America's Mid-Century Metros
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2024
- Do you ever wonder why some cities have metros that seem like they came out of the 60s space age design? Well its because they were a vision of public transit for american cities in the middle of the 20th century. While most of america was in the grip of car dependent planning, there were some who saw that not all traffic could be ended with one more lane. Watch to learn more about the metros of the future from the past.
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SEPTA, while expansive, suffers from infrastructure degradation, service delays, personal-safety issues, and lowered ridership, which impacts funding which worsens infrastructure, service, safety, and ridership. It's a vicious cycle that adversely impacts everyone in the region and more severely those who rely on it the most. It could be so much better if there was the political will to make it so... 😕
And it had a couple huge shrinkages in the '80s. Some of the regional rail lines got shortened, ending service to suburbs on at least 3 lines, and there was a huge fire that destroyed most of the trolleys, so most street-level trolley service basically ceased.
There are some exciting projects underway, which should fix a lot of these issues.
I'm glad you mentioned that about Detroit! Yes, the Detroit People Mover was meant to be part of a bigger system! It was meant to be a downtown distributor for a proposed city and metro-wide light rail transit system for Detroit in the early 1980s. Plans included an underground subway that would've been built from downtown to New Center, where it would transition into an elevated rail line running to McNichols (Six Mile). From there, it would've been a street-level light rail and extend beyond Detroit and into Royal Oak, and possibly later into Pontiac (this "Woodward-Michigan service" would've included lines to Detroit Metropolitan Airport and a Fort line towards Pennsylvania Rd in Southgate), with additional rail lines running on Grand River Ave, Mound Road, Harper Ave, and Gratiot Ave, and commuter lines from Detroit to Ann Arbor and Port Huron. However, it and the suburbs couldn't decide on anything for the 600 million promised by Gerald Ford, and so only the circulator got built and the money was withdrawn by Reagan. So the QLine built in 2017 was a step closer to that old vision. Now the QLine is still useful, it serves Wayne State University, Fox Theatre, Amtrak, Little Caesars Arena, and is walking distance from the Lions and Tigers stadiums as well from Grand Circus Park. But being curbside and not being in the median for most of its length hurts it and slows its down, and when asked by transit advocates during the planning, the QLine people were like "Yeah so?", they didn't care, they didn't want it to be true transit, they just wanted a casual touristy streetcar to attract development. But I still have hope for Detroit, in 2016, a plan was put forward that included lots of BRT, cross-county connector routes, more frequent routes, and even commuter rail to Ann Arbor. 894K approved and 911K rejected, but it shows more people are willing to fight for transit!
Besides that plan, Detroit has tried many other times to build a subway or an L, like in 1920 when the proposal was vetoed by the mayor (and the council failed to override the veto by JUST ONE VOTE), the vote for a subway (this one was envisioned to be an extensive 21-mile system) was put off the ballot last minute in 1927, 72 percent rejected it in 1929, 68 percent approved in 1933 but the federal government refused to fund it, a scaled-down system was proposed in July 1941 but after Pearl Harbor happened, it fell off the radar, a 1945 plan envisioned subway lines along Woodward and Grand River, but it too didn't happen...yeah. And before this, Detroit had an insane interurban network and streetcar network! By the 1910s, Detroit was the hub of one of the largest unified electrical transportation systems in the world. Detroit United Railways operated what may have been the largest regional electric rail system in the world. It had more than 800 miles of track, more than 200 of them in the city limits of Detroit, where one fare would get you across town, and 600 miles in the high-speed interurban lines. The streetcars were 24 hours a day and ran every few minutes!
Yup, PATCO was a pioneer as the first Great Society Metro! Not only was it the first line in North America to use automatic train operation or ATO when it opened in January 1969, but it was also a pioneer when it comes to fare collecting as it employed automated fare collection and tickets with magnetically stored data in 1969 as well! PATCO was actually the second line in the world to have ATO, only opening three years later than the London Underground's Victoria Line. All of this is on top of the fact that PATCO operates 24/7, and when it opened, it was also one of the fastest rapid transit systems at the time as it had a top speed of 75 mph (121 km/h) on the surface portion, but this caused excessive wear on the traction motors and was cut back to 65 mph (105 km/h) in the 1970s! PATCO had more in common with the M1/M3s built for the commuter MNR and LIRR systems than it did with other subway designs, as it even had similar motors as the M1/M3s! The Baltimore Metro SubwayLink was originally envisioned a 71-mile system of six lines/corridors, converging at Charles Center! Phase 1 consisting of slightly reworked versions of the Northwest and South lines. The northwestern terminus was moved from Randallstown to Owings Mills, and the branch to BWI was eventually redesigned to be encompassed in the single line. Affluent residents of Ann Arundel County opposed it because they feared racial integration, and so the South Line didn't happen and eventually became light-rail. When the subway opened in 1983 between Charles Center and Reisterstown Plaza, it was a shell of the original plan, with only eight revenue miles of track compared to the 24 originally planned for Phase 1, and since been extended to Owings Mills and Johns Hopkins Hospital for a “grand total” of 15.4 miles.
Miami's Metrorail being elevated makes sense because of both the water table and not having to deal with FDOT (it was also built along the US Route 1 ROW which was formerly Florida East Coast Railway ROW). For the Metrorail, when the system first opened in 1984, it opened with the MetroPath or M-Path underneath the tracks, originally a 10.5-mile trail for cyclists that crosses different intersections. This was built along the former the Florida East Coast Railway's main line ROW between Miami and Kendall, which was abandoned in 1972 and purchased by the county in 1979 for Metrorail. As a result of the success of the High Line in NYC, plans were made to revamp the MetroPath in 2014 as a linear park, dubbed the Underline. The first phase was completed in Brickell in 2021, the second phase from Brickell to just south of Vizcaya station was completed in April 2024, and when the third phase is completed, it will be completed to Dadeland South! Besides being a path for jogging and cyclists, it features things like bike repair stations, exercise equipment, art installations, and will provide access to public transportation to a university, over 20 schools, hospitals, urgent care facilities, major malls and over 10,000 businesses! Just south of Dadeland South, the paved path continues south as the South Dade Trail, all the way to Florida City. The entire route forms a 31-mile corridor!
we love bart 🩵
The DC metro is such a delight to ride. The stations are so beautiful and the trains are really comfortable
WMATA is great, BART is also great but suffers I think more than WMATA in just the general urban geography of the Bay Area. As a tourist in DC, I could use WMATA rail to get around pretty easily, but I would be hard-pressed to use BART to get around as a tourist - it really is a commuter network. Unless your destination is downtown oakland or downtown SF it doesn't really get you to where you want to go. it's why BART ridership has suffered in recent years, pandemic hit downtown SF office space hard and ridership on BART is heavily correlated with SF office vacancy rates.
i'd love to see more TOD on BART (more intense residential, but also actual destinations, i'm thinking of the diversity and depth of TOD that arlington county has for WMATA), and also BART extensions to westside SF and some infill stations in the inner east bay core, but right now BART (and a few other local agencies) are just worried about avoiding a fiscal disaster.
maybe some unified wayfinding or coordination to help connect and feed other transit agencies into BART (like SF Muni, AC Transit, Caltrain) could be lower-cost ways of making BART more useful outside of 9-5s
BART really isn't an urban system. It's an express regional/commuter system. You only use BART and Caltrain to hop between cities and then transfer to local transit (Muni Metro, VTA Light Rail, AC Transit) for the local part of the trip.
It looks like a metro/subway, but it really isn't one.
Baltimore feels like a total black sheep in the northeast due to the lack of a proper metro system. The city has essentially spent the last 50 years trying to build out a system resembling that original master plan from the 1960s, and being stymied at every turn by racism and nimbys. A north-south subway line was cancelled by nimbys in the 80s, and then turned into the lackluster light rail line we have now, and then the east-west subway was cancelled in 2015 by racist nimbys who helped elect a republican governor to kill it. (And it remains to be seen if the planned light rail replacement will be just as lackluster as the current light rail)
Explaining the Capitalist aspects of transit to Republicans is definitely something that we need to get better at.
I came here to say the same thing. Baltimore Subway’s biggest obstacle wasn’t the funding. It was the racist Nimby’s in surrounding counties (and in the city) as well as an extremely hostile state legislature in Annapolis that would soon see Baltimore turn into a ghost town than support any growth or infrastructure projects in the city. Baltimore deserves so much better. I hope Gov. Moore makes good on his promise to revive the Red Line project. I don’t think there’s much hope for a full scale subway, but I think there’s endless potential with the Light Rail.
@@jnyerere If we get the tunnel option I think it could be great, but I'm very worried about the surface running alternatives which would have to contend with the horror show of traffic lights/intersections in downtown
Metro > LRT > BRT
But BRT is still better than regular buses, and is good in places with lots of steep hills where a LRT wouldn’t work and a metro would be too expensive. Such is the case in my city.
Yes but BRT is used as a “cheaper” alternative in places where a Metro would easily be feasible. BRT is cheaper in the short term but is more expensive in the long term due to needing extra drivers if ridership gets too high and maintenance of the dedicated road over time.
I’m mainly not a fan of BRT because it takes the “fun” out of riding transit. It’s just more fun to walk down the long, cavernous tunnels or pedestrian bridges to get to your train. It’s also pretty exciting to ride a train in general. It’s an amazing experience that BRT cannot replicate. Most legacy transit systems (NY, London, Paris, Tokyo, Moscow, etc.) use metros. Bogota is the only “legacy” system using BRT. Tourists actually visit cities just to check out their metros. I don’t know of anyone (outside of transit nerds) who visits a city just to see its BRT.
@@highway2heaven91 That I don’t like.
Small towns or places with lots of hills where an LRT wouldn’t work are the only places where I would like to see BRT.
Speaking of which, LA is going to turn a current BRT system into an LRT!
@@HIDLad001 That’s great. BRT then LRT is a great plan!
I’m also not a fan of choosing BRT over LRT because cities will then have the freedom to “cheap out” on their BRT line by stripping down many of the elements that make a good BRT work (signal priority, dedicated bus lanes, accurate schedules, etc) and then slap the name “BRT” on it and call it a day when it’s really just a glorified express bus. These buses still get stuck in traffic and do nothing to improve commute times or encourage people who drive to take transit. LRT “locks” cities into having to provide fast, reliable service (for the most part).
Ohhhh Marta Marta Marta… you mentioned in your video that Marta is finally getting new stations! New stations that the mayor announced without the knowledge of Marta, without a plan to get it done, and no plan for funding. They also just cancelled the 5 points transformation project (which probably needed to be cancelled) and the mayor is taking a stance against adding light rail lines to the beltline. I’d say 2 years ago, Marta’s future looked bright. Now, I’d say we probably aren’t getting anything new for the next 10 years except summerhill and Campbellton BRTs and whatever the hell an “ART” is. Nothings changed for the last 20 years since the last Marta expansion. Empty promises and cancelled plans. Ohhhh Marta my beloved. They treat you so poorly…
Wait Marta cancelled 5 the points project? I tonight it’s just on pause as they work out accessibility issues?
I do like Allen Fishers concept that the LA line is something of a hybrid mid century / whatever came later system.
The main line, the B Line (formerly Red Line), does end in a suburban station (North Hollywood) with a big parking lot, although it then does connect with a BRT line. The spacing between the last two stations and the rest of the system is very large, due to tunneling under the Hollywood Hills.
However, the rest of the two lines (at this point really one and a spur, but that spur is being greatly extended as we speak) are very urban and old school. Very close spacing distance in most areas (Westlake/McArthur Park is kind of isolated but everything else is close to each other), minimal to no parking at stations, dense urban usage right at stations. It also complements the Metrolink commuter rail/regional rail system very well. The under construction extension is also very urban in character.
Now what is very suburban is large parts of LA Metro's light rail network. Usually wider stop spacing, lots of parking at some stations, low density around many stations, and it goes deep into the suburbs.
Love that you used B-roll from Chattanooga at 2:00
I visited Detroit last month and got to ride the people mover there and found it surprisingly nice. It was connected to the conference center I was staying at and was free to ride. I suppose coming from Nashville any public transportation at all is impressive though.
BART is an awesome system. Like all transit it has its problems (worst being noise and cleanliness IMO) but it's fast, comfortable, has great new rolling stock, and has a ton of potential for future TOD outside of the urban cores.
The cleanliness issue is now solved imo. They've replaced the trains with modern fully washable metro trains and enhanced security to a ridiculous extent.
I dare say that BART is now likely the cleanest system on the continent, again. And this really shouldn't be surprising since it always used to be a very clean system historically. They're just returning to the historical norm that the riders expect.
@@TohaBgood2 They've definitely improved but it's not perfect. I still see trash and grime but again its MUCH better than before.
@@gandhihype Maybe this is because I don't ride late at night, but during my daily commute BART has been near immaculately clean. Those new washable trains really helped things.
I've ridden a surprising number of these: BART, WMATA, and Petco Speed line. WMATA is easily my favorite, the stations especially are amazing and way finding is good. BART has a large coverage area but suffers from low frequency on individual lines, I would opt for Muni whenever that option existed because I just found it more reliable. Petco didn't seem very special, I actually find it odd that it is a separate agency from SEPTA - merging the two systems would probably be a good idea.
Having only read BART and WMATA, I prefer BART for its aesthetics and trains but prefer WMATA’s coverage and efficiency.
However, the frequencies on both are quite disappointing. WMATA not as much, and granted I rode it during the year post-pandemic, but holy crap, to wait 15 minutes in our nation’s capitol is crazy to me. BART has 30min headways in some areas though which really emphasizes that it runs much more like a commuter rail than a metro
Unlike WMATA, BART is extremely heavily interlined and has timed cross-platform transfers. You never ever have to wait for the exact train to your destination. Every point in the system is accessible with at most one timed transfer. You just hop on the first train that shows up and transfer at the next transfer station.
The actual useful frequency at BART stations is 10 minutes or less. In the "System Core" (SF-Oakland-Berkeley) the minimum frequencies are 4-6 minutes.
I understand that people in the US are not used to S-bahns and are allergic to transfers. But this is a perfectly viable and highly efficient system design. You still get to the place you're going in the same amount of time due to the timed transfer, but a much larger number of lines and more destinations are accessible to you from the same station than with a more traditional single line per station design.
It's PATCO. You misspelled it.
Love the Patco. Wish they would extended to the shore
I love any Metro system and whenever I am in a city with a Metro, I will be using it. It is just sad that we in the US do not invest more in these systems, for upkeep, safety, cleanliness and new lines. I get so frustrated when I hear politicians saying "We do not want to spent tax payers money on public transit".....Shit, that is what you should spent it for. That is the whole purpose of paying taxes to build up a city for everybody.
RIP Seattle, the mid century metro that could have been.
They've recovered well compared to other cities that missed out on metros and are getting progressively better.
We’re catching up but it would have been so nice to build out a real metro early on
@@jspihlman a regional trolley slower than freeway speeds surrounded by parking garages is not a recovery.
@@BirbarianHomeGuard "surrounded by parking garages" isn't accurate when many stations aren't like that. Like the downtown tunnel stations, U District, Roosevelt, Beacon Hill, Capitol Hill, etc. And in Q1 2024, the Link had a weekday ridership per mile of 3,461, the highest weekday ridership per mile of any LRT system in the US! This is on top of their expansion plans. So yes, the Link light-rail has recovered! Meanwhile, Atlanta would rather do "aUtOnOmOuS pOdS" on the BeltLine than expand their streetcar. So much for that More MARTA Tax...
@@waterlooandcityline you listed legacy streetcar neighborhoods in the urban core of Seattle City Limits.
Link was sold as a regional network. It does a great job as a local trolley in Seattle city limits. It will fail as a regional system. East link, federal way, and Lynnwood extensions are expressions of this.
As a #ProudDCNative I love WMATA. It's one of the things that I miss about my hometown of Washington, DC
An extension to Penn Medicine or 40th St (40th St Portal would probably be named/renamed Baltimore-Woodland if extended to the L, with probably 2 stops in Fitler Square from its present terminus). As for more branches or extensions in Jersey, the GCL really only involves double tracking in most places, connection to Walter Rand, adapting existing infrastructure, and buying new trains (which NJT could get in on for the River Line). They could replace the Atlantic City line if they really want to-but extending through Center City and using the existing Ferry Av stub track so you can have 3-5min urban service within Camden and Philadelphia and 15-20mins to the suburbs (maybe 9-10mins at peak)
Good report. I would have highlighted the Quincy extension of the Red Line (MBTA) as the main early example of an existing system extension built to post war standards. As well a little bit about LA's Red Line, as then you would have covered virtually all the pre 2000 American rapid transit lines. I guess a word or two about Cleveland's Red Line too which was very Park-n-Ride ish.
I just wanted to remind you that BART was the system that recieved the least subsidies from the federal government. It was taxpayers from Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Francisco conties the ones who actually pay into the system on top of help from tollpayers of the bay bridge and the actual riders. BART is a great system, but it needs more TOD, higher speeds, express tracks and more covarge both in the suburbs and in the urban areas. If BART was given appropriate funding, we would see the system very differently as to what we see today.
The mid-century metros remind me concept-wise a bit of the S-Bahn-Systems in the German-Speaking Areas. They provide a great connection from the suburbs to the city, but in the City, they have one or two trunk-lines, where all services go through, like the S-Bahn in Vienna, Munich or Frankfurt. Whats missing, is a complementary high-capacity-system for the fine distribution of the commuters/travellers eg., like the metro and tram in Vienna and Munich or the light rail and tram in Frankfurt.
Agreed. In BART's case, SF MUNI metro runs the exact same route as BART through downtown.
I'm starting to believe the reason we have rarely built anything else was that the function of SF MUNI (whether Metro or buses) was to get people in and out of downtown, where the density of workplaces was higher.
With many jobs that used to make use of SF office space becoming permanently remote, MUNI has even noted that one of their lines with the best ridership recovery was an orbital line that didn't even serve downtown, but just connected people living in different neighborhoods.
This is in contrast with a city like Paris that have many job centers, thus motivating more multi-polar metro routes, since the 9-to-5 isn't bringing everyone to the same narrow area.
I think that one of the more interesting systems that you left out is Cleveland's Rapid - though this one is a special case. There were plans to build a subway in Cleveland but was cut down to what the Red Line is today. This metro line actually shares track with light rail vehicles (the Blue/Green/Waterfront Line) downtown to the inner east side. However, because of the aging rolling stock, there are plans to unify the entire fleet, which would therefore convert the entire system to light rail.
In 1954. Toronto, Canada 🇨🇦 opened a subway system. The first outside of the United States 🇺🇸. In 1966. Montreal built a subway system as well. There was a gap in-between. I grew up in San Francisco and familiar with the BART system. I did ride the Washington DC system and there is a system in Los Angeles as well. Stayed at a hotel in downtown and took the train to Universal Studios and one I did not worry about is paying for parking. Got off the train at Universal City which is Universal Studios is located and took the elephant 🐘 train to the entrance.
The overreliance on park and ride is what limits the ridership potential of these mid-century systems. There are at least two possible solutions: improved land use around stations, adding housing, businesses, and services, and improved local transit connectivity with frequent buses or streetcar lines that feed riders to the metro.
There are a couple of Canadian examples. Toronto has a frequent bus network feeding subway stations, and some infill development. Vancouver emphasizes "town centre" residential and commercial development at key stations, but has good bus connections to most stations also. Parking availability is rare - one exception is Scott Road Station in Metro Vancouver (Surrey), once the terminus of the Expo Line (this parking is slowly being replaced with development and the line has a second extension currently under construction). Both cities have significantly higher ridership than most American metros on both aggregate and per capita measures.
I think Cleveland has its own metro line, and also a few light rail lines but it isn't as ridden as much of the other ones.
Impressive piece... But you really should have looked deeper into MARTA. It's not just a lack of state support that is at fault, its really more the hostile political environment between Atlanta and it's suburbs and plain blatant racism. 2 referendums denied funding for expansions and it always came down to "keeping out crime" and "quality of life issues". A lot of people want expansion but race continues to be a major problem. Even BART had the same class warfare arguments thats why its not expanded into Marin County. I wish more urbanists and their channels really delve into that part of the conversation regarding transit and housing
Absolutely
The reasons BART was not built to Marin County was first of all San Mateo County withdrew from the original 5 county BART district and without the San Mateo County tax base the funds for the Marin County line wouldn't be there. Second of all, the Golden Gate Bridge Transportation District, which runs the buses from Marin to San Francisco, didn't want the competition from BART and insisted that the Golden Gate Bridge couldn't handle the weight of the BART trains, even though that was later proven to not be the case.
hell yeah PATCO mentioned
Express and or direct service is much more appealing than local service with numerous stops which may seem daunting if its at the beginning of the line or the middle. It's a mental thing and a great feeling whisking by congested highway traffic and cruising by station after station.
The DC metro is what marta should’ve been but here we are
👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
These metros have SO much potential even without any expansions (well, at least for SF and DC). Hopefully cities capitalize on them more. DC's done a lot but they still have a far way to go. They can pave a way for Atlanta and San Francisco to follow.
Thank you for the mention of Jacksonville
0:14 lol at the guy running behind the departing Line 7 train in Queens. either hoping it would stop for him or trying to surf on its back à la James Bond
you could also attribute Bart's deceasing ridership (especially downtown) to be its poor safety, as downtown SF and Oakland need some law and order right now due to their crime and drug issues. Same can be said about parts of philly and most of Baltimore
Bart is improving its land use. Aside from the TODs they themselves are planning for the land they own, Oakland and other east bay cities have pretty ambitious station area plans. Assuming BART survives long enough for those to be completed, we should see things really turn around for it.
Any Canadian wouldn’t call BART’s TOD ambitious. I would check out Vancouver Skytrain to understand how TOD should look. BARTs plans are to build relatively high density immediately around the station and then mostly it drops down to single family homes. BART is saved by Oakland and SF where there is actual density and historically mixed use communities. As an opposite example, Dublin looks like it has density but the ridership of the stations is not great which means the station just isn’t serving the community well.
@@anthonysnyder1152 Are you talking about current land use, or the plans they have for it? Because yeah, currently it’s ass, but they have plans to change that pretty drastically.
Too late for Dublin, though. They built that shit in a freeway median.
GO DC METROOOOOOOOOOOOOO
A lot of these have seemingly been built intending them to be commuter rail. Every 15 mins is considered good enough for a lot of these systems.
I'll say it like this... Bart is a network that (whilst suffering from having a lack of stops) is actually useable, because it's stations are in places people need to go to or from... this is paired with a still very much living short-distance transit system (both Tram and Trolleybus) in San-Francisco area and the street-running light rail options in a few of the other cities (such as in San Jose or Sunnyvale) and the system has decent coverage.
The Metro system in DC is very convenient, but it is because an already highly urbanized area existed for the Metro to service... DC is a highly walkable city, and it's suburbs have density suitable for the smallish trains it runs... but we must remember, all this is supported by the system where government is big-business, and, it is not industry that keeps this hub going, but the complex machine of political intrigue and war, spiced, with a splattering of museum culture-creation, scientific & medical conspiracy...
i.e.: as much as I love DC as a city... & I do... in a sane world there is no reason for three quarters of the city to exist
I’d also imagine that it’s also because there aren’t many freeways that lead to the downtown (unlike most metros in the US).
@@highway2heaven91 if you are talking about DC, the Potomac-Parkway is actually very much a convenient way by car into the very center of the city... much better than in many other urban areas, where you'd expect much greater traffic congestion into the Downtown.
also, many stroads cut through the heart of the city... unusual for the East coast
Good job. Well done video. I can't imagine the SF Bay Area without BART. Our highways now are constantly bumper-to-bumper. BART is actively redeveloping its parking lots into TODs. Walnut Creek is finishing up some projects and two stations in Berkeley (North Berkeley and Ashby) are in the planning process to build-out their parking lots. BART also has plans further down the road to do more parking lot conversions in the future. By general conscience, the biggest problems facing BART is passengers not feeling safe and the general cleanliness of the trains and stations.
24TH STREET/MISSION BART STOP MENTIONED.
What i would give for the Houston plan to have had guaranteed funding 💔💔
Bart is an sbahn without good urban design
Now they just put in light rail or bus rapid transit and call it a day
Keeping the jobs downtown while expanding housing in the suburbs is the dumbest thing America has done
✌🏾
It's interesting and very disappointing that BART keeps getting lambasted by the online urbanist community for no reason. I'm just curios, what did BART ever do to you all? Is this some sort of a weird conspiracy or is this just a trend that a couple of transit tubers started and now no one really knows why they keep repeating this nonsense.
1. BART is far from "struggling with ridership because of mistakes in its design". In fact, BART reached about 4x the maximum original ridership that the system was ever planned/hoped to achieve. It's been a gangbusters success throughout most of its existence. The current BART system has had to undergo basically a complete overhaul to turn from a more regional rail/commuter system to something approaching a true regional metro service. Yes, the work from home trend is impacting the Bay Area a lot harder than other areas given that tech is the last major industry completely refusing to return to the office. But this has zero to do with BART or its design. Even now, as the Bay Area has by far the highest work from home rate in the nation BART still carries more riders that the areas that have fully recovered their commuters.
2. Where do people get the idea that BART stations are all park and rides"? BART has by far the largest number of stations with zero parking of all the Great Society metros. And it's not particularly close. Out of 50 stations, about half have no parking (4 in SF downtown, 2 in SF Mission, 3 in Oakland downtown, 1, Berkeley downtown, 1 at SFO, etc.), or extremely limited parking (MacArthur, Fruitvale, Ashby, North Berkeley, Walnut Creek, etc.) The core of the system has about the same amount of parking as similar European metro systems. And let's not forget that literally all the stations with parking have plans for full redevelopment into "station villages" with housing and retail.
3. Unlike the DC Metro, BART has been both incredibly financially successful, extremely technically competent, and wildly successful at expanding with practically no Federal money. BART has done it all on its own and has done a much better job than the DC Metro. People love to forget that the DC Metro just stopped catching on fire every week a year ago! And that they still haven't figured out how to run their "fully automated trains" not in manual mode. And this after getting orders of magnitude more money both for infrastructure and as running subsidies.
Can someone explain to me why the online crowd hates BART so much? I'm genuinely confused.
Regardless, WMATA is still a better system than BART and the ridership and many other factors reflect that.
If it has reached 4x it's design ridership, then it was terribly designed
Is this BARTs alt account?
@@Gfynbcyiokbg8710 Or it has proven to be a lot more popular that anyone could have ever predicted.
@@dreamyyx_3762 WMATA is an extremely technically deficient system. Based on that fact alone BART is the better system. Just because WMATA hasn't caught on fire this week, does not make it in any way good or even passable. It's only a matter of time.
The ridership reflects the amount of taxpayer money invested in the system. WMATA has 2x more stations and lines than BART. At the same time , BART has a higher ridership per station than WMATA, and has had it for most of its history.
Racism S-bahn surrounded by parking lots.
Ah yes, the Boy Who Cried Racism
Huh