Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 9 Oct 2006, Mizter T wrote:

BBC News "Bid to make London walk-friendly"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6032969.stm

"More than 44% of pedestrians use the Tube map to navigate around
London, according to a study by TfL [...]

Not surprising really, but I'm sure the ng could easily list a hundred
stupities should one navigate by this method, even if we ignore the old
chestnut that is Leicester Square to Covent Garden!

Perhaps what we need is a sort of Beck-style diagram for walking routes
(ie roads). It couldn't cover every road, and probably couldn't cover the
whole of London on one map (ie you might just do central London), but if
it could give people a simple skeleton on which to hang their geographical
knowledge of London, it might make them more confident in walking about.
Show major roads in the area, and have some notation for sidestreets. And
an index!

Alternatively, spider-style maps dotted round the place.


Maybe. I think the required map already exists - the A-Z (though it's
not something I carry on my person most of the time). Just like many
others I might take a streetmap.co.uk / multimap print-out when I'm
going to some back street address or some place I don't know well -
that's especially useful when I don't want to be encumbered with
holding onto a map (night out etc).

I also think one needs - in central London at least - a willingness to
just explore and get bit lost, because you're never genuinely lost! I
often just walk in broadly the right direction even though I
occasionally end up down dead-end now and then (and the dead-end might
nontheless reveal a great cafe or obscure shop etc).

Actually I know what I'd like. I find the street maps displayed at Tube
and rail stations - especially the TfL one's that have a street index
- and even those simple one's shown on main bus stops - really handy at
times when I know I'm broadly in the right place but need to pinpoint
an exact location, or route to that location. So I'd find similar
street maps that show the locality, displayed on the street, replete
with an index, very useful.