Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Montreal and Vancouver both have very impressive rail ridership for their metro sizes - Montreal has 4 million people and Vancouver under 2.5 million.
And it makes sense. They are both very dense and compact within their city limits (which are quite large, especially when compared to their American counterparts.) The average same person would not find much enjoyment driving to and from work in that daily.
I’m a fan of that type of development. Kind of ironic considering where I live.
If there's one U.S. city with a modern, efficient, comprehensive transit system to rival Toronto or Vancouver, it's D.C. and its metro. We're talking about a comprehensive, far reaching rail system that connects most of the suburbs to Downtown, and allows for convenient, suburb-to-suburb travel and convenient travel within the core city itself.
We're talking about a rail system that has frequencies at every 2-4 minutes during rush hour.
And a system that boasts high average speeds in excess of 25 miles per hour.
A system that is modern, constantly expanding, with master-planned, transit oriented development everywhere you go.
1. DC's transit doesn't connect suburbs to suburbs, and they're only addressing it at certain points with the new purple line plan. Expansion of the silver line took almost 20 years with no completion date. If you want to go from Bethesda to anywhere in Northern Virginia it'll take well over an hour.
2. Trains in DC don't operate every 2-4 minutes in DC or it's suburbs unless you're on certain lines and stops.
I'd say DC's transit is far from master-planned and the traffic issues and consistent rider fall is proof.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
Reputation: 5785
Quote:
Originally Posted by shbergin
1. DC's transit doesn't connect suburbs to suburbs, and they're only addressing it at certain points with the new purple line plan. Expansion of the silver line took almost 20 years with no completion date. If you want to go from Bethesda to anywhere in Northern Virginia it'll take well over an hour.
2. Trains in DC don't operate every 2-4 minutes in DC or it's suburbs unless you're on certain lines and stops.
I'd say DC's transit is far from master-planned and the traffic issues and consistent rider fall is proof.
The Purple Line in MD (under construction) is the first official "suburb to suburb" line only that will not enter DC, but it will connect 4 spokes of the Metro wheel in the northern MD suburbs. The goal is for it to complete a full circle, but yes that is probably decades away.
The Blue, Orange, and Silver lines run 2-4 min head ways during rush hour, as does Green and Yellow lines, it's mostly the end of line stations or the ones further from the core that see longer head ways.
The Silver Line began construction officially in 2009, it was cut into two phases. The completion of the second phase which began in 2015, date is July 2020:
1. DC's transit doesn't connect suburbs to suburbs, and they're only addressing it at certain points with the new purple line plan. Expansion of the silver line took almost 20 years with no completion date. If you want to go from Bethesda to anywhere in Northern Virginia it'll take well over an hour.
2. Trains in DC don't operate every 2-4 minutes in DC or it's suburbs unless you're on certain lines and stops.
I'd say DC's transit is far from master-planned and the traffic issues and consistent rider fall is proof.
1. DC's transit does connect suburb to suburb: Reston to Tysons Corner to Ballston to Arlington, and soon, to Ashburn. The purple line will connect many Maryland suburbs together; it's a semi-circular line.
2. When I went to DC, as long as you were on corridors where there were two or more lines running parallel to each other, you could expect headways of 2-4 minutes (obviously during peak hours, but still pretty darn good). Even in Tysons Corner, you could get trains every 6 minutes on the silver line alone.
DC's transit may not be perfect but it is far, far better than the fiasco that BART has become, or the balkanized mess of Bay Area transit.
DC's transit just caught up with Chicago's L last year in terms of ridership. The ridership fall over the last several years is largely due to closures from maintenance. After they open the line to Dulles and Ashburn, ridership will jump back up again. The purple line will help even more.
DC's Metro has much more riders than the SF BART despite BART serving a metro area just as large in population.
I'd even say that the DC Metro, after the Dulles/Ashburn extension and the Purple line, is on par with the Hong Kong MTR (aside from aesthetics, and just from a perspective of speed and coverage).
You can have wonderful transit and still have bad traffic, like Tokyo or Hong Kong.
If DC's metro is bad, tell me how Toronto's subway, the BART, and Hong Kong's MTR is better than DC's (aesthetics aside).
Probably took a dip Certain quarters depending on track work, but it’ll most likely hit record levels starting Next year with the opening of the expanded silver line out to Dulles
It's actually recovered to a figure of 750,000 per weekday, and its 2018 ridership caught up (and slightly exceeded!) the Chicago L.
1. DC's transit does connect suburb to suburb: Reston to Tysons Corner to Ballston to Arlington, and soon, to Ashburn. The purple line will connect many Maryland suburbs together; it's a semi-circular line.
2. When I went to DC, as long as you were on corridors where there were two or more lines running parallel to each other, you could expect headways of 2-4 minutes (obviously during peak hours, but still pretty darn good). Even in Tysons Corner, you could get trains every 6 minutes on the silver line alone.
DC's transit may not be perfect but it is far, far better than the fiasco that BART has become, or the balkanized mess of Bay Area transit.
DC's transit just caught up with Chicago's L last year in terms of ridership. The ridership fall over the last several years is largely due to closures from maintenance. After they open the line to Dulles and Ashburn, ridership will jump back up again. The purple line will help even more.
DC's Metro has much more riders than the SF BART despite BART serving a metro area just as large in population.
I'd even say that the DC Metro, after the Dulles/Ashburn extension and the Purple line, is on par with the Hong Kong MTR (aside from aesthetics, and just from a perspective of speed and coverage).
You can have wonderful transit and still have bad traffic, like Tokyo or Hong Kong.
If DC's metro is bad, tell me how Toronto's subway, the BART, and Hong Kong's MTR is better than DC's (aesthetics aside).
All of this, but I'd add that the growth of ride shares like Uber/Lyft, etc. has chipped into transit ridership nationwide. The growth in bikers, electric scooters/cycles, etc. have also skimmed some ridership.
Frankly, as a former DC resident and someone who has spent a frequent amount of time in the Toronto area (I'll be there again next week), I think the the DC - Toronto comparisons are appropriate. There are very big differences in many ways, but I am hard pressed to think of two North American city pairs where TOD has developed in a more similar fashion.
Frankly, as a former DC resident and someone who has spent a frequent amount of time in the Toronto area (I'll be there again next week), I think the the DC - Toronto comparisons are appropriate. There are very big differences in many ways, but I am hard pressed to think of two North American city pairs where TOD has developed in a more similar fashion.
Interesting observation. Are you referring to just subways or also regional heavy rail and LRT's? Toronto is probably unique in N.A in its streetcar system. If you include it as a LRT its the second busiest in N.A after Guadalara's, but most of its lines are lacking ROW and extreme number of stops naw away at a true LRT claim. In two years the Eglinton Crosstown will open which will be a true LRT line with 25 stations mostly underground linked with existing subway lines. It will be a pretty vital transit line servicing a major east west arterial in mid town Toronto.
I wouldn't really call the DC Metro modern or highly functional, given that it undergoes maintenance almost every weekend and they're thinking of discontinuing parts of certain lines.
The bus transit here in Seattle is good (in particular, how far out into the suburbs it goes), but our light rail service is meh for the time being. We also don't have the density that Toronto and Vancouver are known for: even outside the rich eastern and western areas with mansions on large plots, the city is covered with SFH zoning.
Location: That star on your map in the middle of the East Coast, DMV
8,128 posts, read 7,560,868 times
Reputation: 5785
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheTimidBlueBars
I wouldn't really call the DC Metro modern or highly functional, given that it undergoes maintenance almost every weekend and they're thinking of discontinuing parts of certain lines.
The bus transit here in Seattle is good (in particular, how far out into the suburbs it goes), but our light rail service is meh for the time being. We also don't have the density that Toronto and Vancouver are known for: even outside the rich eastern and western areas with mansions on large plots, the city is covered with SFH zoning.
Are there any systems in US and Canada with comparable modern trains to DC Metro's 7000 series?? If so I'd be intrigued to see them. I understand the R160's in NYC are similar, but not "more modern" as the 7000 series in DC are newer.
The system is still very functional. There is phased maintenance on some sections/lines typically on one line at a time for 3/4 summer months. This is not out of the ordinary, and is preventative more so than lack of functionality. But any local will acknowledge the system being far from perfect or not having any problems.
Just 10 years ago the system had a major crash that took place, so it's more important to get all maintenance cleared up, than have an issue like that again.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
