Commuter trains don't mean "trains to downtown"

[CHamilton]

A story from Southern California focuses on the simple fact that people don't all work in center cities any more, and commuter services need to recognize that.

 

[jis]

Actually in areas where suburban service is extensively used, this fact is already recognized, though it has taken many many years for the railroads to come around to recognize this fact

 

[TinCan782]

In my case, I commute through LA Union Station to a Metrolink destination that has a station within walking distance of my work location. In the morning, I ride Metrolink on the Ventura County Line to LAUS where I take a bus for the remainder of the trip. That bus leaves me at the aforementioned Metrolink Station! The reverse in the evening...bus to LAUS then Metrolink to my "home" station.

The problem: These trains emphasize frequency inbound in the morning while there is very infrequent outbound service; the reverse in the afternoon. I believe this is called a "reverse commute". The result is that I need use bus at the work end of my commute. Its not long but, I'd rather be on a train than a bus.

 

[jis]

That is not so true in the New York area anymore. Lots and lots of so called reverse commute service these days..... not as much as the forward commute but still not inadequate at all.

 

[fairviewroad]

"Reverse commute" are still "trains to downtown", though. It's only the time of day that's reversed.

That's different than routes that don't come into a downtown at all. Those remain relatively rare in North America, at least for

heavy rail lines. And the handful that do exist are a mixed bag in terms of success. The reality is that you need a certain level

of density in terms of jobs in order for a commuter train to be sustainable. Yes, lots of people work in the suburbs, but unless

you pair a non-traditional commuter line with a robust network of shuttle busses to solve the "last-mile" problem, you probably

aren't going to draw many people out of their cars.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Most transportation on this country is hub and spoke. What makes rail so special?

 

[MattW]

Local bus service isn't necessarily hub and spoke. But just because that's how it's "always" done doesn't mean it's how it should continue to be done. But providing options is one thing, I don't think we need to encourage un-focused employment centers which become inefficient to serve.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Non hub and spoke commuter rail in a large system would be quite frankly impossibly expensive to operate.

 

[jis]

Take Paris as an example. There are a few trains that run completely outside the city center. Very very few. Most trains pass through the city center in their itinerary. Consider Berlin too. Only trains that do not touch the city center are the ones that run circle service on the outer circle line. Most of everything alse touches one fo the city center stations. Consider London. Again, most trains touch one of the city center terminals. There are but a few exceptions.

However, that does not preclude people from traveling suburb to suburb sometimes with a train change at a connecting station even outside of the city center area. This is also true of service in New York for example. So to say that you cannot provide suburb to suburb travel options with commute and reverse commute services to or through the city center shows a certain level of unfamiliarity with how these systems operate.

 

[the_traveler]

When I was in WAS, I wanted to ride MARC from WAS out to Rockville to meet someone coming in on the CL and ride back to WAS with them. However, on that line all trains come into WAS in the morning with NO outbound trains until the evening! Luckily, the METRO station is right next to the Amtrak stop. So METRO won and MARC lost.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

Take Paris as an example. There are a few trains that run completely outside the city center. Very very few. Most trains pass through the city center in their itinerary. Consider Berlin too. Only trains that do not touch the city center are the ones that run circle service on the outer circle line. Most of everything alse touches one fo the city center stations. Consider London. Again, most trains touch one of the city center terminals. There are but a few exceptions.

However, that does not preclude people from traveling suburb to suburb sometimes with a train change at a connecting station even outside of the city center area. This is also true of service in New York for example. So to say that you cannot provide suburb to suburb travel options with commute and reverse commute services to or through the city center shows a certain level of unfamiliarity with how these systems operate.

Besides happenstance branch line junctions that you can manage to change to outside of city centers (I mean, try to call changing at Rahway a functionally useful connection and I'll bury you) where is there useful, sanely timed, vague coordinated suburb to suburb trips in the New York area?

 

[jis]

Besides happenstance branch line junctions that you can manage to change to outside of city centers (I mean, try to call changing at Rahway a functionally useful connection and I'll bury you) where is there useful, sanely timed, vague coordinated suburb to suburb trips in the New York area?

NJT tends to make it as hard as possible to make use of many of the possibilities. But I am amazed that in spite of being buried by GML people actually change at Rahway to go from NJCL west to NEC west and vice versa. I frankly would not do so. But it is done.
Having said that there are basically two types of suburb to suburb usage possible. One is along a single route, and this is done a lot and is facilitated by the fact that NJT has at least hourly service in both directions on many of its lines all day, and on some it has more frequent service during morning and evening rush hours. The second kind is interline, where one needs to change trains. Such opportunities exist at Newark Penn, Newark Broad, Secaucus, Rahway, Trenton, Summit, Dover and Ridgewood. Some of those are somewhat usable and other are tough to use with the current schedules. It does amaze me though seeing some of them being used by real people as such at all.

 

[xyzzy]

The political structures that put downtown-oriented mass transit systems in place have no incentive to change their approach. The last thing they want to do is facilitate cross-suburb mass transit.

 

[cirdan]

Take Paris as an example. There are a few trains that run completely outside the city center. Very very few. Most trains pass through the city center in their itinerary. Consider Berlin too. Only trains that do not touch the city center are the ones that run circle service on the outer circle line. Most of everything alse touches one fo the city center stations. Consider London. Again, most trains touch one of the city center terminals. There are but a few exceptions.

However, that does not preclude people from traveling suburb to suburb sometimes with a train change at a connecting station even outside of the city center area. This is also true of service in New York for example. So to say that you cannot provide suburb to suburb travel options with commute and reverse commute services to or through the city center shows a certain level of unfamiliarity with how these systems operate.

However, in both Paris and London the trains are just part of a broader transportation system, and not even the most important part of that. Both London and Paris have densely meshed metro systems that are not really hub and spoke but interconnect different points. In terms of significance, commuter rail is pretty much second fiddle but of course it extends out further.

Maybe you could compare that to NYC but not really to LA. Even big cities such as Chicago don't have such a meshed metro. All Chicago lines converge on the central area and furthermore don't interchange with Metra (or South Shore for that matter) particularly well (and don't even directly serve the same stations).

Furthermore, both London and Paris don't just have metros and commuter rail but they also have streetcars or light rail. They arem't all over the city as they used to but in certain corridors they are making a comeback. In many cases the streetcars establish inter-neighborhoods connections in ways that commuter rail would not be able to do (bits of the London Croydon system actually replace previously underutilized commuter rail lines, but there is also plenty of new trackage). The London Docklands scheme permits light rail to penetrate areas where heavy rail would be unthinkable. The system is a huge success. It is highly popular and keeps on growing. Paris is working towards a full ring streetcar and has already built a good part of the way around the ring although there are still big gaps and completion is more a long term objective. There is thus a clear break away from the traditional hub and spoke topology. But of course this works only because the hub and spoke is there and working and these tangental lines are thus in addition and not pretending to be the backbone of the system or pretending that nobody needs hub and spoke any more.

These investments are also in response to actual demand. The biggest congestion in both London and Paris occurs on the ring roads, not the hub and spoke arteries. This is because you've got to be crazy to want to drive downtown anyway, and those who still do so thus obviously are crazy. A certain saturation has thus been reached in the potential to entice further drivers to switch on such routes. But a lot of normal reasonable people still think the best way to travel inter-suburb is to drive. System planners thus recoignise this is the next objective to go after and that an attractive alternative is thus required.