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The Capital Corridor is not heavy rail nor is it frequent.
The Capitol Corridor connects the Sacramento Metro with the Bay Area. Considering the Sacramento Metro and the Bay Area are completely separate Metro areas, and the Sacramento Metro is less than 1/3 the size of the Bay Area, I would say 17 trains a day is frequent.
You can't get any Heavier than the Capitol Corridor other than a freight train. The Capitol Corridor may not be a subway but it is a commuter train, one of the nicer ones I might add. Heavy is not only the gauge size but train size, ridership and common sense would lead one to the fact the train is actually heavier in weight too.
I'll add the Sacramento Seimans train manufacturing plant builds a very large share of the nations light rail trains, and scored one the largest contracts in history in building SF's Muni Metro trains.
Sac has 2 major lines (the blue and gold), and the green starter line.
True, but the expanded southern segment of the Sacramento's Blue line before it doubled in miles was referred to as the South Line in a sense a 3rd line reaching a whole different part of the Sacramento Metro that did not have Light rail service before.
Sacramento's Gold line also doubled in length several years back.
You can't get any Heavier than the Capitol Corridor other than a freight train. The Capitol Corridor may not be a subway but it is a commuter train, one of the nicer ones I might add.
The Capitol Corridor connects the Sacramento Metro with the Bay Area. Considering the Sacramento Metro and the Bay Area are completely separate Metro areas, and the Sacramento Metro is less than 1/3 the size of the Bay Area, I would say 17 trains a day is frequent.
LOL, that definition of "heavy rail" doesn't refer to weight.
For intercity service yeah that might be frequent but for anything with the word "commuter" in it, service every 40 min to 2 hours really isn't. A lot of commuter rail systems don't run that frequent of service though, especially outside of commute hours.
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Heavy is not only the gauge size but train size, ridership and common sense would lead one to the fact the train is actually heavier in weight too.
You really need to look up the definition of heavy rail and what type of systems fall under that category because the Capital Corridor doesn't at all. Gauge size? umm most rail systems use standard gauge whether light, heavy, or commuter rail.
Minneapolis could be a contender here. They have a very extensive, dependable system of busses, and they have tremendously expanded light rail.
Agree with the Twin Cities. The bus system is really good, at least in the core. Light rail seems efficient, both Blue and Green lines (though I lived there before the Green line was in service, so my experience is limited). The transit agency and really the entire MPO has been doing some great planning over the years.
I can't really speak to coverage/service outside of central MSP though, so perhaps someone else can chime in.
As for other places I've lived, Milwaukee's bus system seems to be making good strides. In the last couple of years they created a "frequent service" network of sorts, re-branding some bus routes by color, and making sure they reduce headways to 10 minutes or so. Overall the system is nothing too impressive, and coverage is actually worsening due to budget cuts, but they're doing a lot with what little they have. Never had any major problems.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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Originally Posted by valsteele
Has anyone actually been to Seattle? Their transit is very disappointing.
For a city like Seattle with its downtown core, range of density, and cohesive neighborhoods and the size of the city and metro area, it does indeed have a very disappointing mass transit system currently. They dragged their feet on the issue for decades. In the late 70's they turned down a well funded plan for a heavy rail subway network (bad economic times), so Atlanta got MARTA as a result. The 80's were a slow decade, the 90's economic boom and coming out party came to Seattle which started clogging all the freeways so serious discussion started then.
There have been numerous ballots since the 90's. In 2002 when I lived in Seattle I voted yes to proceed with a monorail extension study. I honestly didn't think it was the best idea, but I voted for it anyway because I was of the mentality "just build something for ***** sake!" In the 2004 that idea was canned then in later in the 2000's Sound Transit finally came up with a comprehensive plan to serve both the city and metro area well.
So currently they have the starter line from Sea-Tac Airport to downtown. Next year they will open the subway extension line to Capital Hill and the U-District. Some years later Northgate and beyond. Once the line to Bellevue is in place Seattle will start to have a more respectable mass transit infrastructure. Seattle needs a West Seattle to Ballard line (original plan for the monorail extension) to catch the missing gaps for itra-city transit. It's still an idea and not yet a proposal. To its credit they have a streetcar line (The S.L.U.T!) with a second one currently under construction to First Hill/Capital Hill. But Seattle is definitely a latecomer for sure. I find it really odd to honest.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 01-21-2015 at 07:24 PM..
Agree with the Twin Cities. The bus system is really good, at least in the core. Light rail seems efficient, both Blue and Green lines (though I lived there before the Green line was in service, so my experience is limited). The transit agency and really the entire MPO has been doing some great planning over the years.
I can't really speak to coverage/service outside of central MSP though, so perhaps someone else can chime in.
Coverage is really really good as far as about the second-ring suburbs. Beyond that it's basically all express buses that only run during rush hour. So for example, Hopkins has good service but Minnetonka doesn't really, or if you live in Wayzata, there are a couple commuter express buses, but your only all-day bus is the 675 to Minneapolis.
But if you are in one of the inner-ring suburbs (or in Mpls or St. Paul of course), you can probably live car-free pretty easily. MetroTransit is a very extensive, very user-friendly, and very cohesive multimodal system. The GoTo card is one of the cleanest refillable transit cards I've ever used anywhere. The Oyster card in London is the only one I've come across that is better; and the GoTo card gets extra points because it's free - the amount you pay for it is the amount that comes loaded on it. I also love that every MetroTransit fare includes 2.5 hours of unlimited transfers, and I love that the fare is quite cheap off-peak for LRT and regular buses.
Coverage is really really good as far as about the second-ring suburbs. Beyond that it's basically all express buses that only run during rush hour. So for example, Hopkins has good service but Minnetonka doesn't really, or if you live in Wayzata, there are a couple commuter express buses, but your only all-day bus is the 675 to Minneapolis.
But if you are in one of the inner-ring suburbs (or in Mpls or St. Paul of course), you can probably live car-free pretty easily. MetroTransit is a very extensive, very user-friendly, and very cohesive multimodal system. The GoTo card is one of the cleanest refillable transit cards I've ever used anywhere. The Oyster card in London is the only one I've come across that is better; and the GoTo card gets extra points because it's free - the amount you pay for it is the amount that comes loaded on it. I also love that every MetroTransit fare includes 2.5 hours of unlimited transfers, and I love that the fare is quite cheap off-peak for LRT and regular buses.
Could you expand on the GoTo card? Not sure what you mean by "cleanest" but I'm interested. When I was there I had the U-Pass through the university.
Boston and Milwaukee also charge nothing for their transit cards, which is great (on the other end of the spectrum, New York even charges a dollar for that crap piece of cardboard).
By "clean" I just mean it's simple and organized and easy to use. It's just a refillable fare card like you would find in most big cities that aren't Toronto (Oyster in London, MetroCard in NYC, Orca in Seattle, Ventra in Chicago, etc). As far as I know, it works just like the U-Pass only it's not unlimited and people who aren't U students can use it.
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