Influenced in some degree by the cover to the Talking Heads’ 1980 album Remain in Light:

So you can imagine my dismay when the good folks at Moving Hillsborough Forward sent me a giant map of the proposed transit system improvements here in Tampa:

Instead of beautiful reductionism, it looks like a bizarre, multicolored spaghetti. While I’m sure the designers of this worked very hard, and it probably had to go through hundreds of different departments before getting approved, looking at it feels like a hemorrhoid on my eyeballs.

So it is in that spirit that I decided to take on the task of creating my own map of Tampa’s future transit system. Instead of trying to insert bus routes and circulator systems, I focused mainly on fixed route systems like light rail and high speed rail. The stations are completely made up, but the routes follow pretty much exactly what HART and Moving Hillsborough Forward have made public.

Harry Beck I’m not, but I think it does give a better sense of how mass transit in Tampa is going to shake out (if it does). I wanted to do away with the highways completely, but in our car dominated region I found it hard to remove the main point of reference for most people.

This was a fun project, so I’ll be working on improving and expanding it.

Thanks to the fact that my wife and I are registered to different parties, we get fistfuls of direct mail from political campaigns everyday. This lovely card from Mr. Scott came in the mail today.

Why must every political ad desaturate the images of the opponent? It’s one thing to pick an unflattering photo, but I honestly don’t see how it makes the opponent look bad. Especially if your own candidate looks a bit like Skeletor.

Except Skeletor is clearly a much more jaunty fellow.

And then there’s stock photo guy. He’s so sad. But that’s what misinformation will do for you. Make you sad.

The messy style is a bit of a change of pace for me, but it’s in line with my idea of this blog as a dumping ground for projects and ideas.