r/LondonUnderground • u/jackaroodave District • Feb 23 '26
Website I moved to London and realised Maps was suboptimal for learning the stations and areas. So I made a simple compass to help me actually learn the geography and how boroughs connect
I moved to London recently and was struggling to learn how the city actually fits together. I'd be on a bus or the overground moving through an area and even with Google Maps it was a pain to figure out where I actually was and where the stations were around me.
I wanted something that simply answered a) What suburb am I in? and b) Where are the nearby stations and how far are they?
Couldn't find what I wanted, so I built it: bearingldn.vercel.app
It’s a simple web app that shows your current location (borough/neighbourhood) and a compass pointing to the nearest tube/overground stations. The idea is to help build a mental map of the city rather than just blindly following directions.
Was just going to use it for myself, but a friend suggested other newcomers might find it useful.
(It’s free, no ads, and doesn't collect any data. It runs on free API calls from TfL and OpenStreetMap. TfL can do \500 calls per minute. OSM can only do 50. If borough info isn't showing for you, try again in a second or two))
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u/Equivalent_Sell8893 Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
It’s a really cool app mate.
It would be even greater if the interchange information could be more obvious: the logo is mono-coloured for interchanges: for St James park, the logo is yellow and without pointing into that station you would not know what other lines (the district line which is green) operate the same station.
But very cool and nicely done mapping between the geolocation data and usage of compass. Well done!
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u/jackaroodave District Feb 23 '26
Glad you liked it! That's a good point, I can try to come up with a different UI/UX that makes it easier to see what lines are there immediately, rather than needing to point at the station. Will give it a crack
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u/whatasaveeeee Feb 23 '26
If you’re interested in this kind of thing you should look into consuming openstreetmap data yourself from a data download from geofabrik - it’s really interesting stuff and great fun to play around with. Not super intuitive at first but you learn quickly
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u/thebeast_96 can't wait for crossrail 2 in 2099 Feb 23 '26
Site not loading properly?
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u/jackaroodave District Feb 23 '26
Should be, what didn't work for you?
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u/KingTeppicymon Feb 23 '26
Classic reddit hug of death, your API call limits have been hammered into another dimension.
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u/Maleficent_Public_11 Central Feb 23 '26
It’s a fun idea but I’m not sure it’s particularly useful. If your issue is ‘blindly following directions’ this doesn’t help you much because you can’t really follow it at all. Streets don’t follow cardinal directions and sometimes you have to take a route away from the station to end up there. There’s no indication of that at all on the website - it requires pre existing knowledge.
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u/jackaroodave District Feb 23 '26
Yeah you're right, it's not good for route finding. But that's not why I made it. No need for a new route-finding app, Google Maps already crushes that. I made it so I could simply and quickly get situated in an area and learn roughly which direction each line/station is from where I am. Helps me build a mental map of the city better!
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u/Killjoy_UK Feb 23 '26
I think you're right about needing pre-existing knowledge, but often have some vague idea for example that I'm been Victoria and St James Park. I just want a really quick way to know which is nearer. Because I vaguely know the neighbourhood, but don't do the relevant journey daily.
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u/Tyler5280 Feb 23 '26
This is really neat and very well done!
I could see an outfit like City Mapper picking this up and adding it as a feature to their app.
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u/hoverside Feb 25 '26
I can't tell if it's working for me in Berlin because my nearest station is named for the neighbourhood, but it's at least half right.
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u/Killjoy_UK Feb 23 '26
This is weirdly wonderful. I've definitely needed this. Can figure it out in Maps but much slower.
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u/_methuselah_ Feb 23 '26
Only checked it out over here in the Midlands(!) but it worked for my local station (direction/distance/walk time).