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The red is actually at a bit of a disadvantage right now because multiple north side stations are shut down for reconstruction. They're doing 6-week tear downs of the stations and rebuilding everything from the structure up as well as the station houses.
When DC's Metro become as old as Chicago's they will have to do the same thing. The numbers never stay the same anyway.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Chicago's CTA doesn't have the capacity to move the amount of people DC's WMATA can. The trains don't come as frequent and are not nearly as large. The comparison is really apples and oranges. The technology is also night and day from each other.
You act like we're comparing DC's subway to a trolley line somewhere. The CTA 8-train cars that run on the busy lines can carry 960 people in each train. Currently there are 30 inbound trains on the O'hare branch of the Blue Line, 34 southbound Red Line trains, 33 Brown Line trains that run on the schedule between 7am and 9am. They're supplemented by 22 Purple Line trains that come down from Evanston to run express and also pick up some of the crunch on the north side. That's trains running every 3 to 5 minutes. You really can't run trains much closer than 3 minutes if you want everything to run smoothly and not have signaling and bunching issues.
The CTA runs a tap-and-go entry system and is getting an entire set of new train cars in (started last year) with the most current technology.
How on earth is the technology night and day? Does DC's transit system use boilers or wood burning engines?
That's trains running every 3 to 5 minutes. You really can't run trains much closer than 3 minutes if you want everything to run smoothly and not have signaling and bunching issues.
NYC's subway system runs more than 3 minutes a train during rush hour on certain lines.
Edit: seems like only 4/5 through Manhattan (Both lines run on the same track) run more frequently than every 3 minutes. Could be less than every 2 minutes.
Wouldn't part of the reason Chicago has more stations because they are placed closer together than in DC? As a newer system I would imagine DC has more spaced stations.
DC's metro is a bit closer to BART than say, Boston's T. DC's metro has done a better job at having more core stations and more walkable TOD development around the outer stations.
DC's metro is a bit closer to BART than say, Boston's T. DC's metro has done a better job at having more core stations and more walkable TOD development around the outer stations.
Baltimore has
49K metro ridership
28.5K light rail
...which makes it
-----------------------------
77.5K rail ridership
280K bus ridership
(rough estimate)
-----------------------------
The point is to say that the CSA is more than just a worthless add on to DC.
Additionally, did anyone else include the true suburban municipalities that have bus systems, like Prince George's, Loudoun County, Fairfax connector, and ART (Arlington County) are being missed in the total bus ridership. I'm not going to do the math, but it's on the internet somewhere. I think everything together adds to the DC CSA transit count.
It isn't worthless add on, but it will bring up the numbers, and bring down the percentages to realistic levels. That was my point. Otherwise, people should stop using "percent ridership" stats to make a point, which I've said from the beginning.
Actually, the two systems have close same amount of train cars in stock. CTA has more stations at 144 while Metro only has 86 with only 5 under construction. DC has only 6 lines while CTA has 8. CTA's track length doubles at 222 miles to DC's 106 miles. So when you combined CTA larger number of stations, lines with a much larger bus network it would be more than enough. (key is to have more bus feeder network where DC lacks). Chicago has a much larger bus feeder network to serve those stations and the areas.
Unless DC is growing at the rate of Houston I just don't see Chicago stopping it's expansion projects to wait up for it to catch up. The first line in DC only started around the same time as Atlanta's MARTA in 1976. Chicago's system was established in 1892 with a much longer history. Only New Orleans has the oldest passenger rail system. When it comes to track expansion Chicago has many more miles of more tracks to play with. Keep in mind Chicago has the largest number of rail tracks than any city in the country. Chicago at one time served as the nation's largest passenger rail hub system in the country during the 1930's. I don't see DC ever achieving the #1 rail passenger hub title that only NYC and Chicago has done. It won't happen in our life time anyway.
Chicago doesn't even have 10% of the development potential of the DC metro system. Chicago's system is in the city and the area around station's is already built up. Metro still has station's (not for much longer) that have forest around them. There isn't a system in the nation with even 50% of the housing units being built around DC's metro system currently. DC is expected to add 800,000 people in ridership over the next 20 years. That will put DC's ridership close to 2 million daily riders. Almost all of that additional ridership is going to come from new housing units around the station's. Also, DC is centralizing almost all employment along it's metro system. Chicago isn't in the same league as DC in regional urban planning and transit/job centralizing. This debate really isn't close. That's the reason Chicago's ridership is so low now to begin with. Chicago is going to have to go back to placing jobs along the El' if it wants to keep up.
Subway stations don't have that problem. That's an aerial station problem. Weather is tough on aerial station's. Subway station's can be maintained.
Everything requires repairs and upgrades over time
The DC Metro is actually starting to show its age more. The new cars will be an improvement
In 50 years I am sure things will need to be fixed/repaired and the Metro also has above ground stations, actually many
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