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ChineseWorld Subway Systems Compared
This is interesting.
A commenter on a Curbed LA post about Damien Goodman’s ambitious-yet-improbable plan for a $40 billion rail transit system in Los Angeles posted a link to this website that shows the world’s subway systems represented graphically and to the same scale. What’s interesting is that many people feel that Los Angeles is simply too sprawling and covers too much physical space for an effective rail rapid transit system to be feasible, yet if you look at the map, many of the more famous systems cover a comparable area. Take for example the London Underground, a massive system that covers much of the 609 square miles that encompass the city:
And compare it with the Los Angeles, a physically smaller city at 498 square miles:
I rode the London system daily when I studied there in college and I have to say, as massive as the city is, I was able to traverse, study, work, and play without any problems (or car). The system is that comprehensive.
Discussion
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I took the subway in Nagoya, Japan all the time.. loved it. And this is just the subway system within the city.. it doesn’t even include the many lines connecting every town in the country..
Curbed la is posting the la dream as well
perhaps the more people that keep dreaming this the more feasible this will become. And though i’ve never been on foreign city train lines i’m amazed at how large theirs are and how weak we are with that same old lame excuse of “LA’s just too big”. SUCK IT UP and lets start building… oh wait, Aqua (expo) broke ground yesterday… perhaps ol’ bob was right, times, they are a changin’.
Wow, the map has about 75 posts on L.A. Curbed and Blogging L.A.
Any time there’s a transit related post in the greater LA blogosphere they always seem to be the most passionately commented and debated. It’s funny because I think that map gets posted every few months on some elhay blog, and then same response explodes.
This was taken from taken from today’s (September 29, 2006) entry in Los Angeles Transportation Headlines:
Editors Note: Today marks the 20th anniversary of breaking ground on the Metro Red Line and the beginning of urban rail’s return to Los Angeles. Since then 73 miles of urban fixed guideway and 453 miles of commuter rail have opened to passenger service.
So 1986 was the ground breaking on the Red Line. The Blue Line began service in 1990. The (first) MTA removed the last of the Los Angeles Railway streetcars in 1963. That means LA had 27 years without rail transit. If streetcars started in 1885 and rail transit continues today, that means LA has had 94 years WITH rail transit in the city and only 27 years without any. Almost four times as many years with rail than without.
I guess that puts the lie to LA as the “car-based city.”
unfortunately those 27 years without rail transit have, to use the parlance of teh internet, pwned us. but things are obviously on the up-and-up.
[...] via MetroRiderLA, I see that Damien’s proposed system actually covers a smaller area than the London subway [...]