The Value of a Different Perspective?

Today I chanced upon the image shown above. It has been released by Dr Max Roberts and is a re-envisioning of the iconic Harry Beck London Tube Map of 1931 (as updated). It uses tangents and spoked and is clearly inspired by the Tube logo.

I know that there have been criticisms of the 1931 map with distances on the map lacking relationship to real distances between stations. The classic examples being Great Portland Street and Regents Park or Bayswater and Queensway which both appear to require two stops and a change of lines, but are in fact only 0.1m apart or around 3 minutes walking.

While this new, round version does have something appealing about it, I found myself unconvinced. So I decided to challenge myself to really look hard at what it offered before deciding. It certainly does something to address some "spatial" elements, though I am unsure of "rim" sections where it appears one travels around London getting no closer or further to the centre. As a commuter this does not appeal psycholgically.

On the subject of centre, this map suggest Tottenham Court Road as the centre of London. Now unless your world is restricted to discounted electronics I can think of few reasons or people who would consider that to be THE centre. Cartographically, I believe all distances to and from London are measured from Charing Cross so that is certainly a candidate, as would be say Oxford Circus or maybe Westminster. In branding terms I think this new map has got the centre wrong.

All in all I think it is a clever idea and pretty well executed, but I don't think it adds enough to warrant a change from this:

Actually as I posted this image I thought the one thing the radial picture my cope with better is the charge zoning shown in grey on this map. It can be quite confusing to work out which zones one needs on a ticket and IF the radial could make that simpler then that might be the reason to change. I have not tried to overlay the charge zones, but a quick visual inspection shows this would not work.

Also tempus fugit and the advent of the Oyster Card for paying for fares and the proposal that London Buses go cashless, one wonders how long before the Tube goes cashless too. Soon one will just swipe in and out, without the pre-journey Mensa test of how many zones and what ticket?

So for now the round map, might grace a wall as a peice of interesting art, but I am not sure I see much more for it.