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Baltimore's 2.7 million gives us 27 miles to work with. We already have a single heavy-rail line of 15 miles, a single light-rail line (with branches) of 30 miles, and a couple of commuter rail lines that are oriented towards Washington, but they come here too.
My first priority would be to extend the Metro (heavy rail) from Johns Hopkins northeast to White Marsh, a distance of about 11 miles. Then I would build the Red Line, a which was a proposed light rail line (with some underground portions) that would have operated east-west from Woodlawn to Highlandtown for a distance of about 14 miles. So, just like that, I've used up all but 2 of our miles. With those remaining 2 miles, I would build a line to tie together the pieces of what we have: from Camden Yards via Pratt Street and Charles Street (or, more accurately, tunnels underneath those streets) to Penn Station, tying together the MARC Penn Line and Light Rail (Camden Yards), Metro (Charles Center), and the MARC Penn Line (Penn Station).
60 miles should be just about enough mileage for me to complete the subway system I've designed for Philadelphia, minus the trolleys:
Lines:
Broad Street Trunk: Broad Street Line (Local)*: Fern Rock to Navy Yard via local Broad Street Line (Express)*: Cheltenham-Ogontz to Navy Yard via express to Walnut-Locust; local to South Philadelphia Broad-Ridge Spur: Fern Rock TC to 8th and Market via Ridge Avenue Chestnut Hill Subway*: Chestnut Hill to Walnut-Locust via express (new interlocking to be constructed south of Erie) Roosevelt Boulevard Subway-Elevated*: Southampton Road to Navy Yard via local
Others: Market-Frankford Line*: 69th Street TC to Frankford TC Woodland-Frankford Line*: Darby TC to Frankford and Rhawn PATCO*: Health Complex to Lindenwold, NJ via Locust Street Double Crosstown (Yellow): Ivy Ridge to Oregon Avenue via 52nd Street and Washington Avenue Andorra Line (Purple)*: Center City Loop to Ridge and Northwestern via Ridge Avenue 29th Street Line (Light Blue)*: Center City Loop to Wissahickon TC via 29th Street Allegheny Avenue Crosstown (Light Blue): Center City Loop to Richmond and Allegheny via Allegheny Avenue Eastwick Line (Fuschia)*:Center City Loop to Philadelphia International Airport via 25th Street Passyunk Line (Pink): Melrose Park Station to 25th and Passyunk via 5th Street Girard Avenue Crosstown (Light Red): City and Haverford to Rising Sun and Cottman via Girard Avenue
*=Priority new line/extension
The routes I've highlighted in blue are the new lines and spurs called for in the A. Merritt Taylor transit expansion plan of 1913; some have been extended from where they were to have ended in 1913, and the Andorra Line grafts the outer end of the 29th Street Line as originally planned onto a new route following a different street. This is one of the lines I'd alter to build PATCO Corridor A - I'd rejoin these two as originally envisioned and get rid of the new route along Ridge Avenue.
This despite the fact that the Route 61 bus, which follows that street, is one of the system's busiest and slower bus routes.
I think I'd build PATCO to Moorestown before a few of those lines.
60 miles should be just about enough mileage for me to complete the subway system I've designed for Philadelphia, minus the trolleys:
Lines:
Broad Street Trunk: Broad Street Line (Local)*: Fern Rock to Navy Yard via local Broad Street Line (Express)*: Cheltenham-Ogontz to Navy Yard via express to Walnut-Locust; local to South Philadelphia Broad-Ridge Spur: Fern Rock TC to 8th and Market via Ridge Avenue Chestnut Hill Subway*: Chestnut Hill to Walnut-Locust via express (new interlocking to be constructed south of Erie) Roosevelt Boulevard Subway-Elevated*: Southampton Road to Navy Yard via local
Others: Market-Frankford Line*: 69th Street TC to Frankford TC Woodland-Frankford Line*: Darby TC to Frankford and Rhawn PATCO*: Health Complex to Lindenwold, NJ via Locust Street Double Crosstown (Yellow): Ivy Ridge to Oregon Avenue via 52nd Street and Washington Avenue Andorra Line (Purple)*: Center City Loop to Ridge and Northwestern via Ridge Avenue 29th Street Line (Light Blue)*: Center City Loop to Wissahickon TC via 29th Street Allegheny Avenue Crosstown (Light Blue): Center City Loop to Richmond and Allegheny via Allegheny Avenue Eastwick Line (Fuschia)*:Center City Loop to Philadelphia International Airport via 25th Street Passyunk Line (Pink): Melrose Park Station to 25th and Passyunk via 5th Street Girard Avenue Crosstown (Light Red): City and Haverford to Rising Sun and Cottman via Girard Avenue
*=Priority new line/extension
This looks extensive, though I'm sort of curious about how the service patterns for the Broad Street Line and the Loop will go.
In Boston, 40 or 50 miles of track improvement wouldn’t make much of a dent.
I’d fix the worst problems. North Station to South Station rail connector with 8 tracks.
Subway from South Station to Logan Airport
Rebuild the downtown part of the subway system so the lines all interconnect with all the sharp corners eliminated and much wider tunnels.
Eight tracks sounds like a lot as I've seen proposals for two and four tracks, but I think six is better, but eight seems like quite a bit. I understand having two tracks for allowing longer-distance trains and at least another two for MBTA Commuter Rail, possibly four tracks for MBTA commuter rail, but six for MBTA commuter rail would essentially mean you're going for turning MBTA commuter rail into rapid transit with some room to spare. Is that the idea?
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 10-23-2019 at 04:10 PM..
The problem isn't total population, but density and distance between housing areas or working districts or shopping districts and the stations. That's what makes the impractical in so many locations. My current location is rural, if I took the last large city I lived in of just under a million people, it would have taken almost 10 miles just to get from my side of the city to down town. Couldn't build very much of a useful network with that.
New York City should just finish all the projects it already has going and put in some light rail along the Brooklyn side of the river and along the west side of Manhattan.
A rough estimate says that would leave about sixty miles of credits which it should selloff to the highest bidders.
would you take 20 -30 of those miles and extend the blue line north, red line west and orange line north? i think adding 1-2 stops each helps with massive traffic congestion.
Blue line should have been extended into Salem by now.
Red line sure extend it west some .
Orange line should be extended north and south, especially south of forest hills.
The blue line really pissed me off as a former Lynn and Marblehead resident.
They could wipe out so much traffic if they extended it into lynn, Salem, swampscott.
But that’s one of the meany reasons I left the state for the mountains.
Well, the idea is that more people, more transit. It's a really broad hypothetical.
For Miami, I looked up the proposed extensions of Metro Rail:
About 85 miles, so pretty close to the additional amount. These all look about right though if ~20 mile were be to throw out, then I'm guessing truncating parts of the longer westwards and southwards extensions probably make the most sense.
That first one, up to Aventura, can probably be taken out now since Virgin Trains, and possibly Trirail also, will be serving this corridor.
Without knowing any of the feasibility study results, I'd guess the South link with its 21 miles is also the least ROI all things considered.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
I'm not familiar with Jacksonville at all. Is SJTC the St Johns Town Center? I can see a rapid transit line there making for a lot of TOD since there's a huge amount of surface parking lot space that could be converted. If it's a massive employment area, then it makes sense since you'd want the commuting population the most since that's two trips a day for over three hundred days a year. Maybe something from Jacksonville's train station (which hopefully becomes more useful soon) to downtown Jacksonville and then SJTC? That works out to probably just shy of 16 miles from google maps (again though, I don't know Jacksonville very well). Maybe with the slight remainder, there could be a spur line / branch from downtown Jacksonville to what seems to be called South Bank paralleling Main Street?
Yes it is. I would love to see 75% of the surface lots wiped out but it will take a tremendous amount of transit infrastructure to make that feasible. Not just a single commuter line running from there to somewhere 16 miles away. SJTC is a weird beast in that it is a massive employment region AND a major destination, just sprawled out over maybe 10 sq miles and increasing every day. I would not bother with the Amtrak station on the Northside, it is terribly located and not useful at all. Not even for the Northside population that would be more transit dependent than others. Eventually the Amtrak station will be moved downtown to our historic station (currently being used as a convention center) and Virgin Trains expands to Jax they will 100% be reusing the old tracks into the downtown station as well.
So that would be one mile per hundred thousand people in your Metropolitan Statistical Area as defined by the census. These can be extensions of currently existing lines, replacements of them, or completely brand new lines. Yes, I understand that's not how things work and there's all kinds of factors to consider, but this is just a thought experiment.
For example, Cleveland list's a metropolitan statistical area population of 2,057,009 which in this hypothetical means laying out an additional 20 miles of rapid transit. For a 14 mile stretch or so stretch, I'd like to see a rapid transit subway that goes from Lakewood where Detroit and Detroit extension split going east under Detroit Avenue until downtown Cleveland and then from there going east on Euclid Avenue before then going east again where Euclid Avenue arches northwards to then go east on Mayfield Avenue into the Coventry Village neighborhood. Along the way, there'd be multiple bus connections along with rail connections from west to east at the Red Line West Boulevard Cudell station, the Blue/Green/WFL Settlers Landing Station, the Red/Blue/Green Tower City station through an underground corridor, and the Red Line's Little Italy/University Circle station.
For the last six miles, I'd think an extension of the WFL southeastwards with the expansion built to rapid transit standards extending down an arc from its current terminus to the E 79th street Red Line stop (about four miles) with a connection at Euclid Avenue to the line mentioned above and the remaining two miles being an eastern branch off that same extension from the WFL current terminus under St. Clair Avenue.
I'd move to an area with less people... kidding.
If I was already comfortably on the exurbs of my chosen metro, I'd just say "oh, great" and go about my life. I am a car commuter and absolutely hate taking transport where I am not driving.
In Charlotte, the light rail follows the main roads, insofar as to literally sit in the median along a stretch of Tryon St. I do support public transport actually having stops that let you take a single mode and end up somewhere you can shop, or having stops close to areas in which their passengers reside. It will take surveys, planning, and adjustments. But it can work.
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