Comments on: Metro Transportation Planning Objectives

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:26:20 +0000

New York does too have a circumferential subway line – it’s called the G, and it’s severely underused because it was poorly designed. Good circumferential lines maximize transfer opportunities, to enable people to go from outlying point A to outlying point B without going through downtown. The G instead minimizes transfers, because like the rest of the IND, it was built to compete with the private subway networks instead of complement them.

By: Yonah Freemark

Yonah Freemark — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:49:38 +0000

Portland happens to be one of the best-planned metros in the country – perhaps I should have pointed that out in the post.

But the issue is not whether Portland divides areas between ‘town centers’ and ‘regional centers,’ etc, but rather whether or not it is willing to focus development so intensely that it needs transit lines located every few blocks to serve the very active pedestrian population – in other words, to create a new late-19th century city. Perhaps that’s too much to ask?

Woody – I think your point is very well put. – it’s not particularly imaginable to see whole metros paying for intense inner-city lines. But the point is more than just a denser downtown – it’s for a much bigger downtown that becomes a large city in itself, able to serve its inhabitants completely so that they have no need for cars.

By: jon

jon — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:21:10 +0000

Portland does have a set of landuse objectives infact the entire regional public policy is about density in designated ‘town centers’ and ‘regional centers’ connected by light rail and surrounded by an urban growth boundary.

2040 Growth concept
http://www.oregonmetro.gov/index.cfm/go/by.web/id=29882

By: Woody

Woody — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:59:41 +0000

We may have to accept the mixed systems for political reasons. To get support from suburban voters and state legislators, the new rail systems must serve commuters from the bedroom communities.

And I don’t know many places where you could get the votes to build a dense city-center system alone. That would be like trying to get money to help poor people, or intercity blacks specifically. Not gonna happen.

But if the far-flung route systems continue to be successful, it then becomes politically possible to in-fill with routes in the center city. Isn’t that what Portland is doing with its expanding streetcar line? And the informative DART site discusses the planning for new transit for the Dallas downtown.

In fact, the far-reaching commuter transit lines increase the need for a denser downtown system (which should probably be streetcars IMO) to distribute the added carless population around the city center.

Better intercity rail would add to this need. The corridors from Shreveport to the east and from Houston, San Antonio, and Austin to the south could be upgraded to 110 mph with hourly frequency. That kind of train service would deliver many thousands of passengers into downtown Dallas, most of them looking for transit connections to reach their final destinations.

BTW I don’t think the goal can be to get everybody to give up their cars. People hear that and they stop listening. But if we can make it possible for families to give up their second cars, that would be a huge success.

By: AlexB

AlexB — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:52:30 +0000

When you look at the long range plans for Dallas and Ft Worth (http://www.nctcog.org/trans/transit/planning/rnt/maps.asp), the pattern of light rail lines begin to look a lot like highways. Yes, stops are spread far apart in the suburbs and close together downtown, but the circumferential lines are a new paradigm. Even in dense, transit heavy New York, there are no real circumferential train lines (although the TriboroRX and commuter rail along I287 are interesting proposals.) The new light rail lines in Dallas are a way of connecting existing activity centers and making them denser. They are not trying to create a Chicago or a Boston in the middle of the suburbs. People will move into mixed use buildings near train stations, but they won’t give up their cars. When highways are built in transit cities, they effectively destroy them. When transit systems are built in highway cities, ironically, they strengthen them. Theoretically, the density that comes with transit will eventually squeeze the cars out, but that is a loooong way off. I imagine the silver line to Tyson’s Corner in DC and the purple line in LA to Century City and Santa Monica could eventually be examples of the trains squeezing the highways out. These areas are so built up they are often less than accessible by car as is.

By: MRig

MRig — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:54:02 +0000

“One could argue that this distinctively American form of rapid transit development is actually quite cost effective, because it allows people to live car-free in the urban core but also provides inhabitants of the distant suburbs the option to commute by transit rather than automobile to their downtown jobs.”

This isn’t an American invention. The hybrid described is very similar to a German or Austrian S-Bahn. They often go underground downtown, but the principle is the same, and I think that model would be well-suited to America’s spread-out cities.

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:36:14 +0000

The New York City Subway extended to suburban areas, too – in fact, it was constructed with the explicit purpose of enabling the working class to live in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx rather than the overpopulated Lower East Side. Some extensions went even beyond the urban fringe – the Flushing Line ran through farmland. The original idea was to develop those areas with single-family homes, which the Progressive Era reformers believed was necessary for living a good life, but instead they became urban, with densities of 30,000/km^2 instead of the Lower East Side’s 100,000.

The Washington Metro converted suburbs to urban form as well. It didn’t do so everywhere, but it played an essential role in transforming Arlington into a dense, walkable, transit-friendly area. The places where it didn’t so succeed were those where it was built at true suburban scale, with trains running in freeway medians and park-and-ride stations.

By: alan

alan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:47:03 +0000

I was just emailed this mouth-watering fantasy transit map of my hometown, from a transit advocacy group. It is more interesting due to the fact that the city is currently in the process of creating a master plan. Hopefully some ideas take hold.

http://www.transportfornola.org/pdfs/TfNOLA.pdf