Power to the (pedantic) people: Why we should care about TfL's new dotted lines

Hello! Back from the dead after finishing my dissertation, of which you can read a jazzed-up version here. This piece, however, is on something completely different, a topic I've dabbled in that remains close to my heart: the Tube Map.

Aficionados amongst you are probably already aware that the newest iteration of the Tube Map is different to the old one. Okay, it'd be weird if it wasn't. But the difference with this one is particularly radical and novel. It meant adding a kink in the characteristically straight Metropolitan Line at Finchley Road, and it finally admitted that Camden Road is dead close to Camden Town. This piece will argue that this particular change is momentous, more momentous than most of us realise. Not just because it added another level of pseudo-ergonomic complexity to the car crash that is the complete Tube Map, but because it could revolutionise how we use the Tube.

In 2017, on the cusp of my mediocre "career" as a journalist, I wrote a piece for CityMetric on the use of "connectors" on the Tube Map, why some stations with official, Oyster-sanctioned interchanges are acknowledged and others aren't. The proximity of Hackney Central and Hackney Downs is signposted to hell and back, but Seven Sisters to South Tottenham is entirely spectral unless you look up the arithmetic spreadsheet. All of these are OSIs (out-of-station interchanges) but until this year, some were acknowledged more than others; some deserving of Geoff Marshall's "connector blobs" and others left out in the cold, unknown to commuters and tourists alike.

In the CityMetric piece, I talk about the case of Camden Town: one of the reasons why some OSIs are discretely forgotten is because it helps prevent overcrowding. If commuters knew that Camden Road could be used as a convenient interchange for the Northern, Camden Town would be even more mobbed than it is already. TfL wants to avoid overcrowding, and because they might actually lose money advertising this OSI, they keep it quiet. Or at least they did.

Now, we're all well aware, because TfL have added dotted lines to symbolise walking interchanges that we can make on the Tube. Of course, that "all" is incredibly speculative. I have no idea how many people can be bothered to read up on Tube Map paraphernalia, especially in the age of Citimapper and a ubiquitous Google Maps, but if they can, it could really change how we use the Tube. Here's why.

It's all to do with the new phenomenon of the “savvy” commuter. As metro systems become more complex, their fare systems either follow suit, or vastly simplify to compensate. Amsterdam & Tokyo measure by distance; Paris diversifies tickets. In London, the differentiation is maddening. Hopper fares, National Rail that costs more than the Overground, an Overground that sometimes costs more than the rest of the Overground (??)... There's a lot of room for variety, and tens of ways to make the same journey, especially if it starts in the suburbs on one side of London and finishes on the opposite.

Those journeys, the ones that follow a cross-section of the urban area, are the ones most likely to run into a walking interchange, given that they are only found beyond the inner ring road (excluding the horrors of Bank-Monument). For people pushing through suburbia, these walking interchanges are not only valuable, they're remarkable; they make travellers wise to ways to divert their journey and save money. A journey from Edgware to Highbury and Islington might take a little longer this way, but by changing onto the Overground at Camden instead of continuing to King's Cross, travellers save money and reduce congestion.

I don't think this is why TfL implemented the walking interchanges, though. I think it was a case of honesty. To not tell people about an integral characteristic of your fare system is a tad dicey. And, even if it reduces congestion at major interchanges, avoiding Zone 1 loses TfL money, especially during the off peak when overcrowding isn't a factor. TfL aren't doing this to benefit travellers, they're doing it to make the system more transparent. Unfortunately, adding even more information to an ironically ultra-polluted map just makes it harder to digest and increases the chances that travellers will turn to an app instead of a map.

So yes, maybe the new dotted lines on the Tube Map aren’t some mind-blowing revelation set to change how we use the Tube forever. But they mark a greater transparency from TfL about what we can and can’t do. These little walking routes symbolise an intent to give passengers on the network more agency and information in the travel choices they make. They actually highlight one of the many little scruples in the Underground’s design. Next time, maybe they could bring themselves to point out how close Queensway is to Bayswater. Watch this (dotted) space.