Kind of funny they don't mention Portland at all. It actually has a well functioning system already built.
The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
21–30 of 205 posts
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#22I’m surprised by this article. Most people seem to agree that the the metro systems of NYC, Philadelphia, and DC are much better than those of the west coast. LA’s is unusable for most people because there aren’t enough stops. Seattle’s light rail is definitely gaining steam as it adds more stops.
The difference is that places like Seattle and LA are expanding their systems. In New York, Boston, and DC it's rather stagnant.
Having lived in both Seattle and DC... this is wrong, at least comparing those two. DC managed to build a new line out to Dulles with others in the works, Seattle's light rail is a joke if you're trying to use it for more than a straight line through the city.
A common misconception people have about the DC metro is that it belongs to DC, but the abbreviation WMATA has nothing to do with DC for a reason. Maryland, Virginia, and I believe even the Federal Govt have to be a part of any changes that happen there. Given that, it's an absolute wonder that anything works.
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#23The article doesn't really mention that most of these expansions will be ready 20-40 years into the future (if not delayed). If you buy a house in an LA suburb hoping that you will soon get subway nearby, you might get it once the mortgage is paid out and the kids have left for college. What will the technology be like in 20-40 years? Everybody surely have cheap electric scooters and bikes or other electric devices a…
Of course there will be changes. But the subways and light rails will still be required for a certain level of throughput. The New York City subway, for example, carries 60K people per hour per direction on a pair of tracks, while a car lane carries somewhere in the range of 2K per hour per direction. Self driving cars may improve lane utilization, but not by up to 30x. Shoving people into cattle cars hurtling down a…
Shouldn't a bus have similar throughput to a subway though, with no traffic?
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#24Can anyone in other west coast cities speak about the crime on the new transit systems? I'm in Portland, and for the first time in my life, I'm worried about crime on mass transit. Maybe it is just the automated news feeds that are circulating stories of stabbings and attacks that have heightened my internalized hysteria. At the same time, I've felt a larger presence of people on mass transit who seem to be dealing w…
When I listen to my friends that ride buses and BART the major complaint is people doing utterly foul things like pissing or shitting. Or being harassed. Being harrased depends a lot on sex age etc. My GF's who looks like she lives in Walnut Creek gets harassed. Me who looks like an old skinny biker does not. Got to remember BART carries around 400,000 riders a day, 365 days a year.
> Got to remember BART carries around 400,000 riders a day, 365 days a year.
Seems like the issue is lack of security/policing, not the number of passengers. There are plenty of subway networks with far greater traffic that don't have this problem to nearly the same extent.
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 20-40 years into the future (if not delayed) For comparison, the first intercontinental railroad was built by hand and muscle in 6 years. Including the bridges, cuts, and grading. Including through a mountain range.
It was also built when nobody who the government cared about owned land in the West, before pesky environmental regulations, and when 20MPH was an acceptable speed for a train. Today California High Speed Rail and Texas Central and Florida's Brightline have to deal with angry suburban neighbors, angry farmers, and legal and environmental review processes that are the result of a century and a half's worth of hindsigh…
Seattle is taking 30 years or so to build a handful of miles of track.
There really isn't any "environmental impact" for construction within the city (the environment there is already destroyed). But that sure does provide fodder for endless delays and expense.
> 20MPH
Travel from Omaha to San Francisco was 4 days at the opening, including stops. The distance was 1,912 miles. So the average was indeed 20, but to achieve that average (including stops) it must have been going at least 40 on much of the route.
Quite a difference from the alternative, months of walking.
If you like, the first Boston subway was completed in 1897, it took 2 years, and it was all done with muscle, too.
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course there will be changes. But the subways and light rails will still be required for a certain level of throughput. The New York City subway, for example, carries 60K people per hour per direction on a pair of tracks, while a car lane carries somewhere in the range of 2K per hour per direction. Self driving cars may improve lane utilization, but not by up to 30x. Shoving people into cattle cars hurtling down a…
Shouldn't a bus have similar throughput to a subway though, with no traffic?
Embarking and disembarking passengers takes much longer on a bus.
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#27I’m surprised by this article. Most people seem to agree that the the metro systems of NYC, Philadelphia, and DC are much better than those of the west coast. LA’s is unusable for most people because there aren’t enough stops. Seattle’s light rail is definitely gaining steam as it adds more stops.
I think LA's is only really usable to get to/from DTLA. The nice part is DTLA is becoming more eventful, so you actually want to go there sometimes for non-work reasons. Getting anywhere else is a bit of a crapshoot for the last-mile. I don't think LA's train system is ready for primetime until it can reasonably get into LAX; preferably with a more direct route from the westside that doesn't detour through DTLA.
The Crenshaw/LAX line that does just that is scheduled to open in 2020:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crenshaw/LAX_Line
...although its utility will be limited until they connect it to the Red/Purple lines, and that's still on the drawing board.
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think LA's is only really usable to get to/from DTLA. The nice part is DTLA is becoming more eventful, so you actually want to go there sometimes for non-work reasons. Getting anywhere else is a bit of a crapshoot for the last-mile. I don't think LA's train system is ready for primetime until it can reasonably get into LAX; preferably with a more direct route from the westside that doesn't detour through DTLA.
The Crenshaw/LAX line that does just that is scheduled to open in 2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crenshaw/LAX_Line ...although its utility will be limited until they connect it to the Red/Purple lines, and that's still on the drawing board.
Then there's the people mover for inner-LAX travel between the train station and the terminals scheduled for 2023.
But once that and the connection to red/purple is done, I'd say LA's public transit would be in a reasonably usable state.
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#29Can anyone in other west coast cities speak about the crime on the new transit systems? I'm in Portland, and for the first time in my life, I'm worried about crime on mass transit. Maybe it is just the automated news feeds that are circulating stories of stabbings and attacks that have heightened my internalized hysteria. At the same time, I've felt a larger presence of people on mass transit who seem to be dealing w…
I take the BART in the SF Bay Area daily, and if you take it before 10 PM it feels safe, though can be annoying because it's not always the cleanest. Then again, I feel safer than on the road (where there's at least a handful of massive accidents each way, everyday) and I've definitely been in friends' cars that are not to the same cleanliness standard I hold my own things to.
Re: The West Coast is beating the East Coast on transportation?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course there will be changes. But the subways and light rails will still be required for a certain level of throughput. The New York City subway, for example, carries 60K people per hour per direction on a pair of tracks, while a car lane carries somewhere in the range of 2K per hour per direction. Self driving cars may improve lane utilization, but not by up to 30x. Shoving people into cattle cars hurtling down a…
Shouldn't a bus have similar throughput to a subway though, with no traffic?
Subways have multiple cars per train, anywhere from 1 to 10, most places falling into 4-6. A bus has one; even articulated buses usual have a smaller capacity than a single subway car.