An Unflattering Look at Transit Accessibility

Patrick Stotz writes of the agenda behind a new series of animated GIFs that shows the difference in transit access for those with special needs: “Even though there certainly have been a lot of improvements in the accessibility of public transport stations during the last decade or two, there are still far too many stations in almost any bigger city which are not accessible for someone who is e.g. in a wheelchair.”

In response: “Our approach was to take open licensed versions of these maps and remove the name of every station which is not marked as wheelchair accessible.”

The design team behind the GIFs produced maps of New York, City, London, and Hamburg—systems that don’t look nearly as comprehensive when viewed through a more demanding accessibility requirement. Instructions for creating similar maps of other cities are also included.