Greater City Providence

Better RIPTA maps

31o

I was looking up a RIPTA route online today and I found the above map on the page for the Route 31 schedule. As you can see, this is an actual geographically accurate map, you can see where the stops are in the real world. Not the annoying line maps they had before:

30o

Thank Jeebus! I all the time had to have a Google Map open and the RIPTA map and try to compare the two and figure out which street was where… They seem not to be rolled out to all schedules yet, but I like the direction.

MBTA bus maps have been like this forever, but the MBTA maps still go one step further than the new RIPTA maps. The MBTA maps have other bus lines on them, so you can see which routes go nearby your destination. Looking at the the RIPTA map at the top of the page, you wouldn’t know that the Route 30 bus goes through the Brewery Parkade area.

057map.FH9

But looking at this MBTA map, you can see that the 57 and 57A go to Oak Square, but so does the 64, 501, and 503.

Jef Nickerson

Jef is Greater City Providence's co-founder, editor, and publisher. He grew up on Cape Cod and lived in Boston; Portland, Maine; and New York before settling in Providence. In addition to urbanism, Jef is interested in art, design, and ice cream. Please feel free to contact Jef if you have any question or comments about Greater City Providence.

3 comments

  • These map changes are long overdue… My sister and I have long played the, “where do we think this bus *really* goes” game with the RIPTA maps sitting aside actual traffic maps.

    Well done!

  • This is the only line(s) that have the new map format that I could find. The 20 and 14, which are of interest to me, still have the old “not to scale” format…

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