[ehlow]

That perspective looks great but how realistic? Presently there are sidewalks on both sides of Eglinton and 2 car lanes in both directions on Eglinton (central portion). Image shows an added 2 bike lanes (1 in each direction), central boulevard and wider sidewalks. Where is this extra space for bike lanes, boulevard and wider sidewalks coming from? If all this extra space existed than why not make the bike lanes a bit wider. Plus how narrow will the car lanes be then. On St. Clair, the lanes are really tight.

The central portion actually has 4 car lanes and 1 bus lane, so 5 lanes: http://goo.gl/maps/Uo4Fz

But the image shown there is where the LRT is on the surface, not the central part where it'll be underground. This is how it looks now: http://goo.gl/maps/vhPab

 

[salsa]

BART is a sort of odd quasi-metro quasi-commuter rail system. It uses Metro trains but covers commuter rail style distances and stop spacing and uses a high percentage seated operating model, only making frequent stops in the core of SF. typically build lots of parking at the stations as well. Sort of like Clevelands subway, it is kind of a metro but acts surprisingly like commuter rail.

There was an article once that talked about BART and it's park and ride model, and why it's not very good.

http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2013/11...nsit-washington-san-francisco-bay-and-toronto

 

[diminutive]

There was an article once that talked about BART and it's park and ride model, and why it's not very good.

http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2013/11...nsit-washington-san-francisco-bay-and-toronto

I feel like that article was somewhat unfair to BART by using differences in access method (park n ride vs. feeder routes) to explain variance in readership. The Bay Area is a horrible place to plan transit! The geography is all weird due to the Bay to start with. And to make it worse downtown San Francisco is <15% of regional employment. There are only 300k jobs in SF's CBD. Of those, BART does a good job at capturing travellers, capturing 50% of CBD travellers. I think it's actually the fourth highest market share of CBD-bound travellers in the US after New York, Chicago and Boston.

BART was a somewhat novel attempt to solve the problem of regional travel in a dispersed urban area. It suffers from low ridership but it's not like anyone's done better.

 

[innsertnamehere]

That perspective looks great but how realistic? Presently there are sidewalks on both sides of Eglinton and 2 car lanes in both directions on Eglinton (central portion). Image shows an added 2 bike lanes (1 in each direction), central boulevard and wider sidewalks. Where is this extra space for bike lanes, boulevard and wider sidewalks coming from? If all this extra space existed than why not make the bike lanes a bit wider. Plus how narrow will the car lanes be then. On St. Clair, the lanes are really tight.

its 5 car lanes right now, one of them being a bus lane. the bus lane will be eliminated.

 

[ehlow]

I'm reading about BART and each line seems to be only one train every 15 minutes. I guess they overlap to produce more frequent service in SF, but if you're outside of that, 15 minute headways is not very good by Toronto subway standards.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I would be hesitant to even call that rapid transit.

 

[diminutive]

I'm reading about BART and each line seems to be only one train every 15 minutes. I guess they overlap to produce more frequent service in SF, but if you're outside of that, 15 minute headways is not very good by Toronto subway standards.

Yes, BART has many flaws, including very long headways (by our standards).

On the other hand, it’s also serving places up to 60km away from downtown San Francisco, places which, in Toronto, would be lucky to get a GO train every 30 minutes.

As a hybrid system, with more of a regional focus, your view of BART will tend to depend on what you’re comparing it to. Compared to most N.American commuter rail systems, BART’s fantastic. Compared to the TTC subway it’s obviously plagued by long headways and other issues.

I wasn't trying to say it's the best system on Earth or anything. Given the job it was intended to do though (provide regional rapid transit over an auto-centric and dispersed urban area) and the geographic context of the Bay Area, I think it does a good job. It's like what GO-ALRT would have been.

 

[innsertnamehere]

GO lakeshore is supposed to move to 15 minute service in a decade or so..

Also Cleveland runs its metro system on 15 minute frequencies as well.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

GO lakeshore is supposed to move to 15 minute service in a decade or so..

Also Cleveland runs its metro system on 15 minute frequencies as well.

Today I learned that Cleveland has a metro. A metro that uses toy subway cars :

[video=youtube;k9RpkGDaJKY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9RpkGDaJKY[/video]

 

[Hipster Duck]

I find it ironic that we're trashing BART but, in other threads, we think that electrified regional rail in the 905 will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

BART is effectively an S-bahn/regional rail system. If we build a GO-REX it probably won't have ridership figures that much higher than BART and while it may not cost as much to build, it will not be a walk in the park, either.

 

[ShonTron]

Today I learned that Cleveland has a metro. A metro that uses toy subway cars :


It makes the billion dollar boondoggle called the Sheppard Subway look like a smashing success.

Ironically, Cleveland Hopkins Airport, the still photo in the YouTube link, is the only truly underground station in the Cleveland system, called "The Rapid." (Tower City, the central station, is built into a side of the Cuyahoga River valley.) The Red Line isn't quite the joke that it looks like when you understand it was built on the cheap in the 1950s through 1970s using electrified railway rights-of-way and a underutilized downtown railway terminal.

 

[ehlow]

Yes, BART has many flaws, including very long headways (by our standards).

On the other hand, it’s also serving places up to 60km away from downtown San Francisco, places which, in Toronto, would be lucky to get a GO train every 30 minutes.

As a hybrid system, with more of a regional focus, your view of BART will tend to depend on what you’re comparing it to. Compared to most N.American commuter rail systems, BART’s fantastic. Compared to the TTC subway it’s obviously plagued by long headways and other issues.

I wasn't trying to say it's the best system on Earth or anything. Given the job it was intended to do though (provide regional rapid transit over an auto-centric and dispersed urban area) and the geographic context of the Bay Area, I think it does a good job. It's like what GO-ALRT would have been.

Very good point, compared to GO 15 minute frequencies is amazing.

 

[innsertnamehere]

many are trashing BART as SF otherwise doesn't really have a Metro system. It is otherwise served by LRTs with some small tunnel sections. (Muni)

 

[rbt]

Very good point, compared to GO 15 minute frequencies is amazing.

That's 15 minute frequencies in peak period on some routes. Also GO LakeShore service actually hits 10 minute frequencies in rush.

BART is 20 to 30 minute frequencies on most branches during the day and 30 minutes to hourly on weekends and evenings. Obviously the central portion where routes overlap have higher frequencies but I'm not sure I've ever had a trip where I could just take the first train; it's always had to be a specific branch or was within walking distance.

BART is pretty good but connection times can still make it a 2 hour trip to go from suburb to suburb (I.e. Richmond Amtrak station to Pleasanton) with about 40 minutes of that being on the actual trains; so it has lots of room for improvement.

 

[diminutive]

many are trashing BART as SF otherwise doesn't really have a Metro system. It is otherwise served by LRTs with some small tunnel sections. (Muni)

San Francisco isn't a very big city, though. San Fransisco only becomes a big city if you consider the entire Bay Area, which is why BART makes some untypical tradeoffs, for a metro system, in order to serve a big chunk of the region.

By comparison, there are some European cities like Cologne which make due with urban LRT type systems and more proper regional rail/S-Bahn. Ditto for Australian cities like Sydney or Melbourne, neither of which have what we'd think of as a Metro system.