it's not a race, but if it were ...

This video, from The Overhead Wire via Great City, is making the rounds. It shows the side-by-side growth of six US rail transit systems, with the apparent goal of humiliating both late-starter Seattle and early-starter-slow-finisher Atlanta.

Note that the grey lines here represent commuter rail, which represents a very small level of investment (and frequency) compared to the colored lines, which are all rail rapid transit.

Comments

[J]

The LA map doesnt include the orange line BRT....interesting when looking at this blogs last few days of updates.

[Chris Rall]

No BRT in Seattle either. Seems a bit misleading in terms of rate of transit investment by each region. It'd be neat to see it with BRT lines included.

[Dan Wentzel]

It is because many people do not consider BRT to be on the same level as LRT or HRT.

The discussion about BRT has been fascinating, but there isn't any consensus that BRT and LRT are the same, but should be created equally.

I wouldn't want the Orange Line or the rebranded Silver Line included on the L.A. map above. In fact, I don't think they even should have gotten official "colors" as part of their branding.

These rail maps are fun here:
http://www.urbanrail.net/index.html

The contain urban rail maps for cities all over the world.

I do believe, of course, in comprehensive bus service, and I think it is fair to include BRT on maps comparing bus service from area to area.

Comparing bus maps across various cities with highlights of BRT included would be interesting indeed.

London has a wondeful, comprehensive bus system as well as its noted rail system.

This may be a minority opinion around here, but I maintain that BRT, as wonderful as it is, is NOT rail, no matter how "rail-like" it attempts to be.

[Scale]

This is cool, but are the maps at similar scales?

[chris t]

I can't speak for the other systems, but by 2020 LA should have Expo phase 2, Crenshaw line, and possibly a Green line extension. (Other projects, like the Gold line foothill extension 2b, seem a little less firm to me.)