Woods – VANCOUVER GIVES UP ITS SECRETS 2014

Description

Robin Woods critiques Vancouver’s official downtown transit map as unsuitable for guidebooks: it loses legibility when reduced, omits bus stop names, fails to show travel directions, and provides unclear route termini. To solve this, Woods conducted detailed field research—photographing stop nameboards, riding and walking routes (primarily trolleybuses), and recording on-vehicle destination displays—to build a ground-up, user-focused map for guidebook readers. His design emphasizes named stops, clear directionality, route destinations as shown on buses and signboards, and unambiguous symbols for one- and two-direction stops. He also preserves enough street pattern and altered geography to relate the diagram to the real world, and includes a SkyTrain inset for wider connectivity. The map addresses local quirks (e.g., a bus’s displayed “final destination” often differs from its terminal stop name) and improves trip-planning confidence. Woods’ solution is tailored to visitors and publishers, aiming to encourage transit use by making navigation quick, clear, and reliable.