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Regardless of these insane arguments, DC metrorail is a subway that goes to the burbs. I posted videos of Bethesda and Wheaton stations to show that it does not resemble any commuter rail stations in the burbs. It's not a hybrid or commuter rail. I have never ever heard anyone call it that. Septa looks just like Metra/Marc/LIRR. DC's trains are subway cars. They funtion like subway cars. The trains run 3 minutes apart during rush hour. No commuter rail trains come close to that. Boston's T goes to the burbs and no one ever calls it a hybrid.
DC has commuter rail. It's called MARC/VRE. DC is building light rail.
METRO is hybrid (stations on the periphery are basically commuter rail and in the core it acts more like a subway, why is this so hard)- it does not function like a pure subway or pure Commuter rail line - why are you so dense - to compare systems you need more than just their subways for the older systems. It is just that simple - i am not arguing that METRO is not very good at what it does but you inflate your stats relative to the way other systems function, Is the point
Plus the other systems do it without much of the Federal funds - that we all pay for disproportionately. Enjoy our gifts, maybe someday we will get the return favor
And on your point about the size of DC vs Philly - Philly proper is not that much larger (130 sq miles) - Some of the regional rail line never even leave the city boundaries etc.
And on your schedule attached is one example - at rush hour many of the stations have a regional rail train every ten minutes, not as good as Metro but the subways with which they connect are every 5 I believe at rush hour
I find it odd that nobody mentions the Phoenix-Valley Metro light rail.
It's a starter line that opened two years ago but ridership exceeded five million in less than a year after it opened.
It's also one of the longest starter routes of any light rail system in the entire country, running 20 miles long from Phoenix to Mesa.
Well with all due respect, this asks for the 10 best and highest subway & lightrails in the country. For light rail, Phoenix is #13...and overall...well it's much lower than that haha.
My bus fills up on the north lakefront, then hops on Lakeshore and goes straight down to the loop before stopping. I can hop on 5 miles north of downtown and be on Wacker Drive in less than 15 minutes.
There are 15 express bus routes running along Lakeshore north/south of downtown (the densest area of the city). Depending on where you live, a bus can get you downtown a lot faster than a train. Those express routes have given over 19,800,000 rides during the first 10 months of 2010. There use to be another dozen express routes that went on major north/south and east/west streets that would only stop once in every 4 posted bus stops (locals picked them all up, express only stopped at the major streets). Unfortunately due to budget issues, they were dropped this year, and are hopefully coming back again when things stabilize in the next year or two.
Most buses in Chicago run east/west and north/south and are placed every 1/2 mile apart. They're normally used for more small distance trips around your neighborhood, as opposed to traversing the city, which is done using the Subway/L, or one of the 65 Metra stops that's actually within the city itself.
Traffic is the big problem in D.C. It slows buses to a crawl. D.C. has express buses too. D.C. also has the D.C. circulator that connects every part of Downtown and runs with loop routes. There are multiple circulator routes. The problem is time. Metro trains can travel at 80 miles per hour. They are the fastest trains in the country. Buses take forever compared to Metro. If our system wasn't so fast and efficient, we would probably take buses too even if they are really slow with lights and traffic. I'm glad we don't have that problem because commuting to work would take forever.
Traffic is the big problem in D.C. It slows buses to a crawl. D.C. has express buses too. D.C. also has the D.C. circulator that connects every part of Downtown and runs with loop routes. There are multiple circulator routes. The problem is time. Metro trains can travel at 80 miles per hour. They are the fastest trains in the country. Buses take forever compared to Metro. If our system wasn't so fast and efficient, we would probably take buses too even if they are really slow with lights and traffic. I'm glad for the latter.
METRO is hybrid (stations on the periphery are basically commuter rail and in the core it acts more like a subway, why is this so hard)- it does not function like a pure subway or pure Commuter rail line - why are you so dense - to compare systems you need more than just their subways for the older systems. It is just that simple - i am not arguing that METRO is not very good at what it does but you inflate your stats relative to the way other systems function, Is the point
Plus the other systems do it without much of the Federal funds - that we all pay for disproportionately. Enjoy our gifts, maybe someday we will get the return favor
And on your point about the size of DC vs Philly - Philly proper is not that much larger (130 sq miles) - Some of the regional rail line never even leave the city boundaries etc.
And on your schedule attached is one example - at rush hour many of the stations have a regional rail train every ten minutes, not as good as Metro but the subways with which they connect are every 5 I believe at rush hour
Regardless of what people want to say about D.C.'s Metro, Metro by itself has more daily riders than every cities entire rail network of heavy rail, light rail, and commuter rail put together other than New York. When you add in Marc and VRE, we move even further past everyone.
When the 23 mile silver line is complete, our ridership will move even further. We are building a 37 mile modern electric street car network to compliment all the metro lines in the city. We are also building the purple line light rail to make a circle around the suburbs of the city.
Many people have been talking about our stations being farm land lol. Our furthest station Shady Grove on the red line is getting light rail extended from it. The corridor cities transit way (CCT) light rail would be mostly in Gaithersburg which is 22 miles from D.C. and is becoming an urban dense city. Density is already over 6,000 and is expected to reach 9,000 this decade. Many developments are planned or under construction. These sites are where the light rail stops will be:
Watkins Mill Town Center is a massive Mixed Use Development in Gaithersburg MD
Kentlands is a new Urbanism massive community in Gaithersburg MD
Last edited by MDAllstar; 12-02-2010 at 10:45 AM..
Here are some more planned stops for the CCT light rail system:
Crown Farm which has 20 story high rises planned around the stop
The Great Seneca Life Science City which will be the only Science City in the U.S. Asia has many of these build already. It's suppose to have 60,000 new jobs and 9,000 new residential units mainly high rises added to what's already present.
You seem like a hater! What does Federal funding have to do with DC Metrorail being a hybrid? Septa gets state funding right? I posted videos showing you underground subway stations out in the burbs that have spurred TOD. Your Septa videos look like Amtrak. It's not the same. DC looks, feels and sounds like a subway. Point blank! Your unofficial term is ridiculous. Google cities with "Heavy Rail." Say it with me "Heavy Rail." DC will show up everytime.
DC's Metro is called "America's Subway." Not "America's Hybrid." If DC was 150 square miles, only one or two stations would be outside of the city.
And BTW: Philly is significantly larger than DC. Try twice the size homey. And what inflated subway numbers are you talking about? The numbers are what they are. DC is right behind NYC.
Acela is an actual train. Metro is a subway car that runs with a third rail and electricity with low platform boarding and double doors. Completely different things. Were you really comparing an Amtrak train to a subway train?
Metro uses third rail electricity like NYC and Chicago. So what's hybrid about it? It looks and sounds like a subway train. BECAUSE IT IS A SUBWAY TRAIN! But guess what. This station is in the burbs and is 200 feet below a major commercial district called Rosslyn with streets, offices, shops, restaurants and people mingling above. Septa looks nothing like this.
This is another stop on the CCT light rail called the Washingtonian Center which is a Mixed Use district in Gaithersburg MD
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