to make my commute from Rosslyn into DC using the much-praised Metro system. It has been a great decision — I can spend as little as as $50 a month on all my travel, and it is incredibly easy to find my way around, either using the maps in stations and on trains, or using the Metro website/mobile site. I marveled at how easy they made it to get around a city with so many neighborhoods, attractions, and parks, and a large part of that has to do with their solid design skills throughout the system. Not only are their signs easy to read, but their maps make it simple to tell, at a glance, how to get where you need to go:
This month’s newest revision of the map was spurned by the recent extension to the yellow line, extending it from Mount Vernon Square to Fort Totten — but only during rush hour. This is the first major differentiation on the system, as far as I know. Unlike other cities, DC’s Metro does not have express trains or stops that only operate during peak hours, but this yellow line extension does something to make the system a bit more complicated along these lines. Some of the revisions the Metro did were useful, but others just made the system seem so much more complicated than it really is.
The Good
Something that I learned early on after moving to DC is that airport transportation can be a total pain. There are three airports in DC: National, which is very conveniently located in Arlington; BWI, which is slightly closer to Baltimore than it is to DC; and Dulles, which is out in the sticks of Virginia by Cindy Li. While the first is very much metro-accessible, the other two are not so obviously so — they certainly don’t have Metrorail lines going to them, at least.
However, once you discover that there are express bus lines to each of these airports from Metro stations, traveling to them becomes vastly easier. The B30 line goes from Greenbelt (the end of the green line) to BWI, and the 5A bus routes from Rosslyn (the convergence of the blue and orange lines in Virginia) down to Dulles. For about $3 each, you can’t beat the price.
The new Metro map makes these lines less of a mystery, putting icons representing the bus lines next to their respective Metrorail stations. Since most tourists and visitors aren’t familiar with or comfortable with the more-complicated Metrobus system, they are far more likely to see this. Downside: it can’t be a good thing for the cabs and vans and buses that make a killing on travel to these airports.
The Bad
The main reason for this redesign was presumably the extension of the yellow line from Mount Vernon to Fort Totten, mentioned above. The new extension only runs part-time, so if you are standing at Fort Totten during any time outside rush hour waiting for a yellow line train, you’re going to be waiting quite a while. This should be more evident on the map, which treats the new extension visually the same way as every other span of metro line on the system.
The treatment they give it is an information bubble off to the side, quite substantially spatially separated on the map from the stops where the information would have an impact. If you’re not looking off to the upper right well out and away from the perceived end of the yellow line, you may never notice it at all, which could be a bad thing if you’re on a tight schedule and don’t realize your error quickly enough.
What they might have done instead is use a visual treatment on the extension to indicate that it is part time or special in some significant way. The Metro map’s key already has an alternative treatment — a hashed line — for planned stations, and since there are no longer any planned stations, this alternative treatment could be used to indicate a part-time extension like that of the yellow line. It would offer an immediate clue that if you’re planning to go from Fort Totten to Huntingdon or somewhere on the yellow line, you need to pay attention to the additional information.
These are small changes and small alterations, but with millions of people using these maps EVERY DAY to get from place to place, making the map as understandable as possible should be the first and primary goal of any alterations to it. The Metro really does a great job of information presentation in general throughout the system, and this is but a blemish, but it seems that such a major change in paradigm on the system should have been thought through a little more. The main goal: make sure you don’t leave older folks — you know, like my parents — stuck on some train platform in the middle of the night clueless as to their mistake.
Great suggestion Jackson, that would make more sense visually.
And one quick correction… you said the yellow line only runs between Mt. Vernon & Ft. Totten during rush hour, but it actually runs between those 2 stations during normal metro hours EXCEPT during rush hour.
Wow, you’re right. I guess I went after the solution that made more intuitive sense to me: that you’d want to have that stretch covered DURING rush hour…
I wonder if there are just that few people transferring from the red to the green… I’d have thought that many would want to get to Chinatown or Mt Vernon from Silver Spring and those parts of Maryland.
Thanks John.
haha yeah having the trains go the extra distance only during rush hour makes more intuitive sense to me as well. The only reason I noticed it was the other way around is I take the yellow line until it ends and then transfer to the green line when I’m returning home from Refresh DC meetings.
RE Jackson’s comment - coming from Silver Spring to Farragut North in the morning (I usually get to Silver Spring Station at around 8:10 AM on weekdays) I notice VERY few people who leave the train at Fort Totten - more get on than off.
This might have to do with the commuting flow just not having much Red Line to Green Line traffic. Or, more likely - people are just lazy. I place more value on having a seat than I do on getting on the first train - I’ll happily wait for a couple full trains to go by on the platform before I get on one that has empty seats. Maybe the people who could transfer to the Green Line at Fort Totten are like me and prefer to have a seat on the Metro for as long as possible, even if it means their trip is slightly longer.
This approach is actually not new for Metro. Back before the entire Green line was completed in the mid-90’s, some Red line trains used to be a “Green Line Shortcut” and shoot up the Green line stops (toward Greenbelt) from Fort Totten. This was before U Street to Shaw section of the Green line was completed a few years later. Of course that used to piss me off when I lived at Silver Spring, but it was aimed at reducing congestion at the Fort Totten station.
As for the rush hour v non rush hour, the yellow line extension is aimed at evening entertainment on the hot U street corridor. If people from Virginia can just get on one train without having to transfer the idea is more will come into the city, stay later, and spend more money.
I still remember when Metro would close at midnight on weekends….and I remember long walks home late at night after missing the last train.
Thanks for the history lesson Mr. Panetta :)
So if the main reason for extending service is to provide access to nightlife and such, why provide the extended service during the morning and afternoon?
Makes a ton of sense for rush hour and later, but presumably few people are going there in the morning…
Interesting article, Jack…and I do agree that, in general, the metro does an outstanding job of making it extremely easy to get around DC and its environs. I do, however, have one small bone to pick…Don’t bite the hand that used to feed you. As one of those “older folks” that you refer to, my advanced age of 56 (upcoming b-day notwithstanding) does not qualify me for the ranks of the feeble, doddering, easily confused and clueless quite yet! And, interestingly for those of you echoboomers, you’d be surprised just how good the 50’s can look from this side of the fence! Be careful what you say…you’ll be here sooner than you think…and you may have your very own remarks lobbed back at you!
With respect, you’re thinking about the Yellow Line extension a little bit wrong. WMATA and the District government would be happy to extend the Yellow Line all the way to Fort Totten at ALL times. Unfortunately, it’s a simple physical fact that running Yellow Line trains that extra distance while maintaining the same time interval between them would require more trains. During rush hour, those extra trains simply aren’t available — all of Metro’s train cars are being used in various parts of the system, with priority given to areas that see lots of commuters.
Fortunately, during rush hour, there are enough Green Line trains running on that segment to provide service every 7 minutes or so. Late at night, though, Green Line trains only run every 20 minutes, meaning that it makes good sense to supplement that service with additional Yellow Line trains.