I THINK THAT THE NEW MTA SUBWAY MAP IS A WIN FOR NEW YORK.
Yesterday, the MTA revealed its first complete subway map redesign in nearly 50 years. This new version combines two very different design styles: Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 modernist, abstract map and Michael Hertz’s more realistic 1979 map that replaced it. The result is something New York hasn't had in a long time—a map that's both beautiful and easier to use.
Let's go back a bit.
The 1972 Vignelli map was a bold vision for what a subway map could be—CLEAN, MINIMAL, and designed with a clear graphic logic. It got rid of the noise and reimagined the subway as a system of lines and connections, rather than actual locations. For designers, it was a landmark piece of work. But for the average rider, the abstracted layout made navigation tricky. The map prioritized STRUCTURAL CLARITY over REAL-WORLD ACCURACY. And so Central Park became a square. The distances didn't match the streets above. It was a beautiful system, but wasn’t always practical for getting from A to B.
In 1979, the MTA switched to Michael Hertz’s version. This map followed the layout of the city more closely, helping people better connect what they saw on the map with what they saw outside. And it worked—I grew up with this map. It was FUNCTIONAL and FAMILIAR, but over time, it got crowded. More lines. More stations. More noise. The system kept evolving, but the map didn't evolve with it.
THE 2025 REDESIGN CHANGES THAT.
It keeps the usability of the Hertz map while bringing back the CLARITY, COLOR, and CONFIDENCE of Vignelli’s design. Bold lines. Brighter, more distinct colors. Simpler transfers. Station names you can actually read from across the platform. And crucially—ADA-accessible stations are now clearly marked, not buried in the details. That alone makes a huge difference for so many riders.
This update isn't about looking backward. It's about moving forward.
A subway map is not just a poster, it's a tool that people rely on every single day. And the old version, while familiar, wasn't doing the job anymore. For decades, the MTA had to layer patches and band-aids onto an outdated system. This redesign finally breaks free of that approach and says: LET’S DO THIS RIGHT.
Not everyone will love it at first. That's how change works. People often prefer what they’re used to—even if what they’re used to doesn’t work well.
But good design solves problems. And this redesign solves several.
It honors the past without being stuck in it. It puts USABILITY FIRST. And it works for EVERYONE—not just locals, but tourists, seniors, people with disabilities, and anyone trying to make sense of the city.
To me, that's what public design is all about: making life easier, clearer, and more accessible for everyone involved.
The map won't fix everything, but it's a solid step in the right direction. And more importantly—it shows how that smart, human-centered design can still make a real difference.
You must not live in NYC. Please tell me how to get to specific destinations solely using the new map without looking up your stop on your phone? You can't because they removed all the key details and street names in the new map
I don’t see how the previous one solved for that either. Back in the old days when you had your tiny wallet size folded map, you’d still have to have a basic idea of where you were. Oh, I’m near prospect park? Do I see the library? No? Then I should go east. If you’re in lower Manhattan, you’d just find any station and look at the neighborhood map if you were really lost.
The previous map had main cross streets and neighborhood names. If I know the neighborhood I want to go to, but don't know the stop I need, this map is unusable without a phone, especially for people without deep knowledge of NYC.
Another example, what if I wanted to go to 88th and Broadway and didn't know the stop I needed, how can I tell what line runs closest to broadway with the new map?
I hear you but this map needs to work for tourists, new residents of nyc, and native New Yorkers equally. Also for people who don’t have a cell phone or its battery died.
Frankly good design has to work for the lowest common denominator which would be tourists in this instance and this new map is completely unusable for a tourist whose phone has died and don’t know the stop they need.
I’m a native NYer with 30+ years of using the old map and while I know my way around main areas, I would be fucked using this in parts of Bronx or queens that I don’t know without looking up my stop on my phone.
Google maps is for getting to places. A subway map is for the subway. People looking at a subway map are following subway lines and looking for station names. Not where prospect park is. An unfocused designer is a bad designer
You’re brainwashed. Some people don’t own cell phones and your bottom line can’t be making designs only for people that have cell phones. That’s like restaurants that only take credit cards. It’s discriminatory
I don't know, it's going to be complicated either way. Just make it an app. Type in the station you're at, and your destination, and it tells you when to get on and when to get off. That's what we did with road maps when we realised how outdated it was to study the map and remember which turns you needed to make to get to your location.
That way we can still have a visual map that retains real-world spatial relationships and get the benefits of the simplified map which prioritises representing the travel process.
Its not, they don't include the landmark street names in the map and you have zero way to tell your preferred stop without looking up the destination on your phone, or knowing already. With the old map, I could look at it, determine what stop was nearest to the main street I wanted to get out at and could use the map as an all encompassing source of travel. This new maps is only useful if you already know the stop you need
It has far less information and many stops are in wildly the wrong place. From a designer who takes the subway every day his entire life, it blows big fat donkey dick
Yes but people aren’t GOING to subway stops, they’re going to PLACES. When they compare this with the map on their phone, it confuses even further. Listen, I don’t need it, I know where I’m going. But friends who visit me frequently have said it’s more confusing than the old one, and I have personally had to give directions to plenty of people standing in front of this abomination scratching their heads
Nobody is holding this map next to a city map on their phone and comparing the geography.
You look up on your phone where you are, where you need to be, and it will also give you stops and connections.
You look up on this map how to navigate the subway system.
Look at the old map between Times Square/42nd and Grand Central: which lines stop where, how do they connect, how do you get from where to where? The old map flat out doesn't tell you, or it's convoluted information that you have to deduce from something somewhere else on the map.
I think that it prioritizes the subway line readability over the comprehensive understanding of New York in terms of geography. The outer boroughs become simplified and only give a general idea of the locations, as opposed to the older maps which better explained the oddities with street directions.
It's not necessarily inaccurate for what it's trying to do, which is to portray how the nodes in the network connect to other nodes. The actual travelling process on a train is almost entirely abstracted away, so it doesn't really matter what path the train is taking to get there. But in cases like New York the network is simply too dense for the map to be of use to anyone but commuters or residents who know the city well.
Take, for example, the train map of the city I used to live in, which operates on a hub-and-spoke model. This is where that type of network layout shines, because with very few interconnected train lines it becomes irrelevant that the Johnsonville line takes you north and the
Wairarapa line goes north-east. As a traveller, all you care about is knowing which line to take and for how many stops, how long it'll take, and how much it'll cost, which this map communicates perfectly.
I thought Vigneli's one was in use. But yet I am not a New Yorker, so... Vigneli is perfection. Can't be debated. Good design will always be a victim of bureaucrats until someone with knowledge and an eye for design is in power of change. The story of the EPA identity, for example, is a tragic 😥
I think it's a classic design masterpiece but I also understand why many people (especially New Yorkers) don't like it.
Maybe they should have done something like this map by Jug Cerović which, in my opinion, strikes a good balance between legibility and geographical context (although it could do better regarding the outer boroughs).
I like it. One of my usual stops is 52/5, the MOMA stop, which has a really nice history of the Vignelli map on the downtown side. I started using the subway right around the switch to the Hertz map and my brain just made a note that, oh, the old one was stylish and the new one was messy, like NYC.
I’m glad for the change, even though I can’t remember the last time I looked at a subway map.
Personally I've never liked abstract train maps. I like to see the actual tracks overlaid on top of actual geography, because the geography is my point of reference in my head, not a bunch of place names. I like the realistic map. Far easier for me to look at that and say "ok I'm here, I want to go to here, what are the names of the stations and how are they connected?" on the realistic map.
I agree with you, but many people (my wife, for example) are terrible with mental geography and rely on place names to get around. So for them, this version is likely much more straightforward to read and interpret
Nice map comparison. I draw a lot of hospital and university maps. It’s always interesting to see the way other map makers balance different challenges.
That off center Lexington Ave Exp blue #3 circle is bugging the shit out of me though. How did someone not catch that in review?
Edit: I think a lot of them aren’t lined up. Weird that people doing this complex illustration just eyeball placement instead of using guides and alignment.
Over designed and I do not like that they show a line for each train that shares a track. By doing this it heavily weights the eye to lines that have more trains such BDFM and is visually distracting.
Also because the design is way more abstract and uninformative geographically (mostly due to not including the street locations) it forces you to zero in on the trains stop versus using the location in the city, basically assuming that you already know your destination and stop. The previous map was much easier for people to use if they didn't know the stop they needed since they could look at the map and gauge their final stop by the street information baked in the maps.
I am a native New Yorker with more than 30 years of using the old map.
I like the update (I’ve lived in the area for almost 30 years). Personally, I like the design of the Vignelli map, so I guess that creates a bias. My only issue is with the different shades on some of the lines. What’s going on there? On the words of Josh Baskin— “I don’t get it”.
It's a map created solely to navigate the "subway" and not "New York". There's significant difference between those two things and I think this misses the mark. Traveling around New York requires a certain level of knowledge in respect to where you are and how to get where you're going and the old subway map did that just fine. This is just a subway map. It's not as useful.
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u/ethanwc Senior Designer 1d ago
I personally love it. Way easier to read, and I'm a sucker for that vector grid look.