Penn Station spur in Pittsburgh.
11.03.2026 12:01
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Penn Station spur in Pittsburgh.
There are no fully grade separated lines on the system, and it would even be hard to separate the ones that have street running somewhere, but you could split into two sets of lines and you could tie new tunnel into grade separated segments.
It was also based on keeping the lines connected the same way, so the current Green and Orange had to be the ones in the tunnel, and it had to branch at Deep Ellum so Orange could continue to run onto Red north of downtown. (Thus downtown street level delays could still ripple into the tunnel.)
Here's the 2021 version. Note that it crosses the existing alignment between stations, misses the office towers in Uptown, and has street level segments on both ends.
My take on the D2 subway was that, as originally conceived, it was only designed for peak hour capacity, not for all day frequency, connectivity between lines, or serving more of Downtown. If they do a downtown subway it deserves a rethink.
Exactly! And they were already tunneling -- they could have stayed underground a bit longer and made it campus. (But that's not the worst walk from station to university they have.)
They even left out a station in a freeway subway because of NIMBY opposition. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knox%E2...
They went down a freeway, but in a subway! All the money of tunneling combined with the low ridership of a highway alignment.
The McKinney Avenue Trolley does quite well, probably because it runs where the light rail should have.
But it met its design goals: as much track as possible reaching as many member cities as possible. Ridership just wasn't a design goal. And now the current DART board and management have to figure out how to make the best of all that infrastructure in the wrong places.
The light rail is really big but low ridership for its size. 1st in system length in the US but something like 20th in ridership per mile.
The north and west sides are decent in terms of street grid. But the areas of high density are a little more scattered than in Houston and more of the office towers are on freeway frontage roads rather than arterials.
DART not having a lot of bus service has been consistent for the entire history of the agency.
(Though they did have to cut service for a while post-COVID due to bus operator shortages.)
That went along with adding frequency to fixed routes, though -- it wasn't a contraction in service.
DART has 570 buses. Houston METRO has 1,118.
A lot more bus service, for one thing. But a frequent version of TRE plus a version of the red/orange spine with some better alignment decisions might make sense.
69 degrees and so many people are out on the path. (But the forecast includes possible snow.)
Sunset on the Yahara.
Lake ice status.
If only there was opportunity for massive corruption in going to Chicago like there was in crossing Wyoming...
and then couldn't figure out the farm fields of Illinois!
It's remarkable how many mergers it took the UP to manage "assemble a well-engineered line from Chicago to the Pacific," which ATSF got done in 1908.
"In historic preservation, we must tell all the stories -- those of the super rich and also those of the somewhat rich."
I'm sorry, but when you start with "It's easy for historical narratives to highlight the grand and powerful" and that leads you to the conclusion that we need to tell the stories of "upper middle class families" like manufacturing company owners you may be missing quite a few stories.
The 2025 report details progress producing housing in Madison, leading to an improved rental vacancy rate, but demand still outpaces new supply as land and construction costs continue to rise. Those factors continue to limit housing choice across Madison, especially for low-income households.
Blurred Rapid Transit.
Rainy morning on the tow route. (Thank your local parking enforcement officer — they’re keeping the streets moving!)
We got a thing with our names on it for being good at Transit Signal Priority tonight. 🎉🚍🚦
There are slow chargers at Ingersoll (which is really close to where the 75 goes out of service inbound) and Hanson, so it depends. Some of the same buses do 75 and 55 and can charge at Junction but both routes end up at the garage once the morning peak is done.