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Regional Express Rail, Stadtbahns, and Crossrails developments are popular throughout developed countries around the world including many countries in Europe, Australia, Canada, and East Asia (no pithy name for the East Asian countries though). Essentially, they take what are often old commuter rail lines and have different train services run on the same tracks once they start to converge towards the urban core of a city which is called interlining. This system has multiple benefits, chief among them being the opportunity to run much higher frequencies of commuter rail train as the traincars no longer need to idle at terminal stations and take up more room as well as creating a supplementary rapid transit type of system for the urban core once the trains are "through running" and treat stops in the urban core as simply another stop rather than as a place to idle and wait for its next scheduled service. Notable systems that currently operate akin to this in the US are BART in the Bay Area, the Washington Metro, and parts of the NYC subway system. These systems share in common various lines that have different far flung termini which converge and offer rapid transit like service within the urban core. The NYC subway system is a bit different as even its non-interlined parts are fairly frequent and services are all within the city boundaries though the city boundaries are quite large.
There are several cities in the US with a good lot of rail infrastructure that can ostensibly work towards this operation because of the wealth of rail infrastructure already in place, but each have their own issues and it seems like the US has issues with the whole system, especially when running on shared freight track, that exists. In your view, what are some potential solutions to running an effective RER/S-Bahn type system? What would be ideally the best system possible that uses all this existing infrastructure?
I know that Philadelphia has a completely electrified system with SEPTA Regional Rail which means closer stops can be okay since acceleration with electrified systems aren't as disruptive as with diesel systems in terms of decelerating and accelerating repeatedly, but Philadelphia has inherited a track system that would run mostly parallel to existing rapid transit lines which lessens its usefulness and also hasn't planned very well in terms of labeling these potential through-routing so passenger load balancing is done better from one end to another and commuters can be made clearly aware of where these train routes can take them.
In my home city of NYC, the commuter rail system is broken up into three transit agencies (New Jersey Rail Transit, Metro-North, and Long Island Railroad) which do not run completely compatible systems, have terrible internecine fighting, and would be lacking in some core connections even if those previous issues were solved. I imagine if they were able to standardize their systems and add some additional track, there could be an incredible super-express like transit system where people from the further reaches of Long Island, the NY/CT suburbs to the north, and northern New Jersey could have easy rides to different parts of the metro and people within NYC would have an alternative that can relieve some of the overcrowded subways. Interoperability among these systems, a few infill stations, and the carving out of a tunnel going from Grand Central south to downtown Manhattan and under the East River to the Atlantic-Pacific terminal in Brooklyn would allow the currently existing commuter rail infrastructure to be much better utilized with trains running routes that mix the current routes for the respective agencies into allowing permutations of going from long island, northern NYC suburbs and northern New Jersey to mix and match and running through the city with rapid transit like frequencies, but would take a lot of coordination in regards to all these agencies. However, the benefits would be immense in terms of getting around the city and in a way similar to the benefits conferred when other systems in the developed world implemented their S-Bahn/RER transit typologies.
Other plans for North American systems I'm aware of:
Toronto has a large plan called the Big Move and part of it means to utilize its large commuter rail system in a similar way
LA is constructing through-running tracks at its Union Station, but has not indicated whether or not they will increase service frequencies as a result and it seems unlikely they'd increase it to the point of being something like a RER or S-Bahn where it works like rapid transit in the core.
Boston has had proposals for a very long period of time where the plan is to link the current North and South Stations in their commuter rail network which seems to me to be probably the most efficient way of increasing transit service as well as improving the national rail network in the US. Unfortunately, it's had limited political traction and Boston seems to be on its way of expanding South Station and allowing for more terminal tracks for trains to wait at its end to increase capacity rather than creating a tunnel to North Station
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 04-18-2016 at 07:21 PM..
Toronto's plans don't make use of interlining too much. There will probably be only something like 5-10% of stations that will benefit from that. I actually think it would have been better if the railway lines (way back in the day) weren't interlined as much since that would create opportunities for a greater number of stations in the urban core.
Mostly it would involve beefing up service on individual lines by buying up the rail corridors from the freight railways, electrifying, and increasing frequencies with a few infill stations. Changing the fare structure for the close-in stations (too expensive and have to pay for transfers) will also be important, as well as through running across Union Station.
The transit agency has been working up on buying rail corridors but there's still a couple that the freight rail companies are reluctant to sell, especially the Milton and Cross-town line. Still it's probably not as bad as in other cities, since a lot of the industry and freight infrastructure is in the middle and outer ring suburban areas, so there's not as much of a need for freight rail to use the lines that radiate from downtown to the suburbs.
Lines converging as they approach the urban core is pretty common in the US (or if looked at the other way, branching out when they get further away). It provides better service to denser close in stations while providing enough to more sprawled outlying stops, and it's often always been designed that way (as building rail lines close to a city core is more difficult).
Using NJ/NYC metro as an example, the 3 systems all do this with their various lines as they approach the city.
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I'd suggest one major problem with the idea of making commutes across a region (rather than just into the urban center) via transit easy is that there's a "last mile" (or miles in this case) problem. Most of those outlying train stops aren't dense communities with their jobs near the station. They're suburbs with few jobs within a reasonable walk or even bicycle ride of the train station, and a sprawling development pattern that makes it impractical to ever really develop local public transit.
The stations work fine for people getting to the city (by parking at the station and riding in or getting dropped off by car), but are impractical to use for people commuting TO that town. Maybe a major employer will run a private shuttle, but for the large portion of jobs that aren't at some giant campus with thousands of employees, that isn't happening.
It depends on the suburb obviously. Some will have rail corridors available that pass through many old towns with strong downtowns and good amounts of jobs. Other suburbs like Irvine, CA or Redmond, WA might have a good concentration of jobs or retail but no existing rail corridor to make use of so light rail or BRT might be a better approach for those.
Even if there isn't a very major concentration of jobs along the rail lines, it's not necessarily a lost cause. Some suburbs might be too sprawling for local transit but not all, I think about 50% of light rail users from suburban Calgary take the bus to the light rail station. Suburban Calgary is denser than many of the post-war East Coast suburbs, but similar to many of the suburbs of western cities like San Diego or Denver.
And of course development patterns can change.
The tricky thing with Toronto is that at least for now, the rail network is very much focused upon peak-hour commuting to downtown. That's not ideal for the transit agency since it means a lot of trains running empty or sitting in the rail-yard for the non-peak times. A lot of the major suburban trip generators that could correct that are located away from the rail lines, sometimes it almost feels like it's on purpose... The suburban bus network in Toronto is not the worst, but it could still use improvement with higher frequencies.
That's not always a problem with downtown to suburb transit lines though. With Kitchener-Waterloo, there's many major destinations outside downtown that will be served like universities and shopping malls, although it's a light rail line going only partially along former freight rail corridors.
Philadelphia's approach is great. Any of the three downtown stations serves all lines. Suburb to suburb travel is simplified because you can transfer at any of the three, and if you're lucky not even need to change trains. Of course it has the unique quality that all are electrified and thus can run in tunnels.
I understand that Denton County TX is trying to get trackage rights on the DART green line to run the A train from its present terminal at Trinity Mills all the way into Dallas, even though the green line is electrified and the A train is DMU.
Advocacy for the North-South Station rail link in Boston has started to gain ground again and there has been some talk of starting to study the costs of building the link. The route is already set in stone as there is a pre-cleared path under the Central Artery Tunnel through downtown. The idea is that with the capacity of the North Station and Expanded South Station terminals plus the link that high frequency service could be provided all day between suburbs.
I know that Philadelphia has a completely electrified system with SEPTA Regional Rail which means closer stops can be okay since acceleration with electrified systems aren't as disruptive as with diesel systems in terms of decelerating and accelerating repeatedly, but Philadelphia has inherited a track system that would run mostly parallel to existing rapid transit lines which lessens its usefulness and also hasn't planned very well in terms of labeling these potential through-routing so passenger load balancing is done better from one end to another and commuters can be made clearly aware of where these train routes can take them.
The only difference between SEPTA Regional Rail and the Munich S-bahn is the frequency of service. If the money was available SEPTA could easily run a train on each branch every 12-15 minutes.
The only difference between SEPTA Regional Rail and the Munich S-bahn is the frequency of service. If the money was available SEPTA could easily run a train on each branch every 12-15 minutes.
Other difference is fare collection, German S-Bahn use a proof of payment system (random spot checks that you have a valid ticket) but your fare isn't checked everytime. Lowers the labor costs close to rapid transit levels. Proof of payment is used in US in some west coast transit systems: San Francisco MUNI both bus and light rail as well as Seattle and Portland light rail.
Another difference is German S-Bahn uses a zoned fare system that cost neutral between mainline rail and local bus & subway. If SEPTA was run like an S-Bahn, it cost the same to go from Manayunk to Center City by commuter rail as by local bus.
Septa's RR has poor off peak frequency, in the places with only one line running through it, mostly the middle to outer suburbs. The inner suburbs to the north have 4 lines running through them, so allow for 15min-ish headways most of the day. DelCo and the mainline are supplemented by trollies and the NHSL. The only areas that are truly underserved are NE and NW Philly. This could be solved by making reductions to the oversized crews that run the trains that run through these neighborhoods. Overall, yes headways across the board could be better for RR, and it is overpriced, but the inner-parts of the system do transcend being purely commuter rail.
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