Quote:
Originally Posted by Doady
San Francisco also has a suburban rail system with BART. But the difference with San Francisco is it also has a highly-developed bus and streetcar network for short trips.
A city of the size of Dallas should have a system designed for both long distance and short distance. But with so few resources, they have probably should focused those limited resources on one type of service instead of dividing them. In trying to serve both long distances and short distances, the system does neither well.
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San Francisco has light rail, commuter rail, metro rail, buses, and wired pulled trolleys. Dallas has light rail, commuter rail, buses, and electric powered trolleys. The only differences between the transit services provided is that Dallas blends metro rail with light rail, where in San Francisco the two services are separated, although paralleling each other under Market Street with an extra set of tunnels. Some engineers might suggest blending the two services into one is slightly more efficient and just as effective.
And to make my earlier replies shine some more light upon this discussion; BART metro has 48 stations over 109 miles today, averaging 2.27 miles/ station. That's more spacing between stations than DART's light rail system.
But BART's ridership is multiple times higher than DART's. Why?
Is it the type of trains running on the tracks, speed and length? No
Is it the larger spacing between train stations? No
Is it the speed of the trains? No
The answer is geography. There is this huge body of water between San Francisco and Oakland. There are only four "direct links" between San Francisco and Oakland. (1) One highway - the Bay Bridge, (2) One train system - BART, (3) Air by many airplanes - very expensive, and (4) Sea by many ferries - very slow. Every mode of transportation requires paying a toll or fare.
Meanwhille, to get to north Dallas from downtown there are more than three highways, many surface streets, and even more roads. You can do so without paying a toll. There just is not a major geographic feature limiting transportation choices.
One could walk, ride a bike, car, truck, bus, van, motorcycle, skate between downtown Dallas and its northern suburbs without paying any fares or tolls what-so-ever; the only way to get to Oakland from San Francisco directly without paying a fare or toll is to swim across the Bay.