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
nitpick: the red line is a 24/7 line, one of the oldest and busiest among the L trains. it has delays and temporary redirects via bus, but it doesn't Close. this doesn't detract from the overall point because delays are nonetheless quite disruptive but i had to say this because CHICAGO MENTIONED the cta is one of the very few metro rail systems in the world that has lines operating 24/7, year-round.
the thing which does detract from your point though is that the red line is one of the more redundant lines and kind of a bad example! in the north side there's lots of overlap with purple & brown lines; in the south side, there's the green line going the same direction (and buses to shlep you from one to the other when there isn't a transfer station).
finally, a critical piece of consideration here: building redundancy in these systems is expensive, and cost is a primary constraint. the L is already the fourth largest metro system in the US by rail length. chicagoans are proud of the L (hi), which speaks to the baseline for excitement about mass transit in the States. i think it's a stronger and more accurate claim to say "the lack of appetite for investment in rail transit is why American transit systems lag behind European and East Asian cities", not redundancy. (also at this point it would be extremely disruptive to build more above-ground L routes in the middle of downtown chicago.)
So I want to address a few of your points because you make several good points and I want to explain some of the things I said
First, I just picked a random line and worked from there, thats why its the red line and not the blue or orange line
Secondly, I get that it doesn’t close, but I am saying that if for whatever reason they had to close down tracks on the red line, all service would stop including all of the interlined lines.
Third, I am not arguing that the L is a bad system, it’s a really good one. I am arguing that like all American Rail systems it needs improvement, I choose the L because it is one of the better systems to show how the issue affects even the best systems
Fourth, I agree that building redundancy is expensive, we need to get costs down on transit projects in the us, I am trying to point out one small issue with American transit systems. The solution to which is to fund transit expansion, and get costs down so that we can have redundancy through something like an outer loop or circle line in Chicago for example
Finally, I know that the reason that US transit systems have lower ridership isn’t just because they lack redundancy, it is one of many factors and a rather minor one at that. I just wanted to talk about an issue and used a transit system I knew for an example. Also I am arguing for Chicago.
But yeah, thanks for the criticism, I will try to talk about the L better next time. Also I probably should have used the T as my example, but I can’t change that now
