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Agreed, and I wold argue NYC is the only system truly built in this fashion. In Chicago, generally speaking, the bus (except express buses along Lake Shore Drive) is better used to move people East-West while the EL moves them North-South. Huge Generalization, but still some truth in it.
D.C.'s is built the same way. I agree, NYC is the only system that provides east-west connections. D.C. will finally have east west connections when the purple light rail line and when the 37 mile, 8 line streetcar system is built. That is so long overdue. I will say that having the hub and spoke system has caused jobs in the D.C. area to be developed in corridors that radiate out from the core. This is one advantage to having the Metro system spread out into the suburbs. It is going to be a huge advantage over the next 20 years as urban development takes hold in this country. I don't see any other way to allow people in the suburbs to live car free except expanding the subway systems in the nation out into the suburbs. Reducing our dependance on gas depends on it. Light rail is obviously the answer for the suburbs since heavy rail is so expensive and every city should be focusing on saturating their suburbs with it.
Last edited by MDAllstar; 03-15-2012 at 10:00 AM..
Probably true about the white collar numbers. D.C. is truly a white collar professional city. As for the bus numbers, even those are low in relation to the rail ridership. If people aren't taking the train in large numbers, shouldn't the bus have close to 2 million riders? NYC has 8 million taking the train and only 2 million+ taking the bus. The reason the bus ridership is so low is because people mostly take the train. Shouldn't it be the opposite in Chicago?
The buses have around 1,000,000, the trains around 710,000. It just is what it is. Most people in the city outside the downtown area and north side areas can fairly easily have parking, and many people will just drive where they need to go if it's easier. NYC is just a different animal.
Probably true about the white collar numbers. D.C. is truly a white collar professional city. As for the bus numbers, even those are low in relation to the rail ridership. If people aren't taking the train in large numbers, shouldn't the bus have close to 2 million riders? NYC has 8 million taking the train and only 2 million+ taking the bus. The reason the bus ridership is so low is because people mostly take the train. Shouldn't it be the opposite in Chicago?
I think Chicago is a classic case of the 80/20 rule where 80% of the transit users probably live in ~20% of the land area. Physically, Chicago is fairly large city, much more expansive than DC, SF, or Boston, and Outside the core (Northside/Lakefront), much of the city is more autocentric, NYC is in it's own league and comparing % of transit users to Chicago won't work.
To me, much of Chicago is like Eastern Queens, in that it is still pretty dense, but much more car dependent than the rest of the city.
I think Chicago is a classic case of the 80/20 rule where 80% of the transit users probably live in ~20% of the land area. Physically, Chicago is fairly large city, much more expansive than DC, SF, or Boston, and Outside the core (Northside/Lakefront), much of the city is more autocentric, NYC is in it's own league and comparing % of transit users to Chicago won't work.
To me, much of Chicago is like Eastern Queens, in that it is still pretty dense, but much more car dependent than the rest of the city.
The Chicago L seems a lot more strict with its hub spoke model of transit and development with the north side being the only part outside of the loop where a significant number of lines overlap or intersect (unlike say the Washington Metro has several places outside of the downtown area where lines overlap or intersect). It seems likely that once Chicago finally gets its circle line that new development and transit patterns will emerge--unfortunately, that seems to be moving very, very slowly which seems very, very short-sighted as circle lines generally become the busiest lines and maximizes usage of existing lines.
The Chicago L seems a lot more strict with its hub spoke model of transit and development with the north side being the only part outside of the loop where a significant number of lines overlap or intersect (unlike say the Washington Metro has several places outside of the downtown area where lines overlap or intersect). It seems likely that once Chicago finally gets its circle line that new development and transit patterns will emerge--unfortunately, that seems to be moving very, very slowly which seems very, very short-sighted as circle lines generally become the busiest lines and maximizes usage of existing lines.
I'm wondering what they can do about north side train crowding. If you just look at the Red Line up north, the Brown Line and the O'hare branch of the Blue Line - plus their respective downtown stations, you're looking at over 400,000 boardings a day. This isn't even counting the two legs of the Green, the southern Red, the Pink, the western Blue, the Orange or the Purple lines. The north branch of the Red and the Brown were both up quite a bit this past year, and are now at their highest rideships ever, even back before WWII. They run trains a lot with 3 minute headways during rush, but things are still all backed up.
I took the Brown Line at 11am today and was surprised to see them running full length cars that were still standing room only crowds.
Look at trains moving away from downtown at morning rush or towards downtown at evening rush though and most of them are pretty empty except the Red Line and the O'hare branch of the Blue Line.
Here are the most recent daily ridership stats for the Toronto Transit Commission and GO (commuter) Transit:
Subway - 936,300
Bus - 1,294,300
Streetcar - 307,600
Intermediate rail - 42,500
Commuter - 217,000
Total - 2,797,700
It also might be worth noting that the adjacent large suburb of Mississauga had a daily transit ridership of 89,863 in 2011 via its bus based system known as MiWay.
Here are the most recent daily ridership stats for the Toronto Transit Commission and GO (commuter) Transit:
Subway - 936,300
Bus - 1,294,300
Streetcar - 307,600
Intermediate rail - 42,500
Commuter - 217,000
Total - 2,797,700
It also might be worth noting that the adjacent large suburb of Mississauga had a daily transit ridership of 89,863 in 2011 via its bus based system known as MiWay.
Those numbers are massive! Living in Toronto myself and rarely taking mass transit in other cities, it took me a while to realize how up there in the rankings my home city was (I'm not even that perceptive sometimes when I visit other cities or ignore the presence of buses/trains in many cities if I'm not going to use them).
Yeah, I was reading Toronto subway ads that claimed that Toronto was the North American city whose public transit system cost the least taxpayers' money (significantly less than the other contenders). Wikipedia says it's the third largest N. American ridership of any North American city's mass transit after NYC, and Mexico city and that's something I just looked up just for kicks recently.
It also might be worth noting that the adjacent large suburb of Mississauga had a daily transit ridership of 89,863 in 2011 via its bus based system known as MiWay.
Though it started out as "just" a suburb of Toronto, I think at this moment in time it's fair to call Mississauga a fair city in its own right, with downtown and all. It's certainly city-sized, though it's often still called a suburb, since well, it's right there bordering Toronto itself, and has the airport etc. and became big from a small/modest start.
Some of that growth is recent -- it apparently doubled in population in my lifetime (two decades and a half), according to the stats!
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