View this Aerial Illustration of the NYC Subway System
As the subway system snakes its way throughout the five boroughs and rumbles beneath our feet, most of us think we know exactly where the trains go. We’ve got the city-wide train system permanently etched into our heads, at least in the context of the ubiquitous MTA maps scattered throughout various subway stops. We’ve likely never thought of what it looks like to see a train careen through the urban landscape above ground though, but thanks to some visualizations made by Tumblr user Arnorian, these thoughts have been actualized in a really bright, colorful way.
Arnorian is something a map maven, as his Tumblr is chock-full of public transport visualizations from other cities. In the case of New York though, he juxtaposes the rather crude outline of the MTA’s map to render what the lines look like against the city’s typography. The result looks like something of a technicolor streetscape:
Arnorian was smart to illustrate every line in the city, including the 7 Subway Extension and the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, both of which are currently under construction. The map should also reinforce whether or not you live in a subway desert, which according by the looks of this photograph, are pretty commonplace.