Urban Design Concept of the Day
Redundancy in Transit
Redundancy is a key element to good transit design, always make sure that there are multiple ways to get between locations in a city. if there is only one way to get between two locations, then there is an exponentially higher number of points of failure on a system and it is harder to get between locations as there are fewer options, overallit makes transit less appealing as a method to move about in a city. This is why things like ring lines are so important to the design of transit systems. The lack of redundancy and interconnectivity in our transit systems is why American transit systems lag behind European and East Asian Cities in terms of ridership
Let’s compare the maps of the Chicago L, and the Paris Metro. Paris is famous for the quality of its metro and that is because of the redundancy that allows it to be a dynamic mode of transit. If one section is closed, the system has alternatives built into it, but Chicago has everything coming and going from the loop, it makes it harder to get between 2 areas, if you wanted to get between Chinatown and Roger’s park and the Red Line was closed, you’d be stuck. If there was multiple lines that went around the loop and downtown, then there would be far more ways to navigate the city and it would be a more attractive system
