The Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) was, along with the WMATA in Washington D.C., one of the great centrally planned post-war rapid transit systems aimed at addressing the rise of the highway and auto-centric suburbs after World War II in the United States. Planning began in the 1950s for a unified high speed rail system that would serve both the dense inner cities of San Francisco and Oakland and their newly expanding low-rise suburbs. Stations would be spaced closer in the central business districts and further out in the suburbs.
Originally planned to connect Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties BART was scaled back when San Mateo dropped out in favor of commuter rail service and the Marin line was dropped due to engineering concerns about running a rail line over the Golden Gate Bridge. Construction began in 1964 and the initial segments began to come online in 1972 and the majority of the system opening by 1974.
The Dublin/Pleasanton–Daly City Line, also known as the Dublin/Pleasanton Line, is the most recent BART line to open starting service in 1997. Branching off the
Fremont Line in Ashland it runs east along the median of I-580 to Dublin.
Plans are also being discussed to extend the line east to Livermore as either an electric third-rail BART train or Diesel Multiple Unit eBART train.
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Boston opened the first subway in the US in 1897 and immediately began expanding it. Since then numerous plans have been drawn up, some are simple extensions while others are whole sale reimaginations of the subway. This map shows in detail each official proposal with the history of each idea.
The map acts as a “choose your own adventure” where by each variant of every plan is drawn. The reader can pick and choose which lines they think could have been built and what the system might have looked like today if they had.
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For more information about the map see the original blog post here.
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In 1895 the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad began with service from Canal St to Logan Sq. Soon branches were added to Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and Douglas Park. The Met, as it was known, has seen the most dramatic changes of all the Chicago “L” lines: the Humboldt Park and Logan Sq branches were removed when service was rerouted through the new Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway in 1951 and subsequently extended along the Kennedy Expressway to Jefferson Park in 1970 and then to O’Hare Airport in 1984. The Garfield Park branch was completely rebuilt along the median of Interstate 290 in 1958. In 2008 the Douglas Branch was rerouted along the Paulina Connector (a left over section of track from the old Logan Sq branch) to connect to the Loop and rebranded as the Pink Line.
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What today is the Blue Line started in 1895 as the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad with service from Canal St to Logan Sq. Soon branches were added to Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and Douglas Park. The Met, as it was known, has seen the most dramatic changes of all the Chicago “L” lines: the Humboldt Park and Logan Sq branches were removed when service was rerouted through the new Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway in 1951 and subsequently extended along the Kennedy Expressway to Jefferson Park in 1970 and then to O’Hare Airport in 1984. The Garfield Park branch was completely rebuilt along the median of Interstate 290 in 1958. In 2008 the Douglas Branch was rerouted along the Paulina Connector (a left over section of track from the old Logan Sq branch) to connect to the Loop and rebranded as the Pink Line.
The modern sections of the Blue Line were the first examples of rapid transit running along a high median in the US. The Blue Line, along with the Red Line, are the only two services of the CTA which run 24 hours a day.
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The Blue Line started off as a trolley tunnel to connect Scollay Sq. in downtown Boston to Maverick Sq. in East Boston. It holds the distinction as the first underwater transit tunnel (under a major body of water) opening in 1904. Initial plans called for it to be connected to the Green Line to form a subway trolley network connection all points north, east, south, and west. However, in 1924, the line was converted to heavy rail and extended to Bowdoin Sq. The Blue Line diverted traffic away from East Boston ferries which, ironically, helped bring the demise to the Atlantic Ave elevated line.
Until the 1950s the Blue Line was connected to the Red Line at Charles St so that Blue Line trains could be serviced at the Red Line train shops in Harvard Sq. In 1952 the Blue Line was extended to Suffolk Downs along the abandoned Boston, Revere Beach and Lynn Railroad and two years later extended to Revere where it still terminates at Wonderland.
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The Blue Line was the second section of the Washington Metro to open; on July 1st 1977 trains began running the familiar serpentine route from National Airport through Roslyn and Metro Center (at the time the only transfer station) to Stadium-Armory. In 1978 an extension to New Carrollton opened and service was split between Blue Line trains running from National Airport-New Carrollton and Orange Line trains running the reverse direction. When the Orange Line extension to Ballston opened a year later Blue Line trains were cut back to Stadium-Armory.
When the Addison Road branch opened in 1980 the Blue Line once again ran only one direction while Orange Line trains ran in the other direction, this time on both branches. In 1983 the Yellow Line was opened down to Huntington. This was originally to be the new terminal for Blue Line trains but due to a car shortage the Yellow Line, which required fewer cars, was extended instead, and this service pattern remains to this day. The extension to Van Dorn St (the originally planned terminal for the Yellow Line) didn’t open until 1991 and was extended to Franconia-Springfield in 1997. A final extension to Largo Town Center opened in 2004.
The Blue Line holds the distinction of the line which shares the most amount of track with other lines (the Orange and Yellow lines). In fact during rush hour service only the Arlington Cemetery station is served exclusively by Blue Line trains. Because of this, planners are looking at digging a new tunnel through central D.C. once the Silver Line opens which is also slated to share Blue Line tracks through downtown D.C.
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