Metro maps

Most subway or metro maps match up pretty horrendously with the actual city around them. Think of the London tube map: a complete misrepresentation of the above ground city in order to make it easier to understand. The same can be said of the NYC subway and, to a lesser extent, the DC metro. This set of illustrations of 15 or so major cities' metro networks done to scale is a pretty interesting comparison. It's the type of thing that forces a rethinking about how extensive the best metro systems are. Paris, for instance, has one of the best metros, but its system covers an incredibly small area. LA is the reverse, as Philadephia. Of course, not all systems can be as large or as extensive as the Tube or Seoul metro, but it's worth looking at the differences in metro-system size between cities that invest in public transportation and those that don't.