Mexico City's Shaky Laky Foundation

Mexico City, one of the world's largest urban areas is built on a lake. The Aztecs built what was Tenochtitlán on an island in Lake Texcoco, connected by causeways to the mainland.

When the Spanish arrived they decided to expand the city by draining the lake. They did not manage the water properly as the Aztecs had done. Draining and pumping water from underground has caused the city to sink. This in turn has caused very frequent flooding and also ironically made water scarce.

I was curious to see what areas of the modern day city sit on top of the ancient lake beds but have not found a map on the web that makes this very clear. This circa 1519 map on Wikipedia shows some locations, but not the modern urban area.

I took the .svg version of this map through a complicated software process and georeferenced it as best I can with my limited knowledge of the area. Here are two versions of this map overlaid on two different base maps to give and idea of where the ancient lake was. The first is on a National Geographic map via ESRI.

Keep in mind that the location of the lake is based on my best estimates. To avoid the assumption of higher level accuracy, I did not make a zoomed in version.
Here is another version using CARTO for the background. Each map has its advantages and disadvantages for legibility. On the one below, you can see the subway network which is kind of cool.

 

There are some interesting ideas of how such a large city can cope with the ecological and public health problems it faces including an ambitious proposal for a 145 million square mile Lake Texcoco Ecological Park - 23 times the size of the city's huge Chapultepec Park. Clicking the numbers on the map below, you can see some of the proposed projects.

  

The Texcoco Lake Ecological Park will become a tangible symbol of how our society can enter as an integral part into natural processes and help the proper functioning of the landscape.

Lake Texcoco Park is a work in progress, a vision of a remarkable place conceived by a collaborative group of scientists, engineers, biologists, chemists, ecologists, architects, urban planners, landscapers, and politicians.

More on Subway Map PIctograms

Several years back, I expressed my appreciation for Mexico City's Subway Pictograms.

These were designed by Lance Wyman, who also designed the Washington Metro map. There is a 50-year retrospective on his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MARCO) in Monterrey, Mexico. Hurry up though! The exhibition ends October 4th.

Wyman incorporated local elements to create symbols that would also be legible to people with poor language and/or literacy skills. He wanted to replicate his Mexico City icons in Washington.

Unfortunately Bauhaus killjoy Massimo Vignelli (designer of famous early New York City subway maps) prevailed on WMATA to remove the icons.
However, his icons were successfully used at the National Zoo in Washington, and you can still see them on their current interactive map.

For more on Wyman and the MARCO exhibit, and the source of some of this info, see Transit Map History.

Subways of North America

xkcd once again embraces their love of maps with Subways of North America. While I've seen similar subway map mashups, I've never seen them connected before.

These inter-city connections create some wonderful highlights. Here are some of my personal favorites:

The Cleveland Circle (Boston) to Cleveland shuttle - passing through West Trenton, this shuttle would be a nice easy way for me to leave work and go visit my Mom. West Trenton's location along Lake Erie just beyond South Harbor is also a bit curious.

The Green Line extension from Cambridge to Montreal - if it even makes it to Medford that would be remarkable.

The extension of the Market Street elevated subway line in West Philly/Upper Darby from 69th Street to Long Beach and LA.

The Rocky Mountain Tunnel (at sea level) connecting Chicago's O'Hare airport to Oakland.

A couple of extremely long subway tunnels from Atlanta and Miami to Mexico City.

The Puerto Rico submarine from Staten Island to San Juan and the connection from Jamaica (Queens) to Jamaica.

The Springfield Monorail connecting to nowhere, not even North Haverbrook.

There's lots of other things to explore including tunnels in the Caribbean,  "covertly repurposed" Amtrak lines, strangely renamed Red Line stations in Quincy, Mass. and a graveyard for passengers killed by closing doors - have fun exploring!

Map of the Week-Mexico City's Subway Station Icons

When Mexico City designed it's subway system in the 1960's there was widespread illiteracy (not so anymore.) They came up with a solution of visual signs such as colors and icons. Each station has a unique logo or icon based on local points of reference, history, nature, etc.

For example the Pino Suarez station icon depicts an Aztec pyramid that was discovered during the construction of the station.

Salto del Agua shows a local fountain and Merced shows a box of apples because it's located adjacent to one of the largest outdoor markets in the city. The stories behind most of these icons can be found by clicking the station name from this wikipedia page.


The image above is a detail from this image from Wikipedia.

I discovered these icons when I was working on my Maps on Album Covers project. One of my favorite "Rock en Espanol" bands Cafe Tacvba (not a typo) put a fake subway diagram with fake icons on their Cuatro Caminos album. The album is named for a real subway station, but the others on this map appear to be whimsical creations.

Here is the real area around Cuatro Caminos - the geodesic dome is a former bullfighting arena.