
Time travel: An isochronic map of travel times from London circa 1914 - Petiver
http://www.intelligentlifemagazine.com/places/cartophilia/time-travel
======
pronoiac
Ooh, I've been investigating this lately, and I can't sleep. Here are some
entries from my bookmarks:

* BART map, one minute per hexagon - [http://transitmaps.tumblr.com/post/133579339455/lopato-bart-...](http://transitmaps.tumblr.com/post/133579339455/lopato-bart-time-scale)

* Mapnificent, covering dozens of cities - [http://www.mapnificent.net/](http://www.mapnificent.net/)

* OneBayArea, including housing prices - [http://maps.planbayarea.org/travel_housing/](http://maps.planbayarea.org/travel_housing/)

~~~
zyxley
Huh. Mapnificent is exactly what I've been looking for recently after a
change-up in local transit routes. It would certainly make it easier to
eyeball "short trips" when considering the intersection of multiple transit
modes, assuming it's accurate enough.

~~~
takhn
It's a nice idea, but London is hopeless - looks like they've missed out the
rail network completely. I guess other cities may be better, but you really
only need to miss out one key route or mode and you change the map completely

~~~
djhn
I reckon it is because tfl is the data provider, and the rail network isn't a
part of that?

I still found it very useful when looking for central accomodation with short
commutes (<20') to centrally located places.

------
versteegen
Awesome. But that's a low res scan. You can see a very high res scan here:

[http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~24...](http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~248974~5516374:Isochronic-
Distance-Chart,-1904--Av)

Also, a scan of Galton's original isochronic map from 1881 is on Wikipedia;
see:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map)

------
jasonkester
I've always liked these maps that capture the ground truth for a single point
in time. Here's another one I found a while back showing "Everywhere you can
go in an Airplane", circa 1918, also with journey times:

[http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?CommentID=8226](http://www.blogabond.com/CommentView.aspx?CommentID=8226)

(I actually pilfered it for that post from another source, but can't find the
original now).

Growing up, we had a World Atlas in the house that was printed in the early
1940s. It had a little leaflet in the back with a card you could send in for
an updated set of maps after the war was over.

------
sanxiyn
Here is a similar map for the Roman world:
[http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/wp-
content/uploads/201...](http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/08/iph1_800.png).

------
richmarr
If anyone's particularly interested in unusual maps I'd recommend following
@frankjacobs on Twitter. He's a collector of strange maps and tweets links to
new posts on his blog. Enjoy

[https://twitter.com/frankjacobs](https://twitter.com/frankjacobs)

[http://bigthink.com/articles?blog=strange-
maps](http://bigthink.com/articles?blog=strange-maps)

~~~
yread
or /r/MapPorn

------
mootothemax
The smallest unit listed - _within 5 days journey_ \- gives an interesting
perspective on the world of travel at that time.

What would we choose nowadays for an equivalent unit of "not worth listing
anything below this?" Within an hour?

~~~
buro9
Within 5 hours would get you most of Europe.

~~~
gutnor
I would put that at 8 hours. Unless Spain is especially badly connected, you
are quickly at least 2 hours away from the airport. So that would be at least
4 hours slow transit + flight time.

Of course, by population density, you are probably 5 hours away from most
people in Europe.

------
phreeza
An important dimension missing in this type of map is cost of travel. If you
are willing to spend sufficient money, my guess would be you could reach
pretty much any spot of land on earth within about 48 hours, with the
appropriate combination of helicopter and private jet... But if you limit
yourself to, say, 2000 Euros, you could probably make it to many places, but
it would take significantly longer.

~~~
Munksgaard
I think you're missing the fact that this is ~1914. I bet chartering a private
jet and/or helicopter back than was... difficult.

------
lurker10000
New York based isochronic map:
[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/genpub/abl7462.0001.001/390?view...](http://quod.lib.umich.edu/g/genpub/abl7462.0001.001/390?view=image&size=400)

~~~
wmf
This is particularly interesting because it shows the advance over time.

------
bmm6o
It's interesting that you could get all the way to Hawaii quicker than you
could get to the west coast of South America. There doesn't seem to be a
technical impediment here, I guess there just weren't scheduled ship routes at
the time?

~~~
Maultasche
I suspect that it simply took longer to sail around Cape Horn in South America
(a dangerous and time-consuming journey) to get to the west coast of South
America than it did to sail to New York, take a train to California, and hop
on a ship to Honolulu.

~~~
bmm6o
I had assumed that a trip to Hawaii would transit the Panama Canal, but you
may be right about the route. WP says the canal opened in August 1914, so it
might not be included here. I wonder how different a map made just a few years
later would be.

------
JshWright
I think it's interesting that 100 years later, you could replace "days" with
"hours" and the mail would look (roughly) the same.

I wonder what the next 100 years will bring...

~~~
coldcode
Maybe someone will invent a real (not dup) teleporter and then perhaps it will
be seconds. I've always wondered what the world would be like if you could go
anywhere in seconds.

~~~
clock_tower
Isn't it bland and homogenous enough already?

(And then there's the risk of suicide bombers with access to teleportation
pads...)

------
zephod
Does anybody have an idea how I could get a print of this?

~~~
danielbarla
Someone posted a link below to this map on the David Rumsey map collection
([http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~24...](http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~248974~5516374:Isochronic-
Distance-Chart,-1904--Av)). You can get a high-res version there, or order a
print directly.

------
trymas
It would be fun to see same iso-chronic map for today, 100 years since
original. :)

~~~
willvarfar
My rough guess is that, if the units were hours, and if concorde still flew,
then the map would look much the same?

~~~
omh
I suspect a modern version would have more discontinuities.

Areas near airports would be fast to reach, but onward travel from the
airports wouldn't be so much faster than 100 years ago.

And the oceans would look different - it still takes a long time to reach the
mid-atlantic!

~~~
willvarfar
So travel time doesn't count using a private jet and a parachute?

~~~
cubancigar11
Even if it counted it won't be the smallest one with the time it will take to
get bail in most countries.

------
jjp
For Europe by train see
[http://emptypipes.org/supp/isochrone_london/](http://emptypipes.org/supp/isochrone_london/)

------
yread
I wish the guys from [http://www.rome2rio.com](http://www.rome2rio.com) see
this and make a more precise modern version

------
contravariant
Nice coincidence that it takes about 80 days to go around the world.

~~~
saalweachter
Reading the history of circumnavigation makes this seem like a bit of an
overestimate -- Around the World in 80 Days was written in the 1870s, in the
1880s someone actually did the trip in 72 days, and in the early 1900s someone
replicated it in 54 days.

~~~
QuotedForTruth
Maybe this map represents more of an everyman's estimate. How long to get
there using conventional transportation systems. The equivalent today being
flying commercial and car/buses vs chartering a private jet and helicopters.

