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- Coverage
- Efficiency (scheduled headways, actual headways, delays, etc)
- Rolling stock (vehicle design, features)
- Cleanliness (vehicles and stations)
There's a few major ones that I've never experienced, but from what I have ridden, I'd rank them as follows:
1) New York - Runs efficiently for the most part, and the express trains are great. Pretty good coverage, until you get far out. The newest vehicles are nice, and the 24-hour service is awesome. The paper fare card is pretty annoying.
2) Montreal - Most efficient, and incredibly clean. Coverage is not great, but the layout works well for much of the city's urban core. The blue line extension will be nice, but an extension west would be really great. Beautiful stations, and the quietness of the trains are nice. Service ending around 12:30 in the morning really sucks, but the fact that buses replace trains all night makes it not so bad. The actual trains are quite old and poorly designed in terms of seating, but that extra pole near the doors is actually really great. Clear and loud automatic station announcements are great.
3) Washington, D.C. - Great coverage, even extending far beyond the urban core (as many have pointed out, it's sort of a hybrid subway/commuter rail system). Clean stations and trains, with air conditioning on the trains! Unfortunately, service is often horrible, outside of rush hour (seriously, there's ALWAYS single tracking somewhere, and there's ALWAYS an elevator that isn't working). I often waited 20 minutes for an orange line train when I lived there.
4) Boston - The only good thing here is the coverage. Service is awful, sometimes even during rush hour. I ride the orange line often, and sometimes wait 15 minutes on a weekday evening (7 p.m.), and then see that there are 2 trains coming within 5 minutes. What gives? The stations and trains are old and dirty. There's no pole near the doors, which means that people keep bumping into you while attempting to stay upright when the train is packed.
5) Toronto - I'd like to rank Toronto higher, but coverage is pretty bad. The train cars are really sleek and modern, and from what I can tell, everything works efficiently. The stations are old and ugly, but overall, a solid system that would be much better with some extensions.
6) Philadelphia - I only used this for one weekend. Coverage was poor, trains and stations were dirty, and I seemed to wait forever for my train.
Going by your criteria, Chicago should be #2 or 3. Chicago loses points for headways on certain lines depending on the time of day, in addition to some pretty janky stations mixed in with the nice and average ones. Other than that, the L system covers a lot of the city, and the cars are typically clean. http://www.transitchicago.com/news_i...ves/5000s.aspx
Going by your criteria, Chicago should be #2 or 3. Chicago loses points for headways on certain lines depending on the time of day, in addition to some pretty janky stations mixed in with the nice and average ones. Other than that, the L system covers a lot of the city, and the cars are typically clean. CTA 5000-Series 'L' Cars - New Train Cars
Good to know - I'm definitely hoping to ride around on it next time I'm in Chicago!
As far as heavy rail systems go, Toronto has the nicest rains and the fastest headways. The system is somewhat undersized, but there are extensions currently under construction (including a new crosstown line) and big plans for the near future.
not sure how what #2-5 would be, but Toronto, Chicago, Montreal and DC would probably be in the top 5 (not in order).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atticman
As far as heavy rail systems go, Toronto has the nicest rains and the fastest headways. The system is somewhat undersized, but there are extensions currently under construction (including a new crosstown line) and big plans for the near future.
Agreed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bostonkid123
Agree whole-heartedly with OP's assessment of Boston's MBTA. Coverage is decent, but service/general infrastructure/trains are simply awful on some lines. Boston's would be so much better if they could just replace the rolling stock with newer cars and increased reliability.
I've also included the system maps of Montreal and Vancouver's rapid transit systems. From my experiences, coverage in both systems are pretty decent at least for mid-sized cities, and their service, rolling stock, and station infrastructure are all very good by North American standards. Also, when you are referring to rapid transit, I assume you are exclusively referring to the likes of subways and elevated trains, and not trolleys, LRT, and streetcars (e.g. Boston Green Line, Toronto Streetcar) that are more constrained by street traffic?
Here are the systems maps for Montreal and Vancouver, accompanied by some visuals.
Montreal Metro:
Vancouver SkyTrain:
Be careful with that Montreal Metro map. Those purple lines are not apart of the Montreal Metro. Those are AMT (commuter rail). Cities like Toronto, and Chicago have much larger commuter rail lines than Montreals.
Philly actually did build a through tunnel and electrified its commuter rail - great infrastructure not currently used to capacity (basically connected the old Pennsy and Reading systems) - form a commuter rail perspective all lines now run underground with 3 key CBD/Core stops in 30th, Suburban, and Market East.
Am hopeful they take advantage of the current underground ROW known as the Penny Cut that runs out through the Art Museum area and into Fairmont - right now they are toying with BRT but am hoeful to see expanded Light Rail/Trolly service there
Yea, Philly has a lot of railways that can be put to better use.
The thing with Philly's tunnel is that it's good in terms of there not needing to be a constant addition of more tracks in downtown if Regional Rail were to increase services (since it's expensive to tunnel more stub end tracks for trains to idle in which is what terminal stations do) which is great. However, the SEPTA Regional Rail layout seems to spaghetti out pretty weirdly and with the central trunk alongside already existent rapid transit lines, so having massively increased services to try to make a S-Bahn sort of layout might not be as effective as it could be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nei
Boston's proposed Indigo Line is a small step in that direction:
No north-south commuter rail line tunnel nor any electrification. IMO, the Orange Line should be extended in two branches: one south to Readville through Hyde Park and another west to Needham using the existing railroad lines.
The Indigo Line sounds great. It seems like it'd be amazing if the north-south commuter rail tunnel were built (whose sleep inclines mean electrification is necessary).
Be careful with that Montreal Metro map. Those purple lines are not apart of the Montreal Metro. Those are AMT (commuter rail). Cities like Toronto, and Chicago have much larger commuter rail lines than Montreals.
Yes... that's why all the purple lines are clearly labeled "AMT Trains de banlieue" on the map...
Be careful with that Montreal Metro map. Those purple lines are not apart of the Montreal Metro. Those are AMT (commuter rail). Cities like Toronto, and Chicago have much larger commuter rail lines than Montreals.
True, and old large cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston have a lot of low-hanging fruit for greatly improving overall transit service through better use of their larger commuter rail lines.
Montreal did just open up a new commuter rail line this week with 13 new stations. It looks like they're also going for a lot of other improvements. For a metro population of about 4 million people, it's pretty good and probably the only city/metro in NA besides NYC comparable to some of the cities/metros of similar size in Europe.
The thing is, much of it is fairly cost-effective to construct considering the benefits.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The MBTA is planning on extending the Green Line for about 4.3 miles on an existing rail right of way (adjacent to existing freight / commuter rail) — surface level light rail. All it needs to do is plop rail tracks and add overhead wires. As well as station platforms, which shouldn't be complicated as it's neither elevated nor underground. Cost? Almost $1 billion.
Ok, there is an overpass needed to built over the rail line and a few other things, but it's still really high. An underground rapid transit line is barely more expensive in many western European countries.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. The MBTA is planning on extending the Green Line for about 4.3 miles on an existing rail right of way (adjacent to existing freight / commuter rail) — surface level light rail. All it needs to do is plop rail tracks and add overhead wires. As well as station platforms, which shouldn't be complicated as it's neither elevated nor underground. Cost? Almost $1 billion.
Ok, there is an overpass needed to built over the rail line and a few other things, but it's still really high. An underground rapid transit line is barely more expensive in many western European countries.
Agree. One day I was going to hang out with an old friend of mine living in Medford earlier this January. I normally drive to his place but it was snowing heavily that day so he suggested that I try out the Green Line... I spent a good 10 minutes scratching my head while on Google Maps trying to find this imaginary Green line north of Lechmere... And then finally thanks to Wikipedia discovered that a short 4-mile extension won't be done till 2020... (construction started around 2012 I think), like seriously, after $2.2 billion in project costs.
not sure how what #2-5 would be, but Toronto, Chicago, Montreal and DC would probably be in the top 5 (not in order).
Agreed.
Be careful with that Montreal Metro map. Those purple lines are not apart of the Montreal Metro. Those are AMT (commuter rail). Cities like Toronto, and Chicago have much larger commuter rail lines than Montreals.
Chicago has a pretty big commuter rail system, though. Toronto doesn't and its more similar to that of Montreal than that of Chicago.
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