Do Cities Still Need Metros?
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- čas přidán 20. 09. 2023
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Are cities without subways missing out? In today’s video we talk about city centre suburban rail tunnels, and why subways still matter.
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
It's sad when cities ruin their tight tram network to make room for cars
Most uk cities did this : ( Bristol has been trying to get them back for ages
Trams are incredible. We never got rid of them in Melbourne and they're an excellent mode of transport. More flexible than trains, cheap to maintain, provides benefits to commuters, tourists, and local businesses. They work well in conjunction with the train network. But there are a lot of bus corridors that could absolutely be tram corridors, but aren't because of highways, urban sprawl, and awful street design. Buses are lame. Trams are cool.
All Danish cities did this, but all 3 of them have had modern light rail projects in the works, all with different goals and practices.
Aarhus with 350.000 people, whose 2 city centre tram lines closed in 1971 opened its new system in 2017, which is a mix of new median light rail with long stretches into greenfield development, and of 2 old regional railways that got electrified and converted to interurban tram train operation, in the hopes of creating an S-bahn style system using light rail that's currently around 110km long, of which only 12km is newly built.
Odense with 205.000 residents closed their original tram line in 1952 but brought trams back in 2022 with a 14.5km long line. This line mostly takes practice from French light rail systems, with dense stop spacing, heavy use of grassy tracks and signal priority, and high frequencies. Interestingly the Odense light rail already has higher ridership than the whole of the Aarhus system.
And finally Copenhagen is also building a 28km long light rail line, though not through the city centre. Instead their project is an orbital line going through the suburbs on the city's ringway 3, parallel to the city's busiest highway. This line features very wide stop spacing at almost 2 km in some cases, and is heavily focused on speed. It mostly takes design practices from German stadtbahn systems, but with low floor trams, and the role the route will serve is very similar to Stockholms Tvärbanan and the Jokeri light rail that's opening very soon in Helsinki. Copenhagens system will open in 2025 if everything sticks to the current schedule.
and it costs the coffers for the municipality to make too much space for cars.
I can understand that you replace trams by a metro, but only if you do it to provide more space to bicycles/pedestrians
if you have to check a schedule, it's a train. if you just rock up to the station whenever, it's a subway.
Elizabeth Line
It's a RER@@HesterClapp
S-Bahnen (suburban trains) in Vienna have a 3 minute interval during rush hour, which is shorter than some of its metro lines
I introduce you to the Baltimore Metro
@@pikom0 What's the difference between S-Bahn and RER?
This reminds me of a debate we had in Warsaw after the first Metro line opened. The M1 runs along one of the city's main N-S street routes, which also happens to host one of primary tram routes. After the metro was opened, a lot of people argued the tram was now redundant in this area and should be scrapped (presumably to make more room for cars).
The city decided against it, based on the premise that a tram serves a different kind of journey from a metro. Should be obvious enough when you take into account that the tram stops about twice as often as the metro on the same route. There's a similar ratio between metro and suburban rail stations.
Tram on road is good for short journey, says within 2 metro station. I am in Hong Kong, lots of people in Island and Kowloon know it is very different with tram or without tram.
Also it is friendly to elderly and disable people that no need to climb up to elevated station /down into deep underground station although may provide elevator for accessibility.
Let me guess, both services are now very busy, most of the time?
@@mdhazeldine that's right
Sadly, we've often made this mistake in Vienna, where a lot of tram lines got replaced by metro lines. Our metro lines are the fullest in sections without any trams parallel to it because people often have to use the metro for only 2 or 3 stops (eg. line U3 between Westbahnhof and Volkstheater, where the tram lines on Mariahilfer Straße got scrapped).
Also, people forget that when considering overall journey times, getting in and out of stations can add a considerable amount of time to your trip.
It's also sad that the United States had over 100 different suburban and intercity rail options and just left it into disrepair or all together removed it to make way for their interstate system.
I live in Moscow, Moscow without the metro system would be mayhem, the ongoing expansion of the metro system here is not just a luxury but it is absolutely essential!
i was just about to say. i regularly use both subway and regular train lines in moscow. the metro map became insane in 2023 but it's totally worth it, i hope in the future both systems are gonna get even more intertwined.
In San Francisco, we don’t have a particularly strong subway as we essentially have 1 tunnel that functions as suburban rail outside the city core (BART). But the city built a semi-metro (or a streetcar tunnel) which can handle multiple tram lines feeding into it. More recently the Central Subway was built and is designed for 2-3 car trains only. Right now it’s only 1 line feeding it and there’s no plans for more lines, although a shuttle service exists but only for events. San Francisco struggles to think big and continually is discouraged by cost of construction for which I can’t blame them… this is a massive national problem the US faces. Unable to think big because our economics does not match the desire of the people.
Cut and covering Geary to run a new Muni tram line underground to the Outer Sunset is like the most no-brainer thing for us to do ever but we just won't. SF is so dense it could really have world-class public transit if we built more stuff underground (not to say Muni is currently bad or anything). With how much San Franciscans pay in taxes you'd think we could get past the cost.
Yeah in most cases in the city you need a bus to get around. And buses while they do have a lot of coverage are so so painfully slow (especially if you have to transfer).
IMO that’s the reason Uber and Lyft really took off in SF. It has dense urban fabric that makes driving/parking challenging, but it doesn’t have the transit infrastructure to match. And honestly there’s a shocking number of SFH for such a dense city.
@@jacobbyers7914 supposedly Elon Musk’s boring company can tunnel considerably cheaper than traditional methods but instead of providing the public with useful projects, it’s tunneling for it’s low capacity teslas in Vegas… meanwhile he’s here in SF failing his battle over X/Twitter. Make it make sense. He has so much power to make the world actually better and instead’s doing the typical entitled billionaire shenanigans
@@ficus3929 That’s true but that just means we have plenty of room to double the population without sacrificing open space and without the need to significantly upzone. It also means we can build rail to encourage urban infill- if the city truly wanted to think towards the next 50 years. It worked with the T line, which massively encouraged the development of Mission Bay/Central SOMA and you can see the future still with Pier 70 and Potrero Power station developments in Dogpatch which are a direct result of master plans in the 80s.
Plus you can throw Caltrain into the mix.
… and eventually CAHSR.
The example you showed of Wood Lane on the Hammersmith & City / Circle Line started out life as a branch of the Great Western Line, much like the Greenford Branch still is.
In London, the disdiction between train and tube is mostly about which budget it is funded from. The Waterloo and City Line for example, was considered a train line until very recently. The East London Line, now part of the Overground, used to be part of the Underground, even though, at Whitechapel, the Overground is in a tunnel and the Underground crosses over it just below street level, with an open view of the sky.
Basically, when the first Metropolitan Railway tunnel was dug (between Paddington and Faringdon, later extending further east, they envisaged something more like what the Elizabeth line Line does now.
Ideally, metros should only be used on the highest density urban corridors, while suburban rail should be used to connect the suburbs to the core, and LRT/BRT should be used as a stopgap either in the form of branch lines or to help connect the two systems.
Which is generally the case in big, European cities
I disagree there is no "ideal" every location is different with different needs, different regulatory bodies, pricing, etc, etc. Trying to set an "ideal" solution is how nothing gets built at all.
Then what are the "highest density urban corridors"? There's European cities where such a statement doesn't make much sense because most places are roughly the same density when they're the same distance from the city center...
I would say the separation really should depend more on the size of the city. Combining the roles of a metro with sub-local stop spacing and the longer reach of heavy rail is fine when your core section only consists of a half dozen or so stops. If your city is larger though and metro-like stop spacing causes travel time to balloon on routes across the city, you need to split off the two roles.
@@louiscypher4186 There is an ideal situation actually, and it's when your city is built on solid, easily available, flat, even land in a reliable temperate climate. Think Toronto, Houston, Chicago, Berlin, Beijing, Paris - the geography and population support a balanced ideal transit system. While Vancouver almost requires LIM metro systems with all the awkward, hilly terrain, and New York is so dense it requires TBM's to build any subway extension, these cities don't necessarily have to worry about putting metro everywhere unless the population demands it, like Beijing. Toronto is by no means an ideal transit system (yet), but as it's built on flat easy land that's somewhat closed in by the larger geographic area it's situated in, it's perfectly suited to have a bunch of regional rail lines that converge in the city and are connected to large bus and tram networks, with a lean metro network that connects only the densest, most in demand areas of the city. The ideal transit system is of course Paris and Berlin, where a number of different modes are used to create a large efficient network that serves the whole city. A transit network that relies on a single mode due to constraints might do a perfect job for its city, but in a situation that is less than ideal.
I think a video on Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden's tram and suburban rail network could be really interesting. It's the 2nd biggest city in Sweden, but relatively small compared to most cities featured on the channel (600,000 urban, 1,000,000 metro) and yet it has a lot of transit. Your Rennes video made me think of it.
I was hoping Japan would be mentioned; their regional railways are their metros
That sort of depends on where, but it is very common for suburban rail services to become part of a metro service in the middle of the city and that's fantastic for reducing required transfers. I think RMTransit did actually do a video on that at some point.
Then of course there are services JR runs that are ostensibly suburban rail and don't get called a subway / 地下鉄 even if they might be underground sometimes like the Sobu line, or overground like the Chuo line that still offer relatively high frequency and high station density in the urban core. There's also the way that the Osaka Loop Line exits the loop to become suburban rail, or how the Yamanote Line might entirely be considered a metro service but operates on the same track alignments as the rest of the JR suburban rail network and so doesn't get called that.
Overall yeah I would say Japan blurs the lines when it's useful and Japanese cities make great use of that.
They have "distinct" metros as well, made a video where I talked more about it here czcams.com/video/CH5f8j4pJAM/video.html
Hmm
@@DevynCairns Tokyo's Yamanote Line meanwhile is so busy that JR East once contemplated upgrading its signalling system to CBTC (byThales SelTrac) like those used by subways/metros
Subways are incredible, I always feel in the future
Thank you for your work!
I live in the Tampa Metro area which has no rapid transit and we have a list of struggles for adding one. 1) poor soil quality for tunnels. 2) a giant body of water dividing the metro area. 3) infrastructure needs to meet hurricane codes. 4) urban sprawl with few walkable neighborhoods and no transit oriented development. 5) weird/bad zoning and city codes. 6) NIMBYs. And I’m sure others. I know all of these can be resolved, but it’s hard to convince anyone of that locally.
So a humble request, that if you are looking for video ideas to possibly make one about how to add a metro system in a city where EVERYTHING is working against it. Maybe in particular to use Tampa as a case study of how we could get started and build up slowly over time to help local’s understand what our city could be.
Taking all of that into account, and knowing that Florida is big on driving, probably the easiest option is dedicated bus lanes. All they have to do is get more buses, set routes, and paint the outer lanes of the road red. That way there's nothing to build, but convincing the government to actually do that would probably be insanely difficult, and people who are forced to drive and probably hate driving, would have a fit because driving would be more difficult temporarily until people start to give in and take the bus.
I have a friend who lives outside Tampa, he has a disability and can't drive, but neither does his mom, and they live out in the suburbs. There's nothing but houses for miles so they have to rely on delivery services, which I'm sure isn't cheap for them. Having reliable transit from the suburbs to the commercial area of town would probably be a huge help for them.
The soil was the reason why metro in Warsaw was only opened in the 1990s. The soil around here is in large parts sand and sandstone, and there were major issues with digging through quicksand. This was mostly solved with the introduction of TBMs (as opposed to digging manually, which was about 10x slower, not to mention less safe).
Tampa needs elevated trains. If the track is up high it's not going to be vulnerable to flooding, you don't need to worry about plowing snow, Florida is flat so you don't need to worry too much about elevation changes, and if you build it with third rail power you don't need to worry about overhead line equipment being taken out by wind, also it lowers the overall height of the track so you'll see fewer complaints about views. Because the station already have a high voltage DC supply in order to run the trains, they can also have rapid charging for electric buses and vans that can serve as the last mile solution. The tracks and the stations can serve as vitally needed street shade. Any public business that's adjacent to the station could have a roof deck that can connect directly to the station.
Soil quality, hurricane codes or bodies of water can't be a true complication. In the late 70s, BART constructed the Transbay tube which spans 3.6 miles, is prone to Earthquakes, and cuts through the Financial District station that is basically underwater and is essentially a floating station. Engineers are happy to take on these projects if you give them funding and public support.
But Miami has the metro rail and if I’m not mistaken has the same issues as Tampa.
Subways don't disrupt the surface roads and buildings. You would not build an above ground train downtown.
And here is MFG using Frankfurt as his personal example again:
- A full sized S-Bahn train is around 200 metres long, a full sized U-Bahn train around 100 metres, though it's more common to see 75m trains (the U3 and U5 even are limited to 75m thanks to their legal loading gauge). On top of that, the S-Bahn trains have standard train width (around 3m), the U-Bahn more that of a tramway (2.65m).
- The S-Bahn has nine separate services of which eight go into the tunnel (though that too can be split into two separate metalines, the north-south S3-S6 lines and the east-west S1, S2, S8 and S9 lines) while the U-Bahn has three metalines (named A, B and C) of which the A has four branches while the other two have only two each.
- You can see the difference in accelleration on the shared C-line-S-Bahn tunnel below Zeil yourself.
- The U-Bahn has some pretty tight curves at Marbachweg though ideally, they would have been softened out if it were properly grade separated, and the remaining curves are still tighter than that you will see on the S-Bahn.
- Though the S-Bahn has some stops only 500 metres apart in the trunks (most notably Lokalbahnhof), once the trains are outside, the distances are closer to that of your average (German) regional line even within the city border while the U-Bahn only has higher stop distances if geometry (e.g. there are buildings or a river above the line) and population (very prominent in the north) makes a stop impractical.
- Thanks to taking over existing rail corridors, the S-Bahn tends to serve more places outside the city than inside so outside the centre, only Nied, Griesheim and Höchst have tracks right through their centre while neighbourhoods like Eschersheim, Dornbusch and Bornheim are better served by the U-Bahn. It also makes the S-Bahn network heavily skewed towards the west so the U-Bahn also is more prominent in the east than the west.
- Related to the above, A-Line and the north-south S-Bahn lines intersect quite often (Südbahnhof, Hauptwache, A-S6 in Eschersheim, U3-S5 in Oberursel, nearly the U2-S5 in Bad Homburg and planned U1-S6 at Niddapark), though other lines also are planned to intersect the S-Bahn including the U5 extension to Frankfurter Berg (interchange with the S6), Nordmain'sche S-Bahn (U6 at Ostbahnhof) and Regionaltangente West (Höchst and Eschborn Süd).
Of course, to immediately mention the elephant in the room, the U-Bahn is not a proper metro due to the lack of grade separation so a lot of portions are still at grade and even street running in case of the U5 (incidentally, they tend to happen more on the branches except on the A line) but it still has a lot of potential which makes it IMO still a good anecdote. Another notable deviation on is the lack of interchanges within the U-Bahn except the triange in the centre as well as the B-C interchange at Bockenheimer Warte. The north also resembles more of a traditional railway so even if it were fully grade separated, most of the tracks would still be at grade or at most on embankments (it _is_ a former railway except within Riedberg). On top of that, the S-Bahn trains have a higher door density compared to the U-Bahn trains (per 100m, 18 pairs of doors on the S-Bahn, 16 on the U-Bahn).
Yes, cities still need metros. But not every city needs a full scale metro, and many can use a intermediate solution.
That said, do not forget to look at other pre existing modes like commuter rail (S Bahn)
Of course, but not needed a metro because you have an S-Bahn was kind of the point of the video!
@RMTransit so you don't need a metro with an s bahn or you do
Another consideration to make is the age of the infrastructure. Commuter rail tends to follow legacy rights of way that were originally built through greenfield, whereas subways are generally built from scratch, with few cases in which legacy track was converted to subway. Center-City commuter rail tunnels are almost always built to knit together an existing legacy system, so branching is somewhat endemic to the concept. But so much branching forces padding of the timetable, so, even with larger trains, CR through a central tunnel can still struggle sometimes to match capacity with a subway line that has a single dedicated service and tighter headways. Like you said, every technology has its niche!
Subways would never be obsolete, because 1. They isolate the noise to the passengers (Elevated). 2. They don't compete with other traffic modes (like Light Rail). 3. They are generally faster because of the above.
4. The chances are you will be in a climate control environment. This is important for limiting delays (waiting or incremental weather like snow or flooding).
There advantages out weigh there disadvantages, so certain cities makes the investment.
I came here to post this, good to see I'm not alone here.
*Their, not there.
Trams aren't very good at doing fast high volume mid distance trips. Hell they're not that good at doing mid distance trips at all. Trams should stop regularly and ferry you to Metro, suburban, and regional stations. Metros / suburban / regional trains have what they do in the name. They only have modest overlap, as is evidenced in Melbourne where the trains try to be metros but fail.
something about the london undergrounds branching:
Each line on the london underground built for a very long time was a completely separate railway company, every other line was a competitor above all else. While a lot of these companies realistically were operating multiple lines every companies services was simply labeled as one line anyway.
And many of the outer-London "underground" lines were originally built as train lines.
It's probably quicker to list the ones that weren't:
The 🍆fosters and Heathrow ends of the Picadilly Line - the Uxbridge branch was originally the District Line
The southern ends of the Northern Line
The eastern end of the Jubilee Line, the northern end was previously a branch of the Bakerloo line, and before that, a branch of the Metropolitan Line.
The Southern end of the Bakerloo Line (which is in Zone 1 so not outer London)
and both ends of the Victoria Line.
For sure, and the way they branch now is rather unconventional with a ton of overlap
Excellent explanation. Thank you. It was very helpful to my understanding.
Thank you SO much! This is exactly what I needed. Will tell you at some other point via email. All the best from Berlin!
Munich is similar to a few other German cities which have a central S Bahn rail tunnel such as Frankfurt, Leipzig and Stuttgart. Munich has a decent transport network with the U Bahn, trams and regional trains linking up to the S Bahn quite well. Only issue is capacity/speed to the airport which is being resolved with the building of the 2nd tunnel through the centre. Leipzig is also quite interesting in that the central S Bahn is still a fairly new project that is only 10 years old.
And Hamburg as well - its S-Bahn tunnel under the city centre was opened in 1975 already
Good video for describing the differences between modes and that Metros have a unique purpose and set of benefits. The natural segue to this is how to decide what type of rail system to build for any given city, and at what point to build it (or those) as it grows. Should you build suburban rail first, and then add Metro later or just go straight to Metro first, and then add suburban rail later? Or maybe you should build LRT first, and then convert to Metro? So many variables at play. Maybe the best way to do it would be to take a couple of example small cities and imagine how they might grow/develop and postulate about how you'd grow it out (and most importantly WHY you'd do it that way), sort of Cities Skylines style.
Yeah good idea, I'll make a note to eventually do that video
the difficult thing is with places like the US where at its heart suburban rail would be the best for a lot of the more sprawling cities, but there aren't easy rail rights of way so we're stuck having to build big suburban metros or run partly on the street with subpar long distance light rail
And now bus rapid transit which is even worse given how poorly it's executed within the United States. I can't think of a single BRT lines in the US that wouldn't be considered a complete joke in Curitiba and Bogotá where the concept originated (although Pittsburgh and L.A. did build exclusive busways first).
never seems to be a problem to build a highway...and highways take much more space
Thats where looking at systems like the REM and RRTS makes sense!
What I learned from this video: Metros gain capacity by frequent turnover of the passengers. No one is expected to stay on one for very long, so comfort is held to a basic level. The emphasis is on passenger permeability, so they have multiple doors and multiple connection points. Trains have more passenger time per trip, so this prioritizes speed of the vehicles and passenger comfort.
Bilbao has an interesting mix of Metro and Suburban rail with their Euskotren lines. While the 7.5 minute headways are uninspiring, they manage pretty good reliability and importantly do a very good job as a metro within the city, with close stop spacing and well located stations. It is perhaps also partly enabled by the use of metre gauge and generally smaller sized trains, but I think it's quite a good concept for smaller cities.
Bilbao is quite big though and sorely lacks a faster rail links that span its length.
Needs an explainer at some point
Maybe
Nice to see the SD MTS green and blue line signage on your wall!! Looking forward to a future video.
It depends on the travel distances, less on required capacity. If you have no usable heavy rail infrastructure laying aroung going for a metro can be helpful. For example, the Ruhr region is not super densely populated in many places but would greatly benifit from having a proper (light) metro system because the distances within the region are large and many corridors simply will never have a S-Bahn serving them because the infrastructure does not exist
Mainline trains do a lot more than just move people from outlying suburbs/neigh boring towns to city centre tunnels. They can also be used for intercity services, cross regional trips and serve rural areas.
Also some city centre tunnels also have high speed trains passing through them such as in Brussels, Barcelona and Berlin.
Good transfers… the NYC subway is still missing some of those. In addition to no connect between most of the boroughs (other than the G train) there’s also no good connection from Queens to the upper west side and central Harlem, it’s either go downtown to cross over, or hope that the BDE stop at 7th avenue is good enough (unless you need the A, C or 1, then you will have to transfer again, or just go down to 42nd street and do a lot of walking.) The 2 and 3? Either go down to 42nd and walk, or transfer multiple times to get to 72nd street.
1:16 The “g” in “S Tog” is silent in Danish. So it sounds more like “S Toe”.
I think that is a very fair explainer! To that I'd even add a couple of notes about why metros are still very valuable:
- As a technicality, a suburban rail system has to fit with the country's technical standards. So say for an S-Bahn in Germany, the federal railway rules apply, and therefore they need the same signalling (with two exceptions, Munich and Frankfurt, but that's only as an example) which may not be suited to very high train frequencies because of minimum separation. A metro doesn't need all of that, it can have a very simple signalling and it's entirely separated from the network, so a freedom of choice exists in that case. That's why for example, many metro systems have a signalling that is based on the national system but dimmed down to only the essentials, like 3 light signals and a simple protection system designed to stop or slow the train down somehow.
- As a metro system usually belongs to a city (or sometimes a state like in India), it's much much easier for the city to control how it wants to design and cater the system to its local needs. That's a criticism I usually have of commuter trains that are owned and operated by the *national* operator, which I don't think always knows how to best suit a system to a city.
- Sometimes I think metro operations aren't so much based on a schedule but just on frequencies like in Russia. That's a also a bit simpler than mainline trains as they need the schedule to be able to interconnect with other lines that they usually go on; but that's more conjecture mind you.
Ultimately I think the ideal city needs both. A solid metro system and a solid suburban rail system with enough density on both, well interconnected and managed. The few cities I've been to that have both are a puuure bliss to navigate!
In Germany S-Bahnen can use whatever signalling System they like on their exclusive tracks, but they have to always be equipped for the mainline standard as well. I think Frankfurt and Munich both use mostly standard versions of the old standard LZB (nowadays it's obviously ETCS which will be used on the Cologne S-Bahn)
@@jan-lukas So, actually LZB is only used in Munich. Frankfurt uses regular signals which 1000Hz magnets have been switched off and only use 2000Hz and a number of speed control magnets on the approach to a signal to stop the train before it has the chance to cross it if it is going too fast. Idk about Cologne yet.
The fact of the matter is that there are still limitations to those systems that the S-Bahnen have to cope with. Stuttgart and Leipzig both also still have the classic signals which in the case of Leipzig turned out to be an exceedingly limiting factor that made the tunnels already reach capacity despite the relatively low frequency by German standards (not to mention the fact that ICEs were planned to use the tunnel, but now aren't anymore...).
Yeah, Munich does use LZB in the tunnel, allowing for metro line frequencies, but it’s still at capacity and blocks higher frequencies on some branches. The problem is, trains often pick up some delays on the outer branches, which because of the extremely tight schedules impact all other lines. It’s not that uncommon to have 3 S-Bahn trains sitting in Ostbahnhof, all waiting for their spot in the tunnel, because the entire operation is running a little behind schedule. That’s basically the main goal with the second Stammstrecke, to get some breathing room in the schedule.
You brought up some excellent points that I missed! Who owns the system, and how they are operated is huge
Should try mumbai, they suburban rail is iconic and still surprisingly running at very high frequency that too on old block signalling.. it's so important to the city, a day of service stopping leads to millions of usd losses a day.
It's the essential part of the city/metropolitan region and the people inhabiting it!
Though as said, due to its age (starting originally as inter City in 1853, and suburban as 1863), and the insane double digit population explosions it experienced (a lil stable now but still), the suburban railway is inadequate for metropolitan region) despite being so high frequency, it struggles with safety for going as high as 7 to 10 million riders a day.
It does the work of a multiple metro lines singlehandedly, though the new metros have already shown. The term super dense crushload was literally coined for it!
The metro on the western side(2 lines parallel to suburban mainline) has already relieved a lot of commuter traffic on the suburbans western Line.
Giving them better chances to expand, repair and upgrade the infrastructure at hand.
Also the states usually just build the metro, the city operates it. In case of Mumbai, the city built it itself and operated it through a different agency which is also part of the city.
In here, before I knew of the other scenarios, suburban rail was seen as a higher mode of transit than a metro.
And headway frequencies are common in Asia, from Eastern Asia, to South Asia (India), to South East Asia (Singapore, KL), etc.
Smaller cities could make do without metro but having a suburban would be more essential, with adequate bus transport network feeding the mode.
I've been in Madrid for a couple of days for a champions league match. That metro is priceless. Absolutely amazing. And one can see how powerful is that system when moving a lot of people to the match and back (atletico madrid new stadium)
I was a little confused by the title of this video, but your points make a lot of sense. Metros are really cool and convenient in some cases, but now after being on the Elizabeth Line I know there's so much more room to improve. Like just being underground for the whole ride feels a little claustrophobic, and it's not as scenic for people riding it. Having more aboveground light rail is way more enjoyable for the riders and also helps people find their direction easier. Just the annoying thing is NIMBY's like stopping anything that goes aboveground so tunnels seem the safer choice.
The idea is just that we need to think more about the different modes and how they work and where they have drawbacks
It really depends of the city, im from santiago, chile and without the metro and its constant expansion, the city would be a real chaos
Melbourne could do with a subway system, but it probably doesn’t make sense because our population is booming. Everywhere that could run a subway makes more sense to run the suburban trains there to create a proper network instead of our current radial system. The tram system can mostly make up the other locations, and has the benefit of being really quick to get on and off. It’s really difficult to build underground in Melbourne because of poor soil quality, flood-prone areas, and a tonne of skyscrapers that already have deep foundations. I know Sydney is building a new subway, but if we built one in Melbourne it would just be an expensive way to avoid fixing the issues with our existing train and tram network.
I do fantasise about having a great subway system though, particularly when I’m on the 96 tram and it consistently fills up so full that people are left waiting at the stop, and they’re our highest capacity trams! You could get a decent subway using a lot of old rail lines, particularly a circle line from Williamstown to Sandringham; via the Williamstown Line to Footscray, a new tunnel by Flemington Racecourse and Newmarket then along the Upfield line to go along the old Inner Circle Line to join the Mernda Line at Rushall, past North Richmond and into a new tunnel/skyrail to East Richmond, then via South Yarra to Sandringham
Melbourne is broke now ..where's the money coming from? WA can't keep propping up the east coast forever?? And your population boom is made up of migrants from Africa etc ..they don't have money
Excelente video genial 😃
3:40 Transverse seating is pretty common on German subway trains! Frankfurt's subway trains, for example, only have a handful of side-seats near the front and rear doors, and they're folded up by default to make room for wheelchairs, bikes, prams etc.
I’d really like to see a video on unbuilt subway/metro projects
Yes like Cincinnati
Omsk metro video?
Reese you seem quite well connected to current build outs on transit. I would be curious to know what the North American cost per KM is for various types of transit. It seems there are often debates on why we don't cap cover, elevate, etc... on new projects but I always assumed the costs were astronomical to at grade construction. Anyway, a hierarchy of build techniques would be nice to see.
I've shared the transit costs project a lot which has lots of data on this
I love your videos.
Hey @RMTransit, thanks for your awesome videos! Side note: I think you really need to do something with the microphone. Your voice sounds a bit muffled and it takes me effort/strain to discern the speech, way more than on other channels.
I think it would be interesting to compare/contrast the different metro configurations and their pros/cons. eg Radial/hubspoke, grid, and Soviet Triangles.
Some subway systems use mainline track for part of their journey. One example is the PATH Train, NYC to New Jersey
come to Liverpool , check out our new 777 class trains, the only city that has a subway fully grade separated system that's not actually classed as a subway system due to political reasons (you can't have a small city like Liverpool have a subway system and it's much larger neighbour Manchester only have trams haha)
In Germany we have 2 solutions for metroish sevices.
There is the "Stadtbahn" concept the core idea is that you tunnel the city center and run your Stadtbahn like a metro while operating at grade in the suburbs like a tram.(examples Frankfurt, Hannover, Stuttgart)
The other concept (the Voll-U-Bahn) seperates the modes striktly where tram (or bus) lines which are overrun are converted into metros.(München, Nürnberg, Hamburg)
The S-Bahn is a nice express service but more oriented towards suburban trips. (Disregarding the legacy S-Bahns Berlin and Hamburg)
I think that the highest potential comes from the use of Single Bore Large Diameter Tunnels (e.g Barcelona Metro Line 9/10, as you did a video about) to put the regional and even broader national rail networks underground when approaching the central areas of cities and large towns.
The unrestricted potential platform length would make the Elizabeth Line or RER the norm for regional transit, rather than the exception.
For relatively little cumulative tunnelling to join up the scattered lines including dismantled ones, dozens of cities would suddenly become more convenient to reach by public transit.
Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, even Leicester, Nottingham and Derby...they would not need many miles of single bore large diameter of tunnel each to transform their entire regional networks!
In London itself, multiple suburban corridor groups going into Victoria and London Bridge could be joined together via both the West End, Kings Cross and the City in one or two such tunnels.
We have a constantly expanding metro in Warsaw. And it’s great.
Absolutely loved the video.
If I may and it's not criticism just feedback. It would be nice if you took it a little slow and explained some of the concepts slowly and more in depth and slowly. It felt like it was going quite fast..
Again terrific content. I love trains. Subbed.
Your point on branching is interesting to me, being from NYC. I look at MetroNorth and LIRR vs the subway, and it sure seems like the subway branches way more. Is this relatively unique to NYC, or do you mean something different by branching?
Having been lucky enough to use the relatively new (and still very limited) Metro in Sydney I can say definitely. The difference when I have to go back on trains or even the light rail is night and day. Metro is wonderful by comparison.
well in ksa the answer to your question is :
yes , also , we can't survive the traffic jams without a public transport like metros
and i am talking about riyadh , because its always pain to drive a car there , anyway , great video as always !
doesn't riyadh have a metro already?
Riyadh is still building theirs. First lines might open next year though.
Why is it taking so long?
Don't they build infrastructures really quickly?
@@doujinflip
Great progress is being made on passenger rail across the kingdom. I was thrilled to learn that the line to the Jordanian border was just completed..I hope the Jordanian givernment extends it to Amman. It is time to finally undo the damage which the British committed against the Hijaz railway.
That's the good thing there, change can happen very quickly!@@jameshitselberger5845
Subways are primarily used to free the streets from that needed high capacity service that would block the streets altogether.
I WISH we had a rapid transit grid and standard vehicle design in the Boston area. Here, it's almost all hub-and-spoke (the major lines make 1 very small grid square downtown, covering just enough area to make transfers inconvenient), and EVERY LINE (not counting branches) has its own type of equipment that is incompatible with the rest (and then the T is moving to having a monoculture of vehicles on each one, thereby giving the worst of both worlds).
Major info download! Just packed.
I think the key thing for a metro is being a separate ecosystem from mainline rail. For example in the UK TfL owns and operates their own infrastructure and trains in London, it means they are not constricted by rules and regulations of the national rail network which are by the whole not designed for metro style services. Yes for the average user who changes from a TfL branded Overground service to the tube wont necessarily know, but there is a huge difference in the way those railways are run.
Japan: many of the most recent standalone subway lines (I.e. no thru services) were built with smaller linear induction trains.
Indeed, its quite interesting. Metros can be made without standard technology.
Personally i think a chicago style L is the best option for most us cities given most of them have wide streets stack an L 30 ft above a stroad or urban highway u have metro service at a fraction of the cost of tunneling and since its in an existing road right of way the obtaining property rights is easy
True, but it is certainly ugly …
Cut and cover is an option too. Bit more expensive but the stations can be more pleasant.
Excelente 👏
Of course the station you pull up when you talk about good transfer at 6:59 is Snowdon, which is a terrible transfer station compared to Lionel Groulx with cross platform. Another good video; I wish suburban rail around Montreal was improved.
I mean its still cross platform, just without the blue line extending further west
Will you do a dedicated video on the Melbourne Metro Tunnel when it opens?
None of these classifications are right, at least for India.
Because, Suburban trains in Mumbai run at Max frequency their signaling would allow (90 or 180 sec I am not sure). And the number of doors is irrelevant when you are hanging outside the train.
Also trains on Delhi metro are wide broadgauge trains but with transverse seating.
Not to mention Kolkata runs Suburban trains in tunnels and calls them Metro.
The only way to classify is the distance between stops. Metro is usually between 1km and 1 mile.
If you use any other method, I can give you an exception from India.
It's a cluster of features. Classifications are usually blurry around the edges. Though what you might have here is just some services that aren't designed properly.
In Melbourne we have a Suburban rail that comes every 20-30 minutes (in practice sometimes longer) but closer to the city stop distance is more like 1km. It's DEFINITELY not a Metro though, even though it pretends to be: It's heavy, runs on lines that carry some freight, lots of seating, 2-3 doors, and as it goes out to the edge of the suburbs. The 1km stop distance doesn't make it a Metro, it makes it a poorly designed Suburban rail.
My city of Łódź, Poland is building a rail tunnel under the city center and they're selling it as the "2nd metro in Poland". But it's just a rail tunnel and I doubt the frequency of the trains will be enough to just go into the the station and wait max. 10 min for a train to come. (I'm not even talking about metro-like frequency - that's impossible). Nonetheless, this tunnel is very important, because our main station is currently a terminus station and doesn't really get that much traffic. Also, the only way to get by train to the western side of the city is to go around the whole city, and it basically takes longer than a bus or a tram.
If you want to see it for yourself, the main station is Łódź Fabryczna, the busiest one is Łódź Widzew, and the west-bound train has to go through Łódź Niciarniana, Łódź Widzew, Dąbrowa, Chojny, Pabianicka, Kaliska etc.
Question: What software do you use to make your line maps?
A good follow up on this video might be doing one on the transit system of Hamburg, which has a fairly odd situation, where its metro at times takes you futher to the edges of the metropolitan area than the S Bahn
Reece already made a Hamburg video very recently
Hamburg and Berlin S-Bahn are mostly just another metro, which is not true for every other S-Bahn
@@jan-lukas except for Copenhagen, that is also much more of a Metro. It's entirely separated from the mainline network and there are even plans for GoA4 automation. It's already upgraded to GoA2 thanks to CBTC systemwide.
I did one! czcams.com/video/m8kMVtw8-so/video.htmlsi=SMIqVHONb3yp76m4
High frequency of metro is so convenient. But the need to go underground is a bit annoying. On the other hand, it's always comfortable there - newer too hot or cold (except maybe when you're dressed for very cold)
A metro is a nice way of transportation but expensive to build
Not necessarily, there are a lot of ways to build a metro - they all cost different amounts
Not nearly as much as a Freeway with the same capacity potential.
Something that impresses me about Madrid is how well the Cercanías suburban trains are used in the city center, seamlessly adding capacity, speed, and comfort for long distance trips all over the city
Something Mexico City Metro should copy.
Imo I’d perceive Sydney and Melbourne’s rail systems to be something similar to the German S-Bahn or the Paris RER, as they all offer metro-like services on a mainline network, thus it isnt really all that necessary for EVERY city to have a metro network if they have something that is already comparable
As an ex Montrealer who moved to South East Asia 15 years ago, I've witnessed firsthand the horrors of not being proactive with creating efficient public transportation. City was quiet and had 5-6 traffic lights when I arrived (that has certainly changed!), but now with vehicle increases in the hundreds of percent since then (and people all wanting Ford Raptors despite many streets being 4m wide) and zero public transportation, it's an urban disaster that decreases quality of life by A LOT. Now it feels like too little too late.
Traffic mayhem and you can't go anywhere during rush hour. If people think traffic is bad in YUL, they haven't seen how bad it can really get with poor urban planning and lack of foresight when it comes to subways, buses, trams, and so on. It's truly shocking.
For winter conditions like we get in Ottawa, we would had been better off with LRT in tunnels than this surface system that suffers in snow and cold.
Works for hot climates too - as long as you're not gonna have flooding issues.
I live in Łódź, central Poland, 650 thousands inhabitants. We are currently building ourselves a railway tunnel that many often call "Łódź metro" because it will be used by suburban trains. But in my opinion the city should have both real subway and already existing suburban trains, as they serve completely different tasks: subway connects the city districts and suburban railway connects remote outskirts of our voivodeship (province) to the city. We really lack quick transport in the city center, and the railway tunnel won't serve the whole city - just the outskirts.
Doesn't Lodz (sorry, no diacritics on this keyboard) have a large tram network with some 20 lines and few modern lightrail vehicles? Perhaps some of those tram lines need more grade separation to be faster and more reliable?
I agree that with that population it could well justify a couple of light metro lines in the corridors with more demand, but a strong light rail system could also be enough to serve most needs of the city.
@@f.g.9466 Łódź has a really vast tram network, but most of the tram lines in the city centre are on narrow roads (such as Piotrkowska, Zielona, Kilińskiego, Pomorska streets and so on) and there's no way to separate them. Additionally, because of long lack of funds that are available now the whole city is dug up and great part of the tram network is in repair. Things are slowly getting better, but those trams aren't a "rapid transit", just a bit faster than buses. Also, the rail that serves as rapid transit goes around the city and in the centre there's no way to move quickly, that's one of the reasons why the rail tunnel is being built.
@@Pan_Schaboszczak I see, sounds like you definitely need some tunnels for rapid transit in the city then. I wonder if a stadbahn/pre-metro type of approach would work, but I'm just shooting ideas without knowing the city.
@@Pan_Schaboszczak I mean, Piotrkowska isn't a narrow street, and the trams are on their separate lane. Also like half of the network is closed due to track works, road works or because of the tunnel boring. Pomorska is partially closed, Zielona is fully closed, Wojska Polskiego, Północna, Warszawska, Legionów, the line to Konstantynów Łódzki.
I'm worried that the frequency of the trains is not going to be even close to enough. The trains will be every 20-30 min at most. But I don't think it will only serve the outskirts. There will be 4 stations in the city center (Fabryczna, Centrum, Polesie (i mean it's in Polesie but it will serve Manufaktura)), so I feel it can definitely connect the city center (or the śródmieście to be exact) with Manufaktura. Also Widzew, Polesie, Koziny and maybe Teofilów but I think that's what you mean by outskirts.
Hey I think you should make a video on the Lagos metro that just opened earlier this month.
Sadly have No footage
@@RMTransit Really? Because I found a bunch of footage on CZcams.
The region surrounding Albany, New York, is a cluster of small cities with lots of sprawl between them that is heavily dependent on cars. A metro system would spur a tremendous amount of investment and growth. Commercially it promotes itself as "Tech Valley," with world class universities of science and engineering that could become the center of research and development for transit technology that can double as a living lab.
Look back to the 1920s...it probably exosted then
albany does not have regional rail, nor a working train station. We could try some on existing tracks but it is not likely for cdta to do this.
I thought this was going to be about tram light rail systems being used in place of Metros. I'd love to see a video comparing those modes (because I think there are some really important differences, but then I've only visited Metros, never lived with one in my city).
In Dortmund, part of the Rhine Ruhr Area ( 5.5 Mio residants ) Germany, we have a so called U-Stadtbahn. It's a Tramway with tunnelstations in the city center.
Most German Citys have this system, build most from the 60s.
In return, these cities have lost their large tram networks, which was a big mistake in many cities. Take Leipzig and Dresden as an example, they have better coverage with their tram networks but have no tunnel routes (apart from the S-Bahn tunnel in Leipzig)
hi rm! have u ever played nimby rails?
The Helsinki suburban rail does also not have any crossings, and the "heart"-line also goes underground for some bits.
Absolutely, cities, at least high populated ones, need them. I can't imagine New York City without its subway system. And the nightmarish traffic in many cities in Africa, like Lagon, Nigeria, shows how much so.
Melbourne already has a Metro, its called Yarra Trams. they're really cool, on the surface, they go slow enough that its safe to use around pedestrians, and they don't require any tunneling.
i never understood metros. they require too much grade change, underground stations take a while to get to the platform, as opposed to walking across the street and getting on...
Slow means they don't provide the same trips. Not a metro!
Metros would take you 30km in pretty much 40 minutes. Metros are higher mode of transport and used on larger distances. Meanwhile a tram running parallel to that line would take hours!
Grade separation helps you increase frequency and speed safely, though expensive it's returns are much much better than the initial backdrop of costs!
And, travelscators and escalators are amazing, look at how Delhi metro, HK metro, Mumbai suburban use it!
It's a breeze to navigate the city and with ease, despite 6 Lane express highways per direction; the trains reach wayyy faster!
So megacities like Tokyo, Mumbai, Delhi, Jakarta, London, Paris, Berlin, Kolkata, NYC, Guangzhou, Manila, Shanghai, Sao Paulo, Seoul, Beijing, Shenzen, Moscow, Osama, Buenos Aries and many many more work. Citizens here can easily travel even 70km with ease and daily here!
Melbourne can definitely still benefit from metros as they can be closer to displacement alignment.
You ought to experience it once to really enjoy and feel it!
Plus metros can always be elevated or even at grade, elevated metros are really amazing and have numerous benefits to it!
@@abhishekjain2444 30km? i guess Melbourne just isn't very big then, because that distance is as long as some of our suburban rail lines... which again adds to my confusion, why would a city choose to build a metro if suburban rail does the same thing? it makes me feel like calling our suburban rail a Metro is more accurate than people complain about
you're right though, i probably just have to experience it.
maybe our Suburban Rail Loop project could be considered a metro? it'll be mostly underground, 100kmh, 50+km line?
@@xymaryai8283 suburban in here is considered higher order mode of transit unlike other countries.
Metros are basically something built from scratch typically. The station spacing is short, meanwhile suburbans typically has more station spacing.
Though mumbai and Kolkata more like metro, with station spacing of 600m too!
Suburban is generally larger station spacing, mainline standards and higher speeds due to the previous reasons.
Other than RRTS, suburban is the fastest long distance service. Metro usually has a standalone network and can have their own standards, say like standard or meter gauge, etc.
It's a lil buzz word tbh. Like Brisbane, Nashik, etc. Name their bus networks as metro too.
And on the 30km part, the city spans upto 150km outside. And all of that is at least medium density and a lot in high density.
Housing costs million usd and is comparable to London... I'm not even joking and you earn ¾ to ½ as Londoners do.
Tokyo, Delhi, Jakarta, Shanghai, Beijing are some megacities!
UK EMUs using third rail routinely operate at 90 mph, 145kmh and have run at 100mph, 160km/h.
Loved the video a lot!!
Though a lil dissapointed at mumbai suburban not getting a shout out
Keep it up though, very well explained!
With mumbai suburban again, it technically grade separated, just instead of the rail... the roads and city services
Well, Mumbai has both!
Excelente
Can you make another video on Auckland's City Rail Link. Your old ones is private.
I love the metro system in my city (Saint Petersburg) and I wouldn't imagine my life without it. So yeah, probably still needed 😅
Often it's a historical development. Most suburban train tracks in Munich are from the 19th century. The 4,3 km long tunnel connecting all the lines opened in 1972. The tunnel was built high enough to allow for overhead wire and 15 kV. The trains can run 140 km/h and have very high power/ weight.
No need for a metro to run 140 km/h. The first Munich metro lines were built around the same time as the suburban rail tunnel, but have a third rail and 750 Volt.
Hamburg's suburban rail switched 1937 from AC overhead wire to DC third rail with 1200V. The city tunnel was built the same time as in Munich, but Hamburg still uses third rail. Berlin suburban rail has third rail with 750 V, just like the metro in Munich.
Munich subway as well as Munich suburban rail is becoming more congested. Accordingly both trains have less and less seats.
Train length and (depending on voltage) top speed make a difference. Otherwise I can't make out the difference between a suburban and a metro train.
Meanwhile, DC builds their metro as a suburban rail system and gets the worst of all worlds...
What?? The suburban DC rail is practically empty and useless
@@SnoopDoggyDog1 That's my point. Rather than building suburban rail that connects to the metro in the downtown area, they just extended the metro out to the suburbs, making the whole system worse off.
What they need to do is build fast, high capacity suburban trains to take people into the city, and honestly shrink some roads and remove some highways.
@@jamalgibson8139 yes they completely mismanaged it, what they needed to do is add a “cheaper” alternative like trams and build them between the high-populated areas such as One Loudoun or Downtown Leesburg
@@SnoopDoggyDog1 Agreed. It's pretty upsetting that the DC streetcar had such an ambitious network originally designed, with like 200 miles of track to be laid, and then they built like 2 miles and called it a failure. American transit planning in a nutshell.
As someone who lives in Melbourne where we have a suburban train that doesn't quite do the job of a metro, and trams that also don't quite do the job of a metro - yes, you want a Metro in your city.
Wow I see🙌
Make a video about automobile industries lobby
I wonder if subways would work in South Africa, Cape Town and Johannesburg specifically. If I have to hazard a guess, I would think not as our town planners have succumbed to urban sprawl. Costs for building underground are often rationalized as the reason not to do metro here. Even our high speed train - Gautrain is deciding to buy peoples homes above ground than dig underground for its expansion. I miss Helsinki where I could use the HSl app and be at any destination rather quickly - that said the city demonstrates that maybe transit isn't the only way to move people around quickly as the city only has two train routes.
Cape Town is too dangerous for subways unless you have the military providing security …
Elevated be mostly better! Cheaper and kinda asthmatic too.
I dislike the word subway, subways are just metros UG, but metros can be any grade.
Elevated rail is actual good and nice to have, has quite some merits of its from, easier expansion, to lower maintainance and definitely cheaper and faster construction!
@@abhishekjain2444 - Just personal opinion … I think L’s are unsightly, BUT I much prefer using them over subways. Traveling underground is for moles …
@@Clyde-2055 the US has quite bad looking decaying environment in most parts but trust me, there's some really beautiful sights through many systems in Asia and even EU with overground metros. But, high density downtowns need to be underground, and usually most cities try to keep it that way!
@@abhishekjain2444 - I aware that the US has quite a bad looking “decaying environment” … But I live in Asia …
for Toronto TTC, I hope lines 5 and 6 will do well next year and say goodbye to line 3 this weekend, future line 3 may be the Ontario line, for city crossing metro, line 1 is the only one that crosses the city border so far, I wish line 2 does the same but they may conflict with Go Transit operation by extending into either Brampton or Mississauga
Line 3 is going to be ol
Your presentation of the substance is excellent, so I'm not quite sure why you don't end on the obvious conclusion: metros and light commuter rails are different, complementary applications and for any sufficiently large urban area, the ideal is having both. That said, don't do the DC Metro thing of having both in the same solution, i.e. a low-density network with low frequency and few overlaps between lines that runs metro infrastructure but spreads out all the way into some of the more remote burbs. That's combining the worst of both systems.
Yes, they do! I live in Frankfurt am Main in Germany and live without subways seems impossible!
That's like asking "do people need water?".
3:33 i think im a smart lad and a massive train nerd. But trains splitting in service will always mess with me. Im certain ill be in the wrong half and end up on the other side of the nation
I agree, its quite something!
It's so weird to see an ad for Quebec City in English, lol. (I live in Quebec and there are laws here that require ads to be in French.)
The Melbourne Suburban Rail Loop is going to be a metro - grade-separated, smaller more frequent automated trains, non-radial route.
Melbourne is broke ..good luck finishing projects
The audio on this video seemed a bit murky. Have you changed anything in your setup? (Or is it just me who had this problem?)
We’re in a new space and still working out our audio setup! Turns out echo is a problem when you’ve just moved 😅
I loved riding the subway in Philadelphia
Well, maybe the short answer is BOGOTÁ, you can’t run a city over 10 million without a metro.