I'm not crying over spilled milk. Obviously, I'm supporting the project going forward. But that graphic does a good job of exposing the weakness of a figure eight, hard to read "spine" route. I'm a very regular transit user and trying to figure out where to get on downtown to get on one of the colored lines is going to take some pretty serious thought. Same with crossing the city like you might normally with lines that go "through" the downtown core. It's a little strange to see rail routes that strictly originate downtown that severely. Most places, transfers are more linear and you can stay on the train to go right through any central core.
We don't have a lot of examples here in the US so perhaps this is just a reflection of not enough people actually knowing what interurban rail networks look like.
I hope really knowledgeable people are tasked with mitigating this built-in challenge.
I think it is important to have at least some linear route that transects the urban core. Maybe connect the purple N/S line all the way down to the blue line via Hudson? Somehow, you've got to be able to go 3 miles without needing to use 3 routes.
I'm not looking to pick a fight with anyone but does anyone else think that is incredibly unreadable? Meh on, circulators.
I think the solution will be as you add lines, you've going to want to blur out the circulator. For example, the two green lines (light and dark) actually becomes one line. The purple and light blue becomes one. Red and orange, another. And so on. And really just minimize that circulator. I think it will confuse people once you've actually added all of those other lines. Of course, if you actually do install all those other routes, you'll probably have the money and political willpower to do whatever you need to do. Additionally, the city will be a very different place and the routes can be simplified. Density allows for simplicity in transit so here's to looking forward to the future!
Cool map though. It is exciting to think about it happening.
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