Before the twentieth century , one of the light ways to get around was on the water system . People remove steamboats and ferries up , down , and across rivers as their normal fashion of transportation . river were the transit lines of an era in which transferring could think of hopping on a Equus caballus - reap trolley .
Inspired by Harry Beck ’s design for London Underground transit function of the thirties , cartographerDaniel Huffmancreated a series of mathematical function that opine what America ’s river systems would look like as subway lines .
Hisriver transportation mapsgive waterways an urban aesthetic , emphasise the relationship between different rivers . Like most underpass mathematical function , they ’re not of necessity geographically accurate . All the river run in uncoiled lines with smashing intersections , without any messy affluent to clutter the map . The result is , purposely , a far cry from what America ’s waterwaysactually look like . “ The geographics is intentionally falsify to clear up human relationship . I think it avail transform the sort of optical speech of nature into a more organize one , putting the organic in more constructed term , ” Huffmanwrites .
After all , rivers are engineered , too — not entirely unlike how we ’ve engineered the routes of our subway . We build locks , dams , and canals to alleviate transportation and control water usance , and disport the current of water to protect cities from flooding . In the 1930s , the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers turned the Los Angeles Riverinto a concrete channel , channelize it into a consistent path . In Chicago , engineersreversed the flow of the city riverto divert contaminated water away from Lake Michigan . Other citiesforce their rivers underground .
These neat , optic connection of water as transportation line of reasoning help emphasize how interconnect all of our water source are , even for those who have never travel up and down those rivers . See the rest period of Huffman ’s maps on hisblog .
[ h / t : Citylab ]
All images courtesyDaniel Huffman .
