underground infiltration: SUBWAYS

"Even cities that have a few subway lines need an effective surface system. The future of mobility has to be considered in terms of integrated systems, where each piece - bikes, cars, taxis, subways, buses - never competes in the space of another." - Jaime Lerner, Massive Change

The benefits of the underground system are aesthetically apparent as it keeps the railway underground and out of the view of the city, and through the use of underground space - space generally not used - more space is created above ground for buildings and other uses, such as parks. The underground railway system has three distinctions which make it separate from other means of public transportation: electrically powered, independent from other traffic (vehicular or otherwise), and high service frequency. With these distinctions, the metro system acts as the backbone of the city and serves to transport pedestrians from place to place efficiently through an underground spine of subway stops. Both the density of the urban environment and the high value of land hinder underground railway systems from being realized in many urban environments today, and the majority of the world's largest metro systems were built post WWII. The subway operates through multiple electric units, and power is delivered to the trains by a third rail or overhead power wires. This infiltration of railway lines underground becomes a fascinating idea when thinking about the mega -- could the entire world be connected through underground networks someday?!


The mappings of subway systems become a provocative idea, along with the fact that subway stations themselves act as destinations for people. While other transportation systems, such as highways, also have maps for people to understand how various places connect, the subway system mapping becomes interesting with respect to the way that the different lines contained within one system cross each other and connect through one station. A system could have 5 lines that all connect at one specific point, giving that one destination more emphasis than other destinations out of the shear fact that more people have access to that point.


The London Underground - the "tube" - was the first underground railway system, starting its operations on January 10, 1863. According to Wikipedia, eight cities utilize underground railway systems as the primary means of transportation: London, Moscow, NYC, Madrid, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, and Osaka. While measuring the success of a metro system is relatively easy - using the figures of how many people use the metro daily versus the cost it takes to maintain the system - measuring why a metro system is NOT successful becomes a bit harder. The residents in Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Houston - all within the Sun Belt region - generally choose not to use the metro systems available to them, and the cost to maintain these subway systems outweighs the usage they receive.

The following images compare 3 cities [New York City, Seoul, London] which have similar populations, but very different locations, with the intention of understanding successful subway lines and their impact on the cities themselves.

ABOVE IMAGE:
from Charleston, SC to Los Angeles, CA (shown in red), distance: 2, 490 miles
New York City subway, total distance (yellow) of combined lines: 656 miles
Seoul subway, total distance (green) of combined lines: 630 miles
London subway, total distance (orange) of combined lines: 253 mil