Which do you prefer, subway or streetcar?

[muon2]

Aren't both just variations of electric light rail?

Consider the Minneapolis light rail.



If it were a single car it would be a streetcar. The ride is the same either way.

Consider the Boston green line.



Is it a subway or a streetcar? It functions as both over its run. So do many other subways. If I like the green line (which I rode for many years as a grad student) how should I vote?

[muon2]

The ride is the same either way.

It most certainly is not.

If I like the green line (which I rode for many years as a grad student) how should I vote?

If you like the green line, then you should vote to see a psychiatrist.

I voted Subway.  I don't care for the subways that surface to surface trolleys either (e.g., The Green Line, which I rode more times than I care to remember as well).  The Red Line is faster and more comfortable, and more like a real subway.

The Green Line from Riverside was my link to Boston in grad school. Red was of no use, or at best for a connection to Harvard or MIT if I couldn't ride my bike. I could sometimes take commuter rail, but the schedule was much less frequent. Interestingly, in the 80's the Green Line to Riverside had newer, nicer cars than the Red.

I guess I'm biased by the CTA as well. Both the Red and Blue line subways surface once they are out of the Loop, and have more stations above ground than below ground. Of course even these lines are collectively referred to as the L even when they aren't elevated.

Subway is heavy rail.  Light rail is light rail.  The determining word here describes passenger level, with LRT trains holding much fewer passengers than a subway train.  LRT also runs above, at, and below grade while subway generally runs below and sometimes above.

A streetcar runs at grade in the middle of the street, usually at no more than 30mph and makes frequent stops.

The aforementioned Boston Green Line is light rail and runs at, above and below grade. It also runs down the middle of the street in places and makes frequent stops. It sure seems like a streetcar to me.

The Chicago Blue Line is heavy rail and runs at, above and below grade. It's only underground for a few stops downtown and at Logan Square, so it's hard to call it a subway. But the Brown Line is above grade the entire way and runs the same heavy rail as runs underground on the Blue Line. I don't think I can call the Brown Line a subway, but it's not a light streetcar either. However, it is a nice way to get to and from Wrigley Field when most everyone is packing the Red Line.

[muon2]

The ride is the same either way.

It most certainly is not.

If I like the green line (which I rode for many years as a grad student) how should I vote?

If you like the green line, then you should vote to see a psychiatrist.

I voted Subway.  I don't care for the subways that surface to surface trolleys either (e.g., The Green Line, which I rode more times than I care to remember as well).  The Red Line is faster and more comfortable, and more like a real subway.

The Green Line from Riverside was my link to Boston in grad school. Red was of no use, or at best for a connection to Harvard or MIT if I couldn't ride my bike. I could sometimes take commuter rail, but the schedule was much less frequent. Interestingly, in the 80's the Green Line to Riverside had newer, nicer cars than the Red.

I guess I'm biased by the CTA as well. Both the Red and Blue line subways surface once they are out of the Loop, and have more stations above ground than below ground. Of course even these lines are collectively referred to as the L even when they aren't elevated.

Subway is heavy rail.  Light rail is light rail.  The determining word here describes passenger level, with LRT trains holding much fewer passengers than a subway train.  LRT also runs above, at, and below grade while subway generally runs below and sometimes above.

A streetcar runs at grade in the middle of the street, usually at no more than 30mph and makes frequent stops.

The aforementioned Boston Green Line is light rail and runs at, above and below grade. It also runs down the middle of the street in places and makes frequent stops. It sure seems like a streetcar to me.

The Chicago Blue Line is heavy rail and runs at, above and below grade. It's only underground for a few stops downtown and at Logan Square, so it's hard to call it a subway. But the Brown Line is above grade the entire way and runs the same heavy rail as runs underground on the Blue Line. I don't think I can call the Brown Line a subway, but it's not a light streetcar either. However, it is a nice way to get to and from Wrigley Field when most everyone is packing the Red Line.

It's obviously hard to define these things strictly.

The L is heavy rail...and runs mostly above grade with the two subways near the loop.  Where it runs at grade it is a dedicated ROW with very few or no at grade crossings...which is the big criterium here.

LRT has become a catchall for hybrid systems that run both like heavy rail and a street car but generally with lighter capacity and frequency than a heavy rail system. 

I agree that the L is heavy rail. The question is how it should be considered for the poll. It's not a streetcar, but as you note the subway is incidental to the bulk of the L service. Is it "other"?

The Green Line is not heavy rail and most of it is above ground with many parts crossing streets at grade. The downtown part runs underground like a subway. Is it a subway, streetcar or other for the purposes of the poll?

[muon2]

The problem is in the poll question. Each type only picks one instance of a large class. We might have done better to use categories like

Commuter Rail (scheduled service, shared track; eg. suburban rail)
Rapid Transit (frequency service, special track; eg. heavy rail, metro, subway, underground)
Tram (frequency service, street level; eg. light rail, streetcar, trolley)
Bus

[muon2]

The problem is that many types of urban public transportation are still hard to classify in that case, especially when they are crossover types. I also don't see the difference between frequency service and scheduled service. Most metro systems have timetables. The only differences that really matter are shared track/special track and light rail/heavy rail.

In my experience in Chicago and Boston there's a big difference between scheduled service and frequency service.

The commuter rail systems have a timetable that riders must be aware of. Missing a train can result in a long delay, so you plan to arrive at the station based on the timetable. They are basically intercity trains with frequent stations. They also share typically track with other trains, including freight. That can result in delays on the schedule due to interference from non-commuter trains.

The rapid transit systems have no preset timetable. You show up at the station and know that approximately every 10 minutes (or whatever) a train will show up. Busier stations have screens to say when the next train is arriving, but that's new in the last decade. It doesn't change the fact that when you use them you just show up whenever you can get there. Delays are usually due to station congestion slowing the trains ahead of you, but since there isn't a fixed schedule it doesn't throw off a larger timetable.

[muon2]

In my experience in Chicago and Boston there's a big difference between scheduled service and frequency service.

The commuter rail systems have a timetable that riders must be aware of. Missing a train can result in a long delay, so you plan to arrive at the station based on the timetable. They are basically intercity trains with frequent stations. They also share typically track with other trains, including freight. That can result in delays on the schedule due to interference from non-commuter trains.

The rapid transit systems have no preset timetable. You show up at the station and know that approximately every 10 minutes (or whatever) a train will show up. Busier stations have screens to say when the next train is arriving, but that's new in the last decade. It doesn't change the fact that when you use them you just show up whenever you can get there. Delays are usually due to station congestion slowing the trains ahead of you, but since there isn't a fixed schedule it doesn't throw off a larger timetable.

There really isn't a fixed schedule, or riders are simply not aware of it because the frequency is so high they just go to the station and don't bother to find out when the next train shows up? For instance, when riding the New York subway, most commuters will probably not bother finding out what the schedule is (I certainly didn't), but there definitely is one, and by night it can suddenly become useful to look it up because the frequency of trains is lower.

My point is that there are likely timetables for both forms of public transportation. The difference solely consists of the frequency and of the question whether riders will bother looking up the timetable, but these are very subjective criteria. One person may just go and find it okay to wait for 15 minutes, another may look up the timetable. It's hard to distinguish between various types of public transportation on the basis of this criterium.

The public transit world regularly makes this distinction and it is echoed in a number of documents all the way down to Wikipedia. When I served on a regional public transit committee we made this distinction regularly and no one was confused. Putting out a timetable that says trains run with a frequency of every 15 minutes is very different than saying trains are scheduled at 10:15 and 10:30.

[muon2]

In my experience in Chicago and Boston there's a big difference between scheduled service and frequency service.

The commuter rail systems have a timetable that riders must be aware of. Missing a train can result in a long delay, so you plan to arrive at the station based on the timetable. They are basically intercity trains with frequent stations. They also share typically track with other trains, including freight. That can result in delays on the schedule due to interference from non-commuter trains.

The rapid transit systems have no preset timetable. You show up at the station and know that approximately every 10 minutes (or whatever) a train will show up. Busier stations have screens to say when the next train is arriving, but that's new in the last decade. It doesn't change the fact that when you use them you just show up whenever you can get there. Delays are usually due to station congestion slowing the trains ahead of you, but since there isn't a fixed schedule it doesn't throw off a larger timetable.

There really isn't a fixed schedule, or riders are simply not aware of it because the frequency is so high they just go to the station and don't bother to find out when the next train shows up? For instance, when riding the New York subway, most commuters will probably not bother finding out what the schedule is (I certainly didn't), but there definitely is one, and by night it can suddenly become useful to look it up because the frequency of trains is lower.

My point is that there are likely timetables for both forms of public transportation. The difference solely consists of the frequency and of the question whether riders will bother looking up the timetable, but these are very subjective criteria. One person may just go and find it okay to wait for 15 minutes, another may look up the timetable. It's hard to distinguish between various types of public transportation on the basis of this criterium.

The public transit world regularly makes this distinction and it is echoed in a number of documents all the way down to Wikipedia. When I served on a regional public transit committee we made this distinction regularly and no one was confused. Putting out a timetable that says trains run with a frequency of every 15 minutes is very different than saying trains are scheduled at 10:15 and 10:30.

CTA trains do run on a timetable.  No one ever pays attention to it.  An abbreviated version of this is posted in every station: http://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/rail_route_schedules/brown.pdf

Yes but for the majority of the day it only lists a frequency like "then every 7 to 8 minutes until". The times are mostly for transitions at the start and end of service and during rush hours. Even then I've never found the rush hour times in the timetable to have much meaning. The L runs as frequently as it can with the necessary spacing, and the exact time doesn't matter much.