Tag Archives: Metro

The future of Metro’s rolling stock – ideas for the 8000 series

At some point in 2014, WMATA’s newest rail cars, the 7000 series, will enter service. These cars will depart from the same basic design of all of Metro’s current rolling stock in a couple of ways. However, despite the accolades of the new designs from Metro, the 7000 series design misses some key opportunities to squeeze extra capacity out of the system and run the trains more efficiently.

While the ship has sailed for the 7000 series, all is not lost. WMATA will need to eventually expand the fleet and replace the remaining older rail cars; and will do so with the yet-to-be-designed 8000 series. (WMATA current has four cars with 8000-level numbers from the 1000-series, comprising the money train.) Depending on the source, design work on the 8000 series could start between 2018 and 2020; the lead time for developing a new rail car is long; note this article on the 7000 series (again, set to enter service in late 2014) dated from January, 2008.

The 7000 series has potential to improve reliability and operate efficiently: WMATA’s contract holds the builder to meet or exceed a standard of an average of 150,000 miles between failures (WMATA’s current fleet achieves just over 60,000 miles between failures; 150k represents an improvement, but still shy of NYC’s fleet average, yet alone the performance of NYC’s newest railcars).

Efficient and reliable systems will be an important improvement, but they don’t address some of the broader elements of a good rapid transit system. With an eye towards improving the 8000 series, and after riding modern rolling stock in other cities around the world, I’ll offer some suggestions for future railcars in DC.

Maximize the number of doors: While riding Line 1 of the Paris Metro under crush loads, one thing that amazed me was the consistently short station dwell times. As a train pulled into a station, large numbers of people would board and disembark within a matter of 10-15 seconds, and then the train was on its way. Contrast that against WMATA during peak hours at one of the key transfer stations (Metro Center, L’Enfant Plaza, or Gallery Place): I’ve often seen train operators start to close the doors after 20-30 seconds, but people were still getting off of the car, to say nothing of those waiting to get on.

Metro’s current rolling stock features only three doors on each side of a 75-foot long rail car (New York gets four doors to fit on a 60-foot long rail car; Toronto’s new cars feature four doors on a 76 foot long car) Increasing the number of doors on each train makes the exchange of passengers from train to platform easier and faster, particularly with large crowds. The added ease also improves the reliability and consistency of station dwell times. Wider doors are also an option; the MP-05 trains in Paris operating on Line 1 feature three sets of wide doors per side of each 50-foot long rail car.

Paris Metro MP-05 train with wide doors. Note the lack of a cab due to fully automatic operation. CC Image from Wiki.

Despite pleading from train operators, when the dwell times are not long enough for passengers to board/alight, they will hold doors open. This introduces the potential for delay, both by degrading WMATA’s schedule adherence, but also by risking a door malfunction that will take the train out of service. WMATA’s procurement documents for the 7000 series sought a “proven linear door drive system” to improve reliability; however, changing the system’s design (by adding more doors) has the opportunity to improve efficiency and reliability above and beyond the technical systems.

Open gangways: More doors improves passenger flow between the train and platform; removing the doors within the train allows passengers to move along the entire length of the train. This increases capacity and improves the passenger experience, allowing them to naturally balance the load and move along the train if one car is too crowded.

Looking through the open gangway of new S-stock in London, and at the floorplate in the gangway going around a curve. Photos by the author.

The most compelling reason is additional capacity. In Toronto, the new ‘Rocket’ subway cars increased capacity by 8-10 percent. London’s new Sub-surface rolling stock features open gangways between cars, as does the MP-05 stock in Paris. New York is considering open gangways for future railcar procurements.

When asked about why the 7000 series did not include open gangways, Metro cited vague concerns about safety where a suspect might roam throughout the entire train. Yet, in New York, politicians have cited the inability to move between cars as a threat to safety. Both arguments rest on dubious assumptions, but appeals to a vague sense of safety cannot trump the obvious boost of an additional 10% capacity.

Seating arrangements: During discussions about the 7000 series, WMATA opted to keep the current seating arrangement, dominated by forward/rear facing seats, rather than sideways-facing seats that maximize standing room. In WMATA’s own mock-ups, the loss of seated capacity is minimal (about 8 seats per married pair, or 4 seats per car on average). While bench-style seating is common in Europe, is is not used exclusively – though all of the newer railcars make a strong effort to increase standing room and improve passenger flow within the car.

Interior layout of MP-05. CC image from Wiki.

For example, consider the option of using forward/rear facing seats as singles instead of doubles. WMATA’s transverse seating is usually arranged 2+2, with a fairly narrow aisle. The MP-05 rolling stock in Paris uses a 2+1 combination, in addition to substantial center-facing seating. London’s S-Stock offers a variety of options, as does Toronto’s Rocket. Extensive use of flip-down seating adds flexibility for a variety of users, offering seats when necessary, but providing additional standing room during peak hours.

Passenger information: One of the most obvious improvements for passengers on WMATA’s 7000 series will be “next stop” displays (noted for the prototype’s typos), similar to the ‘FIND’ system in some of New York’s subway cars. These displays offer a strip map of the line, showing the next stations. However, more is possible. In Paris, the digital displays in the MP-05s not only display the upcoming stations, but the time to the end of the line, as well as major upcoming transfer points.

Above-the-door strip map for Line 8 in the Paris Metro. Photo by the author.

Digital displays offer flexibility to the operator to use trains on any line. However, many operators nonetheless use old-fashioned, route-specific strip maps.

Even though it’s not a subway or rapid transit application, the in-train displays from the Netherlands are impressive. The screens show the current route, next stops, scheduled arrival time and track. When arriving at a station, the in-train displays will show platform information for connection trains, allowing passengers to head directly to that platform. In the event of a delay or change in the schedule, the displays update immediately.

Blurry photo of info screen inside an NS InterCity train, with arrival and connection information. Photo by the author.

Overall: I’ll note that none of these are new or unique ideas; Matt Johnson (open gangways; more doors) and David Alpert (transverse seating) both suggested similar changes for the 7000 series. I’ve offered suggestions in the past, as well.

Toronto Rocket technical drawing. Image from Bombardier.

You don’t even need to look overseas to see many of these ideas in action. As mentioned above, Toronto’s new Rocket subway cars incorporate most of these ideas. WMATA has the same opportunities. Toronto’s Rockets feature permanently married 6-car trainsets (the maximum length for Toronto’s system), four doors per 76-foot long car, and lots of standing room without removing all transverse seating – something to aspire to for WMATA’s next railcar procurement.

Metro’s stainless steel future – Metro Center sales office

Another element of WMATA’s stainless steel future has emerged from behind the plywood: part of the newly renovated Metro Center sales office.

Unlike Metro’s new entrance to the Rosslyn station (now open to the public, with some pictures from Dan Malouff), the sales office is located within the shell of the existing Harry Weese station vault, showing what we might expect from future large-scale interventions to stations. In line with Metro’s stated intentions, the new sales office is heavy on the use of stainless steel:

New Metro Center sales office. Photo by author.

Currently, only the portion of the structure outside of the fare gates is open, featuring four ticket windows. The remaining windows, inside the paid fare area, are still under construction. The design of the sales office mirrors the design of Metro’s smaller sales office at the Anacostia station, which opened in 2009.

New stainless steel of the ticket office contrasted against the system’s standard ‘Metro Brown’ pylon.

The gap between the two banks of ticket windows not only divides the office between the two sides of fare control, but also to wrap around one of the pre-existing ventilation pylons. The juxtaposition shows the contrast between the original palate of Metro Brown against the new look of stainless steel.

Old Metro Center sales office, 2006. CC image from Wayan Vota

Replacing the sales office was one of Metro’s ‘shovel ready’ stimulus projects, upgrading the booth to include a number of new features, including beefed up security complete with armor plating. (!)

At the same time, SmarTrip cards are now available at a wide range of retail locations as well as vending machines in each station. These machines are a stopgap until WMATA’s next-gen fare payment system (dubbed NEPP) is up and running. New fare vending machines like those in use in other systems around the world will combine the roles of the current SmarTrip vending machines and the existing farecard machines. More and more transactions are automated, including automatic loading of SmartBenefits and automatic replenishment of card value when your balance gets too low. Some older paper passes and fare products are now available on SmarTrip, the NEPP promises more opportunities for this. All of these developments bode for increased automation and less of a role for the old-fashioned sales office.

Nevertheless, you never know what kind of circumstances might emerge to beef up the need for all those ticket windows; perhaps the 2017 Presidential Inauguration will produce the same ‘insane lines’ for commemorative cards as 2009. Maybe.

Metro’s stainless steel future – Rosslyn

As the construction fencing starts to come down around the second entrance to Rosslyn Station, you can now see the future aesthetic for Metro infrastructure. Lots of steel and glass, but little of Metro’s original materials: concrete, tile, and brass.

Elevator-only second entrace to the Rosslyn Station. Photo by the author.

Elevator-only second entrance to the Rosslyn Station. Photo by the author.

The three elevators descend to a new mezzanine adjacent to the existing mezzanine. More renderings of the project are available at Arlington County’s website.

Cutaway of the Rosslyn Station second entrance. Image from Arlington County.

Above ground, the elevators emerge in a completely different structure across the street from the existing entrance. The separation between the two avoids the discord between Metro’s current embrace of stainless steel and the system’s historic colors and materials. Even though this project represents an addition to an existing station, the construction is almost entirely outside of the existing station shell. Unlike the proposed Bethesda renovation, the Rosslyn project thereby avoids the conflict between the old and new palates.

New Rosslyn Station entrance pavilion. Photo by the author.

As the Metro system has expanded, it’s also picked up architectural variety. Even during the build-out of the original Adopted Regional System, the station architecture varies from station to station, depending on age and the construction methods. All of the ARS stations used the same palate of materials, despite the variety in design. Additions beyond the ARS (NoMa infill station and the Largo Extension) feature a different look than other above-ground stations; the Silver Line to Dulles will feature an entirely different architectural vocabulary.

Graphic standards on the Subway – a lesson for Metro as it evaluates the future of ‘Metro Brown’

Today, Second Ave Sagas linked to a digitized copy of Massimo Vignelli’s 1970 graphics standards manual for the New York City Subway. The photographed pages of the manual describe, in exacting detail, the graphic look and feel and philosophy of wayfinding signage for the Subway. While Vignelli’s schematic map (a scan of the map can be found here; discussion of the map’s legacy here and here; and for more from Vignelli himself, see this outtake from Helvetica) didn’t make it out of the 70s, his graphic legacy lives on through the system’s signage.

Henry Grabar wrote about the digital version of the manual in Atlantic Cities in March, adding some history to the conversation. One such change was the inversion of the standards from black text on a white background to the system’s current white text on a black background as a measure to discourage graffiti, though there are claims that white on black is more legible. On a temporary basis, some black-on-white signs have returned.

One of the more interesting pages from the manual shows how signs showing options should only appear at decision points along the way to a train – not before, and not after:

The text at the top of the page reads (out of the frame of the screen capture above, view the full page with magnification to read the text):

This diagram explains the sequence of information to the subway rider. It is a branching system that will lead him to his destination as directly as possible. The basic concept of this branching system is that the subway rider should be given only information at the point of decision. Never before. Never after.

All of the discussion about the manual emphasizes the power of standards. For a detailed history of New York’s struggle with diverse signage, see Paul Shaw’s online work, based on his book. The history of New York’s signage is understandably turbulent, but the level of coherency that comes through for users given the scale of the system is remarkable.

This puts Metro’s recent discussions about moving away from ‘Metro Brown’ into context. If any of New York’s standards look familiar, it is because Vignelli worked on both systems. Vignelli was a consultant to Harry Weese (architect), along with Lance Wyman (map designer), and reportedly was the one to coin the name ‘Metro’ and create the ‘M’ logo. Given the efforts in New York to standardize wayfinding signage, why move in the opposite direction now?

What’s wrong with ‘Metro Brown?’

Last week, the Washington Post featured a lengthy profile of WMATA’s head architect, the man behind the concepts in Metro’s recently unveiled ‘station of the future‘ concept. The article offers some insight into the thinking behind the proposed re-design of the Bethesda station, as well as some of the pushback Metro has received already from the Commission on Fine Arts (among others).

Some changes seem sensible, like higher-output light fixtures to replace current fixtures, with the goal of increased light levels while staying true to Harry Weese’s indirect lighting scheme. These seem more like mechanical or operational challenges for the most part, the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff that won’t make such a huge difference in the appearance of stations.

Other proposals seem like change for the sake of change: replacing bronze with stainless steel, for example:

Karadimov acknowledges bronze as a central element of the “original palate” of Metro. But operationally, it is not ideal. Bronze needs polishing, not just cleaning, and the grime on the railing in Bethesda easily comes off to the touch. In the NoMa-Gallaudet and Largo stations, some of the system’s newest, there are already stainless steel railings that Karadimov says are less expensive to clean (though he did not have a cost estimate) and lighter in color. Same for the first group of five Silver Line stations under construction and the canopies that cover some Metro entrances.

Karadimov proposed replacing the bronze railings and escalator panels throughout the Bethesda station with stainless steel; after criticism over the idea of stripping out so much bronze, however, he retreated, agreeing not to replace the bronze with stainless steel or any concrete parapets with glass. Instead he says Metro will keep all its bronze railings. But he says the escalator panels are a less central element that needs replacing. “That is one thing that we are going to have to have a further conversation about,” he said.

While stainless steel might require less maintenance, that doesn’t make it maintenance-free. Plenty of Metro’s entrance canopies are already showing their age, along with accumulated dirt and grime. Likewise, I can’t see any objection to the use of stainless steel features in new stations, but fail to see why this is such a critical element for the improvement of existing stations. If an escalator replacement opens the door for a stainless steel enclosure instead of a bronze one, so be it – this would hardly be Metro’s first stainless escalator. However, that reasoning doesn’t apply to bronze railings that are not in need of replacement.

Stainless steel station elements at NoMa-Gallaudet U Station. Photo by author.

Aside from bronze, the other element of Metro’s aesthetic under attack is the color brown:

But if the stations are to get brighter, Karadimov said, brown cannot continue to be the dominant color. “We’re not going to keep any brown,” he said. “We believe that having a lighter color will help make the station more bright.”

Like the bronze, brown unquestionably contributes to the placid feeling of the stations, but Karadimov said it contributes just as strongly to views that the stations appear dated. Whether the agency will have to retreat on the color brown as it did on bronze has not been decided.

Karadimov also has not formally proposed a color to replace it. He talks about light gray and silver, which he said would make signage easier to read, but without stainless steel to pair it with he may have to reconsider.

As ubiquitous as brown is within the Metro system, it is by no means the dominant color inside stations. The complaint that bronze is too dark seems to ring hollow, as well. Concrete and the red tiles are far more dominant in the palate than either brown or bronze.

Brown elements are limited to accent pieces and signage. The shade of brown itself is so dark that it doesn’t readily register as a brown at all, but almost a black-brown. Contrary to the assertion from Metro, this dark background provides a great deal of contrast for white lettering, making signage easy to read. White text on dark backgrounds is hardly unique to DC in terms of mass transit signage, either.

Combination of stainless steel, painted steel, and brown signage elements at NoMa-Gallaudet U Station. Photo by author.

Even in Metro’s newer stations (those not a part of the originally planned system), Metro’s white-text-on-brown-background signage standard remained intact. Why change it now and disrupt the uniformity across the system?

The addition of gray elements to Metro’s signage scheme is not new, either. Gallery Place, WMATA’s designated ‘test’ station for new signage, has seen lots of designs over the years, including different background colors and fonts and backlit signage, and the use of gray backgrounds for directional arrows – but none abandon Metro Brown.

Metro’s ‘station of the future’ – why mess with what works?

This week, WMATA unveiled a concept for their “station of the future.” The press release and accompanying video flythough of the pilot station (Bethesda) for these improvements lists the reasons for these changes, including “improved lighting, better information and improved customer convenience.” And who would be against those things? All three have been criticisms of Metro in the past, particularly station lighting.

However, what they’ve shown in the ‘station of the future’ looks a lot more like a wholesale redesign of some of Metro’s iconic station architecture. Dan Malouff at BeyondDC lists the six concepts to be tested:

New wall-mounted lights along the length of the platform, and new information pylons with larger signs and more real-time displays.

Reflective metal panels along the vending wall will be brighter, eliminate shadows, and reduce clutter.

Smaller manager kiosk will make room for more fare gates, which will be reflective metal instead of “Metro brown”.

Anti-slip flooring at the base of the escalators.

Overhead lighting in the mezzanine.

Glass walls replace concrete, allowing more light through.

All together, that’s a mix of sensible station improvements, but also some serious assaults on the system’s architecture and design.

Some of these shouldn’t be controversial at all, such as the non-slip flooring at the base of escalators instead of Metro’s notoriously slippery tiles. Likewise, ticket vending and customer information displays mounted into the mezzanine walls seems like a welcome change. Smaller station manager kiosks in order to provide more faregates makes sense; however, the current renovations on the Orange/Blue lines in DC are putting in larger kiosks, not smaller.

Other changes aren’t new concepts, but rather long-standing challenges Metro has looked to address. The overhead lighting in the mezzanine appears from the flythrough to be the same light fixtures Metro tested at Judiciary Square. The quality of the lighting tends to be cool and harsh (a common trend for WMATA recently), but it’s certainly brighter for mezzanine users (and not nearly as abrasive as WMATA’s Friendship Heights experiment using Metro’s outdoor pylons indoors).

Glass parapet walls have been used in other stations, as well – most recently in the baseball renovations at Navy Yard. That staircase, however, is a rather surgical change to the station, cutting a hole in the mezzanine floor where there was none before. This concept proposes replacing an existing concrete parapet with glass.

The ‘station of the future’ proposes three really big changes to Metro’s design: eliminating ‘Metro brown’ in favor of stainless steel; a completely new winged pylon design; and indirect lighting provided by new wall-mounted fixtures that can double as station signage.

It’s not clear to me what’s wrong with Metro Brown. Given the multitude of other options available to improve lighting, blaming the limited amount of brown metal panels in the stations seems like a stretch. Given the cost to Metro’s architectural legacy, it’s hard to see how this is worth it.

Metro’s desire to distance itself from the color brown isn’t new. The three newest stations in the system (and not part of the originally planned system) make use of glass and stainless steel, but still use Metro brown for signage and entrance pylons. Metro’s newest railcars will ditch the brown stripe at window level in favor of a gaudy disco-ball logo.

The voiceover in WMATA’s video expresses concern about brown representing a dated look, but I’m not sure anyone really objects to the color and the role it plays in Metro’s overall visual brand. The brown pylons and signage have aged well compared to Metro’s original car interiors or the idea of carpeting. Why change what works?

It’s hard to tell the extent of the use of stainless from Metro’s flythough of what looks to be a Sketchup model, but the voiceover makes it seem possible that the new pylons could be stainless; the Sketchup signage in the flythrough is the same color as the pylon, making it hard to tell which elements are steel and which would be Metro brown.

The stated benefits of the pylon re-design seem dubious. The winged directional signage seems unnecessary to me, and putting wings on each and every pylon clutters the space created by Metro’s vaults. Adding more PID displays is a positive, but I’m not sure that many displays are necessary. Two or three along the length of any platform would probably suffice.

System wayfiding is important, but there are lots of other ways to accomplish that goal without adding wings telling you which side of the platform is for outbound trains to every pylon. Likewise, one of the benefits to Metro’s spacious vaulted stations are the clear lines of sight in most stations – alighting passengers can usually see their exit mezzanine within direct view, providing intuitive wayfinding within stations.

I’d bu curious to know if the goals of improved lighting from the indirect fixtures mounted into the walls could be just as easily met with better maintenance of the existing trackbed lighting, cleaning station vaults more regularly, and looking into the use of newer technologies like LEDs in existing lighting locations for both higher lighting levels and lower maintenance requirements.

Here, grab a seat

Brookland Metro Station – photo by author.

While in the midst of repacing the old terra cotta tiles at the Brookland station (the most colorful of all Metro stations) with the newer concrete tiles for outdoor stations, Metro was kind enough to build some temporary wood benches for customers.

Metro highlights frequency in new bus map

This week, Greater Greater Washington highlighted WMATA’s latest iteration of their new bus map (as post on the first iteration is here), which opts for a diagrammatic representation of the bus network, highlighting frequent, all-day bus services over infrequent and irregulat coverage bus routes.

The new map is a huge improvement of the old one. Digging through the archives, I found this post, with a screencap of roughly the same part of the city – just for the purposes of comparison.

The inspiration for posting about the shortcomings of the WMATA map back in 2010 came after reading Jarrett Walker’s blog. Walker emphasizes the value of frequency, and the importance of highlighting frequent services in an operator’s communications, such as maps. WMATA’s old maps made no such distinctions – in fact, the map highlighted rather useless distinctions, such as whether or not a bus crossed state lines.

The timing of Metro’s release of the new map was fortuitous. Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in Walker’s two-day transit network design course. The exercises in the course force participants to deal with the trade-offs between conflicting goals, limited budgets, constrained geography, and the fundamental geometry of efficient transit service.

(Jarrett has posted reviews of the DC course here – I would definitely recommend the course both for those working on transit/transportation, as well as anyone interested in how cities function)

Wayfinding challenges for WMATA’s Rush Plus

WMATA’s recent service change, branded as Rush Plus (probably over-promising things just a bit as “rush hour reinvented”), involved deviating from Metro’s fairly straightforward delineation of lines and services via color. Metro’s increasingly complicated service pattern is getting to the point of requiring a similarly robust nomenclature for services.

When a rider speaks of the Red Line, they refer not just to a set of tracks but also the service that operates on them. Even this wasn’t perfect, as many Red Line trains wouldn’t operate for the full line – they would short-turn at Grosvenor or Silver Spring. GGW’s Metro Map contest identified each of the separate services Metro regularly runs, counting ten current services, plus the future Silver Line. Ten services is obviously more than the five colors on Metro’s map.

More problematic is the fact that color and line terminus are no longer paired. Yellow line trains can terminate at both Franconia-Springfield and Huntington; Orange line trains can terminate at both Largo and New Carrollton.

When devising a new map to show these service changes and to prepare for the introduction of the Silver Line, Metro opted to keep the map (and service nomenclature) that riders know well the same. However, the increasingly complex service pattern demands nomenclature to match.

WMATA’s move towards using colored bullets to help identify train services helps:

However, those bullets still only identify the all-day services, not the ‘Rush Plus’ services. WMATA’s in-station signage uses something else:

YL Rush Only service bullet, GR bullet. CC image from justgrimes.

The striping within the bullet matches the pattern for such services on Metro’s new map, but it just doesn’t read well on in-station signage:

Rush Plus signage at Gallery Place-Chinatown. Photo by author.

From afar (or in the above case, just standing at the platform), you can’t tell the difference between the rush-only YL bullet and the regular service YL bullet. Which means that the bullet isn’t useful for wayfinding if the rider still needs to focus on their terminal destination. A different rush-only YL bullet adds nothing.

One potential solution would be to take a lesson from a system that has lots of different services, operating on different lines (both are distinct concepts) – New York. Differentiation among similarly routed services can be accomplished via graphical means.

For some rush-only, peak-direction-only services, New York’s diamond bullets might work as an example for Metro’s rush-only services. Regular Orange Line trains [identified as (OR) in shorthand] would go to New Carrollton, while rush-only trains [identified with a diamond <OR> bullet] would go to Largo.

This wouldn’t solve all of Metro’s service naming challenges – the fact that some rush-only services bring new service to places (like more trains to Largo) while other services do not (how most Yellow trains at the peak end at Mount Vernon Square, not the ‘regular’ listed terminus of Fort Totten) and that some service patterns are not rush-only (short-turning trains on the Red Line at Grosvenor and Silver Spring) makes a simple switch difficult. Still, there’s a need to change.

This isn’t the first time this issue has popped up, and so long as Metro’s services are getting more (and not less) complex, it won’t be going away anytime soon.

Links: Metro’s disco inferno; the power of ports

Two items worth sharing:

7000 Series Metro Cars:

Over the weekend, WMATA released a few pictures and some videos (complete with a soundtrack that would make Michael Bay jealous) of the prototype of the 7000 series, currently under assembly in Japan.

The front end of the cars looks sharp – the black background with the white Metro logo is clean and easily read and identified at a distance. Compare against a rendering here.

It’s unfortunate that the side doesn’t share the same clean look. The industrial design of the car body is fine – echoing other transit vehicles (both old and new) with the corrugated steel. The contrast against the smooth finish at the window levels provides a similar effect to the current fleet’s brown stripe.

The car interiors will feature real-time strip maps showing the next stations on the line – early commentary has focused on misspellings.

While the old paint scheme (essentially just the brown stripe) might seem a little dated, the future cars feature this “disco ball” motif around the Metro logo, both inside and out. It’s an upgrade from the hideous “America’s Metro” debacle, but still feels like it will be dated quickly. The large penumbra around the M means that the disco ball on the exterior is centered on the entire carbody, rather than having the M aligned with the windows, as it is now with the brown stripe. The front end of the 7000 car shows the crisp M logo well – I’m not sure why they didn’t keep the same approach with the sides and resorted to this disco gimmick.

The importance of ports:

As each of those new Metro cars is manufactured, they’ll be shipped to the US for final assembly – likely arriving in some large port complex. Will Doig has an interesting article on the battles over waterfront land between maritime uses and real estate interests:

The problem (if you can call it that) is that this is happening just as the maritime industry is booming, thanks to an explosion of cheapo imports from Asia. It’s conventional wisdom that urban industries are dying, but shipping isn’t one of them. Even with the recession, the container trade has doubled since 2000, and 2012 is expected to be another record-breaking year. “I think it’s great to have a park, but you can put a park anywhere,” says Hughes. “There has to be someplace to do this.”

Are cities that place? After centuries of ports fueling urban growth, some people are starting to think: Maybe not anymore. “The scale of port activity requires much more space than it used to,” says Doucet, referring to the massive container ships that require not just deep-water ports, but dry-land acreage and fleets of trucks to unload their cargo. “It’s actually much more practical for ports to be located outside the city center.”

Doig’s article only touches on the changes to the landscapes that the current state of the art of shipping has brought upon our landscapes. The article reminded me of some excellent Mammoth posts on the subject (shipping and border control, the landscape of globalization, and the physical distribution network as a sampling), noting how the economic logic and physical requirements of this type of trade, combined with legal structures and other constraints has created entirely new landscapes.

The key point that Mr. Doucet makes in Doig’s article is that the geography of shipping today is very different from the old landscape of longshoremen working on Manhattan’s docks. Framing the battle over this real estate has something to do with the longevity and ‘stickiness’ of land uses – but often isn’t looking forward to the changing environment such infrastructure is operating in.

City Block

a work in progress…