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I've been thinking about this, and I'm interested in what other people have to say.
Does having a rail system in place that people use on a daily basis help make a city great? Or important?
I'm not saying that "Rail transit = Great and important city", but it doesn't seem to stop a city from obtaining that distinction. It might even contribute to it. That is, having a rail transportation system that is used is something that the "best" cities in the world have. But having a rail system doesn't necessarily mean the city is by default great. Its kind of like whiskey and bourbon. All bourbon is a whiskey, but not all whiskeys are bourbon.
Unless I'm mistaken, I think all the cities in the Alpha tiers have a form of rail that people can use on a daily basis to travel to other places.
So is having a rail system something that an important and "great" city, especially in a global context, has to have in order to be considered important or "great"?
Yes, but it's not the rail itself that makes a city great. But rather, that rail helps create a dense vibrant core and handles high volume within and out of the core better than any other form of transportation.
I'm travelling in Central Europe now, currently I'm in Budapest. They have buses, trams and subways, as well as commuter trains. It took me only about 30 minutes to get to downtown from a more close in suburb, although that's more because of the short distance (5 miles). I went by bus and then tram in the city, and I'm pretty sure the bus was faster, since it went on relatively fast roads and didn't stop excessively often. The tram didn't stop too much either, bus it was moving slower in the city. Even though it had it's own lane, they only have low blocks separating the tramway from the road so cars and pedestrians could get in even if they weren't supposed to. All vehicles were moving more cautiously in the city though.
What was really nice was that you could take transit without knowing the schedule. The were four periods I could have had to wait, at the start of the trip, and at the transfer point, and again on the way back. We waited something like 2 seconds, then 1 minute, then 2 minutes, then a few seconds again (literally).
Yes, but it's not the rail itself that makes a city great. But rather, that rail helps create a dense vibrant core and handles high volume within and out of the core better than any other form of transportation.
Yeap. The car is nice, but it limits how dense an area can be(i.e. Need parking and can you imagine how much parking a sky scrapper needs?).
Rail allows a City to be able to have less land dedicated to parking and unlike the bus, it does not get stuck in heavy traffic...making it an very attractive option for travel during rush periods.
Having a rail system doesn't by itself, but seems to help. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and San Francisco have it. Detroit and Las Vegas don't.
It helps if your rail system is actually functional and useful, not a toy monorail that runs between tourist destinations on the Strip--or a small token system in Detroit where the central city is already so vacant that there is plenty of unused capacity on the highways.
Yeap. The car is nice, but it limits how dense an area can be(i.e. Need parking and can you imagine how much parking a sky scrapper needs?).
Rail allows a City to be able to have less land dedicated to parking and unlike the bus, it does not get stuck in heavy traffic...making it an very attractive option for travel during rush periods.
Well busses only get stuck in traffic if they don't have dedicated rights of way. Streetcars operating in mixed traffic would encounter the same problem. If busses or rail vehicles operate in their own ROW, traffic won't be a problem. Rail has other advantages (capacity, operating costs, image).
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