Missing Links: Short-Sighted Transit Planning 

"The next best time is now" sounds so obvious but it's actually excellent insight in the world of transit planning, where "well we didn't do it when we should have so now we just won't do it" seems to be the prevailing approach to things.

The video does not mention an important class of missing link: The deliberate missing link. This is usually the case where two different governments or levels of government are constructing transit and feuding with each other. The example in Toronto that drives me crazy is the lack of connection between the Leslie subway station and the Oriole GO station. In a rational world, the GO station would be moved 250 metres up THE EXISTING TRACK and co-located with the subway station in order to make for an easy transfer. But we do not live in a rational world.

a similar thing happens with cycling infrastructure, two high quality bike lanes/paths come very close but there's no connection between them. so people have to ride in traffic or walk along the sidewalk to get between them

"The next best time is now." Nice one 🙂 Have a nice day 🖐👴

Los Angeles’ Green line not going to LAX was a major fail.

Southern California is rife with these mixed connections imho, besides the obvious LAX one: -The Silver Line El Monte miss -The Green Line Norwalk/Norwalk Santa Fe Springs

It's not widely known but the two "missing" stations north of Cote Vertu station on Montréal's Orange Line - Poirier and Bois Franc - were in the original project but were halted by the Quebec Government to rein in costs. Parts of the tunnel are reportedly already excavated. In the late 80's this would have provided a connection to the CN's Deux Montagnes commuter line but now, of course, such a connection would provide access to all the lines of the REM.

I'm a simple man, RM Transit Posts and I watch

Boston has to be the world capital of “missing links”, the Red Line-Blue Line connector and the North Station-South station connection are among the most needed… of course, the MBTA is actively collapsing so it’s going to be a long time before these rail links are actually built…

One example here in Chicago: the Brown Line, which ends at Kimball, just short of the Jefferson Park Blue Line station. Extending the Brown Line to Jefferson Park would make getting to O'Hare a lot easier for many Chicagoans.

This is applicable to bike/ped and other active transportation networks too. Every city should have a network gap closure program.

San Francisco just built the "Central Subway," a short tunnel for the Muni Metro going through downtown (instead of around). It greatly improved the the existing light rail system and provided the quickest connection between BART and Caltrain, which were previously only connected in the suburbs. This would make transferring between the systems in Downtown SF much quicker. Of course, it would be great if these two systems were directly connected, but this is definately an improvement, especially since the existing Caltrain station at 4th and King will likely become one of the Northern termini of the California HSR.

Missing links in Delhi Metro: - Upcoming Silver Line terminating at Aerocity instead of Terminal 1 - Upcoming Magenta line extension terminating at RK Ashram Marg instead of and Central Secretariat. - Lack of Dwarka-Gurugram connection - Yellow line not reaching DTU - Red line not reaching Ghaziabad Railway Station (1 km away) - Grey line not extending to NSUT

Boston has another missing link beyond the blue/red interchange: A north/south route does not currently exist. There is no single ride between north station and south station, which increases expense and time for commuters coming from the north to the financial distract, or those coming from the south to access northern routes.

I’m glad you mentioned Boston. The Red/Blue missed connection is the most glaring but there are others. In general, the connections between the Commuter Rail and the subway could be better. The Green Line Extension that just opened runs adjacent to the Lowell Line of the commuter rail. But you can only transfer between them at North Station in Downtown. This means anybody from the suburbs trying to get to Somerville would need to go all the way to downtown before heading back out. The Green Line should have been extended to West Medford or an infill station should be built on the Lowell Line. 11:11 Similarly, the northern terminus of the Blue Line (Wonderland) is just a couple hundred feet from the Newburyport/Rockport Line. But the commuter rail doesn’t stop there, so you can’t connect. The connection between the Ashton-Mattapan trolley line and the Mattapan commuter rail station leaves a lot to be desired. Riverside, the western terminus of the Green D line, is very close but not connected to the Auburbdale commuter rail station.

In Los Angeles, the C (green) Line ends 2.8 miles away from Metrolink's Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs station which serves some of Metrolink's busiest lines. A direct connection would provide people in OC/IE a very easy option to get to/from LAX.

This topic reminds me of the battle NJ TRANSIT had to go to in my childhood hometown growing up to connect two commuter lines that were separated by only a quarter mile (Bay Street on the then Montclair Branch, and the Boonton Line just east of Walnut Street Station, to create today's Montclair-Boonton Line). Decades of NIMBYs, lawsuits, the settlements to get less than 1,400 feet of track built...and then the NIMBYs who claimed that extending catenary electrification by five miles beyond the connection point would *checks notes* give everybody cancer, plow down hundreds of historic shade trees, and require the use of Agent Orange to prevent vegetation from growing anywhere near the tracks. None of these happened, and the connection opened in 2002. Was quite proud to ride the first train of the new electrified service in. It should not have to be this difficult, and it was not this difficult when competing modes got built (granted, sometimes for terrible reasons in the USA). If we're going to adapt to the 21st Century and climate, we need a way to get these kinds of connections built in a few years, not a few decades.

I feel like Zagreb is one of the kings of missing links in Europe. The last time a tram line has been built to connect to a train station was in 1892 and was never done since. As a result, besides Zagreb-west (connected in 1891.) and Zagreb main station (connected in 1892.), every other railway station in the "tram zone" is rather close to a railway station, but it just isn't close enough. Train station "Kustošija" is close to "Črnomerec", "Maksimir" is close to "Borongaj", "Trnava" is close to "Dubrava" (there is even already a depot access track halfway to the train station), and "Sesvetska Sopnica" and "Čulinec" are both close to "Dubec". This is not to mention the line that goes south from the main station that doesn't have any stations in the "tram zone" whatsoever.

In the city centre, Milan’s new M4 will cross existing M3 halfway between the Missori and Crocetta stations without direct transfer to either. A long surface pedestrian path will be created instead between Missori on M3 and Sforza Policlinico on M4. One reason could be that in the central section planners chose to make the line follow the filled-in bed of the ancient Navigli canals to avoid interference with buildings under the narrow medieval streets of the historic centre, even in areas where this meant missing a connection or a place of interest.

A little longer of a connection, in the Twin Cities of Minnesota they built a first commuter rail line that ended in a small town, instead of extending it to St. Cloud, MN which would have allowed a much larger population that would ride it. St. Cloud was their first plan, but it needed to get shortened to get federal money to be able to build it!!

Still amazed they never extended the Sheppard Line from Sheppard to Sheppard West (Downsview). The awkward trip if you have to travel around Fairview Mall and then to York University... bus, train, bus, train... in the same city.

In Toronto another missing link that’s just frustrating is line 4 not extending to at least Sheppard West…it would make it so much easier for people in the east of the city to get to places like York U, Yorkdale, Vaughan, etc

The Los Angeles C line is right next to LAX, but they never bothered to connect it all the way. The Los Angeles B line is like a mile from Burbank airport and the Burbank Metrolink station, but they never connected it all the way. The current purple line extension only goes to the VA hospital and doesn't make it to the ocean. It's pretty infuriating because they simply don't think about the bigger picture in Los Angeles.

One example I would like to mention about a "missing link" is the North Philadelphia complex. We have FOUR separate stations within three blocks: N. Phila of the NEC, N. Phila to Chestnut Hill W, N. Phila of the Broad Street subway, and North Broad. Building the complex and allowing people to interchange among the regional rail lines, the BSL, and Amtrak will be an amazing time-saver for traveling between the northern suburban area and other cities on the NEC since we won't need to take a detour to the center city. The Keystone and Pennsylvanian trains won't have to do the ridiculous reverse at 30th Street as well. This place used to and will have unimaginable potential, but it's nothing different from an abandoned station now - we even have overhead wire over nothing at all!

Here in Augsburg there are two that I think are quite glaring. Line 1 stops quite randomly, just 1.3km short of connecting with line 6 and 1.5km before connecting to the Hochzoll regional rail station. Even worse, line 6 stops ~1.2km short of Friedberg and 1.5km short of Friedberg regional rail station, ending in the middle of nowhere, instead of connecting to the city proper and all the bus lines going out to the different villages.

In Paris, the new Line 12 terminus at Mairie d'Aubervilliers is staggeringly stupid. The tunnel continues until it nearly crosses the RER B and A1 highway viaduct (the end of tunnel shaft is just in front of it), a few hundred meters of more tunnel could have allowed to build a station and its turning around/train storage facilities... And 500 meters to the North, the under construction station of La Courneuve 6 Routes of the Grand Paris Express will also only give transfer to the tram where Line 12 could have been served as well. The project is regularly discussed but has no chance ot being funded anytime soon. Same goes for Line 7 from La Courneuve to Le Bourget, there was a project to build two new stops to serve the Air and Space museum as well as the RER station in perfect alignement... the extension to at least the RER station that will feature the Grand Paris Express is discussed but since Covid and the economic crisis, no money left and the Line 17 going to the Musuem also would make it redundant on the second station. There are many other examples in the Paris area alone. Most of them are due to physical obstacles such as the River Seine on the West making it difficult to extend metro lines 3, 9 and 10 to the West and some high relief making Line 3 nearly impossibile to extend (cheaply at least) to the East. Line 14 extention to the North at St Denis will feature a tunnel arriving in front of the St Denis Stadium RER B station... no one thought to add platforms to serve the stadium on match days? (unless given the violence of some of the sport public attendance, it would probably be better if Stadium had NO public transit whatsoever... One of the numerous critiques on the ring tram in Paris is that id won't serve the last link (the 16th District) just because its mayor doesn't want it (posh neighbourhoods just prefer their cars and don't want dirty people to come on their doorsteps with public transit, they didn't like the metro back then already), plus one other argument was given by the Police Prefect who didn't want tram sets to be damaged during match days in the Parc des Princes stadium... So the tram ring is for now at least condemned to not be finished and terminate at the Economics University Campus of Dauphine... The rest will be covered by an overpriced gadgetbahn ultra posh bus. something that will cost nearly as much as a tram for no reason at all... Paris mayor is very fond of those "Wireless and Rail-less trams" as they like to call those... Politics used to say that war is too important to be left to the military... I say that public transit is too important to be left to politicians.

6:13 - A GTA one, the Hurontario LRT and the Kitchener line. Because the Brampton City Council has spent so long infighting about what route the Connection should take that they’ve just gone ahead and are building it without the connection.

The Battersea Power Station extension of the Northern line in London crosses the Victoria line (underground, above or below), but it was decided not to build an interchange station. It was also decided not to extend from Battersea Power Station to Clapham Junction. This National Rail station has more trains passing through than any other in Britain. Trains from Waterloo pass through the station, as well as trains from Victoria going south (not southeast). Those two main lines are not connected by rail. It is also a terminus for a London Overground line. It was decided that these projects would overload the tube lines.

Melbourne has had a major missing link for 50+ years and it’s our route 59 tram it terminates in airport west. 5.9kms short of the international airport itself The current terminus is a bit industrial and has low ridership. Extending the tram track the 6kms to the airport would have been a major trip generator. It’s so close! Not to mention the closest rail station Jacana is only 6kms away from the airport. Both are so close!

This reminds me of the 7 Train extension to Hudson Yards here in NYC, they didn't build a station at 10th Avenue between Hudson Yards and Times Square

I'm surprised by the lack of mention of the gap between the Blue/Expo and Gold Lines through Downtown Los Angeles. Previously one had to transfer twice using the Red/Purple lines, creating huge pedestrian bottlenecks at 7th Street and Union Station. The regional connector is finally opening this year and will make it so that there are two continuous lines from Santa Monica to East LA and Pasadena to Long Beach respectively, with no fewer than five same-platform transfer stations. Weirdly, the very same problem existed in the Pacific Electric days, with there being no direct connection between the terminals at 4th/Hill and 6th/Main, only five blocks apart.

A major missing link is the east end of the green line in Los Angeles which doesn’t connect to the Lossan commuter rail corridor. The city of Norwalk sued so the 105 freeway didn’t go to the 5, and this cut short the green line which has always been under used.

The situation in Auckland, prior to Britomart's opening, was that passenger numbers were in sharp decline, so they had to move the city's main station back to a more central location. The previous station was in a poor location; around 1 kilometre from the city centre. From what I gather, there was originally an above-ground station at the foot of Queen Street, but when the Beach Road station opened in 1930, a new post office was built on the site of the old station. Curiously that former post office building was incorporated into the new Britomart station. If you ever do an explainer on the Auckland suburban network, I'd be happy to provide some of my footage from that system.

Missing transfer: Line 53 of the Amsterdam Metro literally passes underneath Duivendrecht Station, but doesn't stop there.

Before I watch this,the most short sighted one for me is the missing connection of the Red Line to the Blue line for the MBTA. You have the space at Charles/MGH Station,why do I have to leave the station,walk 2 blocks,and hop on at Bowdoin Staion? Or hop on a different line and get onto the Blue Line? It makes my commute take longer and I have to take 3 trains instead of 2. I hope with Maura Healey being elected governor last year,she owns up to her promise of fixing the MBTA,but I have little hope Edit:thank you so much for talking about this,it really puts a damper on my commute from Quincy to the Airport

I’m glad you mentioned the Dorval one. The people living south of the 20 in dorval already have an underground pedestrian tunnel under the 20 to access the bus hub and train station easily. And they are currently starting to build denser in this area even though the transit is limited. Extending the rem there should’ve been a no brainer. They could’ve had the station align perpendicular to the 20 (under it). With the back end of the station providing an exit to the buses and the train. Meanwhile the front end provides access to dorval residents south of the 20

In Amsterdam, the ring line akwardly stops at Isolatorweg. If they add 3 extra stops to connect Isolatorweg to Central station, the line would be 10x more convenient

Dublin's Luas Green Line and Red Line we're not linked between 2004 (opening of both) and December 2017, when the "Cross City" expansion of the green line finally addressed this comes to mind. However, as the green line crosses the red at grade on O'Connell Street /Abbey Street/ Marlbrorough Street, it limits the capacity of both by creating a new conflict. Our "Metrolink" project (currently in planning) also ends north of Swords at a P & R when there's a few km of open countryside north-east of it where it could meet the Northern Line railway at Donabate or Rush & Lusk....

I was disappointed when the new Quebec City Tramway didn't connect to the airport. Overall, the alignment does a good job of connecting the densest parts of town, as well as giving people in the suburbs an option to take public transit into town. But it would have been a very short extension to continue to the airport. My understanding is that they plan to make this extension in the future, and I hope they do!

I can think of 3 in California: Berryessa/North San Jose to San Jose Diridon station on BART LA Metro C line from its terminus at Norwalk to the Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs Metrolink station The northern stations of the San Diego Blue line extension to the Sorrento Valley COASTER station

This sounds a lot like in Boston where the new MBTA Green Line that only goes to Union Square when it could have been extended 0.5 miles to Porter to allow for easy transfers to the Red Line.

Line 3 In Madrid is being extended south to reach and connect to line 12 in Getafe, a 1 station 3km extension that will end one major missing link in Madrid Metro, that will increase the connectivity for 1million people. Scheduled to open end of 2023/beginning of 2024

Paris has many, MANY, missing links. The most frustrating has to be the northern end of M12, with sidings extending all the way to the RER B at La Courneuve but the last stop being nearly 1km south. Other face-palm-inducing missing links include (clockwise from M12 north): - M7 north at Le Bourget (currently RER B, M16/17 being built) - M3 east ending in the middle of a highway interchange - M1 east (ongoing political battle) - M5 south which stops INSIDE Paris, it's insane (IMHO it should take over one of the two M7 branches) - T6 east should have been extended to T3 or M4 - M12 south to T2 or RER C or Transilien N - M8 south but it's not obvious where to - M9 and M10 should cross the Seine and connect to T2 (M15 will cross the river though) - M2 west could be extended to Puteaux or Surennes (maybe a bit overkill) - M3 west to Bécon-les-Bruyères (Transilien L, M16 being built) - M3bis and M7bis, just for kicks

Another good example on the Washington DC metro are Farragut North and Farragut West stations which run right next to each other under the same plaza. To transfer, you have to take the escalator all the way to the surface and then go down again, all while paying another fare!

For sure trains will have a reemergence in the near future when people will actually realize that the car is more tiresome than just going to a train station and just sit down and enjoy your day but governments really need to make the train more comfortable so that people will use trains instead of cars.

Ah yes, Berlin and the surrounding area is a real offender to this problem... A lot of these are really short missing connections and you can get around them by changing lines a little more often, but they still make everything much less convenient . Here are just some examples that I personally really hate: U3 from Krumme Lanke to Mexikoplatz (S1) - 850m U1/U3 from Warschauer Straße to Frankfurter Tor (U5) - 1.2km U5 from Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Turmstraße (U9) - 2.1km U2 from Ruhleben to Rathaus Spandau (U7, S3, S9) - 3.4km U1 from Uhlandstraße to Adenauerplatz (U7) - 1.3km U9 from Osloer Straße to Wollankstraße (S1, S2, S25, S26) - 1.9km U7 from Rudow to Berlin Brandenburg Airport (S9, S45) - 5km U4 from Innsbrucker Platz to Friedenau (S1) - 1km M2 from Heinersdorf to Pankow Heinersdorf (S2, S8) - 1.1km and my personal hate: RB27 from Schmachtenhagen to Oranienburg. The Gap is 6.7km long, but the rails ALREADY EXIST. they just have to reactivate them, then the currently really unused Line would have a FAR bigger purpose. Anyway, the video mentioned "various points on the Berlin U-Bahn Network" aaaaand as you can see, he isnt wrong.

Unfortunately, there are many locations across Melbourne's tram network with tram terminuses that comes near railway stations, but are still too far away for any viable transfers. Most of them could be done with only 1-2km extensions of the tram tracks, without any massive excavations etc.

There's an example on the London Underground which highlights a few issues I don't think you mentioned: the new Northern line extension to Battersea Power Station Station maddeningly terminates there instead of a short distance west at the major rail interchange Clapham Junction. The problem is that making the connection is almost too good an idea, the already complicated and congested Northern Line would be totally overwhelmed by commuters.

Instantly thought of the Boston red blue connection when I saw the title, will there be an explainer video on Boston at some point?

In my hometown Munich, missing links have been avoided in recent times as far as I can tell. Some examples that stem from long ago: - Tram 17 has its terminus at Amalienburgstraße, 1.4 km away from Obermenzing station, in the midst of nowhere. The tram loop was constructed in 1962 when the railway station already existed (served by the S-Bahn since 1972). There have been initiatives to extend the tram line, but failed due to concerns the trams would impede private transport on the already congested street. (the irony ...) - Obersendling metro station (U3) and Siemenswerke (S-Bahn and regional rail) are 0.4 km away from each other -- a walkable, but not very comfortable interchange. The U3 line was built in the 1980s and cut the rail line between two stations. However, building the the metro station at Siemenswerke would have meant a detour for the metro between Aidenbachstraße and Thalkirchen on its way into the city. - U4 ends at Arabellapark, 2km away from Englschalking S-Bahn station - U5 ends at Laimer Platz, 4km away from Munich-Pasing (major railway station and transit hub), construction on the extension has begun this year though. - U6 ends at Garching-Forschungszentrum, 6 km away from Neufahrn S-Bahn station. This extension would mean a much better connection between the airport, Freising, and northern Munich. U6 is already running at full capacity though, so adding more passengers might not even be a good idea here. Some positive examples are the links between U5 & S7 at Neuperlach Süd (opened 1980), U2 & S1 at Feldmoching (opened 1996), and U3 & S1 at Moosach (opened 2010).

This is why I'm so happy that the Broadway Subway extension is underway now in Vancouver.

Please consider making a video on pretty viaducts vs ugly viaducts and what cosmetic options there is in viaducts

I thought the toronto example wouldve been the new Line 5 Crosstown which terminates in the east at Kennedy Station on Line 2 instead of extending 2.7km more to the east to the Eglinton go station on the Lakeshore East Go line. I think the potential connection between Line 5 and the go line would be incredible for Scarborough and Durham region. Yes they connect later at danforth but that is very far away and no longer in central Scarborough or Scarborough at all.

Paris also has a missing link: Line ends one kilometre south from the RER B station “La Courneuve Aubervilliers”. There is already a tunnel to this station, but it’s only used to store trains.

obligatory "chicagoan here" but as a chicagoan, the way the brown line doesnt link up with the blue on the northwest side is insane to me. and the lack of a true crosstown feels like a something of a missing link, too

When the Luas tram system opened in Dublin, Ireland, it had a missing link between the red lines and the green line. This was due to a new grovement getting in, and change the orginal plans, that would have seen tree lines being built, and meeting together on O'Connell street.

A REM extension to Dorval would integrate well with future HFR as well. Since there are no international flights from Ottawa, travelers could book direct flights from Montreal and get there by rail without the need for a connecting flight.

In the London Underground new lines MUST interconnect at every station of other lines in the under surface-tunnel core area. The Victoria and Jubilee Line Extension were required to by the UK national Treasury as a 'cost benefit analysis'. Most recently the rule applied to the Elizabeth Line on the same basis, ie it interconnects with every Tube station it passed by. However, this gives rise to major local political arguments where the line passes but there are no stations planned because there is no station present; the two examples of recent date were the demand for a station on the Victoria Line at Pimlico, uniquely no interconnection and Southwark and Bermondsey on the Jubilee LE.

In the Bay Area (Oakland), there is a missed connection between BART's 4 SF lines and 3-4 Amtrak Routes (Capitol Corridor, San Joaqins, Coast Starlight, California Zephyr(the trains already travel here on their way to and from the yard)) at I-880 and 7th st. It would provide Amtrak riders quick, direct access to both San Francisco and Oakland.

If it weren't for the fact that subway construction here is crazy expensive, I'd love it if the Montreal Metro Green Line extended through Lasalle, Lachine and to a new terminus at Dorval station. That would give 3 rail lines/modes merging near the airport. There is a lot of bus service in Lasalle to to get people to Angrignon station, but it's an 85K borough with no rapid transit within it. Lachine with about 50K doesn't have easy access to the metro. Going the reverse way by extending the REM to connect it to Angrignon would be much cheaper & I support it, but as a user who lived in that part of the city for a long time, I think the metro extension would be more convenient to use. I also love the idea of REM-ifying the Exo line (not necessarily handing over the operation of it, but electrifying, automating, and boosting its frequency). Construction would be needed to buy or bypass CN lines which is a bottleneck now, and also to remove all the level crossings with over/underpasses which won't be tolerable if a train is going by every 5 minutes in each direction.

In DC the new streetcar on H street is just 3 or 4 blocks away from Union station where it drops you off in the middle of a 6 lane road on a bridge with small sidewalks.

The worst part about the Boston one is that this missed connection between Red and Blue lines USED TO EXIST. We demolished it back in the age of scaling back streetcar services.

I often get frustrated with the Northern Line extension in London… had they just bridged the gap between Battersea power station and Clapham junction it would have provided so much more access

Can you please do a transit explained segment on San Francisco Muni, I would love to see your view on the pros and cons of my home transit agency

In Amsterdam you have the local famous missing link between Islolatorweg Station (Terminus lines 50/51) en Amsterdam Centraal. First proposed as a neat circle line for Amsterdam, the terminus falls now about 5km short, and as a result Islolatorweg Station is now in the "middle of nowhere". Various studies are now underway to complete this circle.

In Singapore, the Downtown Line makes a loop around the CBD, but along the western part of the loop, it crosses the North-South and East-West Lines without any connection. This is especially inconvenient with the North-South Line where you need to go in the opposite direction back out of the loop to connect outside the CBD. It also goes really close to Dhoby Ghaut, which is a HUGE interchange hub with three other lines. If DTL stopped at Dhoby Ghaut, it would be so convenient for so many people making so many different trips. But LTA (Land Transport Authority) and SBS Transit (DTL operator) probably had a good reason to not connect.

I totally agree with what you said. "The next best time is now", is so true, especially for "small" missing links which are easy to make from the beginning. This made me think about a video topic : "How to properly scale your transit project?". I bet it's not an easy question to answer but this is critical. You'll always need to balance between the service your project should offer and the time it gets to reach this level of service. Too small ambitions are not great but too big and not properly framed ones may lead to just no project at all.

Milan Metro will soon have a missing link between M3 and the new M4. M4 at station Sforza-Policlinico crosses M3 halfway between Missori and Crocetta. So, because an underground walking path would have costed too much, here we go with a on-ground/sidewalk transfer of 300-400m (plus going through two gate lines, up and down). Level of connectivity: below zero

London: I wish they'd build a big interchange where the East London Overground crosses under the Southeastern mainline, it would allow so many ways to get round South London without having to go via London Bridge. Also, the Northern line extension would be awesome if it went to Clapham Junction, but it would also overcrowd the Northern line. If they could find a way to increase capacity at Camden Town, then maybe they could split the line in two and a Clapham Junction extension would be more viable!

The north end of the LA Red Line not going all the way to BUR has never made sense

Melbourne Metro Tunnel and the lack of a station at South Yarra, to connect with the existing one. Also the multiple Melbourne tram lines that terminate agonizingly short of rail station, due to historical reasons!

Another missing link in Sydney will be the gap between the under construction Parramatta Light Rail station at Carlingford and the joint Sydney Trains/Sydney Metro station at Epping.

In Berlin we have a subway line, what terminates on Kurfürstendamm, instead to go to the next subway station, that people can change to another line.

I'm most familiar with Toronto's transit system and there are 2 missed connections that bother me. The first one is the fact that Line 4 Sheppard doesn't extend West to connect to the Sheppard West station. It would have provided much benefit to travelers to have that as an option and would have made commuting downtown easier if there was a shutdown or delays on the Yonge side. The second one is the fact that the original build of the line 5 Eglinton Crosstown (if it ever opens...) doesn't include Pearson airport. I know an extension to the airport is being discussed and planned but to me it would have made things so much easier to find the additional funding and just go all the way there in the first place rather than building it after. Like you said, it's easier to just do it when everything is already under construction instead of stopping and then starting again later to extend it. Who knows now when that will ever get done. Interesting to see that this isn't just a result of poor planning in Toronto, that it also happens with transit systems all over the world.

Here in the DMV, I've thought that the WMATA Red Line could form a complete loop connecting the Glenmont and Shady Grove ends. It would face massive NIMBY opposition but would create new trip opportunities for cross Montgomery County Travel (Rockville to Sliver Spring), and relief/alternatives if problems arise on either portion of the Red Line "U".

Moscow: lines 8 and 8A are intended to be parts of one line, they’re even numbered this way and are both yellow on the map. But connecting them requires difficult construction in the dense city center, so it is always postponed, and instead, long lines are constructed in the now-nowhere (as they yield more kilometers and other big numbers that can be proudly reported). To be fair, line 6 and line 7 were also each split into two before being joined in the center, but not for that long, and these were Soviet times anyway. Also importantly missing are interchanges to Polyanka from line 6, Kitay-Gorod from line 3 and Dostoyevskaya from line 5 (circle), but the last one is under construction (again, after years of freezing and unfreezing it, but this time it all feels unexplainably more certain).

NYC missing link: Metropolitan Av M train connecting up to the EFMR in Queens, especially given that there's already a freight rail line going along the same path. As it is, it takes a ridiculous number of transfers to get from Ridgewood/Glendale/Middle Village to the rest of Queens.

I swear the fact Boston hasn’t extended the blue line to connect to the Red line is just so frustrating

Another missing link on the REM is the westernmost branch. The Anse-à-l'Orme terminus sits north of the highway close to, well, nothing. It vould very easily have continued for 500m through a large industrial area (so, lots of jobs), to the Baie-D'Urfé train station. It would have connected a whole lot of the West Island together without detours downtown, which could have been great! Instead we get a larger park-and-ride...

One thing I've seen done in Portland is the introduction of frequent service/express bus lines to connect different areas that really should be connected by train, but can't because it would have to plow through existing development It's one thing to look at lines on maps and see a small gap that really seems like it shouldn't be there, but where there's something in between (a neighborhood, a natural feature) there are other options to connect these things that may be less effective, but will also have a lesser impact on the existing landscape. There's a lot of moral and economic discussions to be had here, and I'm really glad to see this video, it's a great introduction to some of the issues and shortcomings that are often seen with implementation of new transit lines! I found you via nebula, and I look forward to seeing what you make in the future.

I also think the Dresdner Bahn is also a case of a missing link but on a larger scale scale: It's one of the lines which goes south of Berlin and as implied, it goes from Dresden to Berlin but was largely deactivated within the border of Berlin except for the S-Bahn. For such an important connection, there was no direct way so all the trains have to drive on the outer ring to get to Dresden. It's in the process of getting ractivated, though, which is why there is so much construction on that line.

In Rome, there are two kind of missing links. 1) the new Metro line C runs close to several different tramway lines, but there is no direct interchange between Metro and tramways. The easter terminal of lines 5 and 19 is just a few blocks away from two different stations of the Metro, but there is no proposal to move it closer to one of these stations. And another tramway corridor, who had a perfect interchange, was cut short and now has a 500 m gap. 2) There are two missing links between the Metro and regional rail, at Ponte Lungo/Tuscolana and Libia/Nomentana. In both cases, the Metro and Regional rail stops are 1-2 blocks away, but there is no direct link between them.

Happy new year, Reece!

One example from Munich - the extension of the U3 from Olympiazentrum to Moosach which finished in 2010. It finally connected the northern U3 line to the end of the U1 at Olympia-Einkaufszentrum and onwards to Moosach to connect with the S-Bahn line going to the airport.

The Warsaw Metro has several annoying missing links, due to a lack of coordination with existing rail networks. It doesn't go to the main railway station, Warszawa Centralna; or the important East Station (Warszawa Wschodnia), where Line 2 diverts away to connect instead to a pointless terminus station (Warszawa Wileńska) on a line that could easily have been rerouted to the east-west mainline rail tunnel, to allow most commuters to reach downtown. The WKD rail line to the west also does not connect directly to the Metro. The Metro also avoids the main tourism areas, notably the Old Town. And Line 2 circles backwards to end at Bródno station, just a few hundred metres short of Toruńska commuter rail station.

During the construction of Beijing Subway Line 2 and Shanghai Metro Line 4 (both circle line), some transfer nodes for future planned routes were reserved, but due to the rapid development, some newly added lines needed to transfer with Beijing Line 2 and Shanghai Line 4, but they cannot be heavily re-constructed cause it's in downtown Beijing and Shanghai, resulting in the situation of super-long transfer walk like Beijing Xi'erqi and Shanghai Yishan Road station

Happy New Year, Reece. One theme you touched on here but I think deserves highlighting is that rapid transit planning has tended to shortchange regional rail connections. This is partly, I think, because existing regional/commuter service can be so infrequent. But you can see another great example of this shortsightedness in LA, where the C (Green) Line stops just short of the LOSSAN (/future high speed rail) corridor. That corridor is now the rail spine of Orange County, and that gap has been depriving OC residents of a link* to LAX for decades (*via shuttle due to a missed connection on the other end, although this is in the process of being rectified).

In Chicago, I have missed many transfers between the Metra Electric District and Union Pacific trains because of the 1 mile distance between their city-center stops at Millennium Station and Ogilvie Transportation Center.

Hey, Reece! Congrats for your work, keep it up! Could you maybe one day do a video on the subway of Nuremberg, Germany? Given it's not the biggest city, the more interesting I think it is that they have their own Metro. Which of course is rather small in length, but still, not an unimportant thing. Cheers and thanks in advance!

Hey Reece, check out Dukuh Atas, one of Jakarta’s “flagship” transit hubs, it is split by a river, the Suburban LRT Station and Terminus for BRT Corridors 4 and 6 to the MRT and KRL Stations (+Airport express train) is 200 to 500m apart. Other places include CSW which took 4 years until a interchange facility is finally built between Corridor 13 elevated busway, BRT Corridor 1 and MRT NS Line (it also came with some controversial bus reroutings to generate more interchange traffic in CSW) . Kebayoran Lama Station is finally getting a footbridge to connect with BRT Corridors 8 and 13. Sometimes connections like this are an afterthought here with most solutions being long footbridges

Here's another for Boston: North Station and South Station are the 2 main hubs for regional commuter rail, and they're only 1 mile apart -- but there is no direct link between them.

What an amazingly articulate young man you are. .You are refreshing.

Another example is the Tyne and Wear Metro. One line ends underground in the city centre at St James - in the direction of West Newcastle, one of the areas that would most benefit from an extension. But Nexus failed to secure the further right of way, and a large building project went ahead at the end of the tunnel without leaving a path for future expansion.

Farragut North to Farragut West in DC comes to mind. At one point there was a proposal to build a tunnel between the stations - I wonder whatever happened with that?

Good video, but what it misses is that sometimes connections are missed on purpose because they would cause too much traffic. A good example on the London Underground is the recently opened Nothern Line Battersea extension which seems to have a missed the opportunity to connect to Clapham Junction. This would have been a huge connectivity opportunity to a very busy station that has no existing connection to the London Underground. The problem is that the connectivity would have been so good, the additional traffic would have overwhelmed the branch and possibly the rest of the Northern Line. The Northern Line already operates 20 tph and is largely full in the core area, so connecting it to a station that sees 100 to 180 trains *per hour* would just overwhelm the system. This isn't a case of a missing link, but deliberately avoiding adding too much traffic to an already busy system.

NYC has so many weird gaps, but my least favorite is the weird gap between the J/M and the G train. The G train's Broadway station is right between 2 J/M stops - only like 2 blocks from each - and has no free transfer between the two. there used to be a free transfer but that was just for the L-pocalypse. both J/M stops are also a little too close to one another, frankly it would be better to just close Hewes and Lorimer and build a new stop right over the G's Broadway station.

this video made me realise that extending finch west and extending the sheppard line would get toronto very close to having some radial connectivity and that is pretty annoying that they aren't being extended

The case of connecting the orange line to Bois-Franc is a no brainer since the tunnel was just extended that far for a maintenance facility. The only thing remaining to build is a couple stations along the way

It always frustrated me how San Diego is a light rail city without airport connections. The trolley literally goes right next to the airport but if you want to actually take transit to the aiport, you would need to hop off the trolley and take a bus.

In Vienna, Austria there's a new subway line (U5) being constructed. And there too they first planned to finish the line at "Elterleinplatz", 1,5 kilometers short of the connection to a S Bahn line (S45). But gladly they changed the plans (and presumably got some additional funding) so it will be built up to the connection Point. Admittedly S Bahn line ("Vorortelinie") currently isn't the most important in Vienna, only serving about 10 Minutes frequency at peak time but it has great potential Though much more important to the whole project u2/u5 is the new connection at Matzleinsdorferplatz to planned 2,5 minutes frequency through running suburban S Bahn trains (Stammstrecke) Looking forward 👍