Seattlest: The Map's The Thing

Ian

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 07:37:40 -0800

Fantastic post, Michael! I haven't lived in Seattle for more than six years, but reading about map-free Metro, I was suddenly, and palpably, angry all over again. The healing has, apparently, only just begun...

Mike

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 13:44:20 -0800

I'm only responding to your scurrilous accusation, Courtney, because it boosts the comment count by one more. For the record, I have no official or unofficial relationship with Ken Schramm.

vaughn

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 13:37:06 -0800

you might be surprised how affordable we are courtney! for the low, low price of a double-latte at victrola, you too could have loads of flattering comments!:)

Courtney Nash

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 11:41:04 -0800

Um, Michael are you paying people to comment again? I thought you were supposed to cut that out...This 5 comments business seems very out of place.

vaughn

Tue, 23 Aug 2005 09:37:39 -0800

let's kick it up another notch ––> seattle is home to some of the worst signage and environmental graphics of any city I've ever been to. this Metro map is a perfect example of one of this city's most glaring shortcomings. and how many college-level, graphic design programs are there is seattle? (I count 5 off the top of my head, art institute, UW, SVC, SCCC, shorline, but I'm sure there are many more...) so what is our excuse? I remember the first time I came to this realization, reading a general safety/evacuation map on the Bainbridge island ferry a week after having seen Titanic. (with genuine concerns – the WSFerries carry 1,000 more people a trip than the Titanic sank with!) on one map they showed a dark profile of the floor plan with red areas indicating where passengers should congregate in the event of an emergency. great, except that right next to that map was an a graphic explaining what the different alarm whistles meant – and it was a dark silhouette of the boat with red squares indicating the different whistle patterns. hmmm. which also looks a lot like another view of where to congregate in the event of an emergency. in a real emergency, I'm going to guess that this graphic would be confusing at best, deadly at worst. welcome to seattle. even the airport signage is bad enough to have to think about it Every time you go. I never knew how bad it was until I had to get my way around airports in Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Rome (all in one trip) and had less trouble in all of them collectively than I did getting around seattle's international wing when we returned home. do you think they're just trying to keep us on our toes? is this just a top level city program to keep uneducated people out of seattle? maybe city officials have numbers to meet. maybe that bus map is a high performer. can you just see the meeting ––> "we're confident that with this map we can meet and exceed our Q2 goals for 1,286 stupid people moving out of the downtown area."

Michael Baker

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 22:07:56 -0800

Unitarian conspiracy is funnier. See, you take the original joke and kick it up a notch. Something about how Unitarians believe it's all basically the same bus anyway.

8bit Jake

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 21:18:11 -0800

I was joking about a referance to the Monorail post.

Ken Schramm

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 13:35:45 -0800

Hell, I'm just as mad as you are

8bit Jake

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 13:34:14 -0800

"Where's a useful freaking map, guys? For god's sake, we just want to know where the buses go! Why is that information confidential?" It's a Jewish Conspiracy.