All those subway maps, all over the world, seem very familiar, and they should be; nearly every city uses a similar system of colored lines with station names and interline connections.
What they also have in common is that they are misleading: In order to make space for names and to allow connections to be clearly seen, they distort geography. Yes, that line goes roughly northeast, the other east-wet, but the intentional inaccuracies can confuse those who aren't familiar with the real geography up above.
In London's case, that means that about 850 people a week take the Tube one stop from Leicester Square to Covent Garden or vice-versa, paying £2.40 for the privilege of winding through passages, up and down stairs or escalators, to save walking about four blocks.
The distance can be walked in less time than it takes to get to one platform and up from the other, not even counting waiting time or train time. And at that full fare (presumably locals with weekly passes know better) it's costing about £100,000 per year!
Other cities with older systems are more likely to have these kinds of issues. In some cases, cities have resolved the difference by closing stations and extending platforms. In New York, for instance, stations at City Hall and Brooklyn Bridge became one in the 1940s, and stations at 91st Street on the West Side and 18th Street on the East were eliminated when platforms of the adjacent station came too close to make sense having a stop.
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