New Calgary Transit CTrain map
Recently Calgary Transit has released a survey about their proposed new synoptic map for the CTrain. On the whole I think it provides a significant improvement over the old version, however I had one concern with it, related to the representation of the downtown stations.
Of the nine stations in the Free Fare Zone of Seventh Ave, seven service both train lines but only one direction of travel; three have only westbound trains, and four only eastbound ones. The new map, on the other hand, indicates that three of these stations service only the Blue Line -- presumably both directions of it -- while the other four are for Red Line trains.
I suppose that the meaning is somewhat clear to people who use the system regularly, and is even somewhat intuitive to those who know that along Seventh Ave the westbound stations are on the north side of the street and the eastbound ones are on the south. Nevertheless, I think that to the people who will be most in need of the map, the meaning will be not at all clear until they are physically at the station, and perhaps not even then. It really looks as if you could head to 4th Street Station and catch a Blue Line train heading to the Northeast.
I tried to describe this deficiency in the comments section of Calgary Transit's survey, but after submitting it I decided to try my own hand at solving the problem:
I'd hope for a more graphically pleasing split of the lines on either side of downtown, and ideally the split would come after City Hall since it does serve both directions, but I think that this does a much better job of accurately portraying the layout of the train system as it pertains to the question of which stations will let you get where you need to go.