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I was at an event in Montreal a few weeks back where I got to meet some transit advocates and enthusiasts, and one thing that struck me was that one guy (not going to name names since I’m not sure he’d want that) showed me a “fantasy” map he drew up for the city (if you’re not familiar, a fantasy map is just that — an imagined map, usually for the cities rapid transit system, in some — typically — far off future). What was funny is that he preceded showing me his map with a comment “I know you don’t like fantasy maps but, …”
There’s a perception out there that I don’t like transit fantasy maps, and that perception ... is correct! I actually made a whole video on this years ago, but I want to further elaborate and perhaps talk specifically about how I feel today.
Of course, me saying “I don’t like fantasy maps” doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make them or enjoy looking at them — you do you, I’m just explaining why I don’t spend a lot of my own time making and looking at these maps — and maybe that will make you feel differently, or perhaps it will just leave you feeling more informed about what a dude on the internet thinks.
Connection to Reality
For one, a lot of fantasy maps get pretty disconnected from reality.
I think the appeal of such a map to me diminishes rapidly the more the “conceptual” network strays from current plans and projects. It’s I guess a fun exercise to imagine subways under every other major arterial, but a lot of things that will not happen might be “cool” if they could happen — it would be cool if I was 7 feet tall and could slam dunk a basketball, but I’m not, and it feels like it would be odd for me to spend time fantasizing about being taller so I could dunk instead of just practicing shooting (this sports metaphor is very unnatural for me, I am not a sports person!).
I understand that for some people it’s fun to draw up maps for artistic value or as something that could inspire people to support building more, but I feel like efforts are probably better spent even just imagining a next phase of projects as opposed to a full map of them. For example, Alon Levy’s somewhat famous “Assume Nordic Costs” piece might be called “fantasy” by some, but it’s thoroughly thought out.
Feasibility
A big issue a lot of these maps have little regard for is feasibility, or the current conditions of actual transit expansion. In some places such as China, you could sort of be forgiven for drawing metro lines basically anywhere and in any pattern you want, because China could actually realign the roads and build new neighbourhoods to make that happen, but in the Anglo world, the price of building new subways is high, and sort of talking about pie in the sky network ideas without examining that at all is a bit frustrating. It’s not even like a lot of the time these maps try to select reasonable compromise or cost-effective right of ways, it’s just slapping down rapid transit wherever. I guess something about this whole attitude of imagining gratuitous expansion when there is real advocacy needed on bringing down costs so we can do modest expansion is just grating.
I think feasibility (and cost control for that matter) should be central to transit planning, and so it’s hard to have super positive feelings about doing something that is often explicitly about throwing feasibility out the window. That being said, I am more sympathetic to efforts that try to identify corridors where construction can be cost-effective, as well as to minimize transfer times, and allow for things like maintenance facilities.
Can Put Lines Anywhere
Now, I get that you need to have people imagining the future of the city at the same time people are talking about making building megaprojects more practical, I think a lot of fantasy maps are really just an exercise in drawing lines. The reality of actual metro systems is that they rarely entirely adhere to a master plan, and especially when they are built over long periods of time plans tend to change, not only based around urban change and trends, but also based on the changes driven by the presence of the metro itself! Just drawing lines all over the place so you can say you connected various destinations doesn’t force you to reckon with actually building lines where demand is highest, and also dealing with downstream overcrowding when you turn out to have insufficient capacity on key corridors (often fantasy maps totally neglect expanding capacity on existing routes even as they suggest massively increasing the number of people using a network).
I think this is sort of the biggest thing for me. People often act wowed by fantasy maps, and I suppose if you’ve never seen an alternative transit map (probably because you’re not a weird transit enthusiast) that can be a neat experience. That being said, there isn’t anything particularly hard about throwing down a web of lines over a city. It is the detailed planning, and especially managing different tradeoffs, costs, and disruption that actually adds color to transit planning. This extremely detailed video from Nick Andert is a good example of what I’m talking about.
Not Entirely Sure The Appeal
So with all of that out of the way, I guess I just sort of don’t understand the appeal of fantasy maps. Sure, it can be fun once or twice to look at a map that includes your city’s existing network (don’t get me started on people who pretend something like an existing subway doesn’t exist or is dramatically changed) and a bunch of extras, but eventually you realize that those extras aren’t interesting if they aren’t grounded in anything, and particularly if your city is actually building and planning a lot, then the foundations of any sort of plan are going to constantly be shifting.
Time Consuming to Do Well
All of what I’ve just talked about means that a big part of why I don’t do these fantasy maps — is not that you couldn’t do a good job of them — it’s just that to do a good job you need to spend a ton of time on them, and I’m not sure planning for dramatic future projects is a great use of that time.
Now, of course some amount of thinking about the future is important, mostly for provisioning and protection of future projects — which would be where you pre-build something to be used in the future, or leave space for something in the future respectively.
What I Do Spend Time On
So, since I’ve said that I don’t particularly like fantasy maps, and that if I did make maps in that vein, it would be time consuming, what do I think people in the transit community should be spending time on?
I think there is a lot of room for more bloggers and YouTube creators in the “urban” space, and I think that in particular most major cities could benefit from someone covering their public transport in detail.
In terms of planning advocacy, I think more detailed and down to earth advocacy on specific projects (like what BQ Rail Does) is probably more helpful than broad “look at all the lines we could build in an alternate universe!” projects. However, if you have a particular project or issue you are passionate about, you could focus on that! And if you really just want more built, then costs advocacy is huge!
There is also a lot of potential to do traditional advocacy, groups like Movement (Vancouver), but also through the various environmental and social advocacy groups that exist in most cities.
And of course, you could just draw up transit fantasy maps, and you know what, it’s not like you’re doing any harm by doing that, you might even be gaining some graphic design skills; it’s just not for me.
Very well stated, as usual. Fantasy metro maps, also called crayoning, too often ignore the real world constraints of demand generators, significant elevated, surface, and/or underground obstacles, and most of all, political will and funding.
Nonetheless, working through next phase designs of extensions and other plans can provide some out of the box thinking, when the constraints are taken into account, like what Nandert's videos, even if not so detailed.
I recall reading in the late 1990s & early 2000s an LA transit board about suggestions for an LRT west to UCLA and on to Santa Monica, as well as a cross-downtown LRT link between the Blue and Yellow Lines (as was) to provide more downtowns stations, and cross region one-seat rides. Both were taken up and eventually constructed by LA Metro. There are likely other examples.
Fantasy maps are like fantasy American handegg "football" and sports betting. They're stupid, fake and ghey!