Maps of historic public transit systems and their modern equivalents

April 3, 2019 6:20 AM

Artist Jake Berman maps old public transport systems and their modern equivalents, and generates 'swipe' images that allow you to compare them with each other. Jake's web site.
posted by carter (35 comments total)

This is amazing work and really makes clear what was lost when the government subsidized the automobile and suburbia. The fact is, cars just don't scale in cities, and we're going to have to rebuild what was lost as part of a mitigation strategy against climate change. But we are not doing it fast enough.

The Los Angeles one is particularly galling--they've basically just rebuilt parts of what they had. Every single one of LA's modern rail routes looks to be built on the same right-of-way (or similar enough) as what existed before, so they've simply spent billions of dollars to get back to what had already existed.
posted by Automocar at 6:44 AM on April 3, 2019 [8 favorites]

This is fascinating, but I don't think it shows a complete picture of the modern public transit system as it only shows rail transit and completely ignores busses.
posted by fimbulvetr at 6:45 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

The DC one, by focusing on the unbuilt 1940s subway, conceals just how much our current transit network pales in comparison to its pre-WW2 equivalents, both locally and regionally. This map, which shows the interurban rail and ferry connections to city networks between DC, Baltimore, Richmond and Wilmington gives some idea of how robust it was. Here is DC's streetcar and bus network on the eve of the war (and 20 years before the former network would be destroyed by Congressional order).

It feels like pushback against Washington as a city planned around the car, which has been going on for decades, is only now starting to get some serious traction. We have lost a lot.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:57 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

The Toronto maps are so damn depressing. Yeah, we've stretched out subways east and west, and we've built north, but the massive and ghostly northernmost stations are outside the city (provincial bribery of the suburbs that will continue) and the LRT lines that were supposed to help the Etobicoke in the west and Scarborough in the east (really part of Toronto, not the suburbs) were either disappeared from planning or replaced by bullshit promises of a three stop no one stop no three stop subway thanks to the Ford brothers, the province and our shitty current mayor.

And the relief line that is needed to address overwhelming congestion that will fucking kill somebody one day? Not gonna happen because the word "downtown" has been attached to it (never mind that it will also benefit those outside downtown) and that's elite and not For the People.

Jennifer Pagliaro on the Scarborough boondoggle: Part 1; Part 2.
posted by maudlin at 7:03 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I feel like the Toronto map, which is the only one I'm intimately familiar with, is a bit misleading. It looks like a less complete transit grid in many ways, but in fact, the modern version has much higher capacity subways, and an epic shit-ton of buses that aren't reflected. It also reflects some modern streetcar routes that are in shared lanes with vehicle traffic, which are pretty much a worst-of-both-worlds transit option. People like them because they're quieter and smoother than buses, but they get caught in traffic worse because they can't pass each other or anyone else. Some of the streetcars in Toronto run in their own right-of-way -- notably St. Clair, Spadina and Lakeshore -- and those are actually reasonably efficient, but to include the incredibly painful Queen Streetcar and not include some of the Express buses is to pick a fairly indefensible definition of what constitutes rapid transit.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:03 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

The Detroit and DC maps seem a bit misleading to me; they're comparisons of the actual modern systems to proposed but never built systems of the past. Proposing a grand ambitious system is easy, and of course those proposals are more extensive than what actually exists now! Detroit's public transit system is of course a tragic joke, but the fact that it didn't achieve the grandeur of the proposed plan is a very faint condemnation indeed. (WMATA, on the other hand, has a pretty good range of service; yes, they could serve the downtown better with surface rail, but their bus network isn't so bad)
posted by jackbishop at 7:08 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

If you really want to have a sad, Gallup's Greater Kansas City map of 1920 has streetcars to everywhere. I don't think it has interurban lines though. These allowed the patient passenger to travel great distances at reasonable cost.
posted by scruss at 7:12 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Even Iowa had a few interurban and streetcar networks around WWI.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:16 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

The article doesn't make this distinction, but buses aren't considered rapid transit unless they meet certain criteria: dedicated right-of-ways, prepayment, all-door boarding, and stops or stations that are spaced much further apart than usual, i.e. bus rapid transit or BRT. So I think it's appropriate not to include buses on these maps.

Contrasted to the bus I was on yesterday that was supposed to go down Market St and 19th St but instead made some meandering detours through Center City and then went down Broad St to South Philly instead of 19th for what I'm assuming is a good reason except the driver never said a word about what he was doing or why, confusing everyone on the bus. Total travel time: 45 minutes. Total distance: 3 miles.
posted by Automocar at 7:23 AM on April 3, 2019 [4 favorites]

Every single one of LA's modern rail routes looks to be built on the same right-of-way (or similar enough) as what existed before, so they've simply spent billions of dollars to get back to what had already existed.

Yeah, but those were streetcar lines, and a lot of the LA Metro is underground. My understanding was that a lot of the problem with the old streetcar system was that it was subject to street-level traffic. The modern Metro runs on dedicated lines; I can’t think of a place where it functions as a streetcar would.

I have lots and lots of thoughts about LA public transit, as someone who used to use it, but it does make sense to me that they would have moved a lot underground to avoid congestion.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:30 AM on April 3, 2019

Here is the complete TTC map, including busses.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:33 AM on April 3, 2019

Everyone's points about stuff that isn't there anymore are very interesting. It made me think that to actually try and get all the granular data to build more complete historical visualizations, could be very difficult. Getting all that data into one place and in an open format would be very useful.
posted by carter at 7:37 AM on April 3, 2019

The article doesn't make this distinction, but buses aren't considered rapid transit

The article is "historic public transit systems v their modern equivalents". I know people like rail better than busses and are nostalgic for the lost era of street-cars, but ignoring busses in many cases is ignoring the majority of the public transit system.

On-road streetcars that share the road with cars and other traffic don't meet your definition of "rapid transit", so most of those "before" maps should be discounted as well by that definition.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:43 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

I mean, that's true, but it's also true that historical streetcar systems operated better because there was much less automobile traffic. Comparing them to modern-day bus systems is not a fair comparison.
posted by Automocar at 7:44 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

Honestly some day a US city will buy some London-like double-decker buses with their bright-red livery or something equally distinctive and start running them downtown and in the fancy neighborhoods, and suddenly bus transit will be considered awesome in that city. (And then and only then, expand them citywide.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:48 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Most of those maps are well into the 20th century and cars were starting to clog the streets by then. But you can't say "busses aren't the same" when most of those maps were just... rail versions of busses. If busses were run on the Ancient Streets of Yore Before Cars they would operate just as well.
posted by fimbulvetr at 7:49 AM on April 3, 2019

The article doesn't make this distinction, but buses aren't considered rapid transit unless they meet certain criteria: dedicated right-of-ways, prepayment, all-door boarding, and stops or stations that are spaced much further apart than usual, i.e. bus rapid transit or BRT. So I think it's appropriate not to include buses on these maps.

But then, why include streetcars that feature few or none of those things? Only some of the TTC's streetcars have dedicated right-of-ways, none have prepayment (you have to tap when you get on the car or pay a fare), and they stop just as often as buses. They do now all have all-door boarding, I believe.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:50 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

I really like these, as maps.

I share the objection that the fixation on rail is a problem if you're really trying to navigate with these. In particular, busses are probably better than street-running rail in mixed traffic. If you want to really compare what transit service looks like you need to map routes that run frequently, regardless of the technology. But that's not what he's trying to do.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:50 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Honestly some day a US city will buy some London-like double-decker buses with their bright-red livery or something equally distinctive and start running them downtown and in the fancy neighborhoods, and suddenly bus transit will be considered awesome in that city. (And then and only then, expand them citywide.)

It'll never happen. There's no American manufacturer of double decker buses and most transit agencies are using at least some federal money to buy their buses, and they mostly can't buy foreign-made vehicles by law. Plus, articulated buses are better in nearly all circumstances.
posted by Automocar at 7:58 AM on April 3, 2019

I live in Ottawa... we have double-decker busses. The company builds a North American version which is manufactured in California. So there is hope!
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:03 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

There are 62 of them in Snohomish County, Washington.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:09 AM on April 3, 2019

The advantage of a double-decker over an articulated bus is that they carry the same number of people in a standard bus footprint, which increases the on-street capacity, especially in crowded downtowns.

Also, they don't jack-knife on hills in the winter like the articulated ones always seem to do in Ottawa.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:11 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Honestly some day a US city will buy some London-like double-decker buses with their bright-red livery or something equally distinctive and start running them downtown

We already have that in DC, just privatized.

The DC case actually seems more hopeful to me than any of the others - Metro's been struggling, but it's clear that service among the 'burbs has been a priority for quite a while, and anything that gets fewer cars into the city seems good. Transit in the inner city could be better, but I generally have pretty good experiences with bus/metro transfers. I hate those little fucking electric scooters but between them and capital bikeshare there really do seem to be a ton of people choosing some form of personal transit over cars, which is also positive. And a lot of this is apparently "last-leg" from public transit.

If we can get the water taxi functioning more like a part of the transit system and get the purple line up and running, I'm cautiously optimistic.*

*Aside from all the other crushing pessimism about everything to do with our government, both local and national, which around here is partly the same damn thing, also fuck you Larry Hogan, just fuck you.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:40 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

The Seattle Monorail makes me so mad because it’s such a missed opportunity.

BUT

Don’t even get me started on the failure of Forward Thrust...

The goverment was going to pay for like all of it...
posted by gc at 8:44 AM on April 3, 2019 [3 favorites]

Automocar: "I mean, that's true, but it's also true that historical streetcar systems operated better because there was much less automobile traffic. Comparing them to modern-day bus systems is not a fair comparison."

Our trolley system mostly ran on the same roads as cars and they were held up by streetlights and traffic the same way that busses are. Many of our bus lines still have the same route number as the trolley line that they replaced and basically run the same routes.
posted by octothorpe at 8:58 AM on April 3, 2019

I would love to see these maps for major European cities.
posted by conifer at 9:37 AM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

It seems really goofy to me to use the monorail plan instead of like, the old interurban/streetcar lines for Seattle. Those were much, much more expansive

But maybe i'm just still bitter, and didn't wanna hear about the damn monorail again

I also wish this showed under construction/planned and funded but that's neither here nor there
posted by emptythought at 9:50 AM on April 3, 2019 [2 favorites]

> Getting all that data into one place and in an open format would be very useful.

Maybe this could be added to the OSM-related OpenHistoricalMap.
posted by Monochrome at 1:25 PM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

Wow, I wish they had chicago on here! very interesting.
posted by rebent at 1:43 PM on April 3, 2019

There's no American manufacturer of double decker buses.
False. I've ridden US-produced double-decker busses in Oakland.

Also I was reviewing the SF Past-Present and I keep looking at Now: "E Union"
... huh.. what.. OH THATS BART.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:20 PM on April 3, 2019

And the relief line that is needed to address overwhelming congestion that will fucking kill somebody one day? Not gonna happen because the word "downtown" has been attached to it (never mind that it will also benefit those outside downtown) and that's elite and not For the People.


Wait, wasn’t it less than a Scaramucci ago that Premier Superduper Mayor Ford promised a new super seekrit downtown relief line? Quoth The Star six days ago,

Earlier this week letters to the city from provincial officials revealed that the Ontario Conservative government wants to build its own version of the line using unspecified “alternative delivery methods” that it says would create a “truly unique transit artery spanning the city” and would be separate from the rest of the subway system.

Pressed on what the new technology is by Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath in question period Thursday, Ford would only say that it would be “less expensive, faster and better” than other forms of transit.

“We are going to build the greatest downtown relief line. As a matter of fact, when they showed me the plan, my jaw dropped. I thought, ‘Wow, this is thinking outside the box,’ ” he said.

I mean, it is hard to know what to make of this. I said on the blue a decade ago that Rob Ford’s threadbare lo-res campaign videos looked like he was running for Mayor of 1983; DoFo’s now-shot-down vision of remaking the waterfront with a megamall and a Ferris Wheel* suggests RoFo was not alone in these Max-Webster-soundtracked aspirations. To think what could flabbergast a man of such expansive vision and creative acumen: well, it strains the mind.

*May be just postponed, depending on the fate of Ontario Place.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:59 PM on April 3, 2019

The Seattle map was rather surprising. Historically, Seattle had street cars, inter-urban railway, and the mosquito fleet. Now there’s a huge, cooperative multi-county bus system, and light and heavy rail. The map does no justice to Seattle or Puget Sound region to public transit, and gives no historical perspective, as it does to other cities (poor Buffalo!). Perhaps there are no old maps available?

corpse, I’ve noticed Sound Transit is starting to run some of the double tall coaches as well.
posted by lhauser at 7:11 PM on April 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

but ignoring busses in many cases is ignoring the majority of the public transit system.

I suspect that this is not entirely rail-chauvinist snobbery against buses, but partly also a factor of the fickleness of bus routes, which can be redrawn at short notice. How many named/numbered bus routes have the longevity of a streetcar line or railway line?
posted by acb at 1:11 AM on April 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

I would love to see these maps for major European cities.

Here's a timeline for Vienna. It shows streetcars, and subways, but not busses or light rail. A few things of potential interest:

• In the 1880s, steam-powered trams were added, and the streetcar system used a combination of steam and horse for around 20 years.
• The subway system broke ground in 1893 and opened in 1898 (shown on the map in 1899)
• The map is lying to you a bit: The Danube was not static, for one thing, and the version of the river seen on the map has only been that way since the late 80s
• There's an extensive light rail system that is not shown on this map, which goes through the city into the suburbs outside the city borders.
• The subway has, since 2016, been expanded north, south and east.

posted by frimble at 1:48 AM on April 4, 2019 [2 favorites]

There's no American manufacturer of double decker buses.
False. I've ridden US-produced double-decker busses in Oakland.

Also, I'm not sure about the law, but in much of the US there are plenty of foreign-made buses in public transit. Van Hool for instance are quite Belgian.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:35 AM on April 5, 2019