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  #21  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 4:33 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Maybe. This is what Curbed has claimed:
given the info posted in this thread thus far, that already seems like a pretty dubious claim.

wikipedia says detroit's streetcar system, at its height, had 910 cars and 20 routes.

wikipedia says chicago's streetcar system, at its height, had 3100 cars and 100 routes.

and we haven't even gotten to LA's streetcar system, which was another monster system.


edit:

i found a detroit streetcar map. it was definitely a large and robust system, but it doesn't look quite as dense as chicago's streetcar network.


source: https://detroitography.com/2013/10/1...rail-map-1941/
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  #22  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 4:43 PM
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Originally Posted by ardecila View Post
Depends on how you define “subway system”... the easy answer is no, no American cities launched a fully grade separated network in this period.

However, the existing 30-year old systems underwent large expansions in this period, and several cities added underground or elevated portions to their streetcar system to bypass congested downtown streets. Newark added subway-surface lines to its streetcar system in this period, and both Los Angeles and St Louis built underground streetcar/interurban terminals, with tunnel portals well outside of downtown. SF built an elevated interurban terminal (Transbay) for the Key System connected to the Bay Bridge, and the Muni had several tunnels to avoid steep grades. Similar features existed in Pittsburgh.
Right. I think when you ask why a Detroit or a Cleveland don't have a grade separated rapid-transit line, you have to keep this in perspective. Either of those cities would've been considered eligible candidates to support a subway system. Those cities back then were way more dense than most cities building them today, and were just about as dense of their contemporaries of the pre-war era. The most glaring factors seems to be timing of their growth, and political will.
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  #23  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 4:50 PM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
Detroit was one of the largest streetcar networks in the world, if not the absolute largest in the world. At its highwater mark, the system had more than 200 miles of track in the city of Detroit.
Actually, Los Angeles had the largest in the world in the 1920s; the Pacific Electric interurban streetcar system had nearly 1,100 miles of track at its height. source: https://www.american-rails.com/pacific.html

Here are the PE routes superimposed over a modern map of the LA area:

wikimedia


Colloquially, these were referred to as the Red Car. This trackage doesn't include the "Yellow Car," which was LA's streetcar system within the city of LA (and immediate surrounding neighborhoods outside the city limits) operated by LAry (Los Angeles Railway).

Just to note, these early systems were all private for-profit companies. I assume New York's subways in the early years were also privately owned?

So it's not like these cities planned and funded these railways to serve its residents; entrepreneurs jumped on money-making ventures to provide transportation to people. And in the case of Los Angeles and SoCal, the Pacific Electric was in cahoots with real estate developers, which contributed to its sprawling built environment.
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  #24  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 4:55 PM
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But weren't street cars just replaced by buses as opposed to abandoned?. In what ways did those old street car systems provide superior or even fundamentally different service than buses?
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  #25  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 4:56 PM
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cleveland had various subway plans as well, first proposed by the mayor in 1905.


this 1932 plan for euclid avenue from what is today the warehouse district to csu. i believe the depression era killed it.






here is a 1944 plan that didnt work out -- due to the war i guess.









oh but wait, there is more -- this is the early 1953 downtown subway loop and its a real peach!

the public actually ended up voting for the $35M county bond issue you see noted below in the pic by a 2 to 1 margin, but unfortunately cleveland also had their very own robert moses named al porter, who finally nixed it in 1957 (would not doubt he got paid off behind the scenes by big auto).














at least they tried -- you can see the local press was all in for the subway.






they even took a marketing aim at women shoppers -- a subway could allow for shopping downtown even despite blizzards like this one in 1950.







yet another big subway loop plan popped right back up, but after a battle between playhouse square and public square interests, it was voted down by the commissioners in 1959.


one more time? yes!

the $700M to $1B dual hub subway was the thing in the 1980s (downtown to university circle). it dragged from 1986 until 1997, but that finally got scuttled over costs. it eventually became brt healthline on euclid avenue, which is very nice, but ...

-- cle subway history thx to cle historical society and tom horseman.



ps -- there was a streetcar subway used until 1954. also i believe there is partial tunneling downtown for the one of the earlier loop plans.

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/ohio...els-cleveland/

Last edited by mrnyc; Mar 3, 2020 at 5:08 PM.
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  #26  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 5:02 PM
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Originally Posted by sopas ej View Post
Actually, Los Angeles had the largest in the world in the 1920s; the Pacific Electric interurban streetcar system had nearly 1,100 miles of track at its height.

yeah i have always heard los angeles had the biggest streetcar system in the world.

but the fact is, literally everybody had huge streetcar systems back then.

a shame they are all bus routes now.
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  #27  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 5:21 PM
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Originally Posted by PHL10 View Post
But weren't street cars just replaced by buses as opposed to abandoned?. In what ways did those old street car systems provide superior or even fundamentally different service than buses?
I saw a documentary about this a few years ago so its a little hazy, but it depends on how the streetcar lines were managed. Some cities gave them a dedicated right of way while others had them follow traffic flow the same way as cars (and now buses). I saw a documentary about this a few years ago so its a little hazy.

A street car with a dedicated right of way would operate probably just like BRT would today. I've never ridden the San Francisco trolleys but don't they get their own light at intersections?
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  #28  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 5:41 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
so getting back to the thread topic, there were only 4 large scale fully grade-separated heavy rail rapid transit systems built in US cities in the 1890 - 1920 time period - new york, chicago, philadelphia, and boston. not coincidentally, those were 4 of the 5 largest cities in the US during that time period.

so i think the main differentiator at that time was size. the absolute biggest cities built large-scale dedicated rapid transit systems because they had to. the cities in the next size range down at that time were able to get by with a combination of streetcars, commuter rail, and interesting hybrids in downtown cores (like streetcars running through subway tunnels or commuter rail on elevated structures).

and by the 1920s & 30s when cities like detroit and LA would have been getting big enough to have full-blown rapid transit, building such systems was no longer en vogue as the automobile was seen as the future of transportation.

it wasn't until the 1970s/80s when the US finally got back into the game of building large scale heavy rail rapid transit systems in SF, DC, atlanta, miami, and LA.
Exactly, as discussed in post #8 above. It was an era of massive industrialization and rapid urban outward expansion as cities boomed and attracted internal migrants and European immigrants. The so-called "Gilded Age", with those already largest cities growing even larger, demanding a much more efficient transportation network. Most cities of any importance had some form of electric streetcar line network by the 1890s, but the biggest and most crowded demanded an above and/or below street-level solution to move exponentially more people, and the heavy rail elevated and subway lines were born.


Though you know that technically Chicago did not have a mass transit system until the 1940s
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  #29  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 8:09 PM
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Didn't I post here already? Or maybe it was a different thread. Sorry if I repeat myself, but I was saying that replacing bus and light rail with heavy rail is simply a matter of demand and capacity. Without the demand, there is no need to invest in heavy rail. Even light rail too many cities build today when they hardly have any bus ridership. It's just a waste of money.

Cleveland Red Line is 31km? 31km and 18,500 riders per weekday. Wow, a heavy rail line that has lower ridership than a lot of bus routes. If they are not willing to increase the density along this Red Line and improve the bus service feeding into it and fill those trains, then they should replace the line with buses as well. Buses can handle 18,500 riders over 31km VERY easily, and heavy rail is not needed at all. That Red Line is just a waste of money right now. They need to either use that subway line closer to its full potential or just close it.
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  #30  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 8:17 PM
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Cleveland isn't gonna shut down the Red Line. That makes no sense. It's a sunk investment and regional asset.

But yeah, there's no point to heavy rail in all but a handful of U.S. metros. Probably seven at most.
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  #31  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 8:19 PM
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Has anyone discussed Baltimore or Atlanta? Often they are forgotten in these discussions.
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  #32  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 8:27 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
Cleveland isn't gonna shut down the Red Line. That makes no sense. It's a sunk investment and regional asset.
and it connects downtown to the airport.

that's not a terribly common asset, at least not in the midwest.

that reason alone would keep it in play just about anywhere, even with the less than stellar ridership.
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  #33  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 8:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Doady View Post
but I was saying that replacing bus and light rail with heavy rail is simply a matter of demand and capacity. Without the demand, there is no need to invest in heavy rail.
No, every mode creates its own market. Our country's massive urban freeway networks induce demand. Similarly, NYC's huge subway system induces demand. The subsidization of ride share by the Saudi Royal Family induces demand.
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  #34  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 8:55 PM
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No, every mode creates its own market. Our country's massive urban freeway networks induce demand. Similarly, NYC's huge subway system induces demand. The subsidization of ride share by the Saudi Royal Family induces demand.
LA had higher transit ridership pre-Metro. Why didn't Metro "induce demand"?

Ridership is mostly a function of "how difficult is it to drive".
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  #35  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 9:26 PM
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No, every mode creates its own market. Our country's massive urban freeway networks induce demand. Similarly, NYC's huge subway system induces demand. The subsidization of ride share by the Saudi Royal Family induces demand.
Rail is a solution to high bus ridership, not to low bus ridership. As long as US cities continue to build rail "to induce demand" and "create its market" when faced with declining bus ridership, their transit ridership will continue to decline.

New York has the highest rail ridership in the country. It also has the highest bus ridership in the country. They need rail because otherwise the bus ridership would be too high, not because bus ridership would be too low.

Cities like Cleveland don't need rail at all. They just wasted their money building that line and they are wasting their money keeping it open. Expanding the bus service would do so much more for transit riders.

US systems lost so much ridership in the post-war era, and now they are losing even more thanks to this rail obsession. Places like Seattle and Las Vegas should be the role models for smaller systems, not Cleveland. 18,500 per weekday for a 31km heavy rail line is just ridiculous. It should be 400,000 or 500,000 per weekday at least (e.g. Toronto's 26.2km Bloor-Danforth Line averaged 508,404 boardings per weekday in 2011). 18,500 would not be acceptable numbers even for light rail, let alone heavy rail (e.g. Seattle's new 35.3km LRT system averages 84,000 per weekday).
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  #36  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 9:29 PM
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Originally Posted by Doady View Post
Rail is a solution to high bus ridership, not to low bus ridership.
All of the U.S.'s most used rapid transit rail systems were built before buses were even invented. Not sure how (or why) buses became the holy grail of indicators for whether a rail system should be built.
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  #37  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 9:38 PM
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Originally Posted by Crawford View Post
LA had higher transit ridership pre-Metro. Why didn't Metro "induce demand"?

Ridership is mostly a function of "how difficult is it to drive".
I generally agree with you that ridership is mostly a function of how difficult and expensive it is to drive and park. But I do think that rail is an amenity that can and does shape its surroundings in a way that buses do not. The presence of rail can and should lead to increased density around it. It can help anchor a sprawling city, and guide growth in cities like LA that are largely built out and need to find corridors to build up. Just like freeway beltways encouraged sprawl, having a rail line that actually provides convenient and fast car-free connections to places people want to be can encourage reinvestment in urban areas along the rail.

There are a number of reasons why LA's total ridership has fallen even as more rail continues to come online. One is that California started allowing illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses. Another is that the city is gentrifying quickly, and pushing some of the old transit riders further out into the suburbs and exurbs where they have no choice but to drive. I think ridership on the rail lines themselves has increased (not entirely sure about this, but I know the new-ish Expo Line has excellent ridership), and there is a ton of transit oriented development right now in places like Hollywood (red line), Culver City (expo), Koreatown and Westlake (red, purple), and downtown (essentially all). The extension of the purple line first to La Cienega and eventually to UCLA will be a game changer for LA rail transit, I think. So many more tourist attractions will be connected by this line, and it will reinforce Wilshire's prominence as the urban spine of LA. I also expect the Crenshaw Line will have great ridership, and it will be great to finally have a real rail connection to LAX. So while overall ridership on bus+rail might be down, I suspect it will rise in coming years.
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  #38  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 9:52 PM
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Originally Posted by Doady View Post

Cities like Cleveland don't need rail at all. They just wasted their money building that line and they are wasting their money keeping it open. Expanding the bus service would do so much more for transit riders.

US systems lost so much ridership in the post-war era, and now they are losing even more thanks to this rail obsession. Places like Seattle and Las Vegas should be the role models for smaller systems, not Cleveland. 18,500 per weekday for a 31km heavy rail line is just ridiculous. It should be 400,000 or 500,000 per weekday at least (e.g. Toronto's 26.2km Bloor-Danforth Line averaged 508,404 boardings per weekday in 2011). 18,500 would not be acceptable numbers even for light rail, let alone heavy rail (e.g. Seattle's new 35.3km LRT system averages 84,000 per weekday).
Cleveland's Red Line suffers from absolutely abysmal station locations. The west trunk of the line has an airport station and a station in Ohio City (Cleveland's most successful urban neighborhood) that's in a decent, though not great, location. The downtown stop in Tower City is fine. But heading out east, it travels through parts of the city that have suffered massive depopulation and loss of industry. There is a good, urban station in Little Italy (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.5086...7i16384!8i8192) and another decent one at the edge of University Circle (https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4999...7i16384!8i8192), but other than those, the station locations are absolutely awful.

Some are built where there is literally nothing in comfortable walking distance (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cl...!4d-81.6943605, https://www.google.com/maps/@41.4861...7i16384!8i8192). It's a legacy line, and the city has changed drastically since it was built. There are no longer thousands of blue collar employees working in factories adjacent to the line. Now there are empty fields or warehouses that might employ just a handful of people. The city about 1/3 of its peak population, and the metro continues to sprawl further from the core. It's no wonder the red line has awful ridership. With some reinvestment and smart land use decisions, ridership could grow. Little Italy has been infilling quite a bit, and downtown's population continues to grow. But really quite a bit of the line just goes through no mans land. It certainly wouldn't make sense to locate a new rail line there today.
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  #39  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 10:04 PM
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It's a legacy line, and the city has changed drastically since it was built.
i don't think that i would classify cleveland's red line as a "legacy line". when i think of legacy heavy rail, i think of the early 20th century systems in NYC, chicago, boston, and philly.

cleveland's red line was actually built in stages from 1955 - 1968, which was an incredibly unusual time period for the construction of ground-up heavy rail rapid transit in the US.

and because it was built through the existing city, instead of having the city built up around it, it takes a lot of less-than-ideal routing corridors (old freight ROWs, running alongside an expressway, etc.) that don't take it directly through many high-density, ped-friendly urban neighborhoods. many of the stations are surrounded by pretty bleak landscapes of park & ride lots and other ultra low density uses.

as you said, it's not shocking that it has pretty low ridership numbers.


and as i said earlier, as a downtown-airport rail connection (the first of its kind in the US), i can't see cleveland abandoning the red line anytime soon, even if it doesn't make a ton of financial sense to keep it operating.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Mar 3, 2020 at 10:15 PM.
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  #40  
Old Posted Mar 3, 2020, 10:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
i don't think that i would classify cleveland's red line as a "legacy line". when i think of legacy heavy rail, i think of the early 20th century systems in NYC, chicago, boston, and philly.

cleveland's red line was actually built in stages from 1955 - 1968, which was an incredibly unusual time period for the construction of ground-up heavy rail rapid transit in the US.

and because it was built through the existing city, instead of having the city built up around it, it takes a lot of less-than-ideal routing corridors (old freight ROWs, running alongside an expressway, etc.) that don't take it directly through many high-density, ped-friendly urban neighborhoods. many of the stations are surrounded by pretty bleak landscapes of park & ride lots and other ultra low density uses.

as you said, it's not shocking that it has pretty low ridership numbers.
Guess it depends on how you define legacy line. Portions of the line were used as an interurban in the 1920s, and the whole thing uses old intercity rail ROWs. It was an existing rail corridor that was turned into a passenger heavy rail line.
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