People accept that subway maps do not reflect the topographical reality of a city. They show how to travel from A to B, which lines you should take, and where you should switch stations.
The generation of my children has grown up with navigation apps and when they are behind the wheel of a car, they actually have very limited awareness of where things are, the only thing they know well is how much time it roughly takes to get to different places.
This map of Tel Aviv and its surroundings might be a useful too for them (credit: Yaron Shemesh)
This is actually how your brain likes to store information in general, not just maps