New York and London are two cities renowned for their intricate rail networks, but many would argue that they’re quite confusing for foreigners. With that said, a project is trying to make world subway systems a little more personal and navigable for citizens and foreigners alike, using crowdsourced information from Instagram.
@TagsAndTheCity is a project that envisions gobal rail systems as an Instagram network. Instead of using station names as markers, the service samples the most commonly used hashtags in and around terminals and stations, renaming them accordingly.
No ad to show here.
What if Capetonians renamed our rail stations using Instagram hashtags?
“We rename subway stations after the Instagram hashtag which is most popular around them,” the service explains.
“So you get a pretty good picture of how the city is photographed and what is going on where — especially for travelling, shopping, drinks and food.”
It’s a novel concept, and takes the notion of language evolution to a whole new level.
#topoftherock and #neverforget
This means that New York’s Franklin St Station is really called #ghostbusters, while London’s St James’s Park Station is actually called… uh, #squirrel.
A photo posted by Tags and the City (@tagsandthecity) on
The service is currently live for the aforementioned US and British cities, but also includes Paris, Berlin and the San Francisco Bay area. But we can’t help but think… this would be a rather interesting project for Cape Town.
If you happen to live in one of these cities, or are planning to traipse through them in the near future, have a look at the maps here.
H/T: DNAInfo
