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Updates for OP: Your DC section in the OP could use a mention of DC's klutzy attempts to restore streetcar service, which last I saw was years behind track and runs just a couple miles of a hipsterifyng corridor and takes a goodly stroll through a huge train station to reach the subway proper. Also the Maryland extension you mention is the planned Purple Line, which afaik is an incremental nod to the much earlier intent to have a line tracing the entire Beltway. Your movie section of the OP needs to add The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, a 1974 film where criminals take a NYC subway train hostage: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taking_of_Pelham_One_Two_Three_(1974_film) . Apparently NYC dispatches are named for the originating station and time, and for years following the film the system deliberately avoided having traIns on the Pelham route leave at 1:23 so as to avoid any association (like avoiding naming future ships The Titanic).
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Oct 16, 2016 03:56
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One point about automation: I love systems that have designated gates only for tap-systems. DC does not, so in tourist season it sucked when I was trying to get to work, and all four inbound gates in front of me are tied up by multiple members of the Swenson clan of North Dakota who spread out across all lanes trying to figure out which slot their paper card goes into so they can get over to the Smithsonian. I love helping tourists find their way when I'm not in a hurry, but the gate clusters are the single worst thing about tourists. Except for when they ride a packed escalator to the next level, take one step off and then pause to get their bearings as the elevator shoves a dozen people into their backs. For a little international flavor, I will say that Bogota, Colombia's transit system does a really impressive job of mocking rail using conventional buses. The main corridors aren't chintzy little stops with one signpost and a bench, they're huge building-sized covered structures in the road median that each service dozens of routes, ticket kiosks, transit police, automated doors closing off entries until the bus aligns, etc. And for some major thoroughfares, dedicated lanes and some downtown tunnel. don't know if they have any intent to eventually replace some of the buses with rail, but for the main corridors it seems Also Bogota has some really decent bike lanes, which also allow <?kph electric bikes and scooters, with entire stores downtown dedicated to small electric vehicles. And while not functionally huge, culturally it's awesome that there's a once-weekly Ciclovía where they close down about thirty blocks of a major thoroughfare and restrict it to bikes/skates/dogs/pedestrians. Between great transit, great Uber and also regular taxis that are so heavily smartphone-hailed that it's semi-pointless trying to hand-flag one, Bogota is just awesome. TapTheForwardAssist fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Oct 17, 2016 |
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Oct 16, 2016 04:23
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Are there any cities in the world with an extensive subway system that's totally free for the riders? I can't imagine it happening in the US since the massive screaming about unfairness from non-riders would drown it out. On a weird level, I could see DC being vaguely able to argue it since their ridership is spread out over multiple states even for "locals" plus huge numbers of temporary riders for gov/biz/tourism. DC clearly can't afford it alone, but it could be allotws funds in a way similar to how DC gets a federal disbursement for all the tax-free federal land it has that it has to indirectly support and can't raise revenue from. Just fantasy in the US, but does anyone have non-pay rail systems? Any easy to find numbers on what percentage of the costs in a system is tied up in managing a fare system?
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Oct 31, 2016 17:53
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I'll post a little more about Bogotá's pseudo-rail fancy bus system later, but I always loved the chaos of the signage for the informal private buses: Bogotá distinguishes between calle and carrera, like streets and avenues, with carrera being roughly north-south and Calle east-west. There's a trend to abbreviate carrera as "K" to distinguish the two. But in any case as you can see, private buses just list out all major streets and neighborhoods they go through, so you stand by the roadside, read like crazy, and try to identify and flag down the one you want. I may have mentioned earlier, hailing apps have become so ubiquitous in Bogota, some times of day it's totally impossible to flag a cab by hand since any empty cab you see is en-route to a smartphone pickup. If folks are curious, I can write more later about transit in Liberia. One thing I really wish I'd debriefed folk on for a paper, or recorded for YouTube, is that people flag down private taxis, "shared cars" via hand signs. You see people by the roadside patting their heads, waving two fingers down, or whatever, and that indicates their destination, so a car with three passengers heading downtown will watch for more folks making the downtown signal to pick up. For reference a Toyota Corolla will commonly hold a driver and six adult passengers, which is a little unnervy during Ebola outbreaks.
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Oct 31, 2016 18:08
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Speaking at least for myself, I think a lot of folks think of cars as both a necessity and a sunk cost, so that diminishes the appeal of transit. Having lived car-free for five years (might need to change depending where I settle in) it really strikes me how much a sunk cost I viewed cars, even not really pondering gas prices unless for really long trips. I definitely make a lot more unnecessary trips when I have or am borrowing a car. Living in Austin now without a car, I take a bus to other areas and get my drink on, yet somehow when I lived here with a car I'd drive myself downtown, fight for parking, give myself a one-beer limit and then sodas. Just somehow never consIdered just busing to nightlife even though it's only minutes longer of a trip. Owning a car just has a huge cultural effect.
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Nov 1, 2016 01:04
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