Transit redundancy

One of the reasons that I have been a strong proponent of the separated blue line proposal (by WMATA in 2001) is that it adds capacity and redundancy to the subway system in the core of the city.

Certainly the crippling of red line service, the most heavily used subway line of the 5 in the WMATA system, due to the crash earlier in the week demonstrates this.

Conceptualization of tunneling for the Tysons extension (Silver Line) by the Tysons Tunnel organization introduced the concept of double stacked tunnels, which I think should be considered for a separate blue line.


And even Michael S's "brown line" proposal, which has been modified from his original as indicated in the conceptual map I use in my transportation wish list compilation.

Map graciously produced by David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington.

But with regard to redundancy and transit optimality, I hate to admit that when we were house shopping, sometimes I let my like/love of a house temporarily trump transit considerations.

While we didn't state it at the time, we ended up looking for an area with easy access to the subway (where we live is just under 1 mile to the Takoma station, an easy and attractive walk over flat terrain), but there is also a bus line about three blocks away which provides service between Takoma and Petworth stations all the time, and service to and from downtown during rush periods (as well as basic amenities such as supermarkets and other retail and restaurants). While Suzanne likes to ride the bus home from work for added decompression time, we don't ride the bus very often otherwise, except this week, due to the disruptions on the red line... And the service is very convenient and reasonably reliable.