Compulsive Cartographer

Submission – Unofficial Map: Metro Bilbao, Spain by Raül Santín

Submitted by Raül, who says: Hello, this is my third transit map that I create, but the first one that’s not a fantasy one (previously I did a Tallinn Metro Map and a Tram network for my town), so it’s a redesign of Metro Bilbao and suburban network. I would like to know your feedback about it, and I would also like you to publish it because I don’t think there are many circular maps out there, at least in Spain. 

Being a circular map, there is a lot of distortion, but not so much looking at the current official map, which shows the lines very schematically, although retaining the geographical shape. I think there are things to improve, but overall there’s more legibility and the routes are clearer (for example in the official map some stations show the tram stop very far from the rail one, when in reality the tram stop is just in front of the train station). I also used the official metro typeface, Rotis Semi Sans. 

I haven’t been able to find just a standalone metro map (the one in metro bilbao’s website is just a plain thermometer). So my final product features other companies like Euskotren and Renfe, showing until zone 3, the farthest zone where the actual metro network arrives. Maybe it’s not the most useful or practical map, but it’s a different approach, I think.

Transit Maps says:

I think you’ve summed your own map up pretty well, Raül – it’s an interesting experiment, but I’m not entirely sure that it’s a totally successful one. The circular/radial design works fairly well for the most part, and I like the way it adds emphasis to the central part of Bilbao, but it also introduces more than a few problems. 

The first and most prominent of these is the need to put the labels for two major stations across the route lines at San Mamés and Bolueta. Even with the white halo around the type, they’re both very hard to read against the black route line of Metro L2.

Secondly, the station marker at Zazpikaleak/Casco Viejo is quite unconvincing, as it has to stretch awkwardly across a big gap and ends up jammed on top of a big right angle curve on the right hand “half” of the station. The main effect of this is to visually separate Metro L3 line from the rest of the Metro system, which isn’t really desirable.

Pink for the background zones? It’s interesting to see zones that aren’t grey, but it can clash a bit with some of the lighter lines and type, especially the yellow C4F Renfe Feve line. It’s certainly distinctive!

I’d probably also like to see the lines that continue on to zones 4 and 5 to extend past the edge of the circle just slightly as an instant visual cue that they extend further than the map shows. I feel that the arrowheads in their current form are perhaps a little too subtle. The type of the minor lines is perhaps a little too small in comparison to the Metro labels? And finally, the legend feels a little too fractured, placed as it is at various corners of the map. I’d probably prefer to see it as one unified element below the map.

‘The Grey Prince’s realm is one of horror and paranoia, populated by childhood fears and those imprisoned in their own nightmares.’