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And LA is only poised to get better with all the rail expansions they have in the works. If all goes according to plan, I dare to say that LA may one day challenge SF for the title of Best Public Transportation on the West Coast.
L.A. is just too spread out to have that kind of rapid-transit coverage.
L.A. is just too spread out to have that kind of rapid-transit coverage.
LA was a transit-oriented city before, why can't it be that again. The city of LA is 470 square miles and a large portion of that is the Santa Monica Mountains which of course, wouldn't need that much transit coverage. By comparison, London is 660 square miles and I don't believe they have a mountain range running through the middle of their city.
LA was a transit-oriented city before, why can't it be that again. The city of LA is 470 square miles and a large portion of that is the Santa Monica Mountains which of course, wouldn't need that much transit coverage. By comparison, London is 660 square miles and I don't believe they have a mountain range running through the middle of their city.
True, but London's underground (and most cities with advanced transit systems) grew with the city. It's relatively easy to invest in public transit when a city is young, but waiting until a city is huge and then trying to construct an advanced transit system is very difficult. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
LA also has the problem of difficult terrain and the looming menace of earthquakes.
San Diego, Denver, Sacramento, and St. Louis are among the excluded that have larger riderships than some of the cities listed. The cities in north Jersey (Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, etc.) also have fantastic public transportation though they're included in the NYC metro.
Among the list, with the exclusion of Philadelphia which is one of the obvious choices, I'd say Atlanta and then Portland have good serviceable public transportation.
San Francisco is an enormous series of sudden hills. Subways usually travel at the same level below the surface (hence why they are at the flat area of SF). It would be challenging to build stations away from the flat waterfront and have them traverse hills. Just look at how big the hills are that cable cars are on. Now imagine trying to run a subway underneath that street. From an engineering standpoint, it just isn't possible.
It's possible to bore under the hills. Admittedly SF has more than most cities, but it's not an engineering impossibility.
Atlanta and L.A. would come after the big six mentioned in earlier replies. However, to be fair, it's New York and then everyone else in terms of ridership, with 7,000,000 + per day. D.C. is second and the only other system that carries 1,000,000 + per day.
Pilly, at least according to these stats, actually really does not have very high ridership for a metro area with over 5 million people. I'm also surprised Chicago's ridership is not higher.
I just checked that link for Philly's rapid transit ridership. It says that those stats are only for the Broad Street subway and the Market/Frankford EL. It doesn't include SEPTA's suburban rail that comes into the city. Plus for Philly, you would also have to factor in New Jersey Transit that comes into the city and the extensive trolleys lines that run throughout the city.
L.A. is just too spread out to have that kind of rapid-transit coverage.
These claims dont't escape the fact that LA allready has a signifigant coverage of rail covering most of the county.
Most is light rail and with the new lines opening soon the coverage will be even bigger.
Here's a map of what's allready covers in LA as far as transportation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PDX_LAX
True, but London's underground (and most cities with advanced transit systems) grew with the city. It's relatively easy to invest in public transit when a city is young, but waiting until a city is huge and then trying to construct an advanced transit system is very difficult. You can't teach an old dog new tricks.
LA had a extensive transit before so I sure LA can bounce back espcially with the mayors 30/10 plan to gain federal money to help build nemerous light rail and heavy rail lines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
LA also has the problem of difficult terrain and the looming menace of earthquakes.
San Diego, Denver, Sacramento, and St. Louis are among the excluded that have larger riderships than some of the cities listed. The cities in north Jersey (Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, etc.) also have fantastic public transportation though they're included in the NYC metro.
Among the list, with the exclusion of Philadelphia which is one of the obvious choices, I'd say Atlanta and then Portland have good serviceable public transportation.
Earthquakes? Come on, that dosent stop places like Tokyo and Seoul from having the best subway system, so what's your logic here? Subways can withstand earthquakes along with other modes of transportation.
As others have stated Philly should be on the "obvious" list. so i am voting for Philly and Philly alone.
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