Universal subway map design rules

Perfectly said. The old NYC map was so distorted as to leave you clueless what actually was the closest stop to your destination. These distortions persist in the current map which has Manhattan stretched far wider than reality, so you can’t judge whether the walk is closer from a station uptown or crosstown to your goal.

I dread a world where the answer to all criticism of information distribution is “why don’t you have a smart phone?”