It’s very easy to become acquainted with Spokane Transit’s network of routes, thanks to its thoughtfully designed system map that emphasizes clarity and usability. The result of a two-year collaboration with CHK America, a premier wayfinding design agency, the map helps riders understand how to navigate from one point to another. It has all of the routes that STA offers and gives a comprehensive sense of how the routes interact and connect with each other.

“STA’s system map is special among such types of maps because it was one of the first bus-only system maps in the US to do a good job of helping the rider understand what frequency of service was offered in relation to the routes served,” explained Marc Morris, Communications Specialist at STA. “It took the look and feel of a rail system map and applied it to a bus system.”

Bus transit maps have traditionally tended to display geography in excessive detail, sometimes obscuring more important information pertaining to the routes and service themselves.

When STA transitioned to the new map, the emphasis was putting the user experience at the forefront and moving away from a very “literal” representation of the terrain to a more simplified and streamlined approach. 

“The challenge behind such a map is displaying a large amount of complex information in an easily digestible manner,” continued Morris. “The map uses multiple line colors and thicknesses to express the different types of routes as well as their frequency in an intuitive manner.”

Whereas other bus maps have tended to use a unique color for each bus line, STA’s map reduced the number of colors used to represent the broader types of service, aiding clarity. Bright red is used for frequent routes, lending an immediate sense of the most used routes within the system. Regular routes are depicted in dark blue, improving their visibility through contrast. City Line is depicted in violet with the thickest line due to having the most frequent service out of any route.

Ultimately, system maps represent access from neighborhoods to jobs, education, and entertainment. It’s fitting that graphically they should be as beautiful and elegant to look at as they are useful. STA is proud to be at the cutting edge of industry standards with its own updated system map.

To view and download STA’s full system map, visit: spokanetransit.com/routes-schedules/sta-system-map.