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Subways of the world, to scale

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Re: Subways of the world, to scale

#51

Post by ghshephard »

gojomo wrote: post #31
jeffreyg wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He said he's lived in both SF and DC, if you had bothered to read past the first sentence you'd know this..

I certainly did read the whole thing, hoping to find some acknowledgement of MUNI. (He finally gets to it in the separate comments page.) He doesn't detail his living experience for SF, but for DC, it's one summer. As I noted, you can be a bay area resident for years and easily overlook SF MUNI, if you're not in the city proper and mostly ride BART.

Re: Muni - Confirmed. I've lived in the Bay area (Oakland, Sunnyvale, San Mateo, Redwood Cit) for 14 years, do not drive, and take public transit 100% of the time. I used to work in Mountain View, and live in Oakland, and so took buses, shuttles, and Bart twice a Day.

In 14 years I've heard of "Muni" but never actually rode on of their train/buses - though, as you mentioned, I _see_ that "Muni" platform every single day when taking Bart.

Re: Subways of the world, to scale

#53

Post by afterburner »

mitjak wrote: post #42

I'm surprised the pathetic Toronto TTC subway made its way to the list. For a city of its size it could really enjoy a more intricate subway system. There are buses and trams here indeed but they get stuck the traffic just like every other vehicle during the rush hour.

I do really wish it had more actual subway lines (and not dedicated streetcar lanes, etc.). But the Canadian municipal governments are neither powerful nor rich, unlike many of the other large cities listed, despite being a quite prosperous and growing city. A lot depends on the provincial government.

Also, it is incredibly lame that there is not a subway to the airport.

However, the maximum 5 min waiting time for a subway (and 2-3 min during rush hour) is very nice, and a huge contrast with, say, the Paris subway, where I think I waited 15 minutes for a subway once late at night. But really, with so few lines, you need that frequency for a 5 million person metropolitan area.

Re: Subways of the world, to scale

#55

Post by run4yourlives »

mitjak wrote: post #42

I'm surprised the pathetic Toronto TTC subway made its way to the list. For a city of its size it could really enjoy a more intricate subway system. There are buses and trams here indeed but they get stuck the traffic just like every other vehicle during the rush hour.

We get health care instead of transit.

That is in no means an opinion of what is better, just simply a statement as to how underfunded our transit systems are and how much we spend on health care overall, from a federal and provincial point of view.

Re: Subways of the world, to scale

#57

Post by enf »

drewda wrote: post #24
gojomo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't trust a Houstonian to interpret SF transit! MUNI light rail, subways, and buses handle most shorter trips within SF -- so Metrorail is more comparable to a mix of MUNI plus BART. (It's possible for visitors to the bay area, or even residents of outlying suburbs, to almost completely overlook MUNI trains. I know when I lived in Berkeley, and took BART into SF, I had no appreciation of all the places MUNI went, e…

Two bits of BART history: - My understanding is that BART was originally intended to go around the entire bay, but budget squabbles among the counties led Santa Clara (San Jose), San Mateo (the Peninsula), and Marina to drop out (c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Bay_Area_Rapid_T... ). - The D.C. Metro is actually based on BART and uses the same trains, ticketing system, and fare structure originally d…

It was always optimistic to think that BART would ring the bay. Santa Clara County was never part of the District to begin with. San Mateo County dropped out because they already had the SP commuter service (today's Caltrain) and didn't think BART was worth the money. Marin County was asked to leave after San Mateo County did because of doubt over whether the Golden Gate Bridge was structurally capable of carrying trains and because the county's low population density couldn't support their share of the cost. The Geary line within San Francisco remained in the plan at that time but was dropped to cut the cost of the initial system far enough that it could be funded.

That said, the original express intent of BART was to relieve freeway congestion from car commuters, not to provide an urban transit system. The San Francisco city government pushed the district to make BART as useful within the city as a one-line system could be, but they had to fight for it (to get three stations beyond what the BART planners wanted to build), and the district has never shaken off its suburban bias.

Re: Subways of the world, to scale

#58

Post by enf »

hugh3 wrote: post #10
Empact wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, so if I'm evaluating the benefits of adding an additional 20 miles of track length to the system, should I added at the low-density edges or the high-density core? How would you evaluate the benefits of the two options? He's said that the core option would get several times more ridership. And I'm sorry you bring up his city of residence. As a Texas-born New Yorker, I'm particularly sensitive to this fallaci…

San Francisco faces a lot of problems which DC doesn't when designing a subway system. Apart from the fact that there's a honking great bay in the middle of the metropolitan area, I'm not sure it's possible for BART to serve much more of San Francisco proper than it already does. Why? Well, if you go north of the BART line you're rapidly into the hills, so either you have to take the trains up the grade (bad idea) or…

Embarcadero station is built in landfill, but it does make things more difficult. None of the San Francisco subway plans of the past ever attempted to serve Russian Hill very well. A line on Geary (or Post or O'Farrell) was the inevitable closest proposal every time.

Re: Subways of the world, to scale

#59

Post by waterside81 »

mitjak wrote: post #42

I'm surprised the pathetic Toronto TTC subway made its way to the list. For a city of its size it could really enjoy a more intricate subway system. There are buses and trams here indeed but they get stuck the traffic just like every other vehicle during the rush hour.

The TTC is also much cleaner than London or NYC. I think we in TO complain a lot, but for what limited area our subway does cover, it is pretty good.

Re: Subways of the world, to scale

#60

Post by mitjak »

run4yourlives wrote: post #55
mitjak wrote: post #42

I'm surprised the pathetic Toronto TTC subway made its way to the list. For a city of its size it could really enjoy a more intricate subway system. There are buses and trams here indeed but they get stuck the traffic just like every other vehicle during the rush hour.

We get health care instead of transit. That is in no means an opinion of what is better, just simply a statement as to how underfunded our transit systems are and how much we spend on health care overall, from a federal and provincial point of view.

Not sure what you mean. A simple look at Vancouver reveals a modern, plastic accepting, completely automated and growing network of under and above-ground trains. Oh, and that isn't owned by the government. Could that be the issue?
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