Spatial Thinking

Maps of Minneapolis & St. Paul and other personal projects. Kyril Negoda is an information designer and cartographer.

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Minneapolis Building Age: The Hexbin Version

Zoomable image

After some tinkering, I arrived at using hexbins to visualize median age of buildings. This made it easier to differentiate between different construction eras: streetcar suburbia, 1950s bungalows or the recent post-Recession housing boom. 

Each hexagon is ~500 ft / 150m wide. 

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Minneapolis Building Age

Zoomable version

Mapping buildings years of taxable plots of land. The data comes from Hennepin County Assessor’s office and spans years 1858 to 2017. As with all datasets of this kind, this map should be used as a general reference only. The data from before 1900s is not very reliable (record keeping was a little bit more lax at the time). 

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Height of Minneapolis/St. Paul

View large on Flickr

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Downtown on the Rise

Work in progress on a downtown real estate map

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Washington region's first bus rapid transit

Information design and cartography for Metroway rapid bus line.

These panels feature schematic line maps, maps of surrounding area and frequency of connecting services. This was a quick turnaround of just under three weeks (I was assigned to the project on my day one at CHK; it was nerve wracking).

Designed at CHK America (2014). Photo by Oran Viriyincy.

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Improved maps for Richmond, VA

I had a pleasure of redesigning the system map for GRTC (Richmond, VA). The schematic-style map helps untangle this often convoluted bus system. The design features bigger, more legible type and highlights more frequent routes over less frequent and express routes in the network. The result is a cleaner, crisper and easier-to-read information aid. It is now being installed through the city as part of a general information overhaul led by CHK America.

Source: Official Website (PDF)

Designed at CHK America. Images courtesy of GRTC.

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Silver Spring Transit Center

Map directory for a newly opened multimodal transit center in Silver Spring, Maryland. The isometric diagram highlights various modes to get to and from the hub.

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Some downtown bus networks are very complex. 

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Pedestrian & Cyclists

illustration

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Work in Progress: Minneapolis Transit Map

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Had fun making floor maps for a local hospital campus. The “3D” effect adds a bit of personality to an otherwise basic map.  

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Neighborhood Orientation Maps

work in progress

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Minneapolis future transit map. Work in progress

This screenshot covers almost the entire area of Minneapolis. The future lines will continue to closely follow historical development patterns from the streetcar era, which favored north-south  axis culminating at Hennepin and Nicollet avenues downtown. And even though Minneapolis has lost a great deal of population density (7,300/ sq mi vs 9600 at its peak in 1950s), many of today's densiest neighborhoods exist in part thanks to the excellent fixed guideway system of the time. 

(Pssst... regular color version is here) 

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 With only 20 or so mins to spare each night, the progress on the Minneapolis transit map is slow. Fortunately, I'm getting to a point where I can work on  the  fun part: finalizing the style and ironing out smaller issues. 

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Making Oklahoma City's Transit Map

In 2014, I collaborated with mapping firm Cardinal Maps on the redesign of information products for EMBARK, Oklahoma City’s newly rebranded transit agency. The network was being re-imagined to provide more frequent and more direct bus service to meet growing demand. Oklahoma City is often compared to Austin, TX for their efforts to become less depended on cars as a chief mode of transportation in the city.

Download EMBARK system map brochure (PDF)

I didn’t want to move away from geographically-accurate representation completely, but rather settle somewhere in between: The map is not quite a GIS-overlay, but neither it is a subway-style diagrammatic map. This hybrid approach had already been deployed  by Kick Map (http://www.kickmap.com/) and CHK America elsewhere (see the map CHK America created for Spokane Transit). I wanted to replicate the simplicity and usability of those maps.

By moving to schematic representation, I was able to show outlying areas that wouldn't have otherwise fit on the map. This made it easier to follow the lines.

 Oklahoma City’s gridded geography naturally fits that format.

The map’s layout is based on a modular grid. Each module is about 100  points across, which roughly corresponds to the city’s one-mile mega block, which consists of regular-sized blocks bound by arterial roads:

Taking advantage of the existing geography, I started it out with 45 and 90-degree angles, but had to add additional increments to follow the geography more closely:

Because buses do not run on every street, it made sense to only label the transit streets and the streets leading up to them. Rest of geographic features were allowed to “fade away”: 

Finally, icons play a major role in calling out major destinations located along bus routes. Visually unified with the brand style, they  work just as well at small sizes as they do at big sizes:

Download EMBARK system map brochure (PDF)

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Re-building France Ave

Working on a little illustration for a local government. Construction crews are in a  process of gutting car-centric thoroughfares to make them more pedestrian and cyclist friendly. Improvements include adding refuge medians, smart signaling, landscaping and better lighting. The rich illustrative style is meant to make technical jargon understandable to general public. The original diagram was not very legible: 

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Dubai Integrated Transport Network

System Map Design Proposal

A few months ago, Matt Forrest (Carticulate Maps) asked me to redesign Dubai's system map as part of a larger proposal Matt was working on at the time. Here is what we did:

 Download PDF

System map serves as a gateway to a transit network and, as such, it can make or break users' overall experience. A logically laid-out map will support users' decisions at each stage of their itinerary, be it locating themselves on the map, or making connections, or walking to their intended destination. 

Dubai's behemoth transit agency RTA operates an impressive, but often confusing, network of buses supplemented by rapidly expanding rail (official map, PDF). Hundreds of thousands of riders, locals, armies of migrant workers and visitors, rely on the system daily to get where they need to go. 

The tangled web of lines on the current map is frustrating to navigate:

 Making a map less technical and more approachable:

It soon became clear that relaying huge quantities of information  in a way that can be accessed quickly should be the main priority. We wanted to create a comprehensive overview of the network that  a first-time user could understand without feeling intimidated. After all, a confident rider is more likely to become a frequent rider.

The resulting design retains the rich geographic context of the official map:

 At the same time, we simplified the core structure: got rid of unnecessary geographic detail, streamlined route placement and put a greater emphasis on frequency and transfers. 

Transfer points are crucial in the decision-making process:

Frequency information, how often buses run, enables users to judge service quality over just service quantity in any given area.

Thicker lines mean more service:

See for yourselves what ultimately came out of our effort: Download full-resolution PDF

Before and after. Trading some of  geographic detail for legibility and greater emphasis on network relationships: 

Update:  RTA has recently updated the map with even more bus routes around Al Quoz Station and Dubai Marina. In my opinion, a switch to a more diagrammatic layout should relieve some of the legibility issues that the map has: