Matthew Engel: "This is the sixth in my irregular series on British Institutions. After I finished the fifth, I noticed that the themes were becoming familiar: [...] the glory days were over; it was a fight to maintain popularity and relevance; and money was getting ever tighter." "But London Underground is different. It is more expansive and confident now than at any time in memory. How on earth has this happened?" Nice photographs too.

"Ever thought what the tube network would look like if you took out the expensive Zone 1? Me neither, until this morning, when I was wondering if it was possible to utilise my current “Boris Bike” bikeshare 24-hour membership to save a bit of money on commuting in to work."

A 27 page PDF by Max Roberts studying how - and how not - to design a diagram of a railway system. Given the "London Tubemap" that's been doing the rounds, tl;dr types should skip to page 14: "The arbitrary breaking of the single-angle rule introduces an disorder into the design with no payback." It also contains some of Beck & Roberts' alternatives, such as the attractive 60 degree version on p12.

"Nextdoor, in two upper rooms, is the reason you'll probably want to visit soon. The museum is hosting a special exhibition devoted to Harry Beck, designer of the world-famous tube map, who was born down the road in Finchley." You'll also need to visit soon, because Barnet Council want to  close the entire museum. 

Sure, base your headline on the pathological case of the highest rise, based on the withdrawl of a product (the excluding-zone-1 day Travelcard) that is bought by fewer people than use cash these days. I mean, the young person paper day Travelcard also rises by 50%, but who uses that? (Get Oyster, for heaven's sake.) Yet this 74% figure will stick, and be repeated (again) when the rises actually take effect in January. Sigh. One expects this nonsense of the Mail/Standard/Metro, but the BBC can and should do better.

TfL's fare rises. This is interesting: "One new initiative to be introduced in January is that during the evening peak, all Tube journeys into Zone 1 will be charged at the off-peak rates, as opposed to the peak fare currently charged." Also: "Tube cash fares are now used by under two per cent of Tube users."

Speaking of TfL: "With only a few months until publication of the government’s spending review, which will decide which parts of government live and which parts die, the lobbying is in full swing. Particularly fierce arguments are raging around the Department for Transport (DfT), which must make cuts of 25% or more in its budget. That is provoking rows, both nationally and locally." Complete with that old chestnut, Crossrail vs the Tube.

Transport for London's Underground station entrance and exit numbers plotted onto a map. I'm not sure why this is concentrating on differences rather than pure numbers, but it's interesting.

Obviously, the Evening Standard has to headline this "London's ailing Tube", which I've shortened, but nonetheless this is an interesting interview with Mike Brown, managing director of London Underground.

The Londonist post announcing the London Transport Museum online film archive. No doubt this'll prove distracting.

"an Oyster-generation map will need to show all the routes available to card users, the design has become too limited in its scope. Mapmakers have had their work cut out trying to fit all the information into a legible sheet of paper. For years, there have been maps on platform walls of the Overground mixed up with the Underground, yet these are scrappy – even ugly – things in comparison with the classic tube-only map." Slight ahistorical (it doesn't mention Beck's all-London maps, or the fact the Connections map dates from 1976) but Glancey still has something of a point.

Aaron on machine tags, noticings, fake subway APIs, Flickr, and stuff. Well worth a read (and as Tom Armitage says, with a great flow between sections).

Eiichi Kono's account of his work redesigning Johnston for Banks and Miles and London Underground in the late 1970s. Part of the source material for the London Reconnections post.

"London Underground approached various graphic design agencies and consulted on the subject. Many recommended dropping [Johnston] completely in favour of other faces (Helvetica was considered, as was Univers Bold) but ultimately one agency – Banks and Miles – stepped forward and suggested an alternative:- Rework Johnston into a proper, fully extended, typeface." I never realised that LU had even considered this. Thank goodness they went with the redesign.

Well, there's a surprise. Boris Johnson finally gets wind of the minor press flap over the Tube map reworking, and blows a fuse. "I hope Londoners will imagine the Thames in place until it reappears on the maps, and will not forget their beautiful river."

There's now a product page for the Nearest Tube app, which is apparently waiting approval. No price listed, though. Of note: all the linkjuice on delicious (and even more so on Twitter (sigh)) points to the YouTube video, which doesn't link to this page (although it might point to the App Store after launch, I suppose).

Coming for the iPhone 3GS, apparently. How are they getting camera data? I didn't think there was an official API call for that. Also, not yet on the App Store, so no idea about the pricing, and what's with the huge black border on the video? (Why is there only video, for that matter?) Probably also more useful for tourists than Londoners. Still, quibbles aside, interesting to see apps like this emerging.

Station entrance and exit figures for all London Underground stations from 2004 to 2008, broken down into weekday time slices and the two weekend days. I should ask TfL for deep historic versions of this.

Transport for London in combative form on this press release, suggesting that this could run and run. Looks like there'll definitely be an outage on Thursday.

"The data is imported from Oyster via a greasemonkey script that runs when you log into your online TFL account." Which is great, except that Oyster card holders who don't use auto-top-up pre-pay get "Journey history displays records for journeys taken using pay as you go credit." when they look at the Oyster pages. Still, nice hacks for those who do have data.

MetaFilter discuss the Guardian's story of Klaus Matza's run-in with the police in Walthamstow Bus Station, and I comment that, while it's hard to find anything explicitly saying so, personal-use non-flash photography is not forbidden on the Tube. (I could also add that Matza should have paperwork from the officer involved; if it was me I'd be identifying them, as they're overstepping their powers significantly.)

Ashley Pomeroy's list of photography-friendly (and unfriendly) places in London. I've had no trouble at the Transport Museum, though, and the Tube definitely allows amateur non-flash photography. Nonetheless, it's a worthwhile page.

"The Victoria line was the most advanced underground railway in the world, with computer-controlled trains and automatic ticket barriers. The unpainted silver finish and wrap-around windscreens of the trains gave London's new Tube a fashionable space age look." The Euston pattern, in prototype, and a collection of other Victoria Line items from the LTM.

"40 years ago today, on 7th March 1969, the Victoria line was officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. She took a one-stop tube journey from Victoria to Green Park, and she even bought her own ticket." TfL have even held off on engineering works for the occasion. Diamond Geezer collects the tile patterns.

Everything you never wanted to know about escalators and lifts on the London Underground, and more besides. There's even a second page with details on vertical rises and escalator pitch (26°23' at Oxford Circus, not the usual 30°; that 3°37' really annoys me, somehow).

"A short story for every station on the London Underground and DLR, in alphabetical order by station name. Updated Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays."

"In an era of soaring fuel prices and precious boutique hotels, what about indulging in the subway as a form of tourism? Opportunity costs are minimal, adventures abound and the journey is sometimes more interesting than the destination." A good read, and thanks to Earle for mentioning it. Bonus points: calling Beck's work "the diagram".

"Weapons against the city's intelligence. Almost no-one reads books any more. London litened, littered, public transport desolated into a time waste land." And look, almost time to brave the gauntlet down to Farringdon.

Nice lens flare.

Those posters about Bank/Monument being closed for interchange? They're not kidding. It's three (yes, not two) seperate stations at the moment. Except for the semi-secret passageways that are still open (detailed herein).

Diamond Geezer gets there with the architecture and tube photography, even as the baggage reclaim falls apart around him. A typically British start, I feel.

Exhibition and talk series at the New London Architecture centre off Tottenham Court Road. I wonder if I can be bothered to get up early enough to go to the Crossrail talk?

RSS feeds for service updates, across modes, with per-line resolution. Can someone hook this up to tubevictoria and friends on twitter please?

I hope it does, even if there are Tory idiots in Barnet handing out leaflets campaigning against it. Mind you, it's not even a plan yet, being confined to a "vision document" and being well over a decade away.

Revived from last December, because TfL can't keep a website URL constant for more than a few months at a time, seemingly. Still lovely, still want a printed copy.

A good post covering the new Art on the Underground relaunch, including the poster giveaway (focussing on the artwork I care about most), and also mentioning other events this week and the lovely London's Kerning.

Five free posters available at major Underground stations this week. Obviously by now you've missed two, but Thursday's seems like the most desirable to me.

Alex Gollner produces a much nicer, if ultimately unlikely to be used, reworking of the Tube map (circa 2012) than the current TfL design, which I agree is far too cluttered.

"'Miniplan' of London with the compliments of BOAC". Lovely cover, but very odd designs- 1950s Beck diagrams modified, rather badly, to wedge in the Victoria line.

Screenscraping the TfL site to feed the hungry Twitterers. I did that for a while for IRC, but stopped using the tube and got fed up parsing HTML. I wonder if tubetwitters should have a different "voice" to the current (terse) updates?

Makes fair points, but of course it's no use for web designers (and even then Gill Sans isn't reliable beyond the Mac).

Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the line. After this there's only the Hampstead Tube centenary in Central London before the 2060s.

Might be usably good, but aesthetically it's awful. Is that Times New Roman? Where's New Johnston? Sellotape?? This thing annoys me every time I see it. Maybe I just hate tourists. STAND. ON. THE. RIGHT. DUMBASS.

"The essential projects for Transport for London include completing the rebuilding of the Tube through the PPP, the building of Crossrail, and expanding the bus network by a further 40 per cent."

I wish I could buy this as a book. It looks lovely. I like the arrows on page 22 particularly.

It's an exciting new brand for the fuddy-duddy old North London Line. Just what the line needs, I'm sure.

Review of Beck's Underground Map; I note that it doesn't cover the evolution from '64 or so onwards (you need a second, also good, book for that)

Transport for London ETA board popup for Vauxhall northbound

Transport for London ETA board popup for H&I southbound

"It feels hotter here than Australia, because I don't think England is prepared for it." Built is perhaps a better word than prepared. The Victoria Line was certainly very hot even at 10pm last night.

I've been meaning to write about this too. The current design is a travesty.

Prototypes of the post-2009 Victoria Line rolling stock on show near Euston

I had an idea once about adding tickmarks to stripmaps to show how far stations were apart. This guy's actually done it, and in a more general way, too, so it's useful for the entire map. Very good.

Idiots. Who said the carriages were airtight?

Nice. Obsessive, but nice

Ramblings on underground Tokyo. I took exception to a line about the London Underground, though.

Impressive little app, this

Proposed 2016 Tube map. Also includes trams and some overground service. As used by the BBC, with alterations, on its story about the tube map being a design icon, despite it looking awful compared to the current map. (PDF)

"The London Underground map, the Spitfire and Concorde have been voted Britain's three favourite designs of the last century" but what's up with that thumbnailed tube map? They've ruined the Paddington corner of the Circle and the Central line!

This is going to make a lot of people very grumpy

From 27th February, pre-pay users will not be charged more than if they'd bought a Travelcard instead

On the 1970s diagrammatic New York subway map, and why it failed to catch on

18 hours odd. Took four months to be recognised, though.

As referred to below

On the TfL Realtime map, which is coloured backwards

via things magazine's blog: "hero of London Underground and creator of a design legacy that is gradually degraded with each passing year"

Current departure boards for the Bakerloo line, London

Only the Bakerloo line. (Why hadn't I noticed this before?)