Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Comparing suburban transit between two cities is hard when you have such drastic changes in scale. Chicago's city limits are so large, they would include what would be considered most suburbs in DC. Georgetown isn't the city of DC, but it might as well function like a city neighborhood and Arlington could be considered a Borough of sorts. What would be better to compare would be how many people in the metro have access to it.
The EL when compared to Metro to scale is pretty compact and doesn't go far. The DC metro goes considerably farther out than the EL. The Silver Line will go about 35-40 miles from downtown DC.
The EL when compared to Metro to scale is pretty compact and doesn't go far. The DC metro goes considerably farther out than the EL. The Silver Line will go about 35-40 miles from downtown DC.
The el..compact? Hardly. I have nothing against DC's system. In fact I love their trains, but the El is hardly a compact system.
Chicago
Blue Line: 34.6 miles
Red Line: 23.4 miles
Green Line: 20.7 miles
Purple Line: 15 miles
Orange Line: 12.5 miles
Brown Line: 11.4 miles
Pink Line: 11.2 miles
Yellow Line: 5.1 miles
Washington DC
Red Line: 31.9 miles
Blue Line: 30.3 miles
Orange Line: 26.4 miles
Green Line: 23.04 miles
Silver Line: 23 miles
Yellow Line: 15.07 miles
I'd say it's fairly comparable. DC has more 20+ mile long routes than Chicago (5 vs 3), but then Chicago also has the longest route by 2.7 miles out of both cities. Chicago's route length is 133.9 miles while DC's is 149.71 miles.
Add in the bus system, commuter rail systems, and then cabs, bike share program, and water taxi type of stuff and Chicago wins.
Bus
DC: 300 routes with 12,216 stops
Chicago: CTA = 140 routes and 12000+ stops. PACE = 213 routes.
Commuter Rail
DC: MARC = 187 miles and 42 stations. VRE = 90 miles and 18 stations
Chicago: Metra = 487.7 miles and 241 stations
Bike Sharing
DC: Capitol Bike Share = 2500 bikes and 300 stations
Chicago: Divvy = 3000 bikes and 300 stations. 4750 bikes with 475 stations by end of 2014.
Last edited by marothisu; 02-03-2014 at 03:15 PM..
The el..compact? Hardly. I have nothing against DC's system. In fact I love their trains, but the El is hardly a compact system.
Chicago
Blue Line: 34.6 miles
Red Line: 23.4 miles
Green Line: 20.7 miles
Purple Line: 15 miles
Orange Line: 12.5 miles
Brown Line: 11.4 miles
Pink Line: 11.2 miles
Yellow Line: 5.1 miles
Washington DC
Red Line: 31.9 miles
Blue Line: 30.3 miles
Orange Line: 26.4 miles
Green Line: 23.04 miles
Silver Line: 23 miles
Yellow Line: 15.07 miles
I'd say it's fairly comparable. DC has more 20+ mile long routes than Chicago (5 vs 3), but then Chicago also has the longest route by 2.7 miles out of both cities. Chicago's route length is 133.9 miles while DC's is 149.71 miles.
Add in the bus system, commuter rail systems, and then cabs, bike share program, and water taxi type of stuff and Chicago wins.
You may want to check your DC numbers. For instance, the 23 mile Silver Line begins in the suburbs. Also, when I said compact, I meant it doesn't extend as far from downtown as DC's does. That's not a bad thing, just different.
The Silver Line project, currently under construction, is a 23-mile extension of the rail system that will link Washington, DC to Washington Dulles International Airport by way of Tysons Corner, Reston, Herndon and Ashburn, Va. The project includes 11 stations that will be built in two phases. Phase 1 will run from East Falls Church to Wiehle Avenue and is scheduled to open in late 2013. Phase 2 will run from Wiehle Avenue to the airport and will open in 2018. The Silver Line is the largest rail expansion project by route mileage since the inception of the Metrorail
Sorry, but the El is not compact. It's barely shorter than the entire DC system and like DC, there are possible extension projects for the El also on the horizon
The big problem with DC's system is that the lines are getting awfully long. The Metro is basically a rapid transit and commuter rail wrapped into one. And that wouldn't be such a bad thing if all of the trains didn't run on a single track. But they do, so a ride from the end of the Silver Line to Downtown will take forever.
DC is also pay for distance, Winner Chicago. Last time I Was there I had to scramble for loose change just to get *out* of the subway. The 28 day pass there is also 230 dollars which is freaking ridiculous. Over twice as much as NYC and not even close to as good.
That 23 mile extension begins at east falls church metro station in Arlington Va.
What's your point? We are discussing the fact that you think the El is compact when it's not. Stop trying to compare a city with a land area of 61 sq miles to one that's 227 sq miles. The El is barely shorter than DC Metro and even has a line that is 2.7 miles longer than anything in DC.
Second of all, okay so the begins at East Falls Church. That's 7 miles from the center of DC. What's your point? Chicago's land area is almost 4X larger than DC's. Do you realize how many suburbs of DC could fit into the city of Chicago? The distance from Alexandria to the middle of DC is about the same as the Loop to the Edgewater or Hyde Park neighborhoods.
I could name handful of stations in Chicago that are over 7 miles from downtown. In fact, there's very many. The Blue Line from O'Hare Airport has to run for 19 miles before you hit the Loop. Throwing out the word "suburb" when you're comparing a city of 61 sq miles to one that's 227 sq mi is almost pointless unless you dig deeper. The absolute longest stretch you can make in DC is about 12 miles long. In Chicago, it's almost 40 miles.
Both areas have very good transit, but it's absolutely frivolous to claim that the El is compact and DC isn't when DC's total route length is only 9-10 miles longer than Chicago's and Chicago has a line that is almost 3 miles longer than anything DC has. The thing that Chicago also has going for it is the fact that there's unused railroads from when it was even more of a railroad hub. The Pink Line didn't open up long ago and used one of these. Recently this could have happened with another one, but instead the city decided to emulate the Hi Line from NYC and create bike and walking paths instead of another train line connected to a handful of parks. The red line may also expand by over 5 miles and I've heard the Blue Line, the largest, may expand even more into even more suburbs at both ends of the line. The CTA has also thought about a circle line which would give it another 12+ miles of track (6 miles of new subway) and some other stuff with unused subway tunnels near downtown. They are also in the planning stages for a 16 mile long BRT line that they'd emulate into other lines in the future.
Chicago at one point also had one of the largest street car systems in the world (called Chicago Surface Lines) with over 3000 cars and over 1000 miles of track at its peak. Part of the reason the El didn't expand even more is because the street car system was massive and they didn't need to.
Last edited by marothisu; 02-03-2014 at 03:50 PM..
I read that DC metro ridership decreased, the blame is might of been the higher fare.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
