Samuel Arbesman was recently re-reading Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, in which Sagan alludes to “some sort of cosmic Grand Central Station.” That inspired him to create the Milky Way Transit Authority map, laying out the arms of our galaxy in the format of a transit map. It’s just lovely, and so elegant in its simplicity.

You can view a larger version and download a PDF of the map at Arbesman’s site.

(via TYWKIWDBI)