A rich and robust transit system part 2

Dan of BeyondDC has posted two new maps outlining his thinking about possibilities for providing enhanced transit service in the Washington region. See "Don't call it a fantasy." This complements the efforts of David in Greater Greater Washington. David's creation of a customized map for this blog is at the heart of part of the "The revised revised People's Transportation Plan/2008 Transit-Transportation wish list" blog entry from February.

I will say that I am with The Bellows, see "Trade-offs" on some of this. I think that the investment in expanding the heavy rail (subway) is necessary, primarily in DC proper, in order to maintain and strengthen the city's economic (and livability) competitiveness within the region.
It's important to think about this in terms of (at least) five dimensions, which I wrote about in a blog entry separate from the Wish List, in "The DC Transit Network." (I will reprint the main section of that entry at the end.). The main point relevant to all these ideas is that the Primary transit networks, in DC and/or regionally, are designed not just to move lots of people quickly, but support economic development and livability objectives that can be quantified.

The primary network should be high speed with dedicated lines. Streetcars are cool, but two streetcars equals capacity of less than two subway cars, and is a lot slower. High speed likely means heavy rail (subway) and railroad. As an interim measure, or because the demand doesn't exist at levels necessary to support the huge capital investment of heavy rail, bus rapid transit could be an interim measure.

Streetcars (which are lighter rail, so I don't call it light rail, although Tacoma, which has streetcars, calls it light rail even as Sound Transit is building a true light rail line) are for the provision of secondary transit network service within DC and the counties.

Ideally, maybe so would light rail. The purple line should probably be heavy rail, but the money isn't there to make it so. Since the Purple Line isn't within DC, I won't agitate about it. However, as the Transit Wish List makes clear, I will continue to agitate for a separated blue line (colored Silver in the map below) and even the conceptual Brown Line as put forward by Michael S. because these are DC specific transportation investments. In DC for a variety of sound economic reasons, the case can be made for heavy rail expansion, maybe even more than for to the Dulles Airport.

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The transit network

Regional Transit Network: Regional WMATA subway system; MARC and VRE railroad service; ferry system if added; cross-jurisdictional bus rapid transit; commuter bus services from suburbs to the major job centers within the region, across jurisdictional boundaries (i.e., OmniRide from Prince William County, which provides commuter-oriented service to Metro stations and job centers, with an end point in DC [and back] or the MTA Commuter buses).

Suburban Transit Network: transit systems (bus primarily at this time) operated by Counties and Cities providing intra-community service, with some border crossing, but mostly intra-community; cross-border WMATA bus service.

DC Primary Transit Network: Core of the WMATA system in DC (29 stations); streetcar system; Downtown Circulator bus service; Georgetown Connector shuttle service; cross-border WMATA bus service; bus rapid/rapider transit.

DC Secondary Transit Network: the other 11 subway stations in the city; other WMATA bus service within the city; intra-city water taxi service if added, depending on the routes.

DC Tertiary Transit Network: intra-neighborhood bus services. Maybe private shuttle services (i.e., Washington Hospital Center to/from Brookland Metro, university shuttle services, etc.).

These 29 subway stations at the core of the city of Washington comprise the foundation of the DC Primary Transit Network.

Note that if the two new subway lines were added in the city, as proposed on the map below, then this would change the definition of the core of the DC Primary Transit Network considerably.

Conceptual map for transit expansion in the DC. Map courtesy of David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington.