Melbourne Commuter Rail network
>Pros:
-Covers most of the suburbs
-Loop drops off and picks up people around the city centre
>Cons:
oh boy where to begin lel
-Since 1969 every single government has focused on building Freeways and letting rail rot. 1969 Melbourne Transportation Plan laid out 10 Freeways, the last was finished in 2005. They're all congested. People are switching back to rail use. So the plan is to build more freeways.
-With the focus on road development and the lack of investment in maintaining or upgrading the railways the infrastructure slowly rotted away and services suffered. In the early 2000s a big surge began in patronage that the network has struggled to cope with
-Privatization has not helped these matters, the labyrinth of contractors responsible for different elements has made it harder to address.
-The suburbs of Doncaster in the NE, roughly a straight line north of Box Hill and east of Heidelberg, and Rowville, area between the Dandenong and Belgrave lines, have no rail access and need it.
-Because of the focus on road development which generates low density sprawl as a result of its finite capacity new suburban developments beyond the range of the railways have sprung up in the north and west in very marginal land and former farmland. Now that they're there I guess they need rail services but building that far away shouldn't be going on the first place
Melbourne Tram network
>Pros
heavy coverage in the city centre and surround inner urban area. You can hop off the trains catch the trams to keep going, switch from one tram to another, etc
>Cons
-Quite a few stops are often only 100 meters apart
-In older streets that have one lane on either side of the tram tracks the councils often allow curb side parking - meaning people park in that one lane, meaning all traffic is forced on the tram tracks meaning all traffic grinds to a halt!
-The lightrail extensions to Bundoorah and Vermont South are useless, they take too long, go too far out, and carry too few people to be worthwhile for the investment. And once they turn onto road operation they slow right down anyway.
-So many routes in the North going to/from the city but nothing going across them :\
>>893740
so now you post your city dummy
Barcelona commuter rail network
apparently you guys in Melbourne share many of our pros and cons, only here the focus has been more on useless HSR lines than on highways.
>Pros:
-Covers most main corridors
-Good commercial speeds on some lines
-Decent connections within the city proper
>Cons:
-The whole mainline system is awfully run down, breakdowns and delays are constant, you have to calculate at least half an hour extra time if you need to be somewhere in time
-Doesn't help that the two mainline tunnels across the city are utterly congested, all the while we have a huge terminus station that's completely underused, and instead of building some flying junctions to be able to get more out of this the plan is to build another tunnel, which will take ages. God forbid people have to take the subway for three or four more stops because the train doesn't get to the other end of the city.
-One of the lines is single tracked
-We direly need 4-track sections on some lines (at least the ones carrying regional services), but this is also useless if the city centres capacity isn't improved
-The line along the northern coast has way too many stations, making it slow as balls. There's been a project to make a bypass for faster trains, but obviously nothing has been done so far, not even a specific project.
-The metre gauge system (thick bunch of lines on the left side of the map that ends abruptly when reaching the city) has way too many stops, with all trains stopping at nearly all of them, making services extremely slow. It needs at least a 4 track section on the busiest part to keep up frequencies and allow faster trains, but the last stretch is in a tunnel which would be fuckexpensive to turn into 4 tracks. Better still would be a more direct access to the city instead going so far down.
cont'd
>>893797
More cons:
-Standard gauge system (bunch of lines going south to north in the very center of the map) only admits 4 car trains, so despite 12 minute frequency on either branch it's always full to the brim.
Pic related is our terminus station, nowadays just used for one commuter line, and a couple of regional lines which run southwards. What an utter waste, they could at least let all regionals end at this station, freeing up some capacity in the tunnels for commuter services.
Barcelona subway and tram network
>Pros:
-Pretty good subway density for such a small city
-Trains run frequently, every 2.5 minutes during rush hour, every 3-6 on off-hours (depends if workday, weekend, time of day,...)
-Tram system is 2nd gen, so it's all ROW'd, making it pretty fast, stops aren't too close together, and trams are big
>Cons:
-Subway is laid out in a radial fashion around the historic center, which is not entirely adequate to today's center of activity. Line 9 which would work as a semi-circular line to break the radial pattern is on hold because it was such a megalomaniac project and we ran out of money (typical retard spaniard politicians voted by retard spaniards)
-Tram expansion isn't advancing because of NIMBYs, when we'd need a SHITLOAD of tram lines to cope with extremely crowded bus lines. There's one line projected, which would link up the two systems, and there's been loads of fucktards getting up in arms over it, spouting a plethora of bullshit arguments which make no sense at all.
-buses are painfully slow, sometimes slower than walking. Bus lanes, if they have them, are on the right side of the street so they get blocked constantly by cars, right turns, etc.. They're reorganizing bus lines lately, but it's pointless since they're not doing anything to cope with shitty service conditions.
Overall, I can't give this city's transportation more than 3-4/10. We have 7/10 infrastructure, but it's just not being properly taken advantage of. You could do much, much more with much less money. But all anyone cares about is to pamper cagers.
>>893738
Needs perimeter lines. So the suburbs can go around the city and encourage growth outside the city.
>>893817
>just build lines that go through empty parks and mountains
Brilliant planning anon.
>>893839
it is better than requiring people that aren't going into the city. to go into the city to get some place outside the city.
>>893867
You'd probably be better off campaigning for planning reform and perimeter tram lines. There probably isn't enough traffic outside of the CBD to justify a full subway/commuter perimeter system and a grade-separated tram system would probably work better going along the main road arteries (and would avoid having to cross mountains and parks). Plus, any major transit development outside of the CBD would be useless if the current framework that prioritizes low-density land sprawl over intensification remained in place.
Dublin Commuter Rail Network
Pros:
-At least there's trains, DART has far more potential than it can offer at the moment.
-They quad tracked a part of the Western line to Adamstown to possibly have a more frequent service in the future.
Cons:
-Poor coverage. It only only really cover the East coast with the DART service and along the two canals in Dublin in the Northwest line to Maynooth and the Western line in the city.
-Even with that, DART is the only service with an adequate service, with trains each direction about every 12 minutes at peak, being 15 off peak. This is due to this track being the only piece of electrified rail in the country, some other lines are pretty run down, and gets as bad as 1 train an hour per direction off peak. The Northwest line still has manual level crossings.
-In 30 years since the DART started, the only extensions have been to Greystones, which has limited service due to only having one track to it, and Malahide, which means everyone north of Howth Junction gets half the service. NIMBYs also blocked a terminating platform there, so it just blocks trains going further north to other commuter towns and to Belfast. This line really needs at least a third rail for these services.
-Busiest section of track in the city centre has only two tracks from Connolly to Pearse, and most trains go through it, causing a lot of congestion and creating a bottleneck at Connolly. Western commuters have to go to Heuston at the edge of the city centre.
-Delays are frequent at rush hour in the city centre.
-Basic shit like terminating some northern trains at rush hour at Connolly and allowing transfers to the other city centre stations via the DART or another commuter isn't done to increase capacity. There's another point on the DART line where the train depot is about 200m from a station, but for off peak trains they stop at the depot to exchange drivers rather than exchanging at the station 200m away.
>>893895
Tram Network:
Pros:
-Pretty frequent, and the trams are quite long.
Cons:
-Not very many extensions of the network have happened, most have been to areas that don't have that many people anyway, having an interchange with the two lines only happen in 2017, 13 years after the lines were first built.
-Poor coveage of the network across Dublin, leaving many places particularily in in North Dublin having to rely on the shitty bus system.
-The lines they run on are fairly full, and some of the areas they serve have the numbers to justify commuter or metro services. The Green line in particular is pretty bad, this was built on an old commuter line and should at least be pre metro by now.
-The lines are pretty slow in the city centre, it's almost as fast as walking, and the Red Line takes a very windy route throughout Southwest Dublin, making it pretty slow.
The bus network is shit in the city.
-Most of the buses go to the exact same place in the city centre, causing an overload to the bus network in this area.
-Most of the buses are pretty slow. The bus lanes are poorly built, in some areas there's way too many bus stops, and in the suburbs they spend a long time driving through badly planned areas, trying to serve as many people as possible.
-In many cases the bus network tries to compete directly with commuter rail or the trams, and have fuck all integration with any other service.
-Even basic shit isn't done, if a bus has 2 doors they don't use the second one most of the time.
-Orbital routes are all slow too, and there aren't nearly enough of them. Feeder bus services are non-existant.
The city is trying to bring in BRT but they're going to share the same routes as the normal network, and in one case it's going along a line which is planned to have a metro a couple of years later.
>>893895
>>893901
A lot of the problems above are due to the city council having very few powers, villages in other countries have more power than Dublin has, most decisions are made in the national parliament. The city council was even split into 4 councils to stop it getting more powerful. Due to this, many projects such as fixing potholes on every minor road in the country are favoured rather than bigger projects, this mostly leaves Dublin with piecemeal extensions to the current network.
The government prefer to spend big on roads too, at the moment we're spending about 250 million euro on a motorway connecting Tuam, a town of 10,000 people and a bypass of another town with 1,000 people in the West of Ireland. The shit transport in Dublin also pushes a fuck load of people onto the main motorway bypass of Dublin, the M50, which was very poorly built and doesn't have the capacity to transport loads of commuters in Dublin, and act as a bypass of dublin or a feeder route into other motorways. Bad planning is continuing to cause a lot of low density sprawl and many industrial estates being built right off the M50 and way further out.
NIMBYs in Dublin don't want an underground metro or DART system either. There's also people outside of Dublin who think if Dublin gets a metro or underground tunnel, why can't they? Plans such as DART Underground and Metro North keep getting shot down and redrawn for a large cost for essentially the same project again and again for about 40 years now. Currently Metro North got redrawn and they hope to start building it in 2021, plenty of time to cancel and redraw it again. Before we get any of this though, we'll probably get shit projects such as a second M50.
I'll give transport in Dublin a 2/10. All those nice plans they come up with though get at least a 7/10. Just search for a transport map of Dublin and you'll find one easily, even Wikipedia has plans for a network rather than the actual network on the Transport in Dublin page.
>>893901
>The city is trying to bring in BRT but they're going to share the same routes as the normal network, and in one case it's going along a line which is planned to have a metro a couple of years later.
Word of warning: that's going to be a disaster. My city implemented a BRT system and ended up having most bus routes utilize it and the thing quickly reached capacity and was filled with empty buses going all over the city. They're now spending 2 billion dollars rebuilding the BRT corridor into a subway system and reorganizing the bus system around the new line using the hub and spoke model.
>I'll give transport in Dublin a 2/10
Hey but I hear your rent-a-bike system is a 10/10.
/s
Thanks for sharing anon.
>>893922
>They're now spending 2 billion dollars rebuilding the BRT corridor into a subway system and reorganizing the bus system around the new line using the hub and spoke model.
What city is this.
Also like >>893922 said BRT has been pretty much a disaster everywhere it has been implemented. The only people who have done BRT right is Brazilians but to build a system like that in North America you might as well just make it a Tram or Streetcar. I'm shocked that a country that is experiencing such a massive amount of economic growth that Ireland has you guys aren't rolling in money and building underground subways right now.
>>893901
>Tram cons
>not many extensions
>two lines are separate
>bus network is shit
> in the suburbs they spend a long time driving through badly planned areas, trying to serve as many people as possible.
>at the moment we're spending about 250 million euro on a motorway connecting Tuam, a town of 10,000 people and a bypass of another town with 1,000 people
>There's also people outside of Dublin who think if Dublin gets a metro or underground tunnel, why can't they?
Holy mother of god, are you some kind of lost spaniard offspring or something? It sounds just like basically the same problems that plague transit in Spain.
>>893950
>BRT has been pretty much a disaster everywhere it has been implemented.
absolutely. The only instances of a BRT working out is where it's been built to standards that could perfectly have light-rail running on it, and that just makes you wonder why not go for light rail instead.
>>893956
And the Chicago city government is trying to build a BRT system on Ashland ave which connects north and south Chicago. They want to do it because they're to fucking cheap to build a proper circle line. It's been a shitshow trying to plan it at public meetings and it will probably be nothing more than non-protected bus lanes that will be used as turn-lanes for soccer moms in SUVs, cabbies trying to get somewhere quick, cyclists, and probably parking spaces too. Don't even get me started on "Loop Link" BRT proposals too, those bus lanes will probably be nothing more than glorified parking spaces and will do about as good as NYC's bus lanes (read:worthless)
>>893955
>Holy mother of god, are you some kind of lost spaniard offspring or something? It sounds just like basically the same problems that plague transit in Spain.
I don't think you quite grasp how those are problems present in many nations.
Universal values may not be a fact but it seems that NIMBYism and bureaucratic incompetency transcend cultural boundaries.
>>893950
>What city is this.
Ottawa, Canada.
Incidentally it's also a capital (the actual structure of governance at a municipal level is completely different though).
>The only people who have done BRT right is Brazilians
Ehhhh... The systems implemented in South America are also mostly failures. I'm sure anons who live in Bogota,a Rio or any other city that drank the kool-aid could elaborate on the overcrowding problems those systems suffer.
BRT only really works when it's complementing an existing high capacity rail system (the BRT systems in China are good examples of that and the system in Buenos Aires is also pretty good).
>>893960
>and probably parking spaces too
Why the hell does that happen? They just finished 'urbanizing' a street near my house and in the process added bus/taxi lanes to ease bus congestion at the local hub yet for whatever reason some jackass at the traffic department left parking spaces in the bus lanes thereby making it useless 70% of the time and forcing bus drivers to merge into the other crowded lane. Seriously, how does this type of shit happen?
>>893960
Don't think of BRT as a drop in for a singular transit line -- when multiple bus routes converge onto a trunk, it's entirely logical to reserve dedicated lanes, use TSP, and implement BRT-like features on that stretch to mitigate bus bunching effects and increase throughput through the city center. Moreover, these practices are standard in Europe, where they use the alternate terminology "the bus".
http://www.humantransit.org/bus-rapid-transit/
>>893797
>HSR
>useless
Nope
And HSR isn't for use in a city and its suburbs, it takes you to other cities hundreds of kilometers away
>>893817
Thats literally the retarded thing I have ever seen.
Most of that would be going through empty wilderness.
The Dandenong Ranges.
The Warrandyte Ranges.
There is no demand.
Plus there is already a rail link between the Craigieburn line and Upfield line, its used for freight and shunting.
>>893798
Gauge doesn't restrict how many carriages you can couple together, there must be an issue with turns or platforms aren't long enough
>>893739
>-In older streets that have one lane on either side of the tram tracks the councils often allow curb side parking - meaning people park in that one lane, meaning all traffic is forced on the tram tracks meaning all traffic grinds to a halt!
the horror... the horror...
>>893964
>BRT only really works when it's complementing an existing high capacity rail system (the BRT systems in China are good examples of that and the system in Buenos Aires is also pretty good).
so you mean buses coming to a railway station terminal, well thats true then of any bus route
>>893992
>And HSR isn't for use in a city and its suburbs, it takes you to other cities hundreds of kilometers away
Spain built too many HSR corridors (some corridors service exclusively farms and small villages) and in the process starved city of capital that could have been used to upgrade commuter networks in the cities.
>>893998
>so you mean buses coming to a railway station terminal, well thats true then of any bus route
Sure but BRT systems fill a nice niche in areas that are not dense enough for a subway extension but are dense enough to justify some form of rapid transit service.
>>894001
subway/elevated is metro and metro is inside a city
its not burbs
>>894026
Sure but that's another debate onto itself. I'm just saying that BRT/LRT systems can be useful ways to expand the reach of a good transit system but BRT systems alone can't serve as good backbones.
