Boston, Comprehensive Plan, Future Rapid Transit Routes, Inner Metropolitan District, 1926
By Cartographers
This 1926 map was made by planners at the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Division of Metropolitan Planning, and it shows how officials imagined Boston's subway and rail system might grow. Colored lines in red, orange, green, and black trace existing routes and proposed extensions, threading through neighborhoods like Cambridge, Somerville, Roxbury, and Chelsea. The names of surrounding towns, from Milton and Quincy in the south to Melrose and Saugus in the north, are printed in bold spaced letters that anchor the whole layout.
The real interest here is in reading it as a wish list. Dotted lines mark future extensions that planners hoped to build, and comparing them to today's transit map shows which dreams came true and which quietly disappeared. The Boston Inner Harbor and the winding Charles River give the sheet its shape, while dense hatching fills in the built-up areas around the center. It is a working document rather than a decorative one, printed in muted earth tones on aged paper, and its charm comes from that practical honesty. Maps like this were the everyday tools of a growing city, drawn by people trying to plan a future they would not entirely get right.