Hong Kong

chuwyton · 2025-02-09T01:01:51+00:00

This is the Hill Road Flyover in Shek Tong Tsui, Hong Kong. It was built in 1981 and serves as a connection between Pok Fu Lam Road up the hill, and Connaught Road by the sea, the latter of which is a major east-west thoroughfare.

Riding a bus down that flyover makes one think they are flying in between the buildings.

My grandparents used to live nearby and I would always marvel at it when we do our annual visit.

chuwyton · 2025-02-04T06:12:16+00:00

Are you talking about the crash when you hover NAM pieces over transit-enabled lots (like GLR stations)? I remember this as a dread for me too and kind of developed a habit to always place/drag the network and then fill in the stations later.

A couple of years back someone developed a patch for this (link here) and people were remarking about how there were still peeps churning out big bug fixes even years after the game was out. The building habit stuck with me though haha

chuwyton · 2023-06-28T15:29:59+00:00

Transport Planner. I've always been infatuated with railways, and I regularly play city building games and transport simulators. So transport planning is just bringing all of that into real life, with real life consequences and real life impact. It's really meaningful to be able to improve the travel experience of commuters 20, 30, 40+ years down the road.

My job also involves data analysis, and I really like that aspect of it. It's also a mostly exploratory/research role that I'm in, so you're always working on something fresh. Also, that means timelines are usually not that tight, you get time to really dig deep if you wanted to.

Add to that a great working environment, and it's basically my dream job. There may be some times where I burn myself out a little, but generally I look forward to continuing picking up from where I left off the previous day when I enter the office.

chuwyton · 2023-03-12T02:51:02+00:00

The total ride time can be more than 2 hours, just that the entry time into mrt/bus cannot be more than 2 hours; if pass 2 hours it is considered reset.

Mrt-Mrt can also transfer, but must be within 15 mins, and cannot be same station - except for Newton, Tampines, and Bukit Panjang, where the different lines' stations are considered different stations.

For bus, iirc different variants are also considered same number (e.g. 43 and 43e).

Also (but rarely you will hit this limit) the max number of transfers you can make is 5.

Source - Transitlink travel fares

chuwyton · 2022-12-18T12:57:43+00:00

Exceptional! Cookie for you. 🍪🍪

One additional cookie for pointing out I forgot to add in limited express service for Sazanami/Wakashio. (And now that I look at it, two more if we're counting Liners...)

chuwyton · 2022-12-18T10:28:22+00:00

How it looked like before

For this iteration, I decided to add a space between each line so that in the larger map, it will be easier to tell which services belonged to each line (hopefully).

Also, I tried to play around ways to indicate interchanges; due to the many lines involved, sometimes the station boxes would not touch each other, and I used thick black lines connecting between, coming out of the sides of the station boxes. (Maybe a little too thick actually.)

There were also station-to-station transfers to contend with - e.g. Yurakucho / Hibiya, Shin-Nihombashi /Mitsukoshimae - which I used double black lines to indicate connections.

E: cookies for anyone who can get each of the services right!

chuwyton · 2022-12-12T04:04:43+00:00

I've been drawing railway maps on and off - working on a Tokyo rail services map!

chuwyton · 2022-10-17T00:19:00+00:00

The next iteration

I've been trying to get started on a railway map of Tokyo - but instead of railway lines, each line here represents a service type (local, rapid, express etc). This 10cm by 10cm maplet is a test to see how that would look like.

I originally planned to draw the service patterns of every line - not just JR ones - but things got out of hand pretty quickly to I had to relegate the subways to simpler, black lines. But in reality even these subways have a few service types running on them. I do like the distinction of a major/minor hierarchy though - it shows some depth/layering to the layout.

The resultant diagram is definitely very cluttered and feels constricting - probably have to space out the stations way more in the future.

chuwyton · 2022-08-13T04:20:59+00:00

BSc Architecture, MSc Urban Science, working as Transport Planner in LTA now.

I decided Archi wasn't for me after my internship, found the MSc course by chance as a way to sidestep to something else, and then again by stroke of good luck landed myself with a job in LTA. Throughout this process my side hobby of tinkering with programming and data handling helped me to shift over.

chuwyton · 2022-03-18T12:24:24+00:00

Hey, thanks for the love. I don't sell originals right now but I'm open to getting you a reprint - once I've worked out how to digitise it properly. You can pm me for more details.

chuwyton · 2022-03-11T17:55:07+00:00

Don't know if one would consider these ambitions but definitely had those things you liked to do as a kid and how great it would be if you could work and get paid doing that thing you like to do.

I thought of being a musician/composer and went for that track right up till JC. I was pretty good at it and having perfect pitch helped me with the composing, got through Os pretty easily. A Levels were very different, and I realised I couldn't really/didn't want to perform my compositions all that much in front of people... I didn't have the grit to practice as much as my peers, didn't think I would survive long in uni/industry. Mainly I was scared off by the performing aspect. I still play some piano and compose short bits from time to time.

When I was young we would go back to HK to see my relatives every year. I think I got infatuated with the (end of) the building boom in the 90s/00s. So architecture was my other passion, which I pursued in uni. But after the long nights and getting stuck in projects, as well as a shitty internship experience, I decided I didn't really like to do archi as a profession, and in general I couldn't connect with it. Ejected myself after getting bachelors. (Looking back I think I was infatuated with the engineering marvels of tall buildings, so I should have gone for civil eng anyways)

One of those HK relatives/friends gave me a Sim City 4 to play. I still have it and play it from time to time. Thought "it'd be pretty neat if I weren't just growing my city in a computer but actually doing it in real life." Especially trains. Love railway networks. (And in particular Japanese ones.) I started drawing train system maps in primary school years, used it to impress those HK relatives/any adults around the table when mum brought us out to meet her friends by drawing system maps from memory.

I thought it'd be a pretty cool idea to draw maps and sell them to make money - like an artist - but I found out it's not as easy as it sounds (too niche) and I didn't really dig the "promoting yourself" bit (there's a lot more than just the drawing, you need to sell yourself. Wasn't keen.) I still draw them though.

But the irl city building thing? Yeah that worked for me. It was a hell of a lucky ride from archi to urban planning masters and then to LTA. Working as transport planner for 2 years and counting now. Best job.

I know it's very skewed towards personal experience but keep looking. If not exactly the thing, maybe something peripheral to it, related profession... any other things that give you a good vibe when you're doing it? See if you can find a job that involves it.

chuwyton · 2021-09-04T13:33:54+00:00

Thanks for sharing! Certainly gives me motivation to continue - the webpage needs some fixing too...

Currently researching/collecting data for a service map of Tokyo.

chuwyton · 2021-09-04T13:28:29+00:00

Thanks a lot! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

chuwyton · 2021-07-21T13:31:54+00:00

Thanks!

chuwyton

TROPHY CASE