1.
Bay Area Rapid Transit
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Bay Area Rapid Transit is a public transportation system serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The rapid transit elevated and subway system connects San Francisco with cities in Alameda, Contra Costa, BART operates 5 routes on 104 miles of track connecting 45 stations, plus a 3. 2-mile automated guideway transit line to the Oakland International Airport which adds an additional station. A spur line in eastern Contra Costa County will utilize other rail technologies, with an average of 433,000 weekday passengers and 128.5 million annual passengers in fiscal year 2016, BART is the fifth-busiest heavy rail rapid transit system in the United States. The systems acronym is pronounced Bart, like the name, BART is operated by the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, formed in 1957. As of 2017, it is being expanded to San Jose with the consecutive Warm Springs, some of the Bay Area Rapid Transit Systems current coverage area was once served by an electrified streetcar and suburban train system called the Key System. This early 20th-century system once had regular trans-bay traffic across the deck of the Bay Bridge. By the mid-1950s, that system had been dismantled in favor of highway travel, a new rapid-transit system was proposed to take the place of the Key System during the late 1940s, and formal planning for it began in the 1950s. Some funding was secured for the BART system in 1959, passenger service began on September 11,1972, initially just between MacArthur and Fremont. All nine Bay Area counties were involved in the planning and envisioned to be connected by BART, before the system began revenue service, serious problems in the design and operation of the Automatic Train Control system were observed. Three engineers working for BART, Max Blankenzee, Robert Bruder, BART management was dismissive of their concerns, so the three took the issue to the board of directors. All but two of the directors voted in February 1972 to support management and reject the safety concerns, management retaliated against the engineers, firing them in March 1972. The IEEE later filed the first amicus brief in its history to support the engineers. The California Society of Professional Engineers reported to the California State Senate in June 1972 that there were serious safety risks with the ATC. Legislative analyst A. Alan Post, opened an investigation immediately, an ATC failure caused the train to run off the end of the elevated track and crash to the ground, injuring four people on-board, and drawing national and international attention. The “Fremont Flyer” led to a redesign of the train controls. The California State Public Utilities Commission imposed stringent oversight over train operations, the legislative analyst issued the first of three “Post Reports” in November 1972. The report was “sharply critical” of BART, finding that the ATC system was unreliable, the ATC program was mismanaged, and “no solution was in sight. ”The report accused BART of paying excessive fees for engineering services. BART’s general manager called the indictment of safety in the Post Report “not only disappointing, telephone calls were placed manually between stations, instead
2.
Island platform
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An island platform is a station layout arrangement where a single platform is positioned between two tracks within a railway station, tram stop or transitway interchange. Island platforms are popular on twin-track routes due to pragmatic and cost-effective reasons, an alternative arrangement is to position side platforms on either side of the tracks. The historical use of island platforms depends greatly upon the location, the island platform layout is a popular, cost-effective and practical solution in modern railway systems. Island platforms allow facilities such as escalators, elevators, shops, toilets and this is essential for wheelchair accessible stations. An island platform makes it easier for users and the infirm to change services between tracks. Additionally, an island platform layout eliminates the need to construct a crossover or subway between two platforms, however, island platforms may become overcrowded, especially at busy stations, and this can lead to safety issues such as Clapham Common and Angel on the London Underground. However, for the tracks to diverge around the platform, extra width is required along the right-of-way on each approach to the station. Track centers vary for rail systems throughout the world but are normally 3 to 5 meters, if the island platform is 6 meters wide, the tracks have to slew out by the same distance. While this is not a problem on a new line that is being constructed, in addition, a single island platform makes it quite difficult to have through tracks, which are usually between the local tracks. A common configuration in busy locations on high speed lines is a pair of island platforms, high-speed trains can therefore pass straight through the station, while slow trains pass around the platforms. This arrangement also allows the station to serve as a point where trains can be passed by faster trains. The purpose of this design was to reduce unnecessary passenger congestion at a station with a high volume of passengers. Many of the stations on the Great Central Railway were constructed in this form and this was because the line was planned to connect to a Channel Tunnel. Island platforms are a normal sight on Indian railway stations. Almost all railway stations in India consist of island platforms, in Toronto,29 subway stations use island platforms. A slight disadvantage is that crossovers have to be rather long, in southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, PATCO uses island platforms in all of its 13 stations, to facilitate one-person train operation. Most elevated stations in Singapores Mass Rapid Transit system use island platforms, the exception is Dover MRT Station, which uses side platforms as it is built on an existing rail line. The planned Canberra MRT Station will also use side platforms, as it also be built on an existing rail line
3.
AC Transit
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AC Transit is an Oakland-based public transit agency serving the western portions of Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. AC Transit also operates Transbay routes across San Francisco Bay to San Francisco and selected areas in San Mateo, AC Transit is constituted as a special district under California law. It is governed by seven elected members and it is not a part of or under the control of Alameda or Contra Costa counties or any local jurisdictions. Buses operate out of three operating divisions, Emeryville, East Oakland, and Hayward, the Operations Control Center is located in Emeryville. The Richmond operating division closed in 2011, the District is the public successor to the privately owned Key System. The Districts bus lines also serve parts of some other East Bay communities, including Milpitas, Pinole, most routes connect with regional train service, primarily BART, in addition to ACE and Amtrak, including the Capitol Corridor. While most AC Transit service consists of lines throughout the East Bay. Most of these run across the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge to connect communities as distant as El Sobrante, Bus service is also provided across the San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges to the south. AC Transits primary hubs include BART stations, major shopping centers, and points of interest, most routes serve and/or terminate at BART stations, providing convenience for transit users. The hubs include, See also AC Transits page on fares and passes or AC Transits page on bus fares, on July 1,2014, AC Transit introduced a Day Pass, designed for customers taking more than two local buses in a day. The pass is good for unlimited rides on local routes from 3,01 a. m. to 3,00 a. m. Customers can obtain a Day Pass in one of two ways, Using Clipper, Customers keep cash value on their card. Once fares equalling the Day Pass price have been deducted, the Day Pass automatically activates, on subsequent rides, the card is tagged but no additional fare is deducted. On-Board, Customers deposit the amount in the farebox and request a Day Pass from the bus operator. On subsequent rides, the pass is swiped at the farebox, AC Transit fares are structured to promote the use of Clipper. Not only are local bus rides cheaper, but certain interagency transfers and day passes are easier to obtain, monthly passes are only available on Clipper. Local BART-to-bus transfer, $0.25 cash discount to and from BART with paper transfer issued at BART, applied as $0.50 Clipper discount on bus trip away from BART only. To transfer from AC Transit to another bus agency without Clipper, to transfer from another bus agency to AC Transit without Clipper, ask the other bus driver for a transfer. Notes, All fares are in USD,1 Issued upon request when full price is paid
4.
San Francisco Municipal Railway
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The San Francisco Municipal Railway is the public transit system for the city and county of San Francisco, California. In 2006, it served 46.7 square miles with an budget of about $700 million. In ridership Muni is the seventh largest transit system in the United States, with 210,848,310 rides in 2006 and the second largest in California behind Metro in Los Angeles. With a fleet average speed of 8.1 mph, it is the slowest major urban transit system in America and one of the most expensive to operate, costing $19.21 per mile per bus and $24.37 per mile per train. However, it has more boardings per mile and more vehicles in operation than similar transit agencies, many weekday riders are commuters, as the daytime weekday population in San Francisco exceeds its normal residential population. Muni shares four metro stations with BART, on weekends, most Muni bus lines are scheduled to run every ten to twenty minutes. However, complaints of unreliability, especially on less-often-served lines and older lines, are a system-wide problem. Muni has had difficulty meeting a stated goal of 85% voter-demanded on-time service. Most intercity connections are provided by BART and Caltrain heavy rail, AC Transit buses at the Transbay Terminal, 70% of stops are spaced closer than recommended range of 800–1,000 feet apart. Muni is short for the Municipal in San Francisco Municipal Railway and is not an acronym, thus, the Muni metro is often called the train or the streetcar. Most San Francisco natives use Muni when speaking about the system in general, the E Embarcadero and F Market & Wharves lines are referred to by Muni as a historic streetcar line rather than as a heritage railway. Munis logo is a stylized, trademarked worm version of the word muni and this logo was designed by San Francisco-based graphic designer Walter Landor in the mid-1970s. Bus and trolleybus lines have number designations, rail lines have letters, except for cable cars, cash fares are $2.50 for adults, $1. Clipper card fares are $2.25 for adults and $1 for seniors, youth, proof-of-payment, which fare inspectors may demand at any time, is either a Clipper card, Muni Passport, or paper transfer. One fare entitles a rider to unlimited vehicle transfers for the next 90 to 120 minutes, cable cars are $7 one way, with no transfers unless the rider has a Muni Passport or Fast Pass. As of September 2014 monthly passes cost $70 for adults, $35 for low-income residents, or $24 for youth, seniors, passes are valid on all Muni lines—including cable cars—and the $83 adult Fast Pass allows BART transit entirely within San Francisco. Other passes and stickers are valid on all Muni lines, including cable cars, cable car fare is $7 per trip, with no transfers issued or accepted. Muni has implemented a smart card payment system known as Clipper
5.
University of California, San Francisco
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The University of California, San Francisco, is a center of health sciences research, patient care, and education devoted solely to graduate education and located in San Francisco, California. The UCSF School of Medicine is one of the most selective schools in the United States based on average MCAT score, GPA. In 2015,7,393 people applied and 437 were interviewed for 149 positions in the entering class, UCSF is currently ranked 2nd among medical schools in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. The UCSF School of Medicine is affiliated with UCSF Medical Center, in 2014, a national evaluation of residency programs named UCSF and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine the top two physician training institutions in the United States. UCSF traces its history to Hugh H. Toland, a South Carolina surgeon who found great success, a previous school, the Cooper Medical College of the University of Pacific, entered a period of uncertainty in 1862 when its founder, Elias Samuel Cooper, died. In 1864, Toland founded a new school, Toland Medical College. The University of California was founded in 1868, and by 1870 Toland Medical School began negotiating an affiliation with the new public university. Meanwhile, some faculty of Toland Medical School elected to reopen the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, negotiations between the Toland and the UC were complicated by Tolands demand that the medical school continue to bear his name, which he finally conceded. In March 1873, the trustees of Toland Medical College transferred it to the Regents of the University of California, the schools first female student, Lucy Wanzer, graduated in 1876, after having to appeal to the UC Board of Regents to gain admission in 1873. The Schools of Dentistry, Pharmacy, Medicine, Nursing, and it also houses the UCSF neurology outpatient practice that serves as a referral center of most of northern California and Reno, Nevada. UCSFs Beckman Vision Center is also located at the Parnassus campus and it is a center for the diagnosis, treatment and research of all areas of eye care, including vision correction surgery. Also located on the Parnassus campus is the UCSF Fetal Treatment Center, multidisciplinary care center dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, UCSFs Mission Bay Campus, also located in San Francisco, is the largest ongoing biomedical construction project in the world. The 43-acre Mission Bay campus, opened in 2003 with construction still ongoing, contains additional research space and facilities to foster biotechnology and it will double the size of UCSFs research enterprise over the next 10 years. The biotechnology company Genentech contributed $50 million toward construction of a building as part of a settlement regarding alleged theft of UCSF technology several decades earlier. Also located on the Mission Bay campus, the Arthur and Toni Rembe Rock Hall was designed by César Pelli, the building is named in honor of Arthur Rock and his wife, who made a $25 million gift to the university. Byers Hall serves as the headquarters for the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, the building is named after venture capitalist Brook Byers, co-chair of UCSFs capital campaign that concluded in 2005 and raised over $1.6 billion. The building is named in honor of William J. Rutter, former Chairman of the universitys Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics, a housing complex for 750 students and postdoctoral fellows and an 800-space parking garage also opened in late 2005. And a fourth building, designed by Rafael Viñoly and named the Helen Diller Family Cancer Research Building
6.
Millbrae station
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The Millbrae Intermodal Terminal is an at-grade Bay Area Rapid Transit and Caltrain station located in suburban Millbrae, California, in northern San Mateo County. It was expected to support over 30,000 BART trips per day, Millbrae Station is the largest intermodal terminal in the United States west of the Mississippi. It has three tracks for BART and two for Caltrain. An island platform allows a connection between the two systems. A concourse mezzanine is above the platforms, currently two BART tracks and one island platform usually are kept out of regular service, used instead to hold train sets that are also out of service. The station is also a bus transit hub with multiple bus bays served by several SamTrans lines. Millbrae Station has about 2,900 parking spaces, including a parking garage. The Reserved Parking areas cost $2/day from 10am-3pm on weekdays, a free Library-a-Go-Go Peninsula Library System library book vending machine was added in May 2011. The station has daily Caltrain commuter rail service along the line between San Jose and San Francisco. Midday trains are hourly each way, service is frequent during commute hours. Service south of San Jose to Gilroy is limited to three weekday round trips. Passengers who board the train without a ticket are subject to fines of up to $250 plus court fees. Passengers who use the electronic Clipper card to ride the Caltrain must remember to tag on their card prior to boarding, if they board the train without tagging on, they will be subject to the same fines. In addition, Caltrain passengers are charged the maximum one way fare when they tag on prior to boarding the train, if passengers who use the Clipper card forget to tag off when they exit the train, they will be charged the highest cash fare from point of origin. In 2015, construction began on the rail system. If completed as planned, Millbrae would serve as one of one or two stations between San Francisco and San Jose, and would allow high-speed rail passengers to reach SFO via BART. $290 million has been allocated to lengthen the platforms for connection to High Speed Rail, before the Millbrae Intermodal Terminal was built for the BART San Mateo Extension terminus Millbrae had a free Caltrain shuttle bus between the station and San Francisco International Airport. The former Southern Pacific Depot has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since September 1,1978, in 1985 Caltrain service began at the original Millbrae depot, replacing Southern Pacific trains that had operated along the San Francisco Peninsula since the early 20th century
7.
Richmond station (California)
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Richmond Station is an at-grade Bay Area Rapid Transit and Amtrak station located in Richmond, California. Each system is served by an island platform, the Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins, and California Zephyr stop here and connect to BART. The station was rebuilt and rededicated on October 18,2007, the Metro Walk - Richmond Transit Village is adjacent, north of the station is a BART rail yard. This station has identified as an important hub in the transportation network for metropolitan. Around that same time the Southern Pacific Railroad opened a station just south of the current station at MacDonald Avenue, BART service at this station began along dedicated tracks that paralleled the SP line on January 29,1973. Amtrak service to the station started, using the SP lines tracks, a station house for the Amtrak service was constructed in 1984. A transit village and rebuild of the approach to the station was started in 2007. A transit store opened at the station in August 2008, joining other major stations in the system, the Coast Starlight no longer stops at Richmond as of January 14,2013. The station is served by two bus agencies, AC Transit provides a variety of local and regional service. Routes 70,71, 72M,74, and 76 provide local intra-city service and also feeder service into the BART, routes 376 and 800 both provide late night service. It is the route in the All Nighter regional Bay Area network. There is also a free Kaiser Shuttle service to the nearby Richmond Medical Center, of the 74 California stations served by Amtrak, Richmond was the 16th-busiest in FY2012, boarding or alighting an average of about 773 passengers daily. List of Bay Area Rapid Transit stations BART - Richmond Station Overview Capitol Corridor Richmond Station Page Amtrak Station Information Page Richmond --Great American Stations
8.
Mission District, San Francisco
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This mission, San Franciscos oldest standing building, is located in the northwest area of the neighborhood. The Mission District is located in east-central San Francisco and it is bordered to the east by U. S. Route 101, which forms the boundary between the eastern portion of the district, known as Inner Mission, and its eastern neighbor, Potrero Hill. Sanchez Street separates the neighborhood from Eureka Valley to the north west, the part of the neighborhood from Valencia Street to Sanchez Street, north of 20th Street, is known as the Mission Dolores neighborhood. South of 20th Street towards 22nd Street, and between Valencia and Dolores Streets is a neighborhood known as Liberty Hill. Cesar Chavez Street is the border, across Cesar Chavez Street is the Bernal Heights neighborhood. North of the Mission District is the South of Market neighborhood, bordered roughly by Duboce Avenue, the principal thoroughfare of the Mission District is Mission Street. South of the Mission District, along Mission Street, are the Excelsior and Crocker-Amazon neighborhoods, the Mission District is part of San Franciscos supervisorial districts 6,9 and 10. The Mission is often warmer and sunnier than other parts of San Francisco, the Missions geographical location insulates it from the fog and wind from the west. The Mission includes four recognized sub-districts, the northeastern quadrant, adjacent to Potrero Hill is known as a center for high tech startup businesses including some chic bars and restaurants. The northwest quadrant along Dolores Street is famous for Victorian mansions, prior to the arrival of Spanish missionaries, the area which now includes the Mission District was inhabited by the Ohlone people who populated much of the San Francisco bay area. The Yelamu Indians inhabited the region for over 2,000 years, Spanish missionaries arrived in the area during the late 18th century. They found these people living in two villages on Mission Creek and it was here that a Spanish priest named Father Francisco Palóu founded Mission San Francisco de Asis on June 29,1776. The Mission was moved from the shore of Laguna Dolores to its current location in 1783, franciscan friars are reported to have used Ohlone slave labor to complete the Mission in 1791. This period marked the beginning of the end of the Yelamu culture, the Indian population at Mission Dolores dropped from 400 to 50 between 1833 and 1841. The lands around the abandoned mission church became a focal point of raffish attractions including bull and bear fighting, horse racing, baseball. A famous beer parlor resort known as The Willows was located along Mission Creek just south of 18th Street between Mission Street and San Carlos Street. From 1865 to 1891, a conservatory and zoo known as Woodwards Gardens covered two city blocks bounded by Mission Street, Valencia Street, 13th Street, and 15th Street. During Californias early statehood period, in the 19th and 20th century, large numbers of Irish, development and settlement intensified after the 1906 earthquake, as many displaced businesses and residents moved into the area, making Mission Street a major commercial thoroughfare
9.
San Francisco
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San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the cultural, commercial, and financial center of Northern California. It is the birthplace of the United Nations, the California Gold Rush of 1849 brought rapid growth, making it the largest city on the West Coast at the time. San Francisco became a consolidated city-county in 1856, after three-quarters of the city was destroyed by the 1906 earthquake and fire, San Francisco was quickly rebuilt, hosting the Panama-Pacific International Exposition nine years later. In World War II, San Francisco was a port of embarkation for service members shipping out to the Pacific Theater. Politically, the city votes strongly along liberal Democratic Party lines, San Francisco is also the headquarters of five major banking institutions and various other companies such as Levi Strauss & Co. Dolby, Airbnb, Weebly, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, Yelp, Pinterest, Twitter, Uber, Lyft, Mozilla, Wikimedia Foundation, as of 2016, San Francisco is ranked high on world liveability rankings. The earliest archaeological evidence of habitation of the territory of the city of San Francisco dates to 3000 BC. Upon independence from Spain in 1821, the became part of Mexico. Under Mexican rule, the system gradually ended, and its lands became privatized. In 1835, Englishman William Richardson erected the first independent homestead, together with Alcalde Francisco de Haro, he laid out a street plan for the expanded settlement, and the town, named Yerba Buena, began to attract American settlers. Commodore John D. Sloat claimed California for the United States on July 7,1846, during the Mexican–American War, montgomery arrived to claim Yerba Buena two days later. Yerba Buena was renamed San Francisco on January 30 of the next year, despite its attractive location as a port and naval base, San Francisco was still a small settlement with inhospitable geography. The California Gold Rush brought a flood of treasure seekers, with their sourdough bread in tow, prospectors accumulated in San Francisco over rival Benicia, raising the population from 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 by December 1849. The promise of fabulous riches was so strong that crews on arriving vessels deserted and rushed off to the gold fields, leaving behind a forest of masts in San Francisco harbor. Some of these approximately 500 abandoned ships were used at times as storeships, saloons and hotels, many were left to rot, by 1851 the harbor was extended out into the bay by wharves while buildings were erected on piles among the ships. By 1870 Yerba Buena Cove had been filled to create new land, buried ships are occasionally exposed when foundations are dug for new buildings. California was quickly granted statehood in 1850 and the U. S. military built Fort Point at the Golden Gate, silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, further drove rapid population growth. With hordes of fortune seekers streaming through the city, lawlessness was common, and the Barbary Coast section of town gained notoriety as a haven for criminals, prostitution, entrepreneurs sought to capitalize on the wealth generated by the Gold Rush
10.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
11.
Rapid transit
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Rapid transit, also known as heavy rail, metro, subway, tube, or underground, is a type of high-capacity public transport generally found in urban areas. The stations typically have high platforms, without steps inside the trains and they are typically integrated with other public transport and often operated by the same public transport authorities. However, some transit systems have at-grade intersections between a rapid transit line and a road or between two rapid transit lines. It is unchallenged in its ability to transport large numbers of people quickly over short distances with little use of land, variations of rapid transit include people movers, small-scale light metro, and the commuter rail hybrid S-Bahn. The worlds first rapid-transit system was the partially underground Metropolitan Railway which opened as a railway in 1863. In 1868, New York opened the elevated West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, china has the largest number of rapid transit systems in the world. The worlds longest single-operator rapid transit system by length is the Shanghai Metro. The worlds largest single rapid transit service provider by both length of revenue track (665 miles and number of stations is the New York City Subway. The busiest rapid transit systems in the world by annual ridership are the Tokyo subway system, the Seoul Metropolitan Subway, the Moscow Metro, the Beijing Subway, Metro is the most common term for underground rapid transit systems used by non-native English speakers. One of these terms may apply to a system, even if a large part of the network runs at ground level. In Scotland, however, the Glasgow Subway underground rapid transit system is known as the Subway, in the US, underground mass transit systems are primarily known as subways, whereas the term metro is a shortened reference to a metropolitan area. In that vein, Chicagos commuter rail system, serving the area, is called Metra. Exceptions in naming rapid transit systems are Washington DCs subway system the Washington Metro, Los Angeles Metro Rail, and the Miami Metrorail, the opening of Londons steam-hauled Metropolitan Railway in 1863 marked the beginning of rapid transit. Initial experiences with steam engines, despite ventilation, were unpleasant, experiments with pneumatic railways failed in their extended adoption by cities. Electric traction was more efficient, faster and cleaner than steam, in 1890 the City & South London Railway was the first electric-traction rapid transit railway, which was also fully underground. Both railways were merged into London Underground. The 1893 Liverpool Overhead Railway was designed to use electric traction from the outset, budapest in Hungary and Glasgow, Chicago and New York all converted or purpose-designed and built electric rail services. Advancements in technology have allowed new automated services, hybrid solutions have also evolved, such as tram-train and premetro, which incorporate some of the features of rapid transit systems
12.
Light rail
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Light rail, light rail transit or fast tram is urban public transport using rolling stock similar to a tramway, but operating at a higher capacity, and often on an exclusive right-of-way. A few light rail networks tend to have closer to rapid transit or even commuter rail. Other light rail networks are tram-like in nature and partially operate on streets, Light rail systems are found throughout the world, on all inhabited continents. They have been popular in recent years due to their lower capital costs. The term light rail was coined in 1972 by the U. S, Urban Mass Transportation Administration to describe new streetcar transformations that were taking place in Europe and the United States. In Germany the term Stadtbahn was used to describe the concept, and many in UMTA wanted to adopt the direct translation, however, UMTA finally adopted the term light rail instead. Light in this context is used in the sense of intended for light loads and fast movement, the infrastructure investment is also usually lighter than would be found for a heavy rail system. The Transportation Research Board defined light rail in 1977 as a mode of urban transportation utilizing predominantly reserved, electrically propelled rail vehicles operate singly or in trains. LRT provides a range of passenger capabilities and performance characteristics at moderate costs. Light rail is a generic international English phrase for these types of rail systems, the use of the generic term light rail avoids some serious incompatibilities between British and American English. The word trolley is used as a synonym for streetcar in the United States. A further difference arose because, while Britain abandoned all of its trams except Blackpool after World War II, when these cities upgraded to new technology, they called it light rail to differentiate it from their existing streetcars since some continued to operate both the old and new systems. Conventional rail technologies including high-speed, freight, commuter/regional, and metro/subway/elevated urban transit systems are considered heavy rail, people movers and personal rapid transit are even lighter, at least in terms of capacity. Monorail is a technology that has been more successful in specialized services than in a commuter transit role. Due to varying definitions, it is hard to distinguish between what is called light rail, and other forms of urban and commuter rail, a system described as light rail in one city may be considered to be a streetcar or tram system in another. Conversely, some lines that are called light rail are in very similar to rapid transit, in recent years. Some light rail systems, such as Sprinter, bear little similarity to urban rail, in the United States, light rail has become a catch-all term to describe a wide variety of passenger rail systems. There is a significant difference in cost between these different classes of light rail transit, tram-like systems are often less expensive than metro-like systems by a factor of two or more
AC Transit: 800
Media related to 16th Street Mission station at Wikimedia Commons
