Update: New London Tube Map
Mark Easton reports on his blog that the Thames is back on the tube map!
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spatial.ly is written and curated by James Cheshire. James is a lecturer at the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis where he researches, teaches and maps.
Indeed – and see this tweet from Boris: http://twitter.com/MayorOfLondon/status/4053153469
Strange that so many people want the river on the map, seeing as it’s got nothing to do with the tube network. And if the Thames is on there, what about the Lea?
I like how the fuss is made over the removal and re-integration of the Thames over the information that tells you financial information ie how much money TFL are screwing from you.
In reality one could argue that all maps are fictions, in that they can never truely represent reality. Abstract maps, such as the Tube networks, move away from normative traditions of mapping that attempt to emulate relaity as much as is possiple (or as much as political systems allow). The abstract maps are thus more reliant on what Roland Barthes identifies within literary theory as Reality Effect, ie elements of the story that tie them to the reality of the consumer. In this case the Thames acts to anchor the map within a believable and understandable consumptive framework as distances, directions and alignments are all over-simplifed, and in essence, fictions on the page. The removal of the thames is a removal of the essential grounding of the map being able to convey believable meaning from it.
Well done on your new position of power with the ESRI by the way.