WINNER OF MAP COMPETITION ANNOUNCED

BOSTON – The MBTA announced today that the winner of the New Perspectives Map Re-design Competition has been determined, with “Map 1” being the favorite of the 17,045 votes cast.

The winning map was submitted by Mikheil Kvrivishvili, an interactive and graphic designer from Moscow, Russia. His map includes many new features that will provide customers with more information and a more appealing aesthetic including:

all surface Green Line stations shown
all SL2 stops shown
area of the map showing the connections between Silver Line and the downtown subway stations enlarged to make it easier for customers to understand how the various Silver Line routes operate
all rapid transit lines have a label with their color (i.e. the word “RED” appears on the Red Line)
most of the rapid transit lines have been reoriented creating a more organized look
line width of the Key Bus Routes and the font size of the Key Bus Route stations has been shrunk, resulting in a cleaner map where rapid transit lines stand out.

This past spring, the MBTA launched the contest and received an overwhelming response, not only because of the dozens of responses received, but the impressive quality of many of the entries. A panel of experts including the MBTA, academics, urban planners, and mapping aficionados evaluated each of the entries against a set of criteria and the six finalists were released to public voting and the winning map received 6,837 votes to “definitely” be named the next system map.

With new stations opening and many more in the pipeline, more modifications to the map will be made, such as the addition of the first phase of the Green Line Extension. The public can expect to start seeing new maps in stations as replacements are needed and as new stations open. The new maps will first be placed in the Orient Heights Blue Line station when it reopens early next year and the new Assembly Square Orange Line station when it opens in late 2014.

“We are entering an exciting period of growth and change in our system and I’m pleased that we were able to work with the public to help usher in some exciting new developments,” said MBTA General Manager Dr. Beverly Scott. “As we continue to grow and improve our system, the new map will be a great symbol of the changes and updates were working on as a whole.”

The contest offered contestants the opportunity to develop alternative versions of the MBTA rapid transit (or “spider”) map. Entrants were asked to submit their maps into one of two categories: the Classic Tier and the Open Tier. Maps submitted as Classic Tier met most of the design standards guiding the development of the MBTA’s current spider map while maps submitted as Open Tier could be more creative representations of the MBTA system.

MassDOT convened a panel of judges, representing a range of perspectives—academia, transit planning, urban design, marketing, MBTA customers, map enthusiasts, and the designer of the current MBTA map. The judges rated all maps against the following four criteria—creativity, aesthetic quality, readability/visual clarity, and informative quality.

Map entries were accepted between April 9, 2013 and May 14, 2013. The top six maps as voted by the panel were then voted on by the public between September 9th and September 20th.

Winning Map by Mikheil Kvrivishvili

MBTA Contact:
Kelly.Smith@state.ma.us