John Tauranac put New York City’s subway on the map — literally.
The lifelong Upper West Sider, now 80, was the creative director for the MTA’s 1979 rail map, a version of which is still posted in every station today.
But Tauranac doesn’t think it should be there anymore.
“It’s a mess,” he said.
Among the problems he cites are inconsistency, illegibility and a lack of vital information.
He believes that, 40 years on, his creation needs to be completely overhauled, but says that the MTA has largely disregarded his pleas for change.
“I don’t know how many incoming administrations I have sent letters to, to say I’d like to talk about how to improve the existing subway map,” said Tauranac, who also teaches city social and architectural history at NYU.
Although Taraunac’s handiwork was praised upon its debut as the best subway map in years — in part because it simplified the earlier Massimo Vignelli-designed version by consolidating “trunk lines,” such as the B/D/F/M, from four bands to one — he says that updates have been made “with less-than-careful hands.”
The current MTA map omits crucial facts, according to Tauranac, doing a disservice to New Yorkers and visitors alike.
For instance, “today’s published map only shows daytime service, which is inconceivable,” he said. “The mapmaker’s responsibility does not end at midnight.”
Growing up in the city with a father who didn’t have a driver’s license, Tauranac said, he was “totally dependent on public transportation. My wife and I finally bought a car when I was 47 years old,” said the father of one. (His wife, Jane Bevans, is a semiretired lawyer and a painter.)
Until August, he’d had no response to any of his letters to the MTA. A meeting was finally scheduled for Sept. 11, then canceled. A Sept. 6 letter from Patricia Imbro, assistant vice president for customer experience, that copied MTA President Andy Byford, said: “We are not currently engaging with external vendors to make changes to our maps.”
Imbro also invited Tauranac, whose position was made redundant by the MTA in 1987, to check the agency’s procurement Web site for vendor opportunities.
But he says he won’t give up on making things better for New Yorkers.
“I would clean up the map dramatically and make it easier to use … What I want the MTA to do is say, ‘Tauranac, you’re brilliant. Let us hire you as a consultant to redo the map, and to do it properly,’ ” he said.
“It’s incumbent on me as a map designer to say, ‘Look, schmuck, you could do a better map, and I could do it for you.’
“But if I were talking to them,” he added, “I wouldn’t say ‘schmuck.'”
John Tauranac’s ideas for improving the MTA subway map
Clearly explain free “U-turns”
Tauranac notes where you can exit a train and transfer to a platform for a train going in the opposite direction — without having to swipe your MetroCard again. He’s dubbed these free transfers “U-turns” and marked all the stations where they’re impossible to execute without a second payment, such as at the 28th Street stop on the N/R/W line.
Give precise station locations
“One of the less-than-perfect decisions made in 1979 was not to include the street of operation,” Tauranac says. For his updated map, station names include both cross streets: The 66 Street/Lincoln Center stop on the 1 train adds the location as Broadway @ Columbus Av.
Add complete timetable
Deeper colors signify 24-hour service, while paler shades mean “not all the time.” For example, the N train is sometimes a lighter magenta to show that it runs local late at night. A square or rectangle around the line number or letter indicates local service, and an oval or circle denotes express.
Keep it consistent
Currently, avenue names are sometimes listed numerically (“1 AV”) and sometimes spelled out (“SEVENTH AV”). Tauranac standardizes them as numerals, which he said “is more universal — if someone is not conversant in English, ‘1 Av’ is far more easily understood than ‘First Av.’ ” He also adds E and W, for East and West, to cross streets.
Ditch the Helvetica
The MTA has uniformly used the sans-serif font, beloved in the design community for its clean lines, for three decades. But Tauranac prefers the “more legible” Myriad Pro (above) and its semibold option, which, he says, “draws attention to the station name without screaming.” It also “takes up less space horizontally.”
Identify outdoor stations
Above-ground platforms, which are common in the outer boroughs, are marked.
Embrace the lowercase
Right now, street and avenue names are in all-capital letters and it’s “one more blow against legibility,” Tauranac says.