By **Justin Alvarez**
Living in New York, we tend to forget how good we have it with our public transportation. The easy-to-understand map, the 24-hour subway service, and the widespread service to all of New York City’s five boroughs. However, this is not always the case elsewhere in the U.S., especially Cincinnati, Ohio, considering the Kickstarter campaign initiated by Nathan Wessel. The goal of the campaign is to raise $1,200 to fund an initial printing of 30,000 maps of the city’s transit system designed by Wessel himself with hopes to be distributed around Cincinnati.
In the introduction video, Wessel talks about commuters’ and travelers’ biggest obstacle: time. As he lays out, people who are new to riding a bus need to “…see which line they need to take, how to take it, and most importantly how long they can expect to wait.” He interviews local Cincinnatians, and the consensus across the board is that they know the transit system’s there, and they know it’s extensive—they just don’t understand it.
This is where Wessel comes in. As he states in his campaign statement:
“This map reduces the system’s current complication to a legible structure that is complex but interconnected…The map is laid out so that people who are new to riding the bus can quickly and easily see which line they need to take, how to take it, and most importantly how long they can expect to wait.”
His passion for the project is undeniable, and he touches on one interesting point in the video: people—especially youth—enjoy riding the transit, that ability to go anywhere “from point A to point B” while always having the opportunity to get off whenever they’d like.
The project already has 90 backers and has surpassed its goal with $1,454 raised. The generous support has allowed Wessel the option of printing more pocket sized maps and/or poster size versions. Click here to read more about the Kickstarter campaign.
Copyright 2011 Justin Alvarez
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Justin Alvarez is a blog intern at Guernica. Read more about him here.