Comments on Barcelonaâ€™s Line 9 – Inspiring Montrealâ€™s Pink Line

By: JD

2017-11-11T20:56:24Z

You have a great blog with a global perspective. In your REM critique you point out the lack of peak capacity coverage, but don’t bring up altered behaviour. Work hours are becoming more flexible, so you might see a flattening of the peak in your graph. Also, an all day system will promote multi-hub/ urban centre development and so-called reverse commuters which would make better use of trains in both directions. The economic affects of this would be complicated to work out.
I would be very interested in a comparison of the Pink and REM lines. I’d say the Pink reinforces the centre-periphery commuting patters and some redundancy. The REM provides regular service to low-density urban fringe areas which could in fact reinforce urban sprawl, counter to the overall objectives. I’d be inclined to go with the multi-hub/ urban centre growth model reinforced by the REM. REM + Pink and orange and blue expansion seems too rich, particularly when there are other areas of the country that are way more auto-oriented and need the transit funding more (particularly medium sized cities).

By: ant6n

2017-11-08T16:52:39Z

@Colin
I didn’t test the assertion. But I believe they may be counting underground sections. I think you may be counting track km for the underground portion of the Central line, not line km.

By: Colin Brown

2017-11-08T16:49:14Z

It will be the longest metro line in Europe, with 48 km ? Are you sure about that? As far I know the total length of Transport for London’s Central lines tunnels are 52.8 km, and total track length of the whole system is 147.1 km

By: Roger Poitras

2017-11-06T18:44:24Z

Awesome writeup! Feeling hopeful for the future of this line.

By: akajolicoeur

2017-11-01T00:52:05Z

Interesting as always

By: Christopher Wyatt

2017-10-31T17:06:23Z

Thank you for a very excellent and interesting overview of Barcelona’s new Metro system. Overall, I am impressed with the design & engineering.

I have just one question, which seems difficult to answer given the images provided: Is it true, as I understand it, that there is only one elevator to provide disabled/pushcart access to the platforms from the mezzanine level? If so, is there also a ramp that is provided?

For a metro system which is running such high-capacity trains at such high frequency (eg., every 2 minutes on the Barcelona trunk line), providing only one elevator for such access would seem to me a major constraint on capacity. I suppose it is possible that the number of wheelchair users in Spain is much less than in the U.S.A., where I live, perhaps because of the better overall health of your population. Regardless, provision of a simple wheelchair ramp would seem preferable to a single elevator, which could be inconvenient, slow, and unreliable.