Philadelphia rail compared to others on the same scale

Recently I traveled to New York City (via the 13, MFL, PATCO, NJ Transit Riverline, NJ NEC) to give a friend SEPTA's city and suburban transit maps. (And of course to remind myself why Philadelphia is so much more livable and enjoyable than the affluent Babylon called NYC.)

This friend is working on an interesting mapping project at

http://www.fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/index.html

He's attempting to show the world's subways systems accurately on the same scale. (instead of the geographic distortions provided by simplified transit maps)

Philadelphia, however, provides an interesting problem. What exactly should be included? His criterea seem to embrace an almost Platonic definition of "subway". After all El's, at-grade, and single car light rail appear to be included in some of the maps. But not commuter heavy rail as far as I can tell. But in some instances light rail is not included too.

What advice would you give fakeisthenewreal.org in terms of constructing the Philadelphia map? What would you like to see included? Just the MFSE and the BSS plus the Ridge Spur? How about the green lines just to the 40th street portal? The entire Subway-Surface Green lines? What about the returning rt 15 PCCs? Hell, what about the R1, R7 chestnut hill, R8 chestnut hill and fox chase? What about the 100, 101, 102? PATCO to Franklin Sq, Camden, or Lindenwold?

Or maybe the entire rail infrastructure minus Amtrak and freights but including PATCO and the Atlantic City line?

Or should we keep it simple just the subway and the el, to remind us of the the sad fact that philadelphia may never ever be a world class city that lives and dies by rapid rail transit (like NYC, London, Tokyo, and Paris?).

I would suggest including all of rail lines, excluding the regional rails. Include routes 100, 101 & 103, all subway-surface lines beyond 40th street, Patco, BSS, Ridge Spur, and MFL.

worldtraveler wrote:I would suggest including all of rail lines, excluding the regional rails. Include routes 100, 101 & 103, all subway-surface lines beyond 40th street, Patco, BSS, Ridge Spur, and MFL.

If you do that, you'll be right in line with the FRA's jurisdictional distinctions. FRA defines all of the lines mentioned as "Urban Rapid Transit" over which it does not claim regulatory authority unless there is a connection with the "general railroad system" which includes commuter rail, ie the RRD.

Don't include anything that stops at traffic lights!

I'd only include the Market Frankford Line, Broad Street Subway, Ridge Ave Subway, and PATCO to Lindenwold. Perhaps the Subway Surface lines, but no further than 40th Street if included at all.

I'm not really an authority on all of the systems depicted so far, but I'm familiar with 11 of them, and the rules seems to be as follows:
(1) All heavy-rail subway and el lines are in;
(2) Subway-surface type light rail (i.e. Boston Green lines) and grade-separated light rail (i.e. London Docklands Light Railway), Boston Ashmont-Mattapan line) are in;
(3) Heavy rail suburban lines are out, even if underground (i.e. Berlin S-Bahn, Paris RER, BART, PATH, MetroNorth, LIRR, NJT, and Tokyo suburban lines that run in subway during rush hours); and
(4) Not-grade separated light rail is out (i.e. HBLRT, San Francisco F line, London's Croydon tramlink, the Toronto system, etc.)

So Market-Frankford and Broad Street lines are in (Rule 1), Subway Surface lines and Norristown high-speed line are in (Rule 2), Patco is out (Rule 3); and all other light rail lines are out (Rule 4).

IMHO, the PATCO line should be included in the map as long as the BSL and EL are on there. I mean, the Subway and PATCO are basically the exact same system (which I believe were supposed to be at one point). The only difference to the 'layman' is that PATCO has a lot more surface running than the BSL does. PATCO is grade separated unless there is some street running that I don't know about.

I say, include it!

queenlnr8 wrote:IMHO, the PATCO line should be included in the map as long as the BSL and EL are on there. I mean, the Subway and PATCO are basically the exact same system (which I believe were supposed to be at one point). The only difference to the 'layman' is that PATCO has a lot more surface running than the BSL does. PATCO is grade separated unless there is some street running that I don't know about.

Yep, PATCO is all grade separated.

I would include:

-Rt. 100
-Rt. 102
-Broad St. Line/Ridge Spur
-Subway Surface Lines
-MFL
-PATCO
-River Line
-R1, Airport-Glenside

Back to PATCO, I think another reason some people think of it more as a commuter rail is because of the commuter rail style seating and trains. To me, PATCO has always been a subway.

I see a bit of a slippery slope of adding the R1 Airport into the mix. I mean, if you add the Airport line, why not all the other commuter rail lines? What about route 101?

I definitely think PATCO belongs in there as it was essentially built to be part of the same system that the BSL is in as QueenLane said.

queenlnr8 wrote: ...the Subway and PATCO are basically the exact same system (which I believe were supposed to be at one point).

They were the same system. There were times when the bridge train went from Camden to 8th & Market, then reversed direction and ran up the Ridge Ave line to Girard.

SubwaySurface wrote:I see a bit of a slippery slope of adding the R1 Airport into the mix. I mean, if you add the Airport line, why not all the other commuter rail lines? What about route 101?

The only reason I said this is because the R1 line (Between the Airport and Glenside, via the downtown "subway") is considered the "main line", and has a more transit-like nature, with the exception of some suburban stations up by Glenside. Headways on this line are usually between 10-30 min., which is more transit like. I don't think the branch lines should be added, though.

matt1168 wrote:

SubwaySurface wrote:I see a bit of a slippery slope of adding the R1 Airport into the mix. I mean, if you add the Airport line, why not all the other commuter rail lines? What about route 101?

The only reason I said this is because the R1 line (Between the Airport and Glenside, via the downtown "subway") is considered the "main line", and has a more transit-like nature, with the exception of some suburban stations up by Glenside. Headways on this line are usually between 10-30 min., which is more transit like. I don't think the branch lines should be added, though.

The Airport line is considered the Main Line? Headways are every 30 minutes, no less anywhere on the schedule. Transit like nature? Conductors, commuter rail rolling stock... Not really conductive to the general concept of transit. It goes via the Center City Tunnel, however so does every other line (save for the R6 Cynwyd).

SubwaySurface wrote:The Airport line is considered the Main Line? Headways are every 30 minutes, no less anywhere on the schedule. Transit like nature? Conductors, commuter rail rolling stock... Not really conductive to the general concept of transit. It goes via the Center City Tunnel, however so does every other line (save for the R6 Cynwyd).

North of center city, where the R1 runs to Glenside (sometimes Warminster) with the R2, R3, and R5 lines, it is considered the mainline up to Glenside.

Also, with the exception of Eastwick more or less, stations on the R1 Airport Line resemble transit stations (all airport stations, University City)

matt1168 wrote:

SubwaySurface wrote:The Airport line is considered the Main Line? Headways are every 30 minutes, no less anywhere on the schedule. Transit like nature? Conductors, commuter rail rolling stock... Not really conductive to the general concept of transit. It goes via the Center City Tunnel, however so does every other line (save for the R6 Cynwyd).

North of center city, where the R1 runs to Glenside (sometimes Warminster) with the R2, R3, and R5 lines, it is considered the mainline up to Glenside.

Also, with the exception of Eastwick more or less, stations on the R1 Airport Line resemble transit stations (all airport stations, University City)

First of all, the R1 Airport doesn't originate/terminate in Glenside (except for a handful of runs), and hasn't for a while now. They either begin/end on the Warminster line or at Temple on weekdays. Secondly, I've never once heard this line referred to as the mainline (can a third-party confirm?). The only line referred to as the Main Line is, well, the Main Line... The R5 Paoli. It was the PRR's mainline. And as far as I know, the line that you're describing wasn't even the Reading's mainline.

(And of course to remind myself why Philadelphia is so much more livable and enjoyable than the affluent Babylon called NYC)

Well, to nitpick, Babylon is about 43 miles west of NYC, on Long Island...