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D.C's Metro and SF's BART are the closest to commuter rail of any US rapid transit lines, with BART going deeper into SF suburbs than even METRO (which will soon partly change with METRO's New Dulles airport extension now under construction)... Right now, the Shady Grove line, at 23 miles (to Metro Center, downtown), is the single longest Metro Line... Dulles will be about that length, if not a few miles longer... Still, even though these lines have (some of) the length of traditional commuter rail, along with much better frequency, the lack the creature comforts of traditional commuter rail lines (heavier passenger cars with a more solid ride, overhead luggage racks...even water fountains and toilets, in some cases...)
I actually see Chicago rated towards the top most of the time when systems are compared. Toronto, Boston, portions of Long Island, Metro North and many other systems in the USA are diesel engines. It's fairly common. Chicago shares the tracks with freight that criss crosses the city, as it's the largest freight rail city in the country. There's really no room to go build hundreds of miles of new track and electrify them all since the freight tracks are already there surrounded by existing development. It would also probably cost tens of billions of dollars. I've never really seen anyone complain about the current system as far as how it's powered. Certainly not enough to dump billions and billions into changing it when it wouldn't do much of anything to reliability or service.
If Metra even proposed that expense you'd have outrage and heads on the chopping block! Especially given the current budget issues.
Yes, Chiago does handle more frieght than most cities -- probably more than any American City-- but keep in mind, the other cities (Philly and NYC) that have electrified lines, electrified their frieght/passenger lines; ie, the NEC which hosts commuter lines to both Philly and New York (and Boston, CT and DC/Balto as well).... The 30-mile Metra Electic/old IC line to University Park is totally unique in this country.... IC spent the money and built a totally segregated (totally grade-separated) pair of tracks along side its frieght lines which makes this line similar to a long rapid transit line (Cleveland's Red Line is kinda like a shorter version of the IC/Metra electric)... So Chiago still could have electrified it's other lines and connected them via tunnels within the Loop... IIRC, there was and old plan the proposed that back in the 1950s/60s, back when Chicago's commuter rail was privately owned by the RRs... Obviously, and unfortunately, nothing came of it. I remeber reading in a book years ago; I'll try to hunt it down on line and post if I do...
Yep, the Green, Pink and Blue lines (all run fairly close to each other) poke out into Oak Park and Cicero on the west side, and the Purple Line basically runs entirely in Evanston and another small town just to the north (although during Rush hours it will make express runs downtown as opposed to just shuttling people to the Red Line at the city limits). Those cities are fairly old, and are certainly some of the suburbs that are the most dense and woven into the urban city fabric of Chicago. Hence they got their rail connections back almost 100 years ago when the system was being built.
I love Evanston -- Chicago's most diverse and interesting suburb (along with Oak Park) imho and have used the Red/Purple lines several times... However, I really HATE the fact that the Purple only runs express service into the Loop during Rush hour -- it should run that way throughout the day (only shutting down late nights when the Red Line runs Owl service)... The Red Line makes too many stops and is entirely too slow -- even in moderately heavy traffic, a car whips the Red Line to Howard; and then you've got to transfer on top of that to get to Evanston/Northwestern?? Totally inadequate and archaic and not befitting a great city like Chicago.
Why do people keep bringing up BART and the DC Metro?
San Francisco has commuter rail in the form of Caltrain and, if you want to count San Jose the ACE service.
DC has commuter rail in the form of VRE and MARC.
... b/c BART and METRO offer services that are similar to commuter rail, even though they are not traditonal commuter rail... this is esp true length-wise. Consider the fact that there are plans to extend BART from Fremont to San Jose, which is the length of the existing CalTrain commuter line out of SF.
Also BART and Metro are 7-day per week systems that run from early morning to late evening, unlike commuter rail like MARC and VRE that run only Mon-Fri. I don't think VRE even runs outside of rush hour. Therefore, BART and Metro function in the same manner as an inner-city transit system, allowing some people in the suburbs to live without a car. Metro North and LIRR in NY may be an exception to this, but even they reduce the no. of trains extensively on weekends.
... b/c BART and METRO offer services that are similar to commuter rail, even though they are not traditonal commuter rail... this is esp true length-wise. Consider the fact that there are plans to extend BART from Fremont to San Jose, which is the length of the existing CalTrain commuter line out of SF.
CalTrain only serves the South Peninsula and South Bay, if I remember correctly.
BART on the other hand serves far flung areas such as Pleasanton, Concord, Pittsburg and Richmond.
For all intents and purposes, BART is the main commuter rail in SF. It is not the main municipal rail service for SF (MUNI is).
This is spot on correct... I laugh at the rail "experts" who downgrade Philly's commuter rail (probably because it's Philly and it's always fashionable to kick the city around) and say, for example, that Chicago's METRA is better b/c it's speed (few stops) and on time performance is (supposedly) better. Even though more and more cities have established some form of commuter rail over the last 2-3 decades, there are really only 4 major commuter rail systems in the country: New York, Philly, Chicago and Boston... and then, everybody else... Of those 4, Philly comes out on top for reasons stated by killakoolaide, above... Chicago's at the bottom....
... why? For one thing, given it's size and density, Chicago should have long ago electrified it's entire network, not just the METRA Electric (old Illinois Central suburban div) along with the old 90-mile South Shore/South Bend RR interurban line feeding in... Also, Chicago's downtown terminal situation is totally disjointed and inconvenient: the 13 lines feed into 4 different terminals with no thru service... and only at Union Station, can you ride in, get off, and continue North or south on one of the few other lines feeding that terminal (and to top it off, Union Station is not even served by a CTA L line -- the closest one is about 4 blocks away -- try that lugging bags... And on top of all that, METRA's Sunday schedule runs entirely on 2-hour intervals into the Loop, even on METRA Electric, where you must transfer from the S. Chicago Branch at Hyde Park to reach downtown -- (IIRC, the Blue Island branch doesn't operate on Sunday)... Pretty shoddy for the Windy City...
Philly's about the best we have in this country for connectability and ease of use because of the Center City tunnel... In addition, Philly is served by 2 diesel, non-SEPTA commuter Lines: the 60-mile, mostly single-track Atlantic City Line, which operates into 30th St. Sta., and the near decade old River Line (diesel LRT), which runs from downtown Camden north 30-miles to Trenton (connecting to Philly via a PATCO transfer in Camden)...
Despite the relative quality of SEPTA's regional rail -- again, by American Standards -- it sucks that they still operate it as a commuter rail line (conductors, 1-hour base) rather than a more rapid-transit like service similar services in Austrailia, Germany, Japan and a few others. SEPTA is very good... but it could be a whole lot better.
Faster speed and on-time performance are important though. As for luggage, the vast majority of commuter rail riders are not running around with a bunch of luggage.
Electrification and through running are great advantages for a system, but it hardly matters when it's not put into particularly great use. Philly's massive system would have been better served had the diesel lines were allowed to run in conjunction with the electrified ones (until they were replaced) rather than just amputating all the diesel services--I don't see how SEPTA abandoning all those services is much of a feather in its cap.
Metra currently is the better system. It is lacking in a lot of ways, but much of what your citing is structural rather than how commuters actually experience things. SEPTA has the potential to run like a S-Bahn, but it is hard to imagine SEPTA actually capitalizing on that.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 04-09-2012 at 01:59 PM..
its only a matter of time until septa's commuter rail is urbanized, once the fare system is updated, to where one chargeable smart card can allow for trips on both city and suburban rail lines, combined with the continued growth and prosperity of cc and the suburbs it is inevitable, it will be somewhat of a rebirth of the metro in that it will make it a national juggernaut once again.
There are plans to build one from Galveston to DT Houston and several more to Conroe, Prairie View, and Sugarland. Just needs to get past politicians.
BTW, Dallas area has two commuter lines. One is the TRE and the other is the DCTA and another one is planned with the Cotton Belt.
Houston IMO has so much potential because I'm sure people there wouldn't mind a break from the freeways, and there seems to be a lot of room there for expansion and development.
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