As a Detroiter, this is so disappointing. Also, having ridden the Baltimore one a few times - wow, they clearly built such high-quality infrastructure, just to basically abandon it.
Man Baltimore really bums me out. Its one line is actually really really cool and high quality, but it doesn't have any connections so it's criminally underused. the stations are so awesome and were clearly built for much more use. Imagine if Baltimore had a DC Metro scale system (which its population and density could absolutely support!)
Agreed, I wish that the red line planning had kept the heavy rail alternative, instead of opting for light rail which may or may not even have its own dedicated right of way.
will say though, Baltimore's Light Rail is pretty good, I've always enjoyed riding it. Hopefully someday the Metro system Baltimore deserves can be built@@cornkopp2985
It makes you wonder if the decline of Cincinnati, Detroit, and Baltimore might have been averted if these cities had had excellent public transportation as a selling point to attract new businesses.
public transportation doesn't seem to be a good selling point for attracting new businesses. ironically in America the fastest growing places by businesses and population have some of the worst public transportation in the country.
no, it was racism that emptied those cities. and it's racism that keeps mass transit from reaching the suburbs in the same sorts of places. white people moved to the suburbs to get away from non-white people. they don't want mass transit letting those people out of the cities and into the suburbs.
@@mickeygraeme2201 the fastest growing places are also typically the cheapest. Could this be a case where people want to live in public transit heavy areas (leading to increased prices) but have to settle for cheap areas due to cost?
@@amnoah In a sense. But shrinking places are also cheap. There are other stronger driving factors. A locked in problem of public transportation is that for the economics of the service to work the density of land usage must be high which by definition increases the cost. Additionally there are many cheap areas with public transit/short commutes that people don't live in already because the racial demographics are bad.
You mentioned San Juan's Tren Urbano, but it, too is a "lost" system in a way, despite being pretty new. It was supposed to have four lines that actually went somewhere instead of only one line that only makes it halfway into the city.
Phoenix had a failed SkyTrain type plan…now we are building the original routes using light rail instead. Coincidentally, the airport train is called SkyTrain and connects with the light rail.
Arizonan here. The PHX SkyTrain is definitely ironic, being a mini version of the network that was initially envisioned. Still, I think the Valley Metro is a solid system, and there’s a lot of expansions and improvements in the works. Phoenix is, surprisingly, moving in the right direction with public transit.
This was the one that instantly came to mine when I thought of a follow up video... It also should have had a sprawling automated train network vs the tram it has now...
What's kind of funny is most of the lines on the Vancouver Skytrain start out as surface-level light rail and then get upgraded to automated grade-separated before construction. Canada, Evergreen, and the upcoming Langley Extension all went through this process.
As a Cincinnatian, I wish we could've had the subway finished. It would've connect many neighborhoods to the downtown which aren't very accessible today by transit, besides some limited bus routes. We have our streetcar line that's had very successful increases in ridership (1.1 million riders in 2023) and public support, but it's limited where it goes. Although there are talks of expanding it with 9 proposed routes being presented in February so that's exciting. To finish the subway today, it would cost around $100-150 million today which is less than the cost of the streetcar line. It's very doable, but there is no political will atm. Hopefully in the future. We are getting 2 BRT routes in 2028 and a possible streetcar expansion, so right now, these are our best options. I hope other modes of transit become a reality in Cincinnati like the subway, light rail, and commuter rail, like in the 2002 Metro Moves bill you mentioned in your video. One can dream.
How are you talking? From what I’ve seen of the Miami MetroRail, it’s actually a very promising system for where it goes. Coupled with the APM, it actually does its job well. It could simply never be a subway.
I don't understand your question, "how am i talking"? Anyway, my biggest issue with the metrorail is that it completely ignores the inland communities to the east and northwest, areas of generally lower income than that it serves now. There also is no connection to FIU, the largest university in the city. If you look at the plans from the 90s it serves those areas i mentioned which would've been great in my opinion.
They just approved a new line going to the Hard Rock Stadium, a line to Miami Beach and another commuter rail line up to Aventura. This is in addition to a dedicated busway similar to Belem in Brasil that runs for more than 50 miles to its southern suburbs
Apparently, Baltimore also had a plan in 2002 to build an east-west (red) line, a north-southwest (yellow) line (that would join the current north-south line in some parts), and even a couple services along current MARC corridors (orange and purple lines). It's sad to see how both times Baltimore was never able to build transit, though with the red line and mayybe the yellow line being revived hopefully we can get some sort of better transit. Third time's the charm, eh?
The red line is probably happening, we just have to hope that the government doesn't shoot itself in the foot and try to cheap out on the construction like it has with the past two rapid transit attempts... There seems to be some possibility of a north/south rail line too, although it is still in the planning phase
Like Cincinnati, this reminds me of a city that used an old canal bed to build a subway line that DID open and operate but got rid of it, and that's the Rochester Industrial and Rapid Transit Railway aka the Rochester Subway. Planning for the subway's construction began around 1910 as the Erie Canal was re-routed from downtown Rochester to pass south of the city. This new canal route was completed in 1918 and the year after, the city bought the abandoned portion of the canal to serve as the route of the subway. The Rochester Subway was designed to reduce interurban traffic on city streets, and to facilitate freight interchange between the railroads. Construction began in 1922 and began operations in 1927. As it was constructed in the old canal's bed, this allowed the route to be grade-separated for its entire length. Two miles/3.2 kilometers of the route through downtown were constructed in a cut-and-cover tunnel that became Broad Street, and the only underground portion of the subway. The line was operated on a contract basis by New York State Railways until Rochester Transit Corporation took over in 1938. There was a plan to extend the line but as ridership was declining after WWII, the city council made plans to abandon the subway and use its route for a connecting highway to the New York State Thruway instead. All service ended in 1956.
Speaking of NYC, a lost metro line is an extension of the BMT Fourth Ave Line to Staten Island. In 1888, the B&O (the owners of the Staten Island Railway until 1971) proposed a tunnel between Staten Island and Brooklyn. The proposal never made it through the approval process when financial challenges stopped the plan at the drawing board. A rapid transit route to connect Staten Island to the remainder of New York City was proposed in 1912, in conjunction with the Dual Contracts of the New York City Subway. There was a Manhattan proposal and two Brooklyn proposals (Bay Ridge and Fort Hamilton), with the Bay Ridge proposal winning. In May 1922, Mayor John Hylan launched a new plan for the freight and passenger tunnel, but this was opposed by the Pennsylvania RR and the Port Authority, as the PRR and Port Authority preferred a tunnel from Brooklyn to Jersey City with a spur to Staten Island. A groundbreaking ceremony was held in 1923, however, the project was halted in 1925. Hylan cancelled the project as a way to cripple the two private subway rivals (BMT and IRT) so he could promote the city-operated Independent Subway System or IND (which opened in 1932). Nonetheless, Bay Ridge-95th Street station still opened in October of that year, with a fake wall added in anticipation of the tunnel that was never built. SI's Hylan Boulevard was named after him.
The central light rail line in Baltimore only mirrors the original plan south of Midtown. The northern half runs in the sparsely populated and unwalkable Jones Falls Valley instead of the densely populated York Road/Greenmount/Charles Street corridors it would have served in the original plan
Seattle was also supposed to build a subway. Instead, Atlanta ended up getting a new subway and Seattle settled on light rail, however, their light rail system is actually more like a light rail and subway system combined in one and follows a similar route layout as the original Seattle subway plan
Seattle shouldve gotten marta, they wouldve actually expanded upon it properly.. Atlanta is still too old school minded and car brained to realize how great having heavy rail is
@@suuwooski6416 well Marta was initially planned to be like BART, kinda like a hybrid metro/commuter rail system that would not just serve Atlanta and the inner suburbs, but also the suburbs that are further out like Alpharetta, Marietta, Kennesaw, Suwanee, Douglasville, etc. but yeah like you said, many people in Atlanta are too old school and car brained that they don’t, and refuse to, understand the benefits of heavy rail
@@TransitAndTeslas Now we have to have a crystal ball on who future rolling stock builders also do business with. We can ditch Siemens for St Louis car, oops, they are gone. Don’t want to go too far in the details, but ST had to shut down U-District Station tonight to prevent a disruptive protest. They found out one of Siemens other customers.
Although it’s not an American city, Winnipeg had a subway proposal in the 1950s but nothing ever came of it. Had it been built though, it would have been the second Canadian city after Toronto to have a subway system.
As a Cincinnati native, the chances of the tunnels being refurbished back into a metro system is basically zero. Even ignoring the existing utilities in the tunnel that would have to be moved, the dimensions of the tunnel/platforms are severely limiting. It'd be more likely that the tunnel would be dug back up and everything torn up and replaced rather than simply refurbishing what is already there.
Milwaukee was building a subway system between american family field and downtown, but the great depression killed the project. In its place now is a huge urban freeway thats always backed up during the rush.
This was a well-made video, however, I just wanted to offer some constructive feedback regarding Cincinnati. Cincinnati's system was built in the bed of the old Miami and Erie Canal on the west side of the city all the way north to St. Bernard, where it veered east and paralleled existing rail lines through Norwood, and then back south through the Deer Creek Valley to Downtown. The portions of the old Subway that still exist are the tunnels, while the above-ground and at-grade portions were demolished to make way for Interstate 75, the Norwood Lateral (Ohio State Route 562) and Interstate 71. These three freeways roughly follow the intended route, and Interstate 75 utilizes much of the right-of-way acquired for the subway project, and was the impetus to demolish most of the previously constructed above-ground portions. There is another line that would have been possibly incorporated into the subway that was not mentioned. An old railroad from the 19th Century, which connected the Mill Creek Valley with Westwood, was built for passenger service, but went bankrupt after an electric streetcar line was built on Harrison Avenue around the turn of the 20th Century. It was kept "operational" through several legal loopholes by its owners throughout the 1920s, in hopes that it would be eventually extended and incorporated into the subway system that was being planned, to connect to the growing Western Hills neighborhoods, but the subway was never completed. This line finally became officially defunct during the Great Depression, and the right-of-way was sold off. Remnants of it can still be seen on the hillside in South Fairmount today. The website Cincinnati-Transit dot net really does a good job of documenting the system that was intended and what got built, as well as other historical Cincinnati area transit services. Another anomaly with the Cincinnati regional interurban and streetcar system was that the city had a completely different system than the urbanized area immediately across the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky, where the Green Line had interurbans and trolleys serving many of the major modern-day suburbs south of Cincinnati. These lines converged in Downtown Covington, the largest city in the region, with trolleys crossing the Roebling Suspension Bridge and terminating at the Dixie Terminal between 3rd Street and 4th Street. This distinction remains today, with the Transportation Authority of Northern Kentucky (TANK) being completely separate from the Southern Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA), with the two overlapping a bit in Downtown Cincinnati, where TANK buses cross over to Ohio, as far north as 6th Street, on routes connecting Newport and Covington. The two still really are not integrated as much as they should be, but the whole metropolitan region around Cincinnati has issues with coordination due to being split between Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. Greater Cincinnati, at least economically and demographically, is a bit of an anomaly in the Rust Belt. It has grown from about 1.2 million people in the 1950s to 2.3 million today, with quite a bit of this growth (a net gain of over 500k people) happening after most of the major Rust Belt metropolitan areas went into demographic stagnation during the 1970s. Cincinnati has attracted primarily economic migrants from the more distressed parts of Appalachia, who today comprise the largest single group within the metropolitan region, due to its historically more diverse economy compared to other similarly-sized Rust Belt cities. It struggled with deindustrialization and white flight, but it never really had the domination by industry that defined other similarly-sized cities in the region. It made the transition to a postindustrial economy more quickly and quietly than many of those other cities, and as a result, the Greater Cincinnati area has just been growing slowly and steadily since the turn of the 20th Century. Cincinnati does have a modern streetcar system, which is not mentioned, but it is a bit of a joke in my opinion, only making a figure-8 loop on the streets of Downtown and Over-the-Rhine, and not connecting to the "Uptown" section of the city, where the University of Cincinnati and most of the city's significant hospitals are located, and is one of the most densely populated areas of the city, as well as the second largest employment center in the region. There was an attempted undermining of the system before it opened and during operations for the first several years by the former mayor of Cincinnati, who was a vocal opponent of the streetcar before taking office. There were initially plans to extend the streetcar to Uptown, but these have not happened, and it is uncertain as to whether they will happen. Cincinnati, as of right now, is working on planning several Bus Rapid Transit lines along major arterial roads through the city's various neighborhoods North, Northeast, and West of Downtown, and has been doing a lot of transit improvements for buses in recent years, including building a new bus terminal in the Northside neighborhood. I do think the region could potentially be home to a light rail system in the future, given how much the political landscape has generally shifted from center-right to center-left since the early 2000s, but I would guess that the costs would have to be less substantial than they would be today for this to happen. That may sound a bit far-fetched, but Ohio is now looking at rebuilding the passenger rail service that has been absent since the 1970s, after years of hard work by activists and a shift in the attitude of the state's population towards public transportation. As to how I know all of this or have any credibility to speak on this topic, I am a former Cincinnati area resident, an urbanist, a fan of rail transit, and someone who reads about history all the time.
Wow, thanks for commenting! I didn’t know that there was a palm for an expansion to the subway. And yes I do think that Cincinnati could be a great place to build an extensive light rail system and given the political shift I hope that it will happen within the near future. Thanks for sharing!
I'd never heard that the Cincinnati subway was meant for interurbans, or that the interurbans couldn't use the downtown streetcar tracks. Thanks for that.
Ding! The Cincinnati streetct system was built with a wider gauge for the express purpose of keeping the interurbans out of the city proper. By the time the subway was completed, all the interurbans but the C & LE were out of business.
Nimbyism is not what killed the full build out of the Baltimore Metro, It was former mayor and later governor William Donald Schaefer. Donald Schaefer was an advocate for light rail as he had love of streetcars. He pushed for the building of the north south light rail line over the north south heavy rail rapid transit line. I will also note the hub station of the Baltimore Metro is named Charles Center not Charles Point. The Washington Metro does not fall into the category of "almost fully constructed". The adopted plan in 1968 called for a 97 miles and 83 station. After several revision it was lengthened to 103 miles and was completed in 2001. Sense then one line was lengthened 3 miles with 2 station, a branch of 23 miles with 11 station and 2 infill station were built along existing lines. Today the system is 129 miles with 98 stations.
I thought Baltimore's shift from subway to light rail for the N-S line was so that they could build it quicker with state funds and avoid the environmental review to get federal funds.
@@sebastianjoseph2828 That is also another reason. Much of the moneys to pay for it was redirected revenues from the bridge toll authority. The first segment of line was originally built on the cheap, single track with passing siding.
Detroit's "people mover monorail" isn't a monorail, it's a fully automated, driverless light-metro which uses standard gauge tracks and a linear induction 3rd rail for traction. It's the same technology as the Vancouver Skytrain which moves almost half a million people a day. It's honestly a pretty amazing system, but Detroit never built theirs out. For most US cities, automated light-metro is probably the way to go over more expensive heavy metro systems and crappy light rail. You can build it for similar prices to light rail (i.e. smaller trains and stations) but you get more frequent, faster trains which carry more people.
I was wondering what the Detroit Skytrain network was supposed to look like since what was built was only the demonstration downtown loop of what was supposed to be a larger network. I've just never seen the plans for it yet...
@edwardmiessner6502 not quite. Gerald Ford (a republican) promised a 600 million earmark, but the citiy and suburbs couldn't agree on how to spend the money. Eventually the funding was pulled during Reagan's first term.
I was expecting to see Philadelphia here; we have two subway lines (one is part subway and part elevated), but we didn't get most of the system that was proposed in a couple of versions from 90 to 110 years ago, especially the desperately needed northeast (Roosevelt Blvd.) line, which people are still trying to revive. There used to be a huge regional Sears catalog distribution center along the proposed route, which employed thousands of people, and in the 1960's Sears funded the partial construction of a station at their location, in anticipation of the line being built. It is believed the station was destroyed when the whole Sears complex was demolished in 1994.
I lived in Baltimore for 2 years. I think I took the subway twice, occasionally I would bus, but it was so slow it wasn't viable. Love the subway in DC
Or at least could have declined only at the same rate as Cleveland or St. Louis or other Rust Belt industrial cities in the sense of having entire large sections of the core city more or less intact even as many other large sections become run-down.
When I think of Metro systems I think of France, Spain and Germany where Metro Ⓜ and U-Bahn systems exist in most cities and larger alglomeration. Plus there are also (RER), (C)Cercanias & (S)-Bahn services.
Great Video. I live in Baltimore and have been watching our metro system since it's construction in the 1970's. Now it's over 40 years old and does have ridership but because of the virus and loss of population in the downtown areas with many of the downtown spaces remaining empty any extension of the system is highly unlikely. The current mood is shifting towards light rail which I am ok with but I still desire heavy rail but because of cost that would be a dream. Also you informed me on a lot of things about Cincinnati and Detroit. The Cinc story to me was very sad. I have seen other people do videos on that unbuilt system and I an sad that they could not close the deal. Thanks Cheers!
Could you make a video about the train that is supposed to be built from Denver, CO to Boulder, CO? The plan was approved by voters but funding ran out. There is tons of car traffic on Hwy 36 every morning and afternoon as a result. Thanks!
@@scpatl4now crazy how there's so little plans for transit on Howell mill in the more marta plan even though its literally the biggest/most dense region in the city without rail. that area desperately needs brt heading down 10th to midtown station and brt down Howell mill/marietta st to five points. the only connection from Howell mill to dt is a bus that runs every 40 min, a brt line would decrease traffic a lot as Howell mill and even dt continue to grow
There was, in the early 20th century, a belt line that appears on many old maps, and may have been a dedicated right-of-way for inter-urban or trolleys. I haven’t been able to find out much more. The current single line of light-rail will now be extended, but it’s still not adequate. Another anomaly that’s always puzzled me is that it’s surface street running in the congested CBD where it needs to be subway and subway elsewhere. How did that happen?
Yes a video on that would be fantastic; here is a primer on the system from Vanishing Underground - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Eybs9KXjdw0.html
This was a great video showing how some cities never fully expanded their metro system, or how some cities allowed political , and NIMBY s to derail their plans for a metro system. I think you could also include Rochester New York in this video. Rochester , like Cincinnati, had a trolley system that ran underground like a subway. I hope that Baltimore will expand its metro system. I hope that Cincinnati, Detroit, and Rochester; will in the future consider building a metro system for their cities.
Buffalo is also a contender as it currently has 1 and we like to call it "the subway that goes to nowhere" lol. Although they're talking about expanding it to go to Tonawanda and there was once talks to include the airport as well.
Qline was designed by a billionaire as a personal private project. It is not built to be used day to day and is instead supposed to act as a ¨tourism¨ or ¨recreational¨ line. It is insane and very illustrative of where Detroit is at right now that they were willing to spend money on it.
Thank you for this amazing video summarizing research that I've been trying to find independently for years on these cities especially Detroit and the older plans for the city... I absolutely want to see a second video on this including perhaps Spokane's LRT, the Phoenix SkyRail, Las Vegas monorail expansions that never happened, amongst others... Even my hometown of Edmonton has had far too many unbuilt proposals (including a 25-mile, 3-line, 6-branch, 22 station subway system) compared to 43 KM of LRT and Tram we now have. Back in the 1920's with only a population of 47,000 or so there were 90 km of lines... Now in 2024? 1,000,000 in city limits alone, another 500,000 in the metro and again only a fraction of the same mass transit capacity...
A rail line on Woodward would be so amazing for Detroit if it went all the way up to Pontiac or even just Royal Oak. Right now needing a designated driver plus paying for parking or paying for an expensive uber is such an impediment to people experiencing all that the stadium district has to offer. I would love to hop on a train and be able to go out to the many bars or catch a Lions, Red Wings, Pistons, or Tigers game, but instead, you have to park and walk on poorly shoveled sidewalks slipping all over the place. Me and my girlfriend were holding onto each other while I grabbed fences and light posts after watching the Pistons blow the 4th quarter like usual vs the Bucks. People in downtown Detroit could also come out to the suburbs more for the parks and the smaller downtowns in Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Birmingham if they wanted to. It makes so much sense but will just never happen.
You beat me to it! ❤ But I would have written it as "Grash it", the same as "trash it" which is exactly what the politicians, the capitalists, and bored teenagers did to Detroit.
Phoenix also had plans to build a metro system in the late 1980s, in what would've been called ValTrans. The system would have had multiple lines, with some reaching to suburbs like Peoria, Scottsdale, and Glendale. The plan was vetoed by voters for being too costly, and people thought that Phoenix was too spread out. Instead, we got one of the lines built as a light rail line, which actually has an extension that opens this Saturday to the former Metrocenter mall.
Part of the problem with the 1970s Detroit system was that the then-mayor insisted that all of the track miles in Detroit had to be underground. That made the price tag too high. Wow, you pronounced a lot of street names in Detroit badly. I haven't lived there in over 30 years but I would have done better than that. :-)
Pittsburgh has a Light Rail (commonly known as The T about 26.2-mile rails) and connects to surrounding suburbs. It operates as a deep-level subway in downtown Pittsburgh, but runs mostly at-grade in the suburbs south of the city.
Nice try at this video, but lots of errors - Cincinnati spelled wrong, Johns Hopkins spelled wrong, many mispronunciations (Gratiot, WMATA, “John” Hopkins, etc). A little more attention to detail and your videos will improve! Good luck!
You can add Seattle to the list. Thankfully they are working on a pretty extensive light rail system but decades after they could of had a federally funded transit system.
Thank you so much for making this video. Ill be sure to share it with other transit enthusiasts and i hope you are able to make a part 2 of scrapped metro systems
New York City has so many unbuilt rapid transit lines that somebody wrote an entire book about them.. There was the "second IND" that was supposed to be built after World War II, various 1950's concepts including the Second Avenue subway again, the "Plan for Action" around the time of the creation of the MTA, 1980's speculation about how to use the upper level of the 63rd Street tunnel. to Queens, and then the revival of planning for Second Avenue starting in 1995. Instead, New York for many decades has closed more mileage (mostly elevated lines) than it opened. So far Second Avenue had three new stations opened in 2017 and further momentum has not materialized.
It would be cool to see a similar approach applied to cities that have extensive systems but did not build them out to what they could have. Chicago had a plan from the 1930s for a lot more subways, but only built the State Street and Milwaukee-Dearborn lines. I think Philly also had a more extensive plan from the 1920s or so, only part of which got built.
Detroit might (***might***) have something in the works. They were apparently negotiating with canada to buy several old people mover cars. If they design the system to be more than a novelty it could work out
Definitely gotta show more. Also you can do a split off series of what metro areas destroyed the most public transportation services in the last century.
I live in Baltimore, and must say that our system is so unreliable. Just a few weeks ago, the entire light rail was shut down for 2 weeks because of an issue with the rolling stock. I live close to Owings Mills, so I take the subway downtown. Rarely shows up on time. In order to get to most places in Baltimore, you have a catch a bus or Uber. They’ve been talking about creating the red line for years, but we still don’t have it.
@@dbclass2969 Because the purple line is connected to DC’s red line metro, Maryland and Virginia jump to do so much more for the areas around DC because that’s where the money is lol
I wish Des Moines had transit, they used to have a trolley way back in the 50s/60s, but as soon as the bus came around they tore it all up. Barely anything preserved.
When I was in Grad School, I came across the plan for the Detroit Rapid Transit system, in a publication by SEMCOG (Southeastern Michigan Council of Governments). The Rapid Transit lines were supposed to run in Freeway medians - like Chicago - and the proposed rolling stock looked like the CTA "Span Cans" with pantagraphs. The rapid tranist lines would be fed by PCC streetcars and trackless trolleys. GM did not want a rapid transit system on its turf. What happenend was that the built the free with a median wide enough for two tracks but too narrow to accomodate the stations.
The NIMBY's in Baltimore not only killed the metro system but they knee capped the cross town freeways as well. Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski became famous for her fight in the 60's and 70's against building I-70 and I-95 as cross town freeways. This resulted in two highways to nowhere in Baltimore, the I-70 spur from the West and the US 40 freeway in West Baltimore. Today the Baltimore Harbor tunnels are some of the most congested highways in the US due the NIMBY efforts.
You should check out A. Merritt Taylor's plan for the Philadelphia subway. It was going to have a series of lines connecting at a Center City loop (which does partially exist abandoned) and I recall it was going to have around 150 stations.
Cincinnati is the most tragic. They had it partially built for crying out loud! The hard part was over. And they demolished it? Are you kidding me? That couldn’t have been cheap! If I was a Cincinnati resident during this time I’d be absolutely livid.
Cities like Melbourne have less population than Atlanta yet have double the suburban lines. Far smaller cities like Perth, Adelaide, and Wellington, which have less than a third of the population of Atlanta, still have large suburban networks, even if they aren't fancy automated metros with split second frequencies
Wellington is particularly impressive for an under 500K metro area. 3.5 electrified suburban rail lines and 2 peak commuter lines is rather impressive for such a small city. Now we just need a tram...
@@andyolivares8692 Not necessarily. A lot of the suburban areas of Melbourne, Sydney, etc. are very similar in design to American suburbs with loopy culs-de-sac and low density housing. The difference? Cities down under kept their old rail lines (most of melbourne is legacy rail infra that was upgraded and gradually improved) or built new lines (see perth) so the suburbs still have okay public transport. Many similarly sized american cities have networks of tracks or old rail right-of-ways (go to openrailwaymap, the orange and yellow lines are tracks) that are only used for freight trains so there is massive potential in the US for AU/NZ-style suburban rail systems. Suburban rail could be a great asset for quickly improving public transport in US cities as the infrastructure is (usually) already there meaning it's cheap (but freight companies may object) and it offers speeds much faster than light rail and high capacity.
The more I watch these type of videos ,you can see how political interests and the ability to create a negative image of PT in the past has led to the downfall and decline of a lot of US cities and their livability. Compare this to cities that over the decades have invested heavily into rail infrastructure and wider PT that are becoming more vibrant.
Excellent content, well researched and nicely presented. Love the old streetcar footage. Check out our little world up here in Buffalo NY. Major train hub in the day with an absolutely gorgeous streetcar, parkway system. Now, not so much. Metro NIMBY battle going on now...
Hey! What about New Jersey Transit? NJT is the 3rd largest transportation system in the US. NJT will be extending the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail into Bergen County (it's only in Hudson County right now). However, two towns that were going to get it turned around and pulled out the NIMBY card.
Philadelphia had proposed a lot more than was built. In 1901, a number of elevated routes were proposed, with only the Market Street Line being built, .In 1912, a fellow named A Merritt Taylor, was commissioned by the City of Philadelphia to study the city's traffic. The result was a document that proposed a number of subway and elevated lines, of which the Broad Street Subway(proposed since 1886), a downtown delivery loop subway, and an elevated line to the Frankford section of the city, were built, though the delivery subway was morphing into a rapid transit line to SW Philadelphia...in the event ,it would only be built as far as 18th and Locust Street. Branches of the Broad Street line were also proposed, with provision for junctions to these lines built in. Another try was done in 1937, but foundered due to inadequate tax revenues. In 2024, there is a proposal for line well into NE Phila, proposed since 1913. It would be proposed in 1937, 1948, 1960, 1971, and 1995-2003...I was on a Citizens' Advisory Committee for that last project(up to now)
Baltimore wasn't exactly decaying in the 60s, or not quite like other cities. In fact, a large portion of downtown was redeveloped into the Charles Center in the mid-60s, home to the city's first European-styled outdoor cafe. The subway plans had everyone bullish on Baltimore then. The city and state unfortunately didn't plan it well, and the money ran out, so it wasn't all NIMBYism. The city should've built out the entire heavy rail network in the 70s.
It's always depressing to watch these videos. Don't show these to anyone with "dark thoughts", as it could push them over the edge. I live in Indianapolis, where rail is actually banned. Totally banned. So while I'm disappointed in the 3 cities this video depicts, at least it's something. I got nothing, and almost certainly never will have anything at all related to public transit, other than a bus.
I heard that they might even ban bus lanes in the city as well. It sucks that a great city like Indianapolis is trapped by laws made by people that don’t even ride public transit.
3:48 You gotta love an 80s drawing like this one. Also, what's with the ever present lagoons of treacle that seemingly each and every construction project's proposers have to trudge through to even get it out of the ground? There's democracy and then there's obstruction. I thought that our planning process over here in England was gloopy enough. From what I've heard it cannot hold a candle to yours. It must be more than NIMBYs. What about the car lobby in these cases? As well as the heightened love of the automobile in the US? I'm not too keen on sitting next to a coughing fellow commuter either, but speed is of the essence.
The People Mover in downtown Detroit is actually very well-built. It's driverless and comes every few minutes, so a schedule isn't even necessary. It has nice stations that protect people from the elements. It's also grade-separated and moves quickly. The only problem with the People Mover is the route itself. It's not necessary downtown, as it's easy to walk most places. It's also one-way. Conversely, the Q-Line follows a very worthwhile route, but everything else about it is terrible. It's extremely slow and infrequent. The stations are not inviting. The Q-Line is so slow that it would be pointless to expand it. It takes around 30 minutes to ride it from end-to-end, which is only a few miles. The PeopleMover is a similar length and takes half as long to ride the full loop. Instead of building the streetcar, they really should have just extended the People Mover down Woodward. It would have been far more useful. The People Mover's downtown loop could have eventually accommodated additional branch lines that all circulate on the same downtown loop before heading back out. Miami's Metro Mover is the exact same technology and works that way with decent ridership.
New York City's subway system is LESS than 12% of how it was built. Hundreds of miles of tunnels to New Jersey have been allowed to collapse under three rivers and even under Uptown Manhattan. EVERY major hotel along "The Great White Way" used to have it's own subway terminal as well as all the Broadway theaters and most major banks. Just watch "Broadway Babes" of 1928 and they were in silent movies WITH the hyper-rich and the stars. George M. Cohan wrote "Only Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway" about the line from Broadway to New Rochelle. Until 1932, fresh milk was brought to NYC from New Jersey via electric trains underground, as well as fresh produce.
Actually the New York City Subway System is a combination of two private systems (the Interborough Rapid Transit Company or I.R.T. which first section opened in 1904 and was extended under the New York State and City financed “Dual Contracts” around World War One and the 1920s which also brought the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company into Manhattan, in addition to the B.R.T. later BMT elevated line that ran across the Brooklyn Bridge and the Brooklyn under the reorganized Brooklyn Manhattan Transit Company or B.M.T. Construction of the New York City owned and operated Independent Subway or IND commenced in 1925 and the initial 8th Avenue line opened in 1932, with the rest of the Subway System opening between 1933 and 1940, at which point the Second, Third, in Manhattan, Sixth and Ninth Avenue Elevated Lines and the Fulton Street Elevated Line in Brooklyn were disassembled
I forgot to mention the Hudson and Manhattan railroad or railway which ran between Hoboken, Jersey City and Newark, New Jersey and Lower and Midtown Manhattan on the West Side. The New York and New Jersey Port Authority took it over and it’s now called the PATH
Hey, can you look in to the AMAZING potential of the Sunrail Commuter Rail in Orlando? It deserves more exposition on how good it's service is even as a normal transportation line for people wanting to visit areas within Orlando Metro Area.
The famous train station being restored isn't on the people mover or QLine. It does have a rail line that runs under water to Canada but not used for passenger service. Also plans for the corktown area call for having a dedicated bus lane on Michigan Ave.
I've pretty much given up all hope that we'd ever see good new Urban Metro in this country ever again. Best thing you can do is just leave if you have the opportunity
