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Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,558,075 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gladhands
I think we also need to accept that DC’s metro is also its commuter rail. Sure, it extends out into the suburbs, but, fares can cost as much as $6 one way.
No it's not, I don't know why you continue to say this. Commuter rail is Metra, MARC, VRE etc. The DC Metro system just covers the suburbs very well. It is at best hybrid subway transit-commuter rail like coverage. The headways for commuter rail cannot match Metro's during rush hour. It is the best suburban heavy rail transit coverage (non commuter rail, and outside NYC metro) in the U.S.
No it's not, I don't know why you continue to say this. Commuter rail is Metra, MARC, VRE etc. The DC Metro system just covers the suburbs very well. It is at best hybrid subway transit-commuter rail like coverage. The headways for commuter rail cannot match Metro's during rush hour. It is the best suburban heavy rail transit coverage (non commuter rail, and outside NYC metro) in the U.S.
Sounds to me like you two are saying the same thing. You used the word “hybrid” and he used “also”. Both acknowledging its dual purpose.
It's not necessarily a fair comparison, though I will agree that Washington DC has great coverage. However, saying that one is better than the other because it serves more suburbs is not fair due to the disparate nature of the land areas of Chicago versus these 2 other cities. (major snippage)
Quote:
Originally Posted by gladhands
I think we also need to accept that DC’s metro is also its commuter rail. Sure, it extends out into the suburbs, but, fares can cost as much as $6 one way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by the resident09
No it's not, I don't know why you continue to say this. Commuter rail is Metra, MARC, VRE etc. The DC Metro system just covers the suburbs very well. It is at best hybrid subway transit-commuter rail like coverage. The headways for commuter rail cannot match Metro's during rush hour. It is the best suburban heavy rail transit coverage (non commuter rail, and outside NYC metro) in the U.S.
You - or some of you - may have seen me refer to "First Subway Era" and "Second Subway Era" systems in the United States.
The systems built during each period differ in character in a significant way.
I define the "First Subway Era" as the period between 1897 (when Boston's trolley subway, the first in America, opened) and 1943 (when the first of Chicago's "Initial" and ultimately only "System of Subways" opened beneath State Street).
The Second Subway Era began on Jan. 4, 1969, with the opening of the Port Authority Transit Corporation's Lindenwold High-Speed Line between Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey. It ended in a sense with the opening of Los Angeles' first two heavy rapid transit subway lines in 1993, but it continues to this day with light metro construction in several cities, most notably Seattle.
The opening of the Cleveland Red Line in 1955 falls in between the two eras.
The First Subway Era systems - and if we want to date it properly, Chicago's largely elevated system and New York's els predate Boston's subway - mainly provided faster transit within the core city. Given that in all four cities that built subway-elevated systems, there was still land within the existing core city limits that remained undeveloped, the construction of the rapid transit lines sparked suburbanization. But it wasn't the kind of suburbanization we now think about when we use that word, so all of the systems save Boston's have essentially become in-city circulators and/or systems that help people in outlying city neighborhoods get into the city center. Both Chicago's and Philadelphia's extend a bit into inner suburbs, however - Chicago's more than Philly's, but Philly's connects with three rail lines, two light rail, one light metro, that operate exclusively in its suburbs and for some distance.
The Second Subway Era systems were hybrids, as theresident09 described Washington's. Instead of promoting suburban growth, as the First Subway Era systems (and Cleveland's Shaker Rapid light rail lines) did, these systems were responses to suburbanization, and they were all built in cities that did not have strong extant commuter rail networks (though Baltimore, Washington and Los Angeles added commuter rail lines or networks concurrent with the construction of their systems and the Bay Area has added to its one extant line). With the exception of LA's system, all 12 of the Second Subway Era systems (I include the light metros in Buffalo, Dallas, San Diego, St. Louis and Seattle in this number) were built as much to serve as "remote vehicle storage" - systems that would allow suburban motorists to leave their cars at the outer end of the line and ride it into the city, thus functioning like commuter railroads - as they were to serve as city circulators (in fact, the systems in Miami, San Francisco/Oakland, and the Baltimore Metro barely perform that latter function if they perform it at all). Atlanta's system provides "spine line" service within the core city like Philadelphia's does.
Even though it has a commuter rail system already, Boston got a Second Subway Era network grafted onto its First Subway Era one from the 1970s through the late 1980s.
Some might argue that I should also include the Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul systems in this list. They don't seem to be built to operate at speeds as high as the others outside the city center and seem to me to have less grade separation. I may be wrong about this, though.
Toronto, obviously not an American city but very American-like on many levels-- it developed a 2nd or modern era subway and commuter rail network -- all post 1954 -- that mirrors the original, older-era systems than than the post WWII era American systems, which posters correctly identify as building rapid transit as commuter railroads.
Toronto's subway follows core streets and is designed for in-city movement, both between neighborhoods and downtown as well as between the neighborhoods themselves (granted the parameters of the City of Toronto has dramatically expanded since Toronto's metropolitan consolidation (soaring Toronto's population into the millions) which occurred decades after the first subway lines were built -- but the context of the core, urbanized Toronto is still readily cognizable even though the old city limits are long gone; and the subway system, in the main, still adheres to this even with the Spadina Line's modern American-like suburban extension to Vaughan Metro Centre.
The GO-Transit commuter rail network has been steadily expanding since its experimental introduction in the late 1960s to its current state whereby it extends from downtown's Union Station (where it connects directly to the subway and streetcar network) to the edges of the metropolitan area over seven lines (plus a downtown-to-airport route); and is now being largely electrified... GO-Transit's commuter operation operates separate from the city subway operation ... as it should.
I wish American cities followed this 'old school' approach Toronto has -- rapid transit and commuter rail coverage can overlap, in execution, but the BART model of a super (super expensive/super extensive) rapid transit seems kind of ridiculous and wasteful to me, when railroad ROW's radiate from the center of every large American City. But of course, we're talking Canada, not America, and in this self-absorbed, laissez faire country (as in "every man/woman for him/herself), selfish freight RR's make their routes off limits to most passenger rail operations, and are even a pain in the arse even for Amtrak; so what are American cities to do? ... build commuter railroad-like rapid transit systems, I guess. At least half of Denver's new FasTracks system is an honest-to-goodness commuter railroad, and electrified at that -- the first newly electrified American commuter rail system since the Depression. But happily, Denver is running the commuter rail with near rapid transit frequency ... for now.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,558,075 times
Reputation: 5785
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
Sounds to me like you two are saying the same thing. You used the word “hybrid” and he used “also”. Both acknowledging its dual purpose.
We're not. The Washington Metro system is not a commuter rail service. It has headways of a normal local subway system, well out into the suburbs. The DC area already has existing commuter rail just like Chicago and Boston do, which are MARC and VRE.
The DC area already has existing commuter rail just like Chicago and Boston do, which are MARC and VRE.
Anyone who has ridden commuter rail in Boston, Chicago, and DC-Baltimore know that MBTA commuter rail and Metra are in different leagues than MARC or VRE (just look at the vastly different ridership stats and area coverage). The reason why the DC-Baltimore area can pull it off? All of the suburban commuter traffic on Metro. People in the DC area use Metro for commuter rail service all the time, and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Why do they use it for commuter rail service? Because MARC and VRE have poor coverage and aren't effectively integrated with each other or with Metro.
Anyone who has ridden commuter rail in Boston, Chicago, and DC-Baltimore know that MBTA commuter rail and Metra are in different leagues than MARC or VRE (just look at the vastly different ridership stats and area coverage). The reason why the DC-Baltimore area can pull it off? All of the suburban commuter traffic on Metro. People in the DC area use Metro for commuter rail service all the time, and it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise. Why do they use it for commuter rail service? Because MARC and VRE have poor coverage and aren't effectively integrated with each other or with Metro.
MARC and VRE are regional rail. Metro is definitely a hybrid. I understand that some subway systems have zone pricing, but when that pricing goes up to $6, you’re looking at commuter rail functionality and pricing.
When you have stations that aren’t actually in a neighborhood, and most riders park-and-ride, that’s commuter rail.
We're not. The Washington Metro system is not a commuter rail service. It has headways of a normal local subway system, well out into the suburbs. The DC area already has existing commuter rail just like Chicago and Boston do, which are MARC and VRE.
I do see the DC Metro as a hybrid rapid transit/commuter rail system. Yes it does have high-frequency subway-type scheduling and pretty comprehensive City coverage (... there still is the missing-Georgetown thing as well as it, really, only skimming the edges of densely-populated Capitol Hill), but it extends deep into the suburbs -- up to 23 miles from downtown (Red Line-Shady Grove); and the Silver Line (partially opened but still under construction), extending beyond Dulles Airport deep into Loudoun County, VA, will even be longer than that!
These long rail lines are even more pronounced given D.C.'s compact 61 sq. mile borders. And when you witness the heavy TOD residential and commercial massing around suburban Metro stations such as Tyson's Corner, King Street, Silver Spring, and many, many others, it's quite obvious that the Metro does, by far, the most suburban heavy lifting, in terms of ridership over DC's traditional commuter rail.
And yes, Washington is served by MARC and VRE, but their services are weekday rush hour only (save the one heavier, electrified Amtrak Penn Line). Thus DC's commuter rail is not comparable to Chicago's, Boston's or Philly's much more robust commuter rail, which maintain non-rush hour and weekend base services in addition to high-frequency rush hour services (including locals and expresses running up to 10-15 minute headways in some instances).
We're not. The Washington Metro system is not a commuter rail service. It has headways of a normal local subway system, well out into the suburbs. The DC area already has existing commuter rail just like Chicago and Boston do, which are MARC and VRE.
Neither of those existed when planning for the Washington Metro began in 1961, although the B&O did operate local service between Washington and three nearby destinations, including Baltimore.
Northern Virginia had no commuter rail service to speak of.
Of the five largest cities in the Northeast, Washington had the second-least-comprehensive commuter rail network. just ahead of neighboring Baltimore, which had slightly less.
Thus a hybrid system like the one plotted out for WMATA filled some gaps in the region's transportation network. The situation in the San Francisco Bay Area, which had only one commuter rail line, was similar.
The reason we call the Metro a "hybrid" is because even though its operating headways, equipment and design are those of rapid transit, once beyond the urban core, station spacing, operating speeds and distance/territory covered are those of commuter rail.
(Which brings me to another aside: One reason so many in Philadelphia advocate running SEPTA Regional Rail more like rapid transit is because its stations are much more closely spaced - about half the typical distance between stations on other commuter systems. Were this to happen, you could consider it a "reverse hybrid" - rapid-transit-style headways and station spacing, mainline commuter railroad equipment and design.)
The evolution of the MBTA from 1957 (when the ex-Boston and Albany Highland Branch became a branch of the trolley subway) onward, however, shows that hybrid thinking even affected legacy rail transit systems in areas with well-developed commuter rail networks. (One thing the expansion of the MBTA rapid transit network did was fill a hole left in the regional rail network to the southeast of Boston after the New Haven Railroad abandoned all commuter service to the South Shore in the late 1950s.)
By the way, you all may also note that most of the time, I use the term SEPTA uses to refer to its commuter system - "Regional Rail" - to describe most of the other systems.
As TheProf noted above, the "commuter" systems in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and to a slightly lesser degree Chicago operate at least an 18-hour-a-day schedule, with service throughout the day, and frequent service on almost all of the lines at peak hours - in both directions in some cases.
This is really a different type of service than the highly directional, peak-hour-oriented service that typifies "commuter" rail. It serves a segment of the riding public that seeks mobility around the region rather than just travel from their homes in the suburbs to their jobs in the city.
A number of commuter services (including the Bay Area's ex-Southern Pacific Peninsula route and LA Metrolink as well, I believe) are headed in this 18-hour, bidirectional direction if they weren't already there. I'd like to emphasize the distinction.
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