Transit Maps of the World by Ovenden
Transit Maps of the World (2007)
by Mark Ovenden
144 pages - Penguin Books

This coffee-table type book contains maps of metro/subway systems from all around the world. The focus is on the changes and evolution of maps, going from fairly geographically-accurate presentations to the more abstract and not-to-scale versions which more closely approximate the 'feel' of travelling underground. Though some of these system maps incorporate streetcar or other light rail routes, the emphasis is on the traditional subway or metro.

This is a really amazing book for the armchair traveller, and you can spend hours and hours pouring over these maps and imagining journeys (even though I have to admit that I haven't ever been on 2 lines that are in my own city). Systems that have the longest history and most varied evolution of maps get the most space (4 pages each for systems like New York, Tokyo, Paris, etc.). Though I have to say there is a little something missing that would make this the ultimate book. Perhaps I'd like a little more of the history of each system. I'm also not sure about the strict emphasis on the traditional subway, as, for example, here in Toronto subway-building has been mostly abandoned as not being cost-effective, replaced with the building of dedicated streetcar routes which can, incidentally, also travel underground.

The author does have a very definite bias towards maps that are more like diagrams, with lines only travelling along vertical, diagonal, and 45-degree lines, as in the trend-setting map of the London Underground. I remember looking at the New York City map and being perplexed at how each line is drawn as if it has its own crossing across the river (which it obviously doesn't), but it does work on a practical level of making it more coherent when you're actually trying to get somewhere. Oh, and also very interesting are the plans of Berlin when it was devided, and some West Berlin routes ran under East Berlin, with the stations simply closed, and x'ed-out on the map!