Median Metros are Fine (If You Do Them Right) 

Yes, Canadians call power transmission corridors “hydro corridors” I am Canadian, sorry! 😂

Nuance on the internet? Impossible. Great video, and I agree that there are situations where they can possibly work better than the examples that i used.

My very rough general rule of thumb has been “freeway stations aren’t great, but freeway tracks are mostly fine”

If the right of way has been established, it is a good idea to use it. Nothing wrong with a Metro running next to a highway so long as the metro stations are done right, and are placed at the destinations people want to go.

Highway regional rail definitely seems like it makes sense, since you can be pickier with your fewer stations, and the benefit ratio on cost of the alignment is higher.

One interesting point on Chicago's Forest Park blue line is that there are proposals to cap parts of the highway and build residential developments on the cap near the blue line stations. This is expensive but would reconnect the community and make for a far better station.

Thanks for the shout out to Perth 😊. When I saw the notification for this video I was going see if you would mention my city (you having previously posted a video on its rail system). Most highway median stations here incorporate bus interchanges, have cycle way access, and reasonable parking.

The best part of metros in highway medians is racing past cars clogged in congestion. And stuck car drivers would think: "If only they got rid of it (or bury the line) there would be enough room for 'One More Lane' to get traffic moving again. Or convert the space to a 'Premium Toll Express Lane' that also hosts transit buses or streetcars."

Exactly, a median station on its own is poorly designed, but if you have the density to back it up AND have it enclosed in a way that you're protected from all that noise pollution like having platform screen doors, then it can be great design! Even better if there's a bus hub. On the LIRR, the Babylon Branch aren't median stations, but it runs along NY State Route 27 or Sunrise Highway. However, the Babylon Branch came way before the highway as it originally opened in the 1860s while the highway first opened in the mid-1920s, so the highway follows the trains, not the other way around. And the Babylon Branch is completely grade separated, but it wasn't always this way. When it got its start in the 1860s as part of South Side Railroad of Long Island, it was all ground-level crossings, and this became a problem as more people moved to the south shore of Long Island. So a mega project was launched in the 1950s to build the stations on elevated viaducts, with the last station along the branch to be elevated was Massapequa Park in 1980. To supplement Route 27, there is parking to lure people off the highway and different NICE and Suffolk Transit buses serve the stations as well, with the addition of Jones Beach bus service from Freeport making it possible to go to Jones Beach concerts by transit.

As both a transit guy and theme park nerd, I've always wondered how you could build a transit system for a sprawling city like Orlando, and I feel like you could actually do it cost effectively with freeway medians. You could stick an REM-style rail service in the highway medians to cover the large distances cost effectively and with high speeds, then go off to have stations at the activity centers like downtown, the airports, the hotel/convention areas, and the theme park resorts. It would be much better than the stupid gadgetbahns and slow buses the city seems to be infatuated with, and they could use it to fix their sprawl problem, get more housing built to accommodate the many jobs there and prevent cost of living from soaring, and get the tourists off their roads and into trains.

Glad you brought up the REM. It shares the Champlain bridge with the highway, so it's a necessity for Montreal transit, and connecting the suburbs. The more suburban drivers who choose rail over their car to get to work, errands, or see a show, the better! Du Quartier is next to a highway but it was built to have access to the Dix30 shopping mall and there's nice housing too. Generally speaking, I'm okay with new service to suburbs being built through the highway. It's different when you're in the city. And the Blue Line in Chicago is just...egregious. Highway stations don't have to be bad, and utilizing highways is a good tool to make good transit in a lot of cases. Another highway median-line is Metro's C Line/Green Line in Los Angeles. UCLA says that the traffic noise there exceeds 90 decibels, exceeding the OSHA limit for noise exposure longer than a few minutes. The line was a provision for the construction of the fiercely opposed I-105 to help impacted communities. And there is a benefit to it: It's fast. The freeway by definition is grade separated, so you're essentially getting a fully grade-separated (thus fast) transit line for little additional cost. I think the C Line gets its ridership from the fact that it is basically a high-speed cross-town rocket ship that connects with other rail and bus lines, as well as serving LAX, with a connection to the People Mover starting in 2024.

I personally don't think there is anything wrong with using a highway to build a metro as long as that highway is in a denser area, and the station can be fairly accessible. Most transit is built under or above existing roads, because it's simple. Planners rarely have the luxury of free space. A highway is just another road that is convenient to build on. Like you said, this is so common it would be difficult to find systems that don't extensively use roads or highways to conveniently build transit.

The Metro line out to Fairfax from Washington DC is a good example of what you are talking about. Only 2 highway lanes each direction most of the way. Even the big station in Fairfax where the highway is wider has walkable neighborhoods on both sides of the station, and the covered bridge to get to the tracks is quite pleasant and convenient

to be honest we should just convert one right of way of all these beltways and urban freeways into railways. you can fit one rail line on one lane of traffic, so a four way road is a huge rail capacity. way bigger than most cities even need. the other right of way can just be used for both directions of traffic as there is going to be so much less car traffic. the last step is making suburban neighborhoods safe to bike in

I think the Silver Line in DC, which connects Dulles Airport, has been done fairly well. The line is mainly in the highway median after Tysons, but there is a lot of transit oriented development occurring around the stations

Glad to see Perth being given praise! Something worth mentioning is the whole freeway also has a bike path beside it, which connects to lots of high density areas and the train stations, bikes and scooters are very common on the TransPerth trains.

Tårnby station (Copenhagen) is a decent example of how to build next to a highway (not a median though). Simply cover the highway with a lid, use it as a park and have a station next to it.

Fun fact: The Berlin highway you showed was built 50 years after the Ringbahn. Often highways were built next to existing rail lines, not the other way around.

Do you think you'll do a video on the (very short sighted) decision to cut back on HS2 in the UK? Both the Northern leg and the stretch to Euston look to be being scrapped, making journey times not much faster than currently from Central London, and because of that there will be huge stress on the Elizabeth line, and likely still need to have fast trains on the existing main line, neutralising the main point of the whole project, which was removing fast trains from the main line to allow a huge increase in local and freight capacity

I had never heard the Term 'Hydro Corridor' before today.

An example I always use is the C(Green) Line in Los Angeles. Despite being almost all freeway stations, it does have a healthy amount of ridership; most likely from the fact that it's fully grade-separated BECAUSE of the freeway and can easily hit the 65 mph maximum speed between stations. Its speed makes it a good cross-town connection through the middle of LA County. Meanwhile, the new K-Line is suffering from poor ridership despite not having any freeway stations by contrast. (Yes, it did open incomplete, but even with the new LAX connection it will probably still be a relatively underperforming line)

Fun thing. Along a large part of the Ringbahn (In the former West-Berlin Part) goes alongside the Autobahn (Stadtautobahn), but the Ringbahn was build first (in the 19th century) and the Autobahn was build after WW2. ;)

I used the Chicago Addison Station that is in the middle of I90/94. It was loud an some redesign might make that better, but honestly it worked well. Busses in front ran frequently East/West. My wife has mobility issues and the station was easy to get to using the bu, easy to get down to platform and back. We were quickly in the heart of the city. Not ideal from a noise perspective, but it was central to a LOT of medium density housing. Also Amsterdam South has trains and metro running between the highway. I remember when the Metro come there for the first time in the early 1980's. There was almost nothing between "old South" and Amstelveel to the south. South Station was turned into a major transit hubs as it connects trains, metro, trams, and busses going East / West and North / South. In the past two decades the area has seen an explosion of growth and next to the corporate office towers there is now lots of high density housing as well. It's the station that is closest to the author of "Not Just Bikes" so it gets show off regularly. There was also quite an impressive upgrade a few years back where they have to move in a whole section of a station in a few hours. As you said, it should not be the first choice, but in some areas, it can work quite well.

Over here in malaysia, many of the metro lines tend to find their rail corridors running on viaducts running alongside highways, and our high tension corridors (the 'hydro' corridors). And often times, it's because it's the only straight line left with everything already built out.

Hello from the Orange/Silver line on WMATA, the two. most highway-running lines in the DC metro. Our metro here in DC is kind of an odd system, in that it combines aspects of a suburban train system with some aspects of an urban metro. The western edges of the Orange and Silver lines (beyond Ballston) run in highway medians. The outlying stations of the Orange Line are a lot further apart and act more as suburban rail stations, and the trains run as fast (or faster) than the highway traffic. This offers suburban users pretty quick access into the core. On the Silver line, the highway-running segments connect previously transit-inaccessible centers to the broader network and enable ultimate connection to Dulles Airport. There's a tendency on urbanist/transit RU-vid to pile on about stuff like this without acknowledging that these represent genuinely useful transit links and meaningfully reduce auto trips along the corridor. The main problem we have here is terrible suburban bus service that limits the reach of the suburban metro stations--but that can be fixed.

In my experience working as a transport planner, context trumps rules presented in a contextless vacuum. I'm less favourable of high-frequency stop dense metros in highway medians compared to longer distance rails. The median railways in Perth are a good example, being set up with long distances between stations, which allows the trains to use those highway corridors to accelerate to top speed more often, having a strong emphasis on integrated bus networks around the otherwise less accessible stations, with significant transfer promoting infsdtructure, and services running 70km south and 40km north (with plan extensions) emphasising that these are longer distance suburban services rather then urban metros. If you have good regional highway corridors with room to lay track down (either in the median or along the side) it can provide a very efficient route for passengers looking for a longer distance service option.

We too have a very short highway median section. But they build it rather smart. Instead of an island platform it has two side platforms with full length canopy build entirety out of concrete. So besides shelter it also acts as a, sound barrier. It's not the most pleasant station, lots of graffiti, but catchment is rather good with medium density all around

Hope you do a video on Nigerias first operational metro system. It’s almost entirely in the median of a busy freeway and opened last month in Lagos

DC Metro’s Silver line and Orange line are great examples of how to create excellent highway median stations, both in distinctly different styles.

Speaking of old rail corridors, New York should reactivate the bay ridge line in Brooklyn

This is exactly why I have little issue with the Orange and Silver Lines of the Washington Metro utilizing highways in their western segments (west of Ballston-MU). By the time you reach areas like Whiele-Reston East on the Silver Line or Dunn Loring on the Orange Line, the density is low enough that it makes more sense to save some cost and prioritize speed so you can get to the big TOD stations like the aforementioned Ballston-MU or the downtown DC stations like Farragut West. I also find it funny that most of the other benefits that Reece mentions here are things WMATA takes full advantage of: - Diverting to serve denser developments? Check, the Silver Line deviates from VA-267 to serve McLean, Tysons, Greensboro, and Spring Hill - Huge bus loops for easy transfers? Check, for literally all the stations, but if you want a great example, look at Herndon (an interesting case of the bus loop existing for decades before the station). - Mitigating the obnoxiously loud noise? Well, half check. The platform barriers between the tracks and highway do a fantastic job of filtering out a decent amount of noise but on some of the Silver Line stations, WMATA chose to use sturdy fences instead of glass for the walkways over the lanes of traffic and that just doesn't work sadly. However, one Silver Line station is also a cautionary tale about not building your station in an area where development is next to impossible. Loudoun Gateway is the least used Metro station because it is purely a Park & Ride station with little else close by, few bus connections, and building anything that close to Dulles International Airport is...difficult. Don't build Loudoun Gateway-alike stations, folks.

Hi, Chilean here. In Santiago de Chile, 3 lines have sections running along highways, and the stations are great. In my opinion it's not about the highway median station itself, it's about the people it can serve at the start and how many it will serve in the future.

Seattle is building Link mostly next to I-5. Many station pull away from the highway ROW to serve transit centers or TOD or other centers (college, mall...). That might be the best of both worlds (fast/cheap ROW and reasonable access). Station access is key. Some stations in Seattle use pedestrian/bike bridges. Singapore is using APMs to bring riders to a station. I could even imagine a gondola extending to urban centers in both directions. Their frequent service help to make the transfer seamless, automatic operation makes it affordable even with long operating hours.

Perth will soon have three trainlines that will use the median of a freeway / highway as they are currently contructing a new trainline that will use a part of an existing highway ( including stations) for the length of the whole line.

Practicality first. and you're right, better highway transit than no transit

A good example of this is in Amstelveenseweg metro station in Amsterdam. The platform is located in between a 6 lane highway, but go down the stairs and a tram and bus stop served by long-distance busses every 3-5 minutes is just a 50m walk.

There’s quite of lot of this in Amsterdam. Usually the station has a central hall/corridor that connects to pedestrian and bike friendly squares at ground level and both the highway and the rail infrastructure itself is elevated. At Amsterdam Zuid they’re working now on putting the highway right of ways underground.

Learned a new word today: the hydro-corridor. And the hydra-corridor sounds like the new Canadian version of the hydro-loop.

The fundamental issue is having a highway in an urban area. It shouldn't be there. But in the imperfect world we live in we have to deal with facts such as highways being there. And at that moment you gotta deal with imperfect solutions - station gotta go somewhere. Either you cut off one side, or the other, or you compromise in the middle. And then do your best to mitigate whatever disadvantage your chosen placement has.

Hello Reece, first time for me to contribute in the comments. I would say that building on the "Hydro corridor" isn't that straighforward. First you have EMC issues: on my project in UK, we are using existing disused Network Rail track for a new tram-train but the proximity of the track along a short stretch of existing power line creates headaches when it was time to electrify the corridor with OHLE (obvisously it was not before). It also creates major issues when it comes to the construction as excavator, cranes ... are not best fitted below high voltage and special protection, way of building will be required (increase the cost). Depending on countries, it could even required to shut the line which of course is not possible with such major power line. Finally, again depending on the countries you cannot work at proximity without certification which reduce your pool of worker. After sounding so hard with you (I didn't want) I totally agree that we need to use every existing corridor available to bring more transit at a better cost.

For me in Hong Kong, the MTR Kwun Tong line, Kwun TongKowloon Bay, Tuen Ma Line, Shek-MunWu Kai Sha and East Rail Line, Tai Wai Tai Po Market may consider as Metro at Median/along truck road/expressway. But Hong Kong is lack of land, not mostly build railway together with highway and will coverage another part of the town with more density urban area, the metro lines are very few to build along the highway.

Here in NYC the planned Interboro tram line was supposed to continue into the Bronx over the Hell Gate Bridge. But past a certain point the right of way switches ownership to CSX. So the current plan is to stop the line at Roosevelt Avenue. Quite far from the Bronx. However, right next to the line is the Grand Central Parkway. If they were able to shift it up and over the highway (much like the JFK Airtrain) it could continue north. Unfortunately I do not think Robert Moses designed the Triborough Bridge for rail, so a bridge or causeway up to the Bronx would be needed. OR have the tram line be the connect to LaGuardia AirPort. 🤷‍♂️

Building in the highway median can be useful, but it depends on how you do your stations. If you just create minimalist platforms stuck out in the middle of traffic, that's no good. But if you make big broad linear park bridges across the highway so that it serves as both the transit stop and a comfortable way for people to cross an urban freeway by foot, bike or wheelchair, then it's good. People would say that costs too much, but you're using some of the money you saved by not tunneling the trains. They would effectively be separated little sections of freeway capping and over time you would be inclined to cap the rest.

You should make a video about how crime rates affect public transport use, and what cities can do to deal with this. People from places like some regions of Brazil or Colombia prefer using Uber, even though it's three to four times the price, rather than taking buses, BRT or metro and risking being robbed.

Hydro corridors in cities are a strange concept to me. If i wasn't married to a Canadian I wouldn't even know what one was. For one thing calling it Hydro is a weird Canadianism that no one else understands, but the other thing is that in the UK and Europe, pretty much all our power lines are buried underground in cities. The Toronto one seems like a massive waste of land....unless you use it as a park or a transit corridor. Does it actually get used as a park at the moment or is it just dead land?

Great video - this is how Perth has built a good portion of its network. Side note: can you also make a video on Sydney's ferry network?

Using existing highway ROW is how Brightline was able to build Florida's HSR faster than in California - which specifically chose NOT to use Interstate 5 ROW in the Central Valley. Huge mistake that required costly (and controversial) land purchases and creates environmental impacts. Texas is also going to use highway ROW for the Dallas-Houston Brightline line. Many don't seem to understand how much land acquisition costs and how long it takes to purchase.

In Istanbul, there is a 52 km (32 miles) long BRT system in the middle of the oldest highway and it has a ridership of almost 1 million people everyday. So, median transport can be a good thing

I've been thinking the GTA is so far gone and lost, the only evolution of east-west regional transit will have to be a regional rail along Highway 401, from Pickering GO in the east (since that's where Hwy 401 meets the Lakeshore East line) and Hurontario in the west. In my mind such an alignment would go much further in improving east-west travelling in the GTA than the transitway 'planned' for Highway 407. Most regional travel in the GTA is east-west and unless you're going downtown Toronto, the transit options are very limited and constrained.

Highway transit also makes sense for the suburbs too. It also stands as a living ad while cars sit in traffic and watch trains whiz by

Median metros are the only type of metro lines you see in Manila. Manila has three metro lines (excluding the PNR) that all follow major roads in the city, often with 4 or 5 lanes either side of the median metro for miles. I always found that extremely inconvinent because stations are almost always far from where you want them.

7:37 These are like the street crossing McLoughlin Blvd in Portland! and the streets crossing Arroyo Seco Parkway in LA!

Well, in Athens it's not metro stations that are located in the middle of freeways, but suburban rail stations. But they're put in such a way that is accessible to everyone. Plus, the particular freeway in the middle of which these station passes through the city, meaning that most people don't go far from home to use the rail.

I'm glad to see this *video* (EDIT: not email, that's what I get for commenting pre-coffee) because it's a little annoying to see any sort of transit rejected wholesale when the state of things means we can't really be choosing beggars. When transit is so expensive, ridership comfort unfortunately comes second to things like speed, cost, location, and safety. And highway stations don't have to be bad. The DC metro has a few stations, along the Orange and Silver Lines which aren't that bad because they're partially enclosed, and if built right with a full enclosure a highway station can be useful. We need to remember that inside city cores highways are often close to residents and destinations (or areas that can be upzoned), and outside city cores many people live and work within a mile of the highway because that's how those areas grew and became developed in the first place. When ROW is such a big issue for surface or elevated rail, it's never worth dismissing wholesale.

i generally think as long as it got great access to communities on both side of the highway then it's fine. heck, you can turn the station into some kind of connector-third-place between the two sides

4:21 ok, this footage just gave me the classic optical illusion "what the hell is going on here!" for a few seconds

To me, this is the epitome of the best being the worst enemy of the good. Sure, highway median stations aren't exactly great, but as you said, if the choice is between a line on the median or no line, there's definitely an argument for a line on the median. With the caveats you made for specific circumstances, one median isn't the other, and how you build those stations is important. So a lot of words to say that i agree, but that's engagement, i guess?

The Mascouche exo route in regional Montreal also uses a freeway median. It's basically a connector between two railway companies. People probably plug their cars in at the one station. The Mount Royal tunnel has a 70m deep elevator to get to a station. I think it's just rock at the station itself. The city is cutting off public vehicle access to Mount Royal park located 180m above the tunnel. A tram and an aerial tramway have been proposed. Vertical boring must be very rare...

I think the problem with median metro often happen when the railway already built before the highway so when highway built near or even flanking the station, the station hasn't been ready to adapt the noises and air pollution from traffic on highway. Meanwhile if the metro are newly built the station are built with adaptive design from noises and air pollution from the highway. Also, there is also an alternative option which built the metro way in side of the highway, not the median. Thisa can be happen by using the spare land of highway that was meant for additional lane. So, instead creating induced demand with adding more lanes, we can use the spare land next to the highway for metro instead. The station will have good access from one side, while the other side can be connected with proper connection for people to cross over the highway, like skybridge or tunnel beneath the highway. Station on the next of highway also give an advantage of having highway access to the station, wether for road bases public transport or park and ride passengers.

Here in the DC area, the Metro runs along highways, but does link up with some population/business areas. I'd ague that the Orange Line should be extended along Route 66 to Centreville with a few stops at business centers along the way (Fair Oaks & Fair Lakes for example). Its pretty much what they did with the Silver Line expansion out to Dulles. Sadly, they recently cut down all the trees at the Vienna station so they could put in four more lanes of highway, making it crazy noisy and unpleasant (it was only very noisy and unpleasant before). I really wish A) that they hadn't done that, as 66 definitely didn't need MORE lanes, and B) that they'd at least put up some kind of sound buffer for folks at the station. But the VDOT seems generally hostile to public transit, pedestrians & cyclists (see also: the 66 Adjacent Trail for a big middle finger directed at the people it is supposed to serve).

I used to take Calgary’s Ctrain from the northwest suburbs to the university - this leg of the train runs through the middle of Crowchild trail. While the stations were definitely noisy as hell, there was always something immensely satisfying about riding past the bumper to bumper traffic jam clogging up a surprising amount of the trip lol

Eyyy i like the san Diego trolley signs!

I see no problem with Median Transit as long as the stations are well connected to the buildings next to the highway and those buildings are well set up as transit nodes.

The newly open greater Jakarta LRT(with metro spec) Bekasi line and Cibubur line also run mainly along the higways..and the High speed rail lines too..

Hydro Canadianish for Electricity. From the original electricity generating being water powered and the electric companies being call "the Hydro electric company" shortened to Hydro

Calgary’s Bridgeland/Memorial and Zoo stations on the CTrain Blue Line are examples of a median station done right. They’re put in the median to provide a convenient corridor for the line, but they both connect to places for people to go (The Bridges in the case of B/M, the Calgary Zoo in the case of Zoo).

Anecdotal story: I was in Riyadh recently and I had to catch a flight at King Khalid Airport, the problem is getting there required me to go through King Abdullah road on rush hour, traffic in Riyadh in general is awful but King Abdullah road is something else, in the same time the road happens to have a (yet to open for service) metro line running through its median, you can imagine how infuriating it was to watch an empty driverless train fly by while I was stuck in gridlock traffic, an experience I imagine may lead to many drivers deciding to take the metro when it finally opens. Oh, and I ended up missing that flight

Regional/Commuter rail makes more sense than Metro in the highway median since there’s typically fewer stops. It can also move at higher speeds since it simulates "grade separation" with little to no interactions with roadway/pedestrian crossings. It would also pair well with urban areas that have dedicated bus/bike lanes.

1:00 love the wow & flutter in the music. reminds me of an old numbes station called swedish rhapsody

Yes you understand

There’s a highway median metro in dubai, and from that experience I can say that it rly depends on what’s near the station. If there’s a big mall next to the station (like is the case of two big malls in dubai which are directly next to highways) or a massive other job hub they are big enough trip generators to make the station worth it even if it’s on the highway, but there are other stations that barely serve anything and feel borderline useless on the line

Always a new vid from this channel whenever I check RU-vid, really enjoy the content!

Some good points here. I've been thinking that at some point they should run a new skytrain line between vancouver (via first avenue into downtown) and surrey (along KG Boulevard) using the Highway 1 row through Burnaby and Coquitlam. It wouldn't be the most efficient route in terms of catchment areas in Burnaby, but it would be cheaper than other options, would provide pretty good service to BCIT, and would be a huge improvement to transit connections between surrey and vancouver, the two largest cities in the region.

Highways could be express or commuter transit that local services can connect to. They would have fewer stops and could extend to the suburbs.

I think the Spadina line running on Allen Road is a great example of how to do it right. Half the stations are on minor streets which don't have ramps onto the highway, which make them feel much more accessible. And the stations that are on major roads with connecting ramps have a ton of bus service, ensuring they're well-used. And the station buildings insulate the platform from the unpleasantness of the highway.

M4 and M5 lines of Istanbul are two fully underground lines bored mostly under inner city highways. Reasons being perceived as frequent overpasses/exits, earthquake risk and an infrastructure nightmare (lane closures, construction sites in medians etc) Stations are placed around 30-50m underground, with access to platforms taking up to 7 minutes from the street. But it's clean and fast.

0:17 glad you owned up to this being a change-of-perspective for an extent. I think I recall commenting at one point that Phoenix made a mistake not reserving highway medians to allow future tracks, which I think you may have dismissed.

Actually, Chicago red line 's Dan Ryan branch has higher ridership than the green line's South Side Elevated through the city which it runs parallel to.

For someone who has no historical interest in railways or transit sysems (I normally do aerospace), I find your enthusiasm and channel absolutely fascinating. Did you ever take a look at the French city of Toulouse. This is a city driven by the aerospace industry yet it always seems a complete muddle of metro and trams (plus a cablecar). Result, most of us still use the highway. Wierd. Any thoughts? Keep up the good work. PS I often impress my Canadian friends with my knowledge of 'their' transit systems. 🙂

They can be good for adding transit capacity to car centric cities like you see all over North America. A prime spot where this would be good is in Denver's RTD rail system, they already have 2 highway track corridors for the light rail system on the south end of the city but a highway median ROW would be their best option for extending the B-line commuter train to Boulder via the US 36 highway corridor. The US 36 corridor is already heavily developed and the current transit plan is to piggyback on BNSF ROW with diesel trains with a completion date of 2040, a terrible option that few people will use. Better to build track in the median or side of US 36 along the main artery between Denver and Boulder and extend the existing electric B-line train to Boulder (Denver's heavy commuter rail is actually pretty nice, modern Hyundai-Rotem silverliner 5s that run a lot faster than the light rail trains and with double the frequency)

It's probably not ideal in a lot of cases, but especially in the US where people are often leery of spending money on non-car transit infrastructure, even non-ideal transit is better than none at all

I think the best approach is actually to just completely remove urban highways. They take away huge amounts of space (which is terrible especially during a housing crisis!) for a mediocre capacity. They act like loud urban scars and barriers for the locals, we don’t want this. So let’s just emulate Paris and its T1 East extension project, they’re replacing an highway by a modern 2x1 urban boulevard with large pedestrian and green spaces, wide and separated cycle infrastructures, traffic lights to slow down traffic and a modern European tramway extension (with green tracks of course)

In Athens, there is a railway in the middle of the motorway! It's the eastern bit of the line to Patras, but unfortunately it will take many years to be completed, i think in about 2030 it will open, but i hope sooner

I've said something like this on the Not Just Bikes video, but highway median stations can be good if these conditions are met - it's in an urban area, the highway it is running along, is in a trench, and if some kind of cap bridge is built on top of the highway, you can have TOD liner buildings built on top of this cap bridge that integrate into the median transit station below and make it feel more "underground." It doesn't have to be like Boston's Big Dig - it can be something smaller like the High St cap over I-670 in Columbus OH (which ironically is reminiscent of the train station that once stood in that area). The Chicago stations can really be taken from subpar into something good if they do something like this.

Rails along highways have always made complete sense to me for regional and intercity systems. Highways are already a massive right of way that has been designed to be well connected, relatively flat, have gentle curves, not have as negative a sound impact, etc. Trains and cars both generally want the same things when it comes to high-speed and non-local corridors. It's the stations along the highways that seem crazy. If a train can run along the highway for most of the way and then exit the highway before getting to a station, much like a car would exit the highway to get to it's "last-mile", it seems like a good use of land to me. The emphasis however is on "non-local". Highway rails seem like they would be at their best the fewer stops they had. HSR seems like the ideal use since that's meant to travel much longer distances uninterupted and would benefit the most from the flat route with gentle curves. Highways are already designed to be the "High Speed Road" for cars after all.

Great points. Additionally, I would say that going forward there is nothing stopping high density or medium density mixed development popping up all along the median making the mostly at grade railway corridor even more cost effective and enticing. Imagine someone not being able to afford a place in the city center but they probably can 40km away in a medium density apartment and with fast running trains taking them to the city on a reliable and daily basis, what's not to like?

I think WMATA in DC does these highway median metros the best (by US standards, of course).

I can't believe I'm saying this, Edison NJ and Metro Park NJ actually do the high way with tr as trainstop thing very well

There is a short, four-station section of the Midosuji line in Osaka that runs as a median metro in the Shin-Midosuji elevated highway/freeway (from Esaka station until Nishinakajima-Minamigata station, where the line crosses the Yodogawa River before descending into the tunnel portals leading to the fully-underground portions). Stations like Nishinakajima-Minamigata and Shin-Osaka have their platforms completely shielded from highway noise while stations like Higashimikuni and Esaka have their platforms completely exposed to highway noise. But that exposure to highway noise is not really a concern as the tiny kei cars remain popular among an overwhelming majority of Japanese drivers and the smaller size of those cars results in them creating lesser noise than their larger counterparts as they pass by.

I know it was mentioned along with Paris as a city with many median stations, but, for those that may ask. In Mexico City the lines that run partly as a median are: - Line 2. From "San Antonio Abad" to "General Anaya", it runs at the median of "Calzada San Antonio Abad / Calzada de Tlalpan". Not a proper Highway, but a wide street that can be dated for more than 5 centuries. - Line 3. It becomes a surface median over "Insurgentes Norte" north of "La Raza" to "Indios Verdes" terminal. - Line 4. It runs elevated at the median of "Boulevard Congreso de la Unión" for its entire length, wit only two stations being surface median: North Terminal "Martín Carrera", and "Candelaria" station, in front of the Mexican Congress complex. - Line 5. It runs as a surface median over "Calzada de los Cien Metros" from its northwest terminal, "Politécnico" to "La Raza", as a surface median over "Río Consulado" west of "Valle Gómez" to "Oceanía", and ends as a surface median station over "Manuel Lebrija" at the eastern terminal "Pantitlán". - Line 8. Runs as a median over "Avenida Francisco del Paso y Troncoso" between "Coyuya" and "Aculco" stations. - Line 9. Runs as an elevated median over "Viaducto Río de la Piedad" and "Río Churubusco" between "Velódromo" and the eastern terminal "Pantitlán". - Line A. Runs as a surface median over "Calzada Ignacio Zaragoza" between "Agricola Oriental" and "Acatitla" - Line B. Runs as a elevated median over "Avenida Oceanía" between "Ricardo Flores Magon" and "Oceanía", then gets down to being a surface median over "Av Oceanía / Avenida 608 / Avenida Central Carlos Hank González" up to its northeastern terminal "Ciudad Azteca". - Line 12. Runs as an elevated median over "Avenida Tlahuac" from "Culhuacán" to "Zapotitlán". Yes, it's the line where a part of the tracks fell down.

The metro U18 from Essen to Mülheim and the Essen guided-busway corridor are also run as median lines in the middle of the central urban highway of the Ruhr area, which I find a great decision, since the areas around are all very dense and they improved the service of two lines that would have otherwise been a Stadtbahn in mixed traffic and one instance of 'just a bus', (or just another Stadtbahn, if they hadn't decided in the 80s that guided semi-electric buses are the future for some stupid reason).

Actually the Berlin example you showed at 1:58 is a bit different than all the others. The railway corridor was there first and the highway was added decades later.

The Amsterdam metro lines M50 (a tangential line, from northwest via south to southeast), M51 (to central station) and M52 (from the north via Central Station is terminating here) are situated in the central reservation of the A10 highway ring road. In the central reservation there is also a national rail track and the second important rail station Amsterdam Zuid, South station. It is also the main business district, called Zuidas, South Axis. Amsterdam Zuid is an intercity station where all InterCity trains and some sprinters to and from Schiphol Airport stop. This station is more important than Central Station, which has no intercity trains to and from Schiphol Airport, only sprinter trains. When the new station Amsterdam Zuid is ready, all international trains including high speed trains will terminate at this station instead of Central Station, making room for more sprinter and intercity trains. The A10 ring road highway will go underground in a tunnel here (construction has started), making room for more train tracks and housing development.

Thank you so much for the Line 6 (Finch West) example. It would be such a better service to run it there. The speed would be better for that portion of the line. It’s just a no-brainer that I can’t believe it’s happening the way it is. If they looked at just the walking trips they’d see a route through the hydro corridor would reach more people within 500m or 1000m than on Finch. It seems like Toronto got streetcar brain - and just got stuck with the idea that trains, running in the median of a roadway - was the only way to have a light rail line. When in reality, it’s kinda the worst. It has this sorta esoteric urban-chic to it that downtown people like - but that doesn’t make it make sense for Scarborough or North York. And I love my streetcars. Perhaps in 20 years - when they have to re-do the tracks in both places - they’ll reroute the whole thing (and elevate the portions in Scarborough). I hope they’ll wake up and elevate the western extension of Line 5 rather than do a subway - that just makes no sense. I fear we are going to have a rebound where everything will have to subways after the Line 5 & 6 boondoggles.

In Ottawa, as part of the Confederation Line extension going east, it's all centre platform stations in the median of the the 174. BUT, the roads at the stations are being heavily pedestrianized, will serve more buses, adding more bike lanes, and the stations themselves will have a sound barrier between the tracks and the highway. The 174 is only 2 lanes on either side and generally is slower than a traditional highway. It should, serve more residents in the north and south of Orleans. Once the Axels are redesigned on the trains, it will take 30 mins or less to get to downtown from any of the east stations. We might not do a lot of things right in Ottawa when it comes to transit, but this is something they are for a change.

Singapore's closest example to a median metro (we do have underground metros under highways) was planned right from the start. The Tuas West Extension is flanked by a new highway viaduct on either side, though the infrastructure is on the high end to ensure adequate insulation. A more ambitious case is Shanghai's Line 1 - a triple grade-separation with tracks and stations sheltered underneath the North-South elevated road, creating a small footprint.

I honestly hope they do it for the Roosevelt Boulevard metro since that would most likely be the cheapest option and allow for completion under budget

Newer sections on the north freeway median line in Perth actually weave in and out of suburbs / tods and back on to the freeway

Highway metros are perfectly fine if we think of the metro as a form of shorter distance intercity transport, between city-sized neighborhoods. In any 15 minute city, you should not need to take a metro for basic errands because you could be spending 5 minutes just walking through the metro station. The metro is there to provide a commute to specialized jobs, or to allow you to visit specialists who provide uncommon services. Getting in the highway metro station is no different from getting to the amtrak or regional flight, the longer walk to the station is fine because it will ultimately save you hours of walking. If you want true neighborhood transit, then you should look at buses and trams - but they are a poor use of funding as bike lanes provide much better utility for neighborhood scale travel and should be built first. Transit funding should be spent on intercity and intercity-lite transit systems

I see the San Diego Blue Line poster in your background. Could we be getting a San Diego Trolley video soon?