Growing
up, I was not exposed to Public Transportation much. We grew up in an area
where subways and buses weren't an option. Traveling from Point A to Point B
meant walking, driving, or biking. It wasn't until high school that I first
experienced Public Transportation. Navigating the different routes was quite
stressful. How anyone could decipher the different colored lines and route
names and numbers was beyond me.
It was
complicated and didn't match up with any of the streets I was familiar with.
There no curves, contours, or any type distinguish in the shape of the roads;
surely not all roads were straight lines! Yet, the more I stared at it, the
more it resonated with me, which only caused me to want to understand it more.
And that was when the simplicity of the design came out. Henry Beck had sought
out to simplify the London Underground. What he did, however, was simplify
public transportation around the world.
I've
been to many metropolitan areas and have ridden on many subways. I've been on
buses, ferries, trains, and even taxis, that use Beck's simple design as a way
to highlight routes and direction. It's almost a universal language at this
point, as traveling on subways and trains does not require understanding the
native language.
Recently, I've
been on multiple school campuses that have begun to adopt parts of Beck's
creation: bright colorful lines painted on the blacktop to show kids where to
line up, and where to walk when it's time to walk. Surely, Beck did not see
this coming when he sought out to simply his local life.
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