SEPTA has one of the best layouts of a system in North America with the possibility of running an S-Bahn like service, but they just don't run enough trains. LIRR is notorious for never wanting to fully merge into MTA completely screwing over the entire system integration. The original idea was that: Metro North = Metro North LIRR = Metro East NJT = Metro West/South
I cant imagine life without the LIRR. Growing up, I assumed that every city had a great suburban rail network with stations that are well integrated into the communities, but I have learned that, unfortunately, this is not the case. I do have to give a shoutout to Stony Brook station, which is located at the University and is very helpful for students living on campus.
I basically thought the same thing. It's that New York bubble that we all live in. Though I do think a lot of people in the US seem to forget that we have some really great transit systems and we're not completely devoid of trains.
Growing up I took the LIRR everyday to high school. Now that I’m studying transportation engineering in college, I can’t believe how much I took our railroad for granted.
There was high speed rail planned (and paid for) for the midwest Chicago - Milwaukee - Twin Cities. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) ran his entire campaign on anti-rail with no data to support this stance. $900 million left the state for the west coast. I live in Milwaukee with family in Chicago and Minneapolis and these drives are absolutely soul sucking. This is one of the most upsetting things that has happened to our state in my lifetime. Watching this channel and seeing cities with functional rail angers me to no end.
You can already take a train to Chicago, the Hiawatha. It even makes multiple round trips every day. You can even go in the other direction to Minneapolis on the Empire Builder, though it doesn't run often.
@@LongIslandCityLayout 90 minutes to go 90 miles through mostly farmland and tiny towns is really sad for a train entering one of the largest cities in the continent. The infrastructure Scott Walker shot down was going to be way better. He really set the state back a couple decades just to score cheap political points.
I wish you'd spent more time on SEPTA! It's one of the only regional rail systems in the US that has a completely unified system with through-running trains, and it is also completely electrified. While the service frequency is unfortunately low, it is relatively inexpensive and they have talked about wanting to increase frequency to 1 train every 15 minutes on most of the lines. Philadelphia is set up to have an S-bahn system once SEPTA gets the easy work done of raising all the platforms for level boarding and running trains with a greater frequency.
I use the Metro-North recreationally every few months. The fact that it keeps parts of the metro area well-connected even during weekends and (some) holidays makes it feel like a true regional (as opposed to commuter) rail system. Also, the Harlem-125th station is great for reverse commuting.
With regards to the Paoli Line on SEPTA, it's good to mention that the communities along this train line came into being as a result of the train service, and thus is why this suburban area of Philly is called "The Main Line." With the exception of Merion Station (first stop outside the city border) which is in a leafy residential area, there is dense residential and commercial development pretty much unbroken along the entire line with Lancaster Ave (route 30) running parallel to the train line the whole way. Fun fact: If you want to remember the first six stops on this line, just learn the phrase "Old Maids Never Win At Horseshoes" and you'll get Overbrook, Merion Station, Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford. :-)
Live in Utah and used to ride Frontrunner everyday. I love that UTA has its own tracks and is able to run all day. Makes it convenient getting around the Wasatch Front
I grew up in a commuter suburb on Long Island- every family I knew had at least one parent who commuted into Manhattan every day for work, and NO ONE drove into the city. Everyone took LIRR and connected thru the subway if necessary. It was the quickest, easiest way to go. Whenever I went into the city, I took the train. I think I drove into Manhattan once despite spending my first 18 years of life on Long Island. I even used the railroad to get to friends' houses on different parts of the Island. I went to a college in a town serviced by NJ Transit so same deal. But I recently moved to Denver, and I've been shocked at how impossible it is to effectively commute or even travel across this city via public transit! I definitely took for granted the accessibility and ubiquity of train use growing up. Edit: just subscribed, excited to check out your other content!
Exactly, pretty much everyone I knew growing up did as well, my dad included. I commuted via LIRR when I worked Downtown. Couldn't even imagine trying to drive in,
I would be very interested in a video about how Utah is politically able to build more rail. As someone who lives in Texas, I wonder if there's any lessons to be learned. Keep up the good work!
@@travisfinucane ohhh very interesting. Okay someone needs to start manufacturing trains in Texas PLEASEE even our dumbass governor wouldn't be able to resist the opportunity to brag about the jobs those trains create
Speaks to the many conservative arguments for rail transit. See the writings of William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich for more. Transit advocates need to frame discussions on their talking points more often
@@phillygrunt2154 hahaha, nah, I get what you mean. But I live in Dallas. They defy Greg Abbott's outrageous abortion and immigration orders by simply not enforcing them. Pretty based
Take the Metro North Hudson Line north on a weekend morning you can get direct access to great hiking trails in the Hudson Highlands. The views from the train are among the best on the continent. The train will be filled with hikers and cyclists. Really amazing to see this in the NYC area.
As someone who lives in NJ suburbs of NYC, I appreciated discussion of 3 NY area rail systems. As a former San Franciscan, I agree with your placement at bottom of this list.
Love the SLC call out. I currently live in SLC with no car and use FrontRunner to commute south to my office in what used to be rural Utah county (and still is for those in denial lol). My office is right next to the station, as well as several other tech companies, and things run... often enough to make it work. Would love a video of you breaking down how Utah managed to build our light rail and regional rail under budget and ahead of schedule!
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of people north of Orem through Lehi that are in denial about the shift from rural to suburban development that's happened over the past 20 years or so
@@jezzarisky Haha v true. I just think, if the state invests hundreds of millions to expand the capacity of the on-off ramps for I-15 in your community, you might not be rural anymore. If traffic in your community is an issue for you, you might not be rural anymore lol.
NJ Transit is the largest commuter railroad in the US by square miles covered....it serves 3 states with about 700 trips per day. The Morris and Essex line takes you out to Morristown, NJ which is now an awesome hub of restaurants, culture and housing.
Proud Utah resident who’s literally riding the frontrunner as I watch this video. Love the shoutout! And I’d love a video on the politics of how things get built here. This legislative session a bill was passed to combine UDOT with UTA so they can oversee more construction projects. Our biggest need now is to double track the frontrunner so we can have more frequent headways / maintain higher speeds. Thanks for a great video as always
do you know if there's any plans for electrification? i heard someone mention it, and i would love to move away from diesel engines. then again, knowing Utah, even after electrification, they'd still sneak in hybrids of some kind.
@@ethanstump From what I’ve read, it’s been talked about but isn’t on the immediate docket. The $300 million approved by the legislature last year was focused on just the frontrunner double tracking, and the current studies being done are about expanding it south or adding bus rapid transit in other parts of the metro area. But hopefully we get it soon! We need it here with the way the mountains trap smog
I like it when you mention cities that punch above their weight class...there's something about them that feels aspirational and inspiring. Perhaps a video all about cities that punch above their weight class in one way or another?
Elizabeth, NJ resident here. Elizabeth is...trying. The Art Deco tower you pointed out is Hirsch Tower, which is supposed to be converted to 93 luxury apartments. That project feels like it's on hold at the moment as the developer has another project under construction that's way more ambitious. Typical multiple 5 over 1 building complex. More unoccupied spaces above storefronts in Midtown are started to be converted to apartments. NJ as a whole is on a transit village kick, so there have been two new developments built near Elizabeth Midtown Station (itself being renovated) along with others that are in the planning phase. It's definitely an interesting time here.
Interesting to see CalTrain on this list. As someone living within walking distance of a CalTrain station, I’d also call out Palo Alto station as a great station, with a charming historic waiting area on the southbound platform, an easy walk to Stanford to the south, and a great downtown shopping district to the north. As usual for the Bay Area, the problem is a lack of housing around the station, though Stanford (who owns the land) wants to build more there, except there’s been a big kerfuffle around height maxima and parking minima that has stalled that project. I would love to hear more about how Salt Lake City does it, or more about height and parking restrictions in general.
The bar is so high for what you need for housing in the Bay Area. Otherwise the Caltrain station areas honestly more than hold their own with everything on this list except the NY corridors.
@@CityNerd The Santa Clara example you showed now has three office buildings occupying those empty lots across the tracks from the station. Source: I work at one of them, we're finally returning to in-person in a couple weeks. Of course, they also built parking garages :(
Mountain View Station is nice. Redwood City is building lots of housing in their station area as well. They somehow got some 12-story apartments built. Good for them! SJ Diridon is a land use disaster, but google swears they are going to be building a lot of housing alongside there by 2035.
Yeah, I do wish SJ Diridon had better land use, given that it is already served by Caltrain, ACE, Amtrak, the VTA light rail, and some busy VTA bus routes, and it’s supposed to be a HSR stop
In Montreal, the Town of Mont Royal was a purpose built railway suburb that is currently being transitioned to rapid service. Probably the best example of a station area suburb in the city
Hamilton West Habour is probably the best land-use on GO outside of Toronto, it's just struggling because the rails are speed limited between West Harbour and Aldershot (and hamilton bus service is so awful) to such an extent that it's usually quicker for Hamilton residents to drive to Aldershot and get on the train there than to walk / take the bus to West Habour and take the train from there.
Happy to see Septa listed here. I use the train every day to get to university, and it really makes my town a great place to live, not only lots of great places to go to and see in my own town, even more in the surrounding area.
As someone who grew up in the NY Metro area, I don’t know where I’d be without Metro North. I lived pretty close to 5 (!!!) stations on the Hudson and Harlem lines, so I could chose almost any time I wanted and if I was running late, I’d simply pick a different train. We take MTA and NJTransit for granted in the metro area IMO.
Hi, I just want to say, your channel is a refreshing voice in the urbanist community. So often I find channels that just bash the U.S transit system without providing a solution. After watching through your catalog you seem to actually care about improving the state of transit in America rather than just saying "move to Europe". Best Regards from New Jersey
As someone who grew up riding all the modes the MBTA offers, I’m happy to see the commuter rail featured! Though I wish they would get rid of that name, regional rail is a lot more accurate of a description. The South Coast Rail will be a great addition to the network and I’m always hoping for a North-South Rail Line connection! Also I appreciate you attempting to say Framingham, Worcester & Natick. They aren’t easy for people that aren’t from MA :)
My favorite networks are the Metro North, LIRR, and NJ Transit. Metro North because I love the gorgeous views on the Hudson Line. I grew up living in Westchester so the Hudson Line will always have a special place in my heart. And LIRR and NJ Transit because while they may not be perfect, with much of their respective areas are covered, it's better than nothing
@@vicepresidentmikepence889 New Haven Line is, three branches + connections to Shore Line East and the Hartford Line. Gets 2x the daily ridership of the Hudson Line. I still do love the Hudson Line and love to go stand on a mountain and railfan.
I'd love to see a top 10 video about small-medium metro areas that could benefit the most from building transit infrastructure. It's a vague topic but I think it could bring up a lot of interesting places in the transit discussion that would never really get mentioned in a normal top 10 list.
I agree, he said "Big Cities are good" but idk, I think Dense cities are (99% of the time) good. LA isn't better then Twin Cities even of its larger by pop. Seeing which smaller cities have the most growth potential would be really cool.
The Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania is an example; most of the core development is oriented in an east-west strip and some kind of metro line running through it could work really well.
Torontonian here; you missed nothing about GO Stations just being enormous park-and-rides. They are. I recently relocated to Hamilton at the west end of the Lakeshore West line, and the new West Harbour GO Station in Hamilton is the only GO Station that's really going to score well by your taste. Check it out if you're doubting my sense for your taste in urban rail stations.
Pretty spot on. Luckily this enormous GO expansion gives me hope for the future of rapid transit in the golden horseshoe, as long as we build proper housing nearby, along with Bus/Tram connections (Looking at Brampton cancelling/bringing back the LRT extension). Woolwich's proposed Breslau station, Caledon and Vaughn all seem to be moving in the right direction at least, and I'm hoping there's more.
interestingly the downtown brampton go train station is one part park-and-ride and one part a small bus terminal which is steps from the walkable downtown core (though the core is small due to bramptons sprawl in general) . the two sections are seperated by elevation, and either section is accessible to the other. just think its a pretty unique station considering the way most go stations are.
Most stations are huge parking lots, with a bus terminal and a taxi pickup zone. This is true, however there is a few exceptions, like Exhibition Station (also doing major construction there now to add a new subway station and rebuilding the whole station, also Mimico, Long Branch & Port Credit are much smaller parking lots and built more into the neighbourhood. Port Credit is also doing major construction as the new LRT streetcar line is being built. But after that, Clarkson, Oakville, Bronte, Appleby, Burlington, Aldershot are all giant parking lots around the stations, and this is the case for most stations on other lines too.
Oh man. I love Boise but you've got all kinds of political/jurisdictional/funding issues with your transportation system. I've worked on projects in Boise...so frustrating. STILL a great city, though.
Nice shoutout to Ardmore, PA. That area near the Septa regional rail is quite nice with lots of retail and walkable streets. There's a great little Japanese market/restaurant next to the station. Also, I'd like to say I still miss the old way of naming the Septa regional services, R6, R5, etc...
While Metro-North has a lot of park and rides, they are way behind the average weekday ridership for there respective stations. (Most stations are in the heart of down town) Pelham has an average of 3,163 weekday riders but only 234 parking spots. Metro-North is so well used you can find it referenced in regular life like on local news or TV shows or even at the grocery store!
Glad Natick Center station made an appearance in this video-It's my go-to when I don't want to worry about the shitty drivers or the lack of parking in downtown Boston. Natick Center actually has a surprisingly walkable downtown and a neat park nearby, which is nice when you're waiting around for the train. Just a tip-Natick is pronounced like nay-tick and Worcester is pronounced like woo-ster or woo-stah (woo as in woods). Hope that helps.
I'm irish but I'm still not even going to try to pronounce those things correctly. Nay-tick looks awesome, gonna have to check it out when I get up that way.
Natick Center is getting totally rebuilt with high level platforms. It’s currently under construction. By the way, I’m surprised the Framingham line was the busiest. I thought it would be Providence or Rockport. Both are targeted for partial electrified services. The MBTA and Transit Matters both have good reports on improving regional rail.
@@richardtaylor8862 Is the Rockport line also used by Amtrak's Downeaster? Amtrak might be driving electrification, as with the NE Corridor - in this area also known as MBTA's Providence Line
Grew up in Westbury my whole life! The town has a nice “downtown” area and the community is pretty diverse. I never realized how much of a walkable suburb it was until I moved to the suburbs of Houston and lost little amenities like having sidewalks and the LIRR
I'm from Utah, so I'm glad to see Frontrunner (kind of) making the list. Even being from the area, I didn't know it had an interesting history, so I'd love to see a video about it! Great content as always
Metra is a great system - used it for 20 years to go to work in Downtown Chicago. Lived in Palatine and my condo was right up against the tracks and it was soothing to me to have the trains go by.
The Septa regional rail system was originally parts of the old Pennsylvania RR and Reading RR. The connector tunnel that exists between Suburban and Jefferson Stations was built in late 70s/ early 80s.
Back in the 1990s, Chicago rebuilt 3 of their 4 Metra terminals - Ogilvie, Millennium, and LaSalle Street. The new stations were very well received. It would be cool to see a video on "Reverse Penn Stations", where a city rebuilt a major downtown rail hub and the outcome was actually better than what was there before. (Not sure how you'd quantify that.)
I’ll be in SLC in a few weeks, (taking the Green line from the airport) so I’d love to see a video on their transit politics & how they get things done.
I am from Salt Lake, and I am very curious too because I have had major gripes with how legislature has handled UTA the past 10 years. Their transit expansion happened in two major spurts, one around the 2002 Olympics, and one shortly after recession where they took advantage of stimulus funds. They haven’t done any meaningful expansion since then besides a BRT in Provo and a very very slow and short street car line
Love the SLC call-out! Not very many videos about our little system on TH-cam right now. Lots of interesting possibilities with UTA in the future and with Stadler's factory being in SLC we might get some cool rail things in the future. FrontRunner double tracking is already coming and electrification is the next step! Check out the Rio Grande Plan if you want to see a transit project that could be transformative for SLC! It's basically SLC's version of the Denver Union Station project, except it's an idea generated by the citizens. The city council is pushing for it now though!
Thanks for your video. I'm a Montreal resident. Yes, you are correct about the lack of TOD along the region's commuter rail stations. Even within Montreal in areas served by the subway, which opened in 1966, TOD is a big challenge. And as a former Toronto resident, I can say that there is TOD along the initial Lakeshore line, which opened in 1967, within Toronto, and not much TOD outside Toronto.
Right now GO is currently at a low point in terms of service (it was a lot better back in January). The Lakeshore lines ran 4tph all day with 2tph during the weekends, The Barrie and Stouffville Lines ran hourly during weekends and weekdays with trains stopping at like 1AM. However out of all of the regional rail services within the Top 5, its also the one that has the brightest future. 4TPH Minimum on each of the 5 main lines with a ton of electrification work being done, the province has ambitious TOD plans that are currently being executed, and a lot more. As mediocre as GO Transit is today, its still is a massive improvement compared to what it was, hell, 7 years ago, where the only lines that didn't run exclusively during weekday rush hours were the Lakeshore lines.
@@CityNerd Actually in the case of Montreal, not really. Exo has sort of entered a period of stagnation where virtually nothing is really happening other than politicians voicing wishlists. In fact its probably going to enter a state where its just going to deteriorate over time while money is poured into building REM projects.
The Metra is amazing! It's always on-time if not one to two minutes late and can get you to the Loop (downtown) Chicago quickly regardless of how far you live. Express trains during peak hours can even take you from the furthest suburbs to the city in just 20 mins. Clean, affordable and quiet too!
@@gil.k9634 When I was in sixth grade in 1976-77 I had an early-morning job selling newspapers to morning commuters at the Hinsdale Highlands station on what was then the Burlington Northern Aurora line. When I had significant free time starting at that age, my parents would let me take the train into Chicago with a friend--to go to a ballgame at Wrigley Field for example, or to hand-grind the objective mirror for a 6" Newtonian telescope (which I still have) at Adler Planetarium. It was all heaven for a child. I know this must sound like an impossible fantasy, but it actually happened to me.
@@NickWojcicki nah, every hour for a train on the other lines sucks, and Kenosha has like... Only 2 trains in the morning. And don't get me started with NCS
Speaking of Salt Lake City, I would be interested in your take on the proposals for transit to ski resorts around the city. Not exactly standard urban planning content, but the discussions around it are really interesting as they explore questions of how to best do transit in constrained geographical contexts and are also extremely controversial here.
I would also be interested in similar "transit to the outdoors" sort of stuff. In PDX I think there are a lot of ppl who like recreating in the forests and so think they need to own a car. Currently a car is the only (practical) way of reaching a lot of places, but it seems like everyone goes up the Gorge or onto Hood anyway, so transit options could be practical. I'm curious if there are other places around the world that have mass transit to outdoor (Schweizerischer Nationalpark ???)
@@CityNerd For added context, the main discussion is currently surrounding Little Cottonwood Canyon, which is one of the most avalanche prone in the world. The top proposals are a gondola from the mouth of the canyon, or adding a more consistent second lane, with avalanche sheds and expanded bus service.
@@joehansen5704 Stadler had a really good proposal for cog rail up LCC too. UDOT overestimated the cost and eliminated it from consideration, unfortunately. Stadler has rolling stock that could work for the cog rail and also run on TRAX, potentially providing rides from the city to Snowbird with no transfers.
@@AstroMagi I remember that being considered. I dont know which I would ultimately prefer, but I lean toward the gondola, since the base towers will probably be less damaging to the surface of the canyon. And, I haven't seen it mentioned, but it could be a very short extension from Alta to Brighton, instead of running a whole new line up BCC. Of course, I remember Huntsman proposing a cog RR with a tunnel between the canyons.
So happy to see my home town get a shoutout. I think there'd be a lot of value on how low/medium sized metro areas can still encourage car-free/car-lite lifestyles, since so much of the conversation among urbanist focuses on how to fix megacities. The focus might be warranted, since NY/SF/LA are probably the lowest hanging fruit on the continent, but mid sized cities need to improve a lot too!
As a person that uses exo2 line daily in the Montréal area, I find that the area around Ste Thérèse and St Jérôme station have some nice devlopment going on, and are in close proximity to both cities' historic downtowns. Parc station is also quite urbanized
Worcester sounds like wuss-tur (like the tur in turn) and Natick is like nay-tick 😄 my husband is from Massachusetts and so are many of my friends, so they've been teaching me how to say the names of places. They can be so tricky! Love your videos!
Great video--as usual. I've ridden NJTransit, LIRR, and MetroNorth as well as Metra in Chicago. They all have their pluses and minuses. I suspect LIRR and MetroNorth may be reported separately is because in the local fabric they operate so separately. New Yorkers conceptualize them as two totally different things--just as they also differentiate the NYC subway and buses which are also owned and operated by MTA.
You're right. I work for the MTA and deal with all the agencies. Metro North and LIRR are like completely different companies. Historically, they were. MNR was the New York Central and New Haven. LIRR was the Pennsylvania RR.
In Philly Patco and the Norristown High Speed Line (both only one line) are pretty unique as they are not classified as regional rail but serve similar functions. Patco runs from south jersey through Camden and into Philly making 4 and soon to be 5 underground stops in Philly. Interesting about Patco is that it's classified as rapid transit and operates 24/7, running a train every five minutes at peak and never longer than 15 minute headways besides in the middle of the night when it runs every 30 minutes even on weekends. Patco is currently in the process of adding a second line that will terminate and meet up with the current line in Camden.
Woo! Former Metro-North employee here. I loved this video, and I'm glad you put MNR as high as you did. I'd like to add two things to your analysis 1) You were praising White Plains for it's land use - and while I don't think you're totally off the mark, the life of a pedestrian around that station is pretty rough. Streets are still many lanes wide and barely acknowledge the existence of pedestrians. Stamford CT is a similar beast to contend with. I think "the bones are good" for these stops, but the cities themselves still have a long way to go towards being pleasant places to be a non-driver in. All this in spite of their fantastic transit service! 2) MNR manages to pull off a service pattern that I've never seen done well anywhere else. Most of the time their territory is split up in to "local" and "express" stops, where express simply means the train skips the first half of the stops on the line. There is an "anchor" stop mid-line where both locals and expresses stop (Croton Harmon, White Plains, and Stamford) - this is not the uncommon bit. Here's what's cool - in the peak time, they replicate this pattern but instead split the territory into as many as 6 "mini" regions - they call this "semi express" but it doesn't really capture what's going on. Between 5 and 6pm there are a whopping 13 trains on the Harlem line (4.6 minutes between trains on average), but the service to any given outlying stop rarely goes above 3 trains/hour (20 minutes between trains on average). This means that any individual train makes very few stops. For a line with ~37 stops, most rush hour trains are making less than 10 of those stops, and some make as few as 4 (not counting GCT and 125). It's pretty neat. As an editorial, I think it's only possible because MNR is much more geared towards Manhattan than the LIRR or NJT are. Sure, the outlying anchor stops of White Plains, and Stamford get some love, but everyone else gets "Manhattan or bust" service, especially in the peak time. I do honestly think they're "giving the people what they want" but it's not perfect. Still, it allows for these fantastic service patterns where nearly everyone gets an express train of their own, basically directly to their stop. Amazing.
@@tonywalters7298 Yeah. There's the 1-way 5 lane Hamilton av, and about 4 full blocks of parking right next to the station. I understand that from a land use perspective, we do have large buildings nearby, but the pedestrian usability is just dismal. In Stamford I almost get it, as there is big demand for parking at these anchor stops regardless of whether or not its a "good thing", but in White Plains they have a whole extra anchor stop nestled in there in the form of North White Plains! WP itself doesn't need the parking if NWP can take the load and gets full service anyways.
For GO Transit there are a few reasonably dense and walkable stations in old suburban and regional downtowns (Aurora, Maple, Newmarket and Mt. Joy come to mind). In terms of TOD there isn't as much, despite numerous plans, but Mt. Pleasant does a reasonably good job.
Been a while since you did a video to drag cities. What about "Cities with the most under used rail line". Based off of length of rail that goes through downtown regions or connects to suburbs but fails to offer any passanger services. Metrics like distance, proximity to useful places; stadiums, high density areas, university and business campuses, other transit connections, air ports. Thanks for the great videos, keep it up!
@@CityNerd I’ve got an easy one for you that’s gotta be close to the top. The northstar commuter rail in Minneapolis. Refuse to run enough trains to make it useful so no one uses it and it’s self perpetuating cycle. Could be so much better since it follows a fairly well populated route.
@@tonywalters7298 I did think Cincinnati and maybe Columbus would make the list, but not in particular. St. Lewis, Kansas City, Detroit are other big contenders, maybe Winnipeg and Halifax in Canada. Lincoln and Omaha would be great if they used a common Transit agency.
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 Ohio ranks towards the bottom for state support for transit, but I think Cincinnati/Dayton and Columbus would benefit from regional rail systems. In detroit, I believe Michigan DOT even purchased locomotives and rolling stock to be used for commuter service between Ann Arbor and Detroit, but funding for service was put to a referendum in 2016 and was voted down. I would agree with KC, especially since there are other cities with over 100K population very close by such as St Joseph, Independence, KCK, and Overland Park
The Lakeshore Corridor of GO Transit consisting of Lakeshore West and Lakeshore East are the two busiest when it comes to train service between Aldershot and Oshawa. During the morning and afternoon rush there's a mixture of local and express train service. Service is slowly expanding along the Lakeshore West to Niagara Falls. There's now hourly service to West Harbour and there's been an announcement of a station stop in Beamsville in addition to St. Catharines, Grimsby, and a station stop in Stoney Creek called Confederation. Right now there's a pilot project happening with service to London. Single day weekend passes between any two stops is $10 and a two day weekend pass is $15. Also that two day weekend pass extends to three days if either the Friday or Monday should happen to fall on a holiday.
Don't forget that PRESTO users coming in from Danforth GO to Union pay only $3.70 one way. A bit more pricy then the TTC cash fare of $3.25, but still better then $4.40 that it would cost otherwise. (Also, much faster. Main Street Station on TTC's line 2 - Bloor-Danforth - is a short walk north of the GO station. A trip from there to Union Station can take up to 20-25 minutes on off-peak hours. While Danforth GO to Union is about 10 minutes.)
@@davegreenlaw5654 But I'm talking about the one and two day weekend passes that you order online. They give you unlimited travel between two stops for either a $10 one day weekend pass or $15 for a two day weekend pass. So one could have a weekend pass from West Harbour to Oshawa if one wanted to which would give the pass holder unlimited rides to any stops of each terminus and any stops in between.
The Weekend Pass is good on the whole GOTransit System. You can travel GO Bus from Peterborough Oshawa and then train to Niagara Falls and back (260 KM one way) for $10.
"What should we name this new commuter rail system" "Well, we're the Government of Ontario, we can't come up with something clever-" *"I think you're onto something"*
Our name is really good, also nobody calls it "Government of Ontario" also it's a division of Metrolinx, which is a Crown Agency of the Government of Ontario, and Metrolinx has many other projects like the transit lines such as the Hurontario LRT line (they recently renamed it the Hazel McCallion line), the Hamilton LRT, the Eglinton LRT, the Finch West LRT, the Ontario Line, the Durham Scarborough BRT, the Sheppard East extension, the Scarborough extension, the UP Express, Dundas BRT, Mississauga Transitway, and more. GO transit also has busses btw
"NAY-dick" :) Edit: I live in SLC and the light rail and frontrunner are great. If I had to guess, the reason it happens here is because Mormons are extremely in favor of anything that is very industrious-seeming, Utah being the location of Promontory Point, and the fact that the consequences of air pollution are immediate, obvious, and overwhelming here in the wintertime when inversions happen. Like if you think Los Angeles has smog, you haven't seen Salt Lake City after a week of inversion conditions.
I’ve been binging your channel lately. So good! Topic idea: taking a look at grand plans to fix LA’s transit situation! Would love to see an urbanism utopia idea for LA
Los Angeles should eventually fix itself just by throwing money at the problem all over the place. By my calculation, there are eight separate passenger rail projects currently in active construction in greater Los Angeles. And that's not counting dozens more in various stages of proposals, environmental review, etc.; and there are some huge future projects in there, like whatever they will end up doing for Sepulveda. No really; here's the list: 1. ARROW in San Bernardino/Redlands. 2. Gold Line (L) (future Blue Line/A) extension to at least Pomona. 3. Regional Connector in downtown Los Angeles. 4. Union Station remodel (add pass through tracks). 5. Orange County Streetcar. 6. Purple Line (D) subway extension to Westwood. 7. LAX/Crenshaw light rail line. 8. LAX People Mover.
LA is at least working in the right direction. Compared to how it was in the 80's and 90's it's made LEAPS forward with transit. Much is still to be done, but they're slowly doing it.
@@GeotpfAgreed. Regional Connector and Crenshaw line already open. There are also three other projects that have already been approved. The second phase of the Gold line in East LA to the city of Whittier, the WSAB line that will serve Southeast LA region, and the East San Fernando Valley Light Rail that will serve the SFV. Very exciting stuff.
YES! I love the FrontRunner. I usually take my bike onboard and spend a car-free day in SLC. Only downside is, in typical Utah fashion, it doesn't run on Sundays. I suspect the official ridership might be under reported because fares are not enforced at all, and students ride for free with a student ID which is not enforced at all.
I’ve noticed that too, I’m like the only one swiping my card and stuff at the terminals, though I guess the idea of a fare is enough to deter many as a lot of people took advantage of Free-fare February to ride it compared to normal ridership
Ridership on UTA services is measured by Automatic Passenger Counting (APC) systems that use optical sensors to count people getting on and off at each stop.
I'm glad UTA FrontRunner got an honorable mention. I commuted on that for a while, and it's just the best way to get to go north and south (except for Sundays!). The suburban stations are sadly car-oriented, but Layton, Lehi, and Farmington have some good development around them. I'm hoping that Provo and Ogden (old urban centers now subsumed by the metropolis) take more advantage of their stations in the future too. Ogden's station is only a block and a half from 25th Street, but crossing Wall is a pain (it's a well-named stroad!).
Wooo Southampton! I can confirm that the ped bridge at 9:32 is heavily used on match days. The rail line below is currently only used by freight trains but there are occasionally plans to open it to passengers on match days. The footbridge is also part of the local cycle network but it's a little convoluted at this point.
Yay for the UTA call out! I'd love to hear more about the development as it's not something I've ever looked into. I have critiques of it, but overall I love that we have Trax and the Frontrunner(Frontrunner is also in early stages of expanding south of Provo down to Payson--maybe Santaquin but sharing a line with Union Pacific didn't work well when it tried from Ogden to Pleasant View)
Ogden is pushing for FrontRunner expansion northward too, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it get to Brigham City or even Logan eventually. FrontRunner is also getting double tracked and I think eventually it'll get electrified. Hopefully some big transit things in the works for downtown SLC too :)
@@AstroMagi Logan is such a great town whenever i visit distant relatives, it sucks how it's so out of the way, especially for people who don't own a car like me. the really sucky thing though is the BRT expansion in ogden, rather than putting in light rail. currently right out side my window is a backhoe being used for the BRT, since i moved to the street they are putting the new BRT line on. over it's lifetime it'll cost more due to maintenance, so your sacrificing both quality and expense, for.... reasons.
@@ethanstump I do wish Provo had bit the bullet and gone with light rail over BRT. The BRT is nice, but I don’t see it working out as well in ten-twenty years of left as it is
@@danielmalone2958 I wish it were light rail, but it is nice for those near its route considering the frequency and being free, with two universities having the dedicated service is great. My parents live in Provo but are far enough away from it that I’ve not used it much myself
Yes, I live in salt lake and the Front Runner is great, not only does it run every half our till midnight except on Sundays. Most of it is grade separated, meaning that for the majority of the track, it can go its top speed of 80 mph. You can truly appreciate how fast it goes because a lot of it runs alongside the freeway and you pass almost every car. With future plans for double-tracking and eltrication its soon to become more of a metro then a commuter rail.
The Metrolink in the LA area IS primarily for commuters. However LA also has several Amtrak lines that serve more like regional transit too. In fact, I've read that Union Station today has more passengers using it than ever in it's history.
You should still rank the urban parks in North America. It’s interesting to compare Central, Chapultepec, or Stanley Park and how each mesh with their respective cities. Also how suburban growth has affected parks in NA, how LA completely fails in offering park area, and the opinion on the proposed Texcoco Park in CDMX
Cranford New Jersey deserves some props for really doing a nice job redeveloping the area around their train station and making it a nice walkable downtown area.
Penn station usually announces their tracks ~10 min before the train leaves while Grand Central will always show the track of the next train regardless of how long you have to wait
Took NJ transit bus once round trip from my apartment in Linden to port authority bus terminal and it was alright. Next week we went remote, and I have mostly driven since. Peak hour was good but coming home at 10:00PM had to wait until 11:50 for a return bus.
Suburbano is an extremely good transport system in Mexico City because it’s always on time (something very surprising for the average citizen that uses metro), the expansion to the new airport is expected to be concluded in 2023 but is a shame since currently the airport only manages 6 flights a day (low number compared to 900 of the old airport). And the Toluca line has been under construction for 8 years and is also expected to be concluded in 2023, unfortunately the Querétaro line is not expected to be built in the near future but we all agree that the city needs more regional trains. Great video btw
Johnathan, we have been expecting regional rail since Ferronales passenger service was terminated in 1999... The full 242 km network proposed in early 2000's must be built.
Another great list. For Boston I curiously was looking to plot a trip for my parents (who are mobility challenged) who would be inbound to South Station and then unfortunately outbound from North Station. As you said government found billions for a car tunnel but I kind of gave up on them getting between the two train stations.
Unless you're coming from the Fairmont Line, most of the South Station lines also stop at Back Bay Station, where you can catch the Orange Line to North Station.
For GO, an example of a good suburban station is Mount Pleasant GO in Brampton. It’s being surrounded by dense development, and a very charming, walkable neighbourhood to the north.
LIRR fun facts: It's the oldest continuously operating railroad in the Americas with a charter in 1834 and the first trains in operation on April 18, 1836, which makes it 186 years old tomorrow. It's lines fall into really three different categories: inner-suburban services that could and should be upgraded to a more "metro" style service (PW, LB, WH, Hempstead, Huntington) middle and outer suburban services that are good with 1-2 TPH (Babylon, Ronkonkoma, PJ, Patchogue/Speonk) and two true regional services that have mostly single track and can be measured in trains per day: Montauk and Greenport. The last two have very different operating characteristics, with all trains to Montauk running through to at least Jamaica and ranging anywhere from 6 cars to 12 cars (shuttles starting at Babylon for Patchogue and Speonk have 4 cars), serving beach destinations with seasonal express and first class service to the Hamptons on the "Cannonball" which runs nonstop from New York to Westhampton, and the Greenport Branch, which wasn't even signaled until a few years ago, has only a single train in operations at any time that is a diesel locomotive and two coaches from Ronkonkoma only and would probably be better served with a Stadler product like the WINK or even RegioShuttle. Jamaica is basically the Clapham Junction of the United States except with much slower speeds.
On SEPTA: Back when I lived in Philly you could take SEPTA to Trenton and the NJT into NYC for a fraction of Amtrak's cost. Yes, it took forever but it was cheap as dirt.
Not having enough seating area in the station when the trains are not frequent enough really sucks. It's not always possible to arrange one's travel according to the train schedule and if one HAS to do that then it discourages them from taking public transit in the first place. BTW, caltrain SF station also does not have seating benches.
In my city, The Plaza has this problem too. There aren't very many seats available to begin with. And most people taking up the seats aren't actually using the busses. It's even worse at the park-and-rides, where there aren't any public restrooms. On weekends the busses run every hour. So if you get to a Park-and-Ride and have to take a piss, you have to either hold it until your next bus takes you to where you need to go, or walk to a business and buy something so they'll let you use their restroom, which may then cause you to miss your bus.
Loving that SEPTA, serving the Philadelphia area, made the list. Of course, SEPTA still has its issues, but I hear there is a long overdue plan to modernize the entire SEPTA system including rail, but focused more on surface transit improvements, such as creation of bus only corridors, providing 100% accessibility, providing more frequent weekend heavy rail service, more affordable rides for qualifying passengers, updating its surface trolley and bus fleet, and more bus shelters.
Torontonian: We have in Ontario what's known as the "Growth Plan" which is a special provincial policy introduced in 2006 demanding that areas around transit stations, especially along the GO, be massively intensified. I'm not sure if satellite images are even keeping up with the pace or scale of construction at some stations. Oakville Station (in "Midtown Oakville" on the Lakeshore West line) will start to experience the most ambitious transit oriented development in the whole network. Still being talked about though, if anyone curious enough has 2 hours to burn here's the latest council meeting talking about it: th-cam.com/video/nwMQscoLe7w/w-d-xo.html
Part of the Growth plan is that municipalities (which are "creatures of the province" and not independent political units as they are in the States) are required to meet set density and population growth requirements. Not to drag Oakville, since TOD is good, but this is in part to put as much growth as possible here and avoid changing the upper middle class suburban character. Oshawa is also undergoing some pretty extensive development, with two new stations designed with Walkable neighborhoods (and keeping the current park and ride station). Their plan is to change the character of some decidedly not uppder middle class neighborhoods. But the plans look nice.
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 Actually, the states have the ultimate authority over municipalities in the U.S. too. They may have ceded that authority with home rule charters or in other ways. This principle was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh (1907).
@@pghrpg4065 I didn't know this. But my understanding is Canada is still different in that municipalities don't have any existance outside of the province, they are similar to a department or agency overseeing local governance. The province can step in at anytime and create, merge, or dissolve municipalities, or otherwise change the governance structure or areas of responsibility (such as changing Toronto's number of city Councilors or taking control of all transit investment from the city).
Aw, sweet to see Ardmore station on this list. Went to school down the road at Haverford. I didn't learn until too late that it's cheaper and arguably quicker to walk from campus to the Norristown High Speed Line, transfer at 69th St to the El, and take that into Center City. But Paoli Thorndale line holds sentimental points
Living In Montreal next to the Vaudreuil line here, the neighbourhoods were in before they put in the stations so development only happens after land given up unlike a brand new subdivision. The line is owned Canadian pacific and it's the primary lines that connect Montreal with the rest of Canada, it's very heavily used by freight. St Anne de Bellevue is.a fascinating neighbourhood to visit, it has a very European feel to it.
When you asked about Gare du Nord and Atocha, I wanted to raise my hand. :) With regards to my hometown regional rail system, Metra, you left out LaSalle Street station which is, to be fair, underutilized. I'd also recommend you check out Palatine on the UP northwest line for TOD. When I lived there in the 90s, downtown Palatine evolved from a bleak, austere, brick box train depot surrounded by run down storefronts into a thriving, retro-victorian station all set about with townhomes, condos, revitalized shopping, and a huge parking ramp to replace the sprawling surface carparks.
I'd take a look beyond North East Corridor for NJT. Land use around stations generally is already good and in a lot of places is becoming even more transit oriented.
NJT wins in this respect because it’s basically an agglomeration of defunct railroad(way?) companies. I live in New Brunswick where the Pennsylvania Railroad went straight through the middle of the city. (I have no idea how the city looked when Pennsy built the station). But I’ve been on a fair number of the routes and I would say that this has been pretty consistent from my looking-out-of-the-window experiences.
LIRR and MNRR report separately because legally they exist as separate entities due to legacy issues including labor contracts. For the same reason, MTA gives FTA stats on both NYCT Bus and "MTA Bus" (which is the legacy company of buses in Queens) even though they've been under the same roof since the early 2000's and have crossed over dating to the token era.
This type of quantitative analysis is a very useful outcome of the mania for Top 10 Lists. Bravo! Most of these Regional Rail systems are electric. The hundreds of millions of trips on the New York Metropolitan Area’s trains are not producing much CO2 as compared to the alternative mode. More clear analysis of carbon production can help guide individual choices. Let’s see more Top 10 Least Carbon Lists.
As a Connecticut based college student MTA is amazing. (new Haven line) It connects to Hartford line and it's super easy to get to NYC a lot of the state
Hah! I grew up right around "NAY-tick" center, and lived for a while right down the line from it at Boston Landing. Surprising amount of culture in that neighborhood for a standard (but lovely) metro suburb with an arts center and walkable shops and good food. Actually that commuter rail connection was the main thing allowing me regular visits with family for a while until I got a car, and it also zips you up to the north shore for a laxin afternoon with little hassle.
We used to have a pretty good commuter system before the powers that be started tearing it apart after WWII. My elders in my town, Memphis, used to ride the intercity passenger trains from their suburbs into downtown Memphis. For example, the folks that lived in the towns of Germantown and Collierville rode the Southern RR, the Cordova people rode the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis passenger train, the Bartlett folks rode the L&N and the Millington people, home of a very large Navy base, rode the IC. I frequently visit the Chicago land area, and I wish we had a system like Metra, especially what they call the racetrack that runs through Downers Grove where I have family. I hate being car dependent, but there is little choice in Memphis. Our transit system, Meta, leaves much to be desired, and bike commuting is dangerous, but before I retired, I used to ride my bike to the bus stop and put up with Meta since my employer offered free bus passes.
Video series idea: pick cities that are requested or that simply are not brought up very often in your videos and make a video about all the good and bad of the transportation network, public transp, active transport etc. Would be fun to have analysis of individual cities and to learn more about what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong
I think the best example of existing modern TOD on the GO network is Mount Pleasant GO station (Kitchener Line). The density isn't that high, but when compared to other suburban stations which were not adapted from historical intercity stations, it's actually pretty nice. It's been a while since I've suggested a video topic, so here goes: A comparison of cost-benefits between grade separated transit infrastructure for private vehicles vs public transit. What I'm really interested in is the cost/capacity ratio of grade separated transit vs freeways.
Interesting station. Had to zoom in to really figure out the urban design -- reminds me a bit of Orenco Station on the west side of Portland metro. That topic idea is tough. I'm trying to do a video every week! You're asking for a $500,000 consultant study! Kidding, I'll definitely chew on that one.
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PLEASE make the video on salt lake city transit and how things get built! Sounds fascinating!!!
I bet he's got one cooking already.
Seconded
This!
Oh no, I guess I asked for it! Might actually require me to pretend to be a journalist, shudder
@@CityNerd You'd HAVE to be better at it than the talking haircuts who pollute the airwaves every evening!
SEPTA has one of the best layouts of a system in North America with the possibility of running an S-Bahn like service, but they just don't run enough trains.
LIRR is notorious for never wanting to fully merge into MTA completely screwing over the entire system integration. The original idea was that:
Metro North = Metro North
LIRR = Metro East
NJT = Metro West/South
NJT is the best train service in north america. Done
@@rituwebprohow? Trains are cancelled daily. I use the Dover line and it has cancelled on me about every fifth day in the past few months
As someone on the metro north I always wondered why it wasn’t called westchester railroad or why LIRR wasn’t called metro east
@@EastGermany-pc2lwwestchester railroad would just be an inaccurate name
@@leek6927 like anyone outside of westchester and Connecticut really using MNR though.
I cant imagine life without the LIRR. Growing up, I assumed that every city had a great suburban rail network with stations that are well integrated into the communities, but I have learned that, unfortunately, this is not the case. I do have to give a shoutout to Stony Brook station, which is located at the University and is very helpful for students living on campus.
I basically thought the same thing. It's that New York bubble that we all live in. Though I do think a lot of people in the US seem to forget that we have some really great transit systems and we're not completely devoid of trains.
Growing up I took the LIRR everyday to high school. Now that I’m studying transportation engineering in college, I can’t believe how much I took our railroad for granted.
Yea. Here in Texas. We could only dream of having something good. New Yorkers are ungreatfull asl.
There was high speed rail planned (and paid for) for the midwest Chicago - Milwaukee - Twin Cities. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) ran his entire campaign on anti-rail with no data to support this stance. $900 million left the state for the west coast. I live in Milwaukee with family in Chicago and Minneapolis and these drives are absolutely soul sucking. This is one of the most upsetting things that has happened to our state in my lifetime. Watching this channel and seeing cities with functional rail angers me to no end.
I thought there was a train from Milwaukee to Chicago (not high speed though) and he’s a dick.
Fly, it's much .faster
Ooof I’m sorry I feel your rage
You can already take a train to Chicago, the Hiawatha. It even makes multiple round trips every day. You can even go in the other direction to Minneapolis on the Empire Builder, though it doesn't run often.
@@LongIslandCityLayout 90 minutes to go 90 miles through mostly farmland and tiny towns is really sad for a train entering one of the largest cities in the continent. The infrastructure Scott Walker shot down was going to be way better. He really set the state back a couple decades just to score cheap political points.
I wish you'd spent more time on SEPTA! It's one of the only regional rail systems in the US that has a completely unified system with through-running trains, and it is also completely electrified. While the service frequency is unfortunately low, it is relatively inexpensive and they have talked about wanting to increase frequency to 1 train every 15 minutes on most of the lines. Philadelphia is set up to have an S-bahn system once SEPTA gets the easy work done of raising all the platforms for level boarding and running trains with a greater frequency.
Philly is interesting, kind of underwhelming metro but fantastic RR network wise. Lot of potential.
You forgot patco high-speed line going into South Jersey.
@@joannegoebel4642 it’s just one line
Waiting for an S-Bahn for us :((
@@joannegoebel4642It may muddy the waters to mention the NJ Transit line connecting Philly proper with Atlantic City.
I use the Metro-North recreationally every few months. The fact that it keeps parts of the metro area well-connected even during weekends and (some) holidays makes it feel like a true regional (as opposed to commuter) rail system. Also, the Harlem-125th station is great for reverse commuting.
The Harlem Line has the highest number of reverse commuters of any rail line in North America.
Everyone who rode Metro-North knows that the Hudson Line and the views of the River were amazing!
It's a great trip
With regards to the Paoli Line on SEPTA, it's good to mention that the communities along this train line came into being as a result of the train service, and thus is why this suburban area of Philly is called "The Main Line." With the exception of Merion Station (first stop outside the city border) which is in a leafy residential area, there is dense residential and commercial development pretty much unbroken along the entire line with Lancaster Ave (route 30) running parallel to the train line the whole way. Fun fact: If you want to remember the first six stops on this line, just learn the phrase "Old Maids Never Win At Horseshoes" and you'll get Overbrook, Merion Station, Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford. :-)
Live in Utah and used to ride Frontrunner everyday. I love that UTA has its own tracks and is able to run all day. Makes it convenient getting around the Wasatch Front
I grew up in a commuter suburb on Long Island- every family I knew had at least one parent who commuted into Manhattan every day for work, and NO ONE drove into the city. Everyone took LIRR and connected thru the subway if necessary. It was the quickest, easiest way to go. Whenever I went into the city, I took the train. I think I drove into Manhattan once despite spending my first 18 years of life on Long Island. I even used the railroad to get to friends' houses on different parts of the Island. I went to a college in a town serviced by NJ Transit so same deal. But I recently moved to Denver, and I've been shocked at how impossible it is to effectively commute or even travel across this city via public transit! I definitely took for granted the accessibility and ubiquity of train use growing up.
Edit: just subscribed, excited to check out your other content!
Exactly, pretty much everyone I knew growing up did as well, my dad included. I commuted via LIRR when I worked Downtown. Couldn't even imagine trying to drive in,
I would be very interested in a video about how Utah is politically able to build more rail. As someone who lives in Texas, I wonder if there's any lessons to be learned. Keep up the good work!
Caltrain's new electric trains come from a Utah manufacturer. I bet Salt Lake has political motivation to support local industry.
@@travisfinucane ohhh very interesting. Okay someone needs to start manufacturing trains in Texas PLEASEE even our dumbass governor wouldn't be able to resist the opportunity to brag about the jobs those trains create
Speaks to the many conservative arguments for rail transit. See the writings of William Lind and the late Paul Weyrich for more. Transit advocates need to frame discussions on their talking points more often
As someone who is from the north, leave Texas
@@phillygrunt2154 hahaha, nah, I get what you mean. But I live in Dallas. They defy Greg Abbott's outrageous abortion and immigration orders by simply not enforcing them. Pretty based
Take the Metro North Hudson Line north on a weekend morning you can get direct access to great hiking trails in the Hudson Highlands. The views from the train are among the best on the continent. The train will be filled with hikers and cyclists. Really amazing to see this in the NYC area.
That's my commute!!! Though I'm usually sleeping. Commute from New Hamburg.
As someone who lives in NJ suburbs of NYC, I appreciated discussion of 3 NY area rail systems. As a former San Franciscan, I agree with your placement at bottom of this list.
SF is still in the top 10.
Love the SLC call out. I currently live in SLC with no car and use FrontRunner to commute south to my office in what used to be rural Utah county (and still is for those in denial lol). My office is right next to the station, as well as several other tech companies, and things run... often enough to make it work. Would love a video of you breaking down how Utah managed to build our light rail and regional rail under budget and ahead of schedule!
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of people north of Orem through Lehi that are in denial about the shift from rural to suburban development that's happened over the past 20 years or so
@@jezzarisky Haha v true. I just think, if the state invests hundreds of millions to expand the capacity of the on-off ramps for I-15 in your community, you might not be rural anymore. If traffic in your community is an issue for you, you might not be rural anymore lol.
It's amazing stuff
Being from Utah, I would love to see a video on this topic.
... do you work at Lucid too? Because this describes my commute almost exactly lmao
NJ Transit is the largest commuter railroad in the US by square miles covered....it serves 3 states with about 700 trips per day. The Morris and Essex line takes you out to Morristown, NJ which is now an awesome hub of restaurants, culture and housing.
Excellent point!
Proud Utah resident who’s literally riding the frontrunner as I watch this video. Love the shoutout! And I’d love a video on the politics of how things get built here. This legislative session a bill was passed to combine UDOT with UTA so they can oversee more construction projects. Our biggest need now is to double track the frontrunner so we can have more frequent headways / maintain higher speeds. Thanks for a great video as always
do you know if there's any plans for electrification? i heard someone mention it, and i would love to move away from diesel engines. then again, knowing Utah, even after electrification, they'd still sneak in hybrids of some kind.
@@ethanstump From what I’ve read, it’s been talked about but isn’t on the immediate docket. The $300 million approved by the legislature last year was focused on just the frontrunner double tracking, and the current studies being done are about expanding it south or adding bus rapid transit in other parts of the metro area. But hopefully we get it soon! We need it here with the way the mountains trap smog
I like it when you mention cities that punch above their weight class...there's something about them that feels aspirational and inspiring. Perhaps a video all about cities that punch above their weight class in one way or another?
Elizabeth, NJ resident here. Elizabeth is...trying. The Art Deco tower you pointed out is Hirsch Tower, which is supposed to be converted to 93 luxury apartments. That project feels like it's on hold at the moment as the developer has another project under construction that's way more ambitious. Typical multiple 5 over 1 building complex. More unoccupied spaces above storefronts in Midtown are started to be converted to apartments. NJ as a whole is on a transit village kick, so there have been two new developments built near Elizabeth Midtown Station (itself being renovated) along with others that are in the planning phase. It's definitely an interesting time here.
Super interesting, thanks for the comment!
Interesting to see CalTrain on this list. As someone living within walking distance of a CalTrain station, I’d also call out Palo Alto station as a great station, with a charming historic waiting area on the southbound platform, an easy walk to Stanford to the south, and a great downtown shopping district to the north. As usual for the Bay Area, the problem is a lack of housing around the station, though Stanford (who owns the land) wants to build more there, except there’s been a big kerfuffle around height maxima and parking minima that has stalled that project. I would love to hear more about how Salt Lake City does it, or more about height and parking restrictions in general.
The bar is so high for what you need for housing in the Bay Area. Otherwise the Caltrain station areas honestly more than hold their own with everything on this list except the NY corridors.
@@CityNerd The Santa Clara example you showed now has three office buildings occupying those empty lots across the tracks from the station. Source: I work at one of them, we're finally returning to in-person in a couple weeks. Of course, they also built parking garages :(
Mountain View Station is nice. Redwood City is building lots of housing in their station area as well. They somehow got some 12-story apartments built. Good for them! SJ Diridon is a land use disaster, but google swears they are going to be building a lot of housing alongside there by 2035.
Yeah, I do wish SJ Diridon had better land use, given that it is already served by Caltrain, ACE, Amtrak, the VTA light rail, and some busy VTA bus routes, and it’s supposed to be a HSR stop
i would say the western south bay stations are all nice with growing development centered around them, i.e sunnyvale, mountain view, palo alto
In Montreal, the Town of Mont Royal was a purpose built railway suburb that is currently being transitioned to rapid service. Probably the best example of a station area suburb in the city
Hamilton West Habour is probably the best land-use on GO outside of Toronto, it's just struggling because the rails are speed limited between West Harbour and Aldershot (and hamilton bus service is so awful) to such an extent that it's usually quicker for Hamilton residents to drive to Aldershot and get on the train there than to walk / take the bus to West Habour and take the train from there.
Happy to see Septa listed here. I use the train every day to get to university, and it really makes my town a great place to live, not only lots of great places to go to and see in my own town, even more in the surrounding area.
As someone who grew up in the NY Metro area, I don’t know where I’d be without Metro North. I lived pretty close to 5 (!!!) stations on the Hudson and Harlem lines, so I could chose almost any time I wanted and if I was running late, I’d simply pick a different train. We take MTA and NJTransit for granted in the metro area IMO.
Hi, I just want to say, your channel is a refreshing voice in the urbanist community. So often I find channels that just bash the U.S transit system without providing a solution. After watching through your catalog you seem to actually care about improving the state of transit in America rather than just saying "move to Europe". Best Regards from New Jersey
As someone who grew up riding all the modes the MBTA offers, I’m happy to see the commuter rail featured! Though I wish they would get rid of that name, regional rail is a lot more accurate of a description. The South Coast Rail will be a great addition to the network and I’m always hoping for a North-South Rail Line connection!
Also I appreciate you attempting to say Framingham, Worcester & Natick. They aren’t easy for people that aren’t from MA :)
My favorite networks are the Metro North, LIRR, and NJ Transit. Metro North because I love the gorgeous views on the Hudson Line. I grew up living in Westchester so the Hudson Line will always have a special place in my heart. And LIRR and NJ Transit because while they may not be perfect, with much of their respective areas are covered, it's better than nothing
Hudson line is the greatest rail line in the world
But you gotta rank em, come on
@@vicepresidentmikepence889 I love the ferry and bridge connections.
`SAME!!! The first time i took the Hudson Line I was just in shock that all that natural beauty was so close to NYC!!!
@@vicepresidentmikepence889 New Haven Line is, three branches + connections to Shore Line East and the Hartford Line. Gets 2x the daily ridership of the Hudson Line. I still do love the Hudson Line and love to go stand on a mountain and railfan.
I'd love to see a top 10 video about small-medium metro areas that could benefit the most from building transit infrastructure. It's a vague topic but I think it could bring up a lot of interesting places in the transit discussion that would never really get mentioned in a normal top 10 list.
I agree, he said "Big Cities are good" but idk, I think Dense cities are (99% of the time) good. LA isn't better then Twin Cities even of its larger by pop.
Seeing which smaller cities have the most growth potential would be really cool.
The Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania is an example; most of the core development is oriented in an east-west strip and some kind of metro line running through it could work really well.
Torontonian here; you missed nothing about GO Stations just being enormous park-and-rides. They are. I recently relocated to Hamilton at the west end of the Lakeshore West line, and the new West Harbour GO Station in Hamilton is the only GO Station that's really going to score well by your taste. Check it out if you're doubting my sense for your taste in urban rail stations.
Pretty spot on. Luckily this enormous GO expansion gives me hope for the future of rapid transit in the golden horseshoe, as long as we build proper housing nearby, along with Bus/Tram connections (Looking at Brampton cancelling/bringing back the LRT extension). Woolwich's proposed Breslau station, Caledon and Vaughn all seem to be moving in the right direction at least, and I'm hoping there's more.
interestingly the downtown brampton go train station is one part park-and-ride and one part a small bus terminal which is steps from the walkable downtown core (though the core is small due to bramptons sprawl in general) . the two sections are seperated by elevation, and either section is accessible to the other. just think its a pretty unique station considering the way most go stations are.
I guess you've never been to bramela or Rutherford station
Most stations are huge parking lots, with a bus terminal and a taxi pickup zone. This is true, however there is a few exceptions, like Exhibition Station (also doing major construction there now to add a new subway station and rebuilding the whole station, also Mimico, Long Branch & Port Credit are much smaller parking lots and built more into the neighbourhood. Port Credit is also doing major construction as the new LRT streetcar line is being built. But after that, Clarkson, Oakville, Bronte, Appleby, Burlington, Aldershot are all giant parking lots around the stations, and this is the case for most stations on other lines too.
West Harbour, Hamilton (which is only a commuter/bus station), and Port Credit are the only good stations outside of Toronto proper.
Please do a video on SLC and its transit wizardry! As a Boise resident I look southeast with astonishment.
Oh man. I love Boise but you've got all kinds of political/jurisdictional/funding issues with your transportation system. I've worked on projects in Boise...so frustrating. STILL a great city, though.
Nice shoutout to Ardmore, PA. That area near the Septa regional rail is quite nice with lots of retail and walkable streets. There's a great little Japanese market/restaurant next to the station.
Also, I'd like to say I still miss the old way of naming the Septa regional services, R6, R5, etc...
I still call Media/Elwyn, now Media/Wawa line the R3.
It’s a great town and station. Was up there for Christmas just scouting places to maybe move to last Christmas . Perfect suburban town center
While Metro-North has a lot of park and rides, they are way behind the average weekday ridership for there respective stations. (Most stations are in the heart of down town) Pelham has an average of 3,163 weekday riders but only 234 parking spots. Metro-North is so well used you can find it referenced in regular life like on local news or TV shows or even at the grocery store!
Glad Natick Center station made an appearance in this video-It's my go-to when I don't want to worry about the shitty drivers or the lack of parking in downtown Boston. Natick Center actually has a surprisingly walkable downtown and a neat park nearby, which is nice when you're waiting around for the train. Just a tip-Natick is pronounced like nay-tick and Worcester is pronounced like woo-ster or woo-stah (woo as in woods). Hope that helps.
I'm irish but I'm still not even going to try to pronounce those things correctly. Nay-tick looks awesome, gonna have to check it out when I get up that way.
Natick Center is getting totally rebuilt with high level platforms. It’s currently under construction. By the way, I’m surprised the Framingham line was the busiest. I thought it would be Providence or Rockport. Both are targeted for partial electrified services. The MBTA and Transit Matters both have good reports on improving regional rail.
@@richardtaylor8862 Is the Rockport line also used by Amtrak's Downeaster? Amtrak might be driving electrification, as with the NE Corridor - in this area also known as MBTA's Providence Line
Oh, I forgot about the Old Colony lines, which they were building when I moved from Boston to Denver. Sorry
@@MichaelScottRamming The Downeaster follows the Haverhill line for the first section, not the Newburyport-Rockport
THANK YOU for pronouncing "Lancaster" correctly! You wouldn't believe how many people pronounce my city's name wrong.
Grew up in Westbury my whole life! The town has a nice “downtown” area and the community is pretty diverse. I never realized how much of a walkable suburb it was until I moved to the suburbs of Houston and lost little amenities like having sidewalks and the LIRR
I'm from Utah, so I'm glad to see Frontrunner (kind of) making the list. Even being from the area, I didn't know it had an interesting history, so I'd love to see a video about it! Great content as always
Metra is a great system - used it for 20 years to go to work in Downtown Chicago. Lived in Palatine and my condo was right up against the tracks and it was soothing to me to have the trains go by.
The Septa regional rail system was originally parts of the old Pennsylvania RR and Reading RR. The connector tunnel that exists between Suburban and Jefferson Stations was built in late 70s/ early 80s.
You should definitely do the video on salt lake!! I love UTA and I’d love to find out more about how it’s funded
Back in the 1990s, Chicago rebuilt 3 of their 4 Metra terminals - Ogilvie, Millennium, and LaSalle Street. The new stations were very well received. It would be cool to see a video on "Reverse Penn Stations", where a city rebuilt a major downtown rail hub and the outcome was actually better than what was there before. (Not sure how you'd quantify that.)
I’ll be in SLC in a few weeks, (taking the Green line from the airport) so I’d love to see a video on their transit politics & how they get things done.
I am from Salt Lake, and I am very curious too because I have had major gripes with how legislature has handled UTA the past 10 years. Their transit expansion happened in two major spurts, one around the 2002 Olympics, and one shortly after recession where they took advantage of stimulus funds. They haven’t done any meaningful expansion since then besides a BRT in Provo and a very very slow and short street car line
@@Fidel_cashflo There's the new BRT in Ogden too. Also, FrontRunner double tracking is starting soon.
@@AstroMagi I’ve heard some rumblings that they’re only double tracking like 20% of the track. I hope I’m wrong though
Love the SLC call-out! Not very many videos about our little system on TH-cam right now. Lots of interesting possibilities with UTA in the future and with Stadler's factory being in SLC we might get some cool rail things in the future. FrontRunner double tracking is already coming and electrification is the next step!
Check out the Rio Grande Plan if you want to see a transit project that could be transformative for SLC! It's basically SLC's version of the Denver Union Station project, except it's an idea generated by the citizens. The city council is pushing for it now though!
Thanks for your video. I'm a Montreal resident. Yes, you are correct about the lack of TOD along the region's commuter rail stations. Even within Montreal in areas served by the subway, which opened in 1966, TOD is a big challenge. And as a former Toronto resident, I can say that there is TOD along the initial Lakeshore line, which opened in 1967, within Toronto, and not much TOD outside Toronto.
Right now GO is currently at a low point in terms of service (it was a lot better back in January). The Lakeshore lines ran 4tph all day with 2tph during the weekends, The Barrie and Stouffville Lines ran hourly during weekends and weekdays with trains stopping at like 1AM. However out of all of the regional rail services within the Top 5, its also the one that has the brightest future. 4TPH Minimum on each of the 5 main lines with a ton of electrification work being done, the province has ambitious TOD plans that are currently being executed, and a lot more. As mediocre as GO Transit is today, its still is a massive improvement compared to what it was, hell, 7 years ago, where the only lines that didn't run exclusively during weekday rush hours were the Lakeshore lines.
Yeah, I see rapid, near-term network improvements in Toronto, Montreal, and Mexico City that I don't really see in the US.
@@CityNerd Actually in the case of Montreal, not really. Exo has sort of entered a period of stagnation where virtually nothing is really happening other than politicians voicing wishlists. In fact its probably going to enter a state where its just going to deteriorate over time while money is poured into building REM projects.
Metonorth has some great suburban stations-Crestwood, Scarsdale, tuckahoe, etc have very cute surrounding towns
The Metra is amazing! It's always on-time if not one to two minutes late and can get you to the Loop (downtown) Chicago quickly regardless of how far you live. Express trains during peak hours can even take you from the furthest suburbs to the city in just 20 mins. Clean, affordable and quiet too!
Yeah metra’s great
@@gil.k9634 When I was in sixth grade in 1976-77 I had an early-morning job selling newspapers to morning commuters at the Hinsdale Highlands station on what was then the Burlington Northern Aurora line. When I had significant free time starting at that age, my parents would let me take the train into Chicago with a friend--to go to a ballgame at Wrigley Field for example, or to hand-grind the objective mirror for a 6" Newtonian telescope (which I still have) at Adler Planetarium. It was all heaven for a child. I know this must sound like an impossible fantasy, but it actually happened to me.
My only flaw with it is that it needs better frequency
@@ChuckE.CheesesIllinois I think weekdays have great frequency (at least for BNSF) but weekends definitely need more trains.
@@NickWojcicki nah, every hour for a train on the other lines sucks, and Kenosha has like... Only 2 trains in the morning. And don't get me started with NCS
Speaking of Salt Lake City, I would be interested in your take on the proposals for transit to ski resorts around the city. Not exactly standard urban planning content, but the discussions around it are really interesting as they explore questions of how to best do transit in constrained geographical contexts and are also extremely controversial here.
This is pretty niche, but it's super interesting to me, so I'll add it to the list! Aspen is really interesting too
I would also be interested in similar "transit to the outdoors" sort of stuff. In PDX I think there are a lot of ppl who like recreating in the forests and so think they need to own a car. Currently a car is the only (practical) way of reaching a lot of places, but it seems like everyone goes up the Gorge or onto Hood anyway, so transit options could be practical.
I'm curious if there are other places around the world that have mass transit to outdoor (Schweizerischer Nationalpark ???)
@@CityNerd For added context, the main discussion is currently surrounding Little Cottonwood Canyon, which is one of the most avalanche prone in the world. The top proposals are a gondola from the mouth of the canyon, or adding a more consistent second lane, with avalanche sheds and expanded bus service.
@@joehansen5704 Stadler had a really good proposal for cog rail up LCC too. UDOT overestimated the cost and eliminated it from consideration, unfortunately.
Stadler has rolling stock that could work for the cog rail and also run on TRAX, potentially providing rides from the city to Snowbird with no transfers.
@@AstroMagi I remember that being considered. I dont know which I would ultimately prefer, but I lean toward the gondola, since the base towers will probably be less damaging to the surface of the canyon. And, I haven't seen it mentioned, but it could be a very short extension from Alta to Brighton, instead of running a whole new line up BCC. Of course, I remember Huntsman proposing a cog RR with a tunnel between the canyons.
So happy to see my home town get a shoutout. I think there'd be a lot of value on how low/medium sized metro areas can still encourage car-free/car-lite lifestyles, since so much of the conversation among urbanist focuses on how to fix megacities. The focus might be warranted, since NY/SF/LA are probably the lowest hanging fruit on the continent, but mid sized cities need to improve a lot too!
100%
As a person that uses exo2 line daily in the Montréal area, I find that the area around Ste Thérèse and St Jérôme station have some nice devlopment going on, and are in close proximity to both cities' historic downtowns. Parc station is also quite urbanized
Worcester sounds like wuss-tur (like the tur in turn) and Natick is like nay-tick 😄 my husband is from Massachusetts and so are many of my friends, so they've been teaching me how to say the names of places. They can be so tricky! Love your videos!
Fantastic video and really surprised by the results! That area in Philly around Ardmore looks really appealing, never looked at this area before
Great video--as usual. I've ridden NJTransit, LIRR, and MetroNorth as well as Metra in Chicago. They all have their pluses and minuses. I suspect LIRR and MetroNorth may be reported separately is because in the local fabric they operate so separately. New Yorkers conceptualize them as two totally different things--just as they also differentiate the NYC subway and buses which are also owned and operated by MTA.
You're right. I work for the MTA and deal with all the agencies. Metro North and LIRR are like completely different companies. Historically, they were. MNR was the New York Central and New Haven. LIRR was the Pennsylvania RR.
In Philly Patco and the Norristown High Speed Line (both only one line) are pretty unique as they are not classified as regional rail but serve similar functions. Patco runs from south jersey through Camden and into Philly making 4 and soon to be 5 underground stops in Philly. Interesting about Patco is that it's classified as rapid transit and operates 24/7, running a train every five minutes at peak and never longer than 15 minute headways besides in the middle of the night when it runs every 30 minutes even on weekends. Patco is currently in the process of adding a second line that will terminate and meet up with the current line in Camden.
Woo! Former Metro-North employee here. I loved this video, and I'm glad you put MNR as high as you did.
I'd like to add two things to your analysis
1) You were praising White Plains for it's land use - and while I don't think you're totally off the mark, the life of a pedestrian around that station is pretty rough. Streets are still many lanes wide and barely acknowledge the existence of pedestrians. Stamford CT is a similar beast to contend with. I think "the bones are good" for these stops, but the cities themselves still have a long way to go towards being pleasant places to be a non-driver in. All this in spite of their fantastic transit service!
2) MNR manages to pull off a service pattern that I've never seen done well anywhere else. Most of the time their territory is split up in to "local" and "express" stops, where express simply means the train skips the first half of the stops on the line. There is an "anchor" stop mid-line where both locals and expresses stop (Croton Harmon, White Plains, and Stamford) - this is not the uncommon bit. Here's what's cool - in the peak time, they replicate this pattern but instead split the territory into as many as 6 "mini" regions - they call this "semi express" but it doesn't really capture what's going on. Between 5 and 6pm there are a whopping 13 trains on the Harlem line (4.6 minutes between trains on average), but the service to any given outlying stop rarely goes above 3 trains/hour (20 minutes between trains on average). This means that any individual train makes very few stops. For a line with ~37 stops, most rush hour trains are making less than 10 of those stops, and some make as few as 4 (not counting GCT and 125). It's pretty neat.
As an editorial, I think it's only possible because MNR is much more geared towards Manhattan than the LIRR or NJT are. Sure, the outlying anchor stops of White Plains, and Stamford get some love, but everyone else gets "Manhattan or bust" service, especially in the peak time. I do honestly think they're "giving the people what they want" but it's not perfect. Still, it allows for these fantastic service patterns where nearly everyone gets an express train of their own, basically directly to their stop. Amazing.
i thought it was interesting when i saw a bunch of surface parking lots surrounding that station that the land use was praised
@@tonywalters7298 Yeah. There's the 1-way 5 lane Hamilton av, and about 4 full blocks of parking right next to the station. I understand that from a land use perspective, we do have large buildings nearby, but the pedestrian usability is just dismal.
In Stamford I almost get it, as there is big demand for parking at these anchor stops regardless of whether or not its a "good thing", but in White Plains they have a whole extra anchor stop nestled in there in the form of North White Plains! WP itself doesn't need the parking if NWP can take the load and gets full service anyways.
White Plains is probably tied with Croton and Purdy's for worst land use. Stamford is near the top of that list but is a very nice station.
For GO Transit there are a few reasonably dense and walkable stations in old suburban and regional downtowns (Aurora, Maple, Newmarket and Mt. Joy come to mind). In terms of TOD there isn't as much, despite numerous plans, but Mt. Pleasant does a reasonably good job.
Been a while since you did a video to drag cities. What about "Cities with the most under used rail line". Based off of length of rail that goes through downtown regions or connects to suburbs but fails to offer any passanger services. Metrics like distance, proximity to useful places; stadiums, high density areas, university and business campuses, other transit connections, air ports.
Thanks for the great videos, keep it up!
I get my best viewership numbers from dragging cities! Gotta do it
@@CityNerd I’ve got an easy one for you that’s gotta be close to the top. The northstar commuter rail in Minneapolis. Refuse to run enough trains to make it useful so no one uses it and it’s self perpetuating cycle. Could be so much better since it follows a fairly well populated route.
Are you talking about Ohio by any chance?
@@tonywalters7298 I did think Cincinnati and maybe Columbus would make the list, but not in particular. St. Lewis, Kansas City, Detroit are other big contenders, maybe Winnipeg and Halifax in Canada. Lincoln and Omaha would be great if they used a common Transit agency.
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 Ohio ranks towards the bottom for state support for transit, but I think Cincinnati/Dayton and Columbus would benefit from regional rail systems. In detroit, I believe Michigan DOT even purchased locomotives and rolling stock to be used for commuter service between Ann Arbor and Detroit, but funding for service was put to a referendum in 2016 and was voted down. I would agree with KC, especially since there are other cities with over 100K population very close by such as St Joseph, Independence, KCK, and Overland Park
Do a video on Salt Lake! We punch above our weight! Also, I would be interested if your Stadium series were to include the MLS stadiums.
I'll definitely do MLS at some point. Gotta space the sports stuff out, though.
The Lakeshore Corridor of GO Transit consisting of Lakeshore West and Lakeshore East are the two busiest when it comes to train service between Aldershot and Oshawa. During the morning and afternoon rush there's a mixture of local and express train service. Service is slowly expanding along the Lakeshore West to Niagara Falls. There's now hourly service to West Harbour and there's been an announcement of a station stop in Beamsville in addition to St. Catharines, Grimsby, and a station stop in Stoney Creek called Confederation. Right now there's a pilot project happening with service to London. Single day weekend passes between any two stops is $10 and a two day weekend pass is $15. Also that two day weekend pass extends to three days if either the Friday or Monday should happen to fall on a holiday.
Don't forget that PRESTO users coming in from Danforth GO to Union pay only $3.70 one way. A bit more pricy then the TTC cash fare of $3.25, but still better then $4.40 that it would cost otherwise. (Also, much faster. Main Street Station on TTC's line 2 - Bloor-Danforth - is a short walk north of the GO station. A trip from there to Union Station can take up to 20-25 minutes on off-peak hours. While Danforth GO to Union is about 10 minutes.)
@@davegreenlaw5654 But I'm talking about the one and two day weekend passes that you order online. They give you unlimited travel between two stops for either a $10 one day weekend pass or $15 for a two day weekend pass. So one could have a weekend pass from West Harbour to Oshawa if one wanted to which would give the pass holder unlimited rides to any stops of each terminus and any stops in between.
The Weekend Pass is good on the whole GOTransit System. You can travel GO Bus from Peterborough Oshawa and then train to Niagara Falls and back (260 KM one way) for $10.
"What should we name this new commuter rail system"
"Well, we're the Government of Ontario, we can't come up with something clever-"
*"I think you're onto something"*
GO was an experimental service back in 1967. Had it not been a success, there wouldn't be the regional network we have today.
Sometimes the acronyms just write themselves
Our name is really good, also nobody calls it "Government of Ontario" also it's a division of Metrolinx, which is a Crown Agency of the Government of Ontario, and Metrolinx has many other projects like the transit lines such as the Hurontario LRT line (they recently renamed it the Hazel McCallion line), the Hamilton LRT, the Eglinton LRT, the Finch West LRT, the Ontario Line, the Durham Scarborough BRT, the Sheppard East extension, the Scarborough extension, the UP Express, Dundas BRT, Mississauga Transitway, and more. GO transit also has busses btw
"NAY-dick" :)
Edit: I live in SLC and the light rail and frontrunner are great. If I had to guess, the reason it happens here is because Mormons are extremely in favor of anything that is very industrious-seeming, Utah being the location of Promontory Point, and the fact that the consequences of air pollution are immediate, obvious, and overwhelming here in the wintertime when inversions happen. Like if you think Los Angeles has smog, you haven't seen Salt Lake City after a week of inversion conditions.
I’ve been binging your channel lately. So good! Topic idea: taking a look at grand plans to fix LA’s transit situation! Would love to see an urbanism utopia idea for LA
I highly recommend this creators videos: th-cam.com/users/nandertvideos He doesn't post much but the videos he makes are great.
Los Angeles should eventually fix itself just by throwing money at the problem all over the place. By my calculation, there are eight separate passenger rail projects currently in active construction in greater Los Angeles. And that's not counting dozens more in various stages of proposals, environmental review, etc.; and there are some huge future projects in there, like whatever they will end up doing for Sepulveda.
No really; here's the list:
1. ARROW in San Bernardino/Redlands.
2. Gold Line (L) (future Blue Line/A) extension to at least Pomona.
3. Regional Connector in downtown Los Angeles.
4. Union Station remodel (add pass through tracks).
5. Orange County Streetcar.
6. Purple Line (D) subway extension to Westwood.
7. LAX/Crenshaw light rail line.
8. LAX People Mover.
LA is at least working in the right direction. Compared to how it was in the 80's and 90's it's made LEAPS forward with transit. Much is still to be done, but they're slowly doing it.
@@GeotpfAgreed. Regional Connector and Crenshaw line already open.
There are also three other projects that have already been approved. The second phase of the Gold line in East LA to the city of Whittier, the WSAB line that will serve Southeast LA region, and the East San Fernando Valley Light Rail that will serve the SFV. Very exciting stuff.
@@michlo3393Indeed. There was nothing before 1990. No subway and no light rail lines.
YES! I love the FrontRunner. I usually take my bike onboard and spend a car-free day in SLC. Only downside is, in typical Utah fashion, it doesn't run on Sundays.
I suspect the official ridership might be under reported because fares are not enforced at all, and students ride for free with a student ID which is not enforced at all.
I’ve noticed that too, I’m like the only one swiping my card and stuff at the terminals, though I guess the idea of a fare is enough to deter many as a lot of people took advantage of Free-fare February to ride it compared to normal ridership
Ridership on UTA services is measured by Automatic Passenger Counting (APC) systems that use optical sensors to count people getting on and off at each stop.
I'm glad UTA FrontRunner got an honorable mention. I commuted on that for a while, and it's just the best way to get to go north and south (except for Sundays!). The suburban stations are sadly car-oriented, but Layton, Lehi, and Farmington have some good development around them. I'm hoping that Provo and Ogden (old urban centers now subsumed by the metropolis) take more advantage of their stations in the future too. Ogden's station is only a block and a half from 25th Street, but crossing Wall is a pain (it's a well-named stroad!).
One important thing about Caltrain that people often forget is Palo Alto station. Which gets more ridership then San Jose
Guelph Central Station is an example of some great TOD that go transit serves
Wooo Southampton! I can confirm that the ped bridge at 9:32 is heavily used on match days. The rail line below is currently only used by freight trains but there are occasionally plans to open it to passengers on match days. The footbridge is also part of the local cycle network but it's a little convoluted at this point.
Yay for the UTA call out! I'd love to hear more about the development as it's not something I've ever looked into.
I have critiques of it, but overall I love that we have Trax and the Frontrunner(Frontrunner is also in early stages of expanding south of Provo down to Payson--maybe Santaquin but sharing a line with Union Pacific didn't work well when it tried from Ogden to Pleasant View)
Ogden is pushing for FrontRunner expansion northward too, so I wouldn't be surprised to see it get to Brigham City or even Logan eventually. FrontRunner is also getting double tracked and I think eventually it'll get electrified.
Hopefully some big transit things in the works for downtown SLC too :)
@@AstroMagi Logan is such a great town whenever i visit distant relatives, it sucks how it's so out of the way, especially for people who don't own a car like me. the really sucky thing though is the BRT expansion in ogden, rather than putting in light rail. currently right out side my window is a backhoe being used for the BRT, since i moved to the street they are putting the new BRT line on. over it's lifetime it'll cost more due to maintenance, so your sacrificing both quality and expense, for.... reasons.
The BRT in Provo is also super nice to connect to the front runner
@@ethanstump I do wish Provo had bit the bullet and gone with light rail over BRT. The BRT is nice, but I don’t see it working out as well in ten-twenty years of left as it is
@@danielmalone2958 I wish it were light rail, but it is nice for those near its route considering the frequency and being free, with two universities having the dedicated service is great. My parents live in Provo but are far enough away from it that I’ve not used it much myself
Yes, I live in salt lake and the Front Runner is great, not only does it run every half our till midnight except on Sundays. Most of it is grade separated, meaning that for the majority of the track, it can go its top speed of 80 mph. You can truly appreciate how fast it goes because a lot of it runs alongside the freeway and you pass almost every car. With future plans for double-tracking and eltrication its soon to become more of a metro then a commuter rail.
The Metrolink in the LA area IS primarily for commuters. However LA also has several Amtrak lines that serve more like regional transit too.
In fact, I've read that Union Station today has more passengers using it than ever in it's history.
You should still rank the urban parks in North America. It’s interesting to compare Central, Chapultepec, or Stanley Park and how each mesh with their respective cities. Also how suburban growth has affected parks in NA, how LA completely fails in offering park area, and the opinion on the proposed Texcoco Park in CDMX
It's still on the list.
I insist on limiting to one park per city. If using "the oldest one" it goes to Mexico City "La Alameda Central", it dates from 1592.
Cranford New Jersey deserves some props for really doing a nice job redeveloping the area around their train station and making it a nice walkable downtown area.
The Raritan Valley Line did wonders for completely redeveloping a lot of the towns and cities around it.
Penn station usually announces their tracks ~10 min before the train leaves while Grand Central will always show the track of the next train regardless of how long you have to wait
I use UTA’s TRAX frequently and would LOVE an in-depth video on our system!
Took NJ transit bus once round trip from my apartment in Linden to port authority bus terminal and it was alright. Next week we went remote, and I have mostly driven since. Peak hour was good but coming home at 10:00PM had to wait until 11:50 for a return bus.
Suburbano is an extremely good transport system in Mexico City because it’s always on time (something very surprising for the average citizen that uses metro), the expansion to the new airport is expected to be concluded in 2023 but is a shame since currently the airport only manages 6 flights a day (low number compared to 900 of the old airport). And the Toluca line has been under construction for 8 years and is also expected to be concluded in 2023, unfortunately the Querétaro line is not expected to be built in the near future but we all agree that the city needs more regional trains. Great video btw
Johnathan, we have been expecting regional rail since Ferronales passenger service was terminated in 1999... The full 242 km network proposed in early 2000's must be built.
Another great list. For Boston I curiously was looking to plot a trip for my parents (who are mobility challenged) who would be inbound to South Station and then unfortunately outbound from North Station. As you said government found billions for a car tunnel but I kind of gave up on them getting between the two train stations.
Unless you're coming from the Fairmont Line, most of the South Station lines also stop at Back Bay Station, where you can catch the Orange Line to North Station.
For GO, an example of a good suburban station is Mount Pleasant GO in Brampton. It’s being surrounded by dense development, and a very charming, walkable neighbourhood to the north.
LIRR fun facts: It's the oldest continuously operating railroad in the Americas with a charter in 1834 and the first trains in operation on April 18, 1836, which makes it 186 years old tomorrow. It's lines fall into really three different categories: inner-suburban services that could and should be upgraded to a more "metro" style service (PW, LB, WH, Hempstead, Huntington) middle and outer suburban services that are good with 1-2 TPH (Babylon, Ronkonkoma, PJ, Patchogue/Speonk) and two true regional services that have mostly single track and can be measured in trains per day: Montauk and Greenport. The last two have very different operating characteristics, with all trains to Montauk running through to at least Jamaica and ranging anywhere from 6 cars to 12 cars (shuttles starting at Babylon for Patchogue and Speonk have 4 cars), serving beach destinations with seasonal express and first class service to the Hamptons on the "Cannonball" which runs nonstop from New York to Westhampton, and the Greenport Branch, which wasn't even signaled until a few years ago, has only a single train in operations at any time that is a diesel locomotive and two coaches from Ronkonkoma only and would probably be better served with a Stadler product like the WINK or even RegioShuttle. Jamaica is basically the Clapham Junction of the United States except with much slower speeds.
Fun surprise to see Downers Grove Main Street and a brief glimpse of my office.
Check out the cedarhurst station on the LIRR!
On SEPTA: Back when I lived in Philly you could take SEPTA to Trenton and the NJT into NYC for a fraction of Amtrak's cost. Yes, it took forever but it was cheap as dirt.
Used Caltrain for a while, College park is a shack with 1 train per day calling there… funny station
Chicago has 4 commuter stations: you forgot LaSalle Street Station in the South Loop, with service to Joliet.
Not having enough seating area in the station when the trains are not frequent enough really sucks. It's not always possible to arrange one's travel according to the train schedule and if one HAS to do that then it discourages them from taking public transit in the first place. BTW, caltrain SF station also does not have seating benches.
In my city, The Plaza has this problem too. There aren't very many seats available to begin with. And most people taking up the seats aren't actually using the busses.
It's even worse at the park-and-rides, where there aren't any public restrooms. On weekends the busses run every hour.
So if you get to a Park-and-Ride and have to take a piss, you have to either hold it until your next bus takes you to where you need to go, or walk to a business and buy something so they'll let you use their restroom, which may then cause you to miss your bus.
Yeah, it's a problem if frequency is poor. Diridon has benches if I remember right.
@@CityNerd Diridon does but 4th & King St does not. Not sure why..maybe to discourage people from sleeping on them.
Last time I was in Caltrain SF a few years ago there were like 5 benches. Are those no longer there?
@@CityNerd Diridon has a fair bit of seating last time I was there, probably for at least 50 people?
Loving that SEPTA, serving the Philadelphia area, made the list. Of course, SEPTA still has its issues, but I hear there is a long overdue plan to modernize the entire SEPTA system including rail, but focused more on surface transit improvements, such as creation of bus only corridors, providing 100% accessibility, providing more frequent weekend heavy rail service, more affordable rides for qualifying passengers, updating its surface trolley and bus fleet, and more bus shelters.
Woohoo some septa love. Trenton line has some good suburban land use. Have to shout out my home town Bristol, PA. Very walkable historic town.
Yeah, I coulda picked from a lot places to feature. The northeast US is just different.
The MTA railroads are reported separately because they're legally separate entities (one reason for the lack of through-running).
Torontonian:
We have in Ontario what's known as the "Growth Plan" which is a special provincial policy introduced in 2006 demanding that areas around transit stations, especially along the GO, be massively intensified. I'm not sure if satellite images are even keeping up with the pace or scale of construction at some stations. Oakville Station (in "Midtown Oakville" on the Lakeshore West line) will start to experience the most ambitious transit oriented development in the whole network. Still being talked about though, if anyone curious enough has 2 hours to burn here's the latest council meeting talking about it: th-cam.com/video/nwMQscoLe7w/w-d-xo.html
Part of the Growth plan is that municipalities (which are "creatures of the province" and not independent political units as they are in the States) are required to meet set density and population growth requirements. Not to drag Oakville, since TOD is good, but this is in part to put as much growth as possible here and avoid changing the upper middle class suburban character.
Oshawa is also undergoing some pretty extensive development, with two new stations designed with Walkable neighborhoods (and keeping the current park and ride station). Their plan is to change the character of some decidedly not uppder middle class neighborhoods. But the plans look nice.
Love to see it. Instead of sprawling out into horrific housing developments we build up in areas of major transit stations.
For the love of all that is good, I hope you're right
@@neolithictransitrevolution427 Actually, the states have the ultimate authority over municipalities in the U.S. too. They may have ceded that authority with home rule charters or in other ways. This principle was affirmed by the Supreme Court in Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh (1907).
@@pghrpg4065 I didn't know this. But my understanding is Canada is still different in that municipalities don't have any existance outside of the province, they are similar to a department or agency overseeing local governance. The province can step in at anytime and create, merge, or dissolve municipalities, or otherwise change the governance structure or areas of responsibility (such as changing Toronto's number of city Councilors or taking control of all transit investment from the city).
Aw, sweet to see Ardmore station on this list. Went to school down the road at Haverford. I didn't learn until too late that it's cheaper and arguably quicker to walk from campus to the Norristown High Speed Line, transfer at 69th St to the El, and take that into Center City. But Paoli Thorndale line holds sentimental points
I've used the benches in Chicago Union station a bunch when transferring between Amtraks or Metra trains
I can imagine
Living In Montreal next to the Vaudreuil line here, the neighbourhoods were in before they put in the stations so development only happens after land given up unlike a brand new subdivision. The line is owned Canadian pacific and it's the primary lines that connect Montreal with the rest of Canada, it's very heavily used by freight. St Anne de Bellevue is.a fascinating neighbourhood to visit, it has a very European feel to it.
When you asked about Gare du Nord and Atocha, I wanted to raise my hand. :) With regards to my hometown regional rail system, Metra, you left out LaSalle Street station which is, to be fair, underutilized. I'd also recommend you check out Palatine on the UP northwest line for TOD. When I lived there in the 90s, downtown Palatine evolved from a bleak, austere, brick box train depot surrounded by run down storefronts into a thriving, retro-victorian station all set about with townhomes, condos, revitalized shopping, and a huge parking ramp to replace the sprawling surface carparks.
I'd take a look beyond North East Corridor for NJT. Land use around stations generally is already good and in a lot of places is becoming even more transit oriented.
Yeah, wish I had more time to dive into station areas. NJ really shines.
NJT wins in this respect because it’s basically an agglomeration of defunct railroad(way?) companies. I live in New Brunswick where the Pennsylvania Railroad went straight through the middle of the city. (I have no idea how the city looked when Pennsy built the station). But I’ve been on a fair number of the routes and I would say that this has been pretty consistent from my looking-out-of-the-window experiences.
LIRR and MNRR report separately because legally they exist as separate entities due to legacy issues including labor contracts. For the same reason, MTA gives FTA stats on both NYCT Bus and "MTA Bus" (which is the legacy company of buses in Queens) even though they've been under the same roof since the early 2000's and have crossed over dating to the token era.
Video on best "well planned"/urban/designed/ livable/connected MidWest Cities?
This type of quantitative analysis is a very useful outcome of the mania for Top 10 Lists. Bravo!
Most of these Regional Rail systems are electric. The hundreds of millions of trips on the New York Metropolitan Area’s trains are not producing much CO2 as compared to the alternative mode. More clear analysis of carbon production can help guide individual choices. Let’s see more Top 10 Least Carbon Lists.
As a Connecticut based college student MTA is amazing. (new Haven line) It connects to Hartford line and it's super easy to get to NYC a lot of the state
I love Metro-North. Coming into the city through Grand Central is...well, there's just no comparison.
Hah! I grew up right around "NAY-tick" center, and lived for a while right down the line from it at Boston Landing. Surprising amount of culture in that neighborhood for a standard (but lovely) metro suburb with an arts center and walkable shops and good food. Actually that commuter rail connection was the main thing allowing me regular visits with family for a while until I got a car, and it also zips you up to the north shore for a laxin afternoon with little hassle.
We used to have a pretty good commuter system before the powers that be started tearing it apart after WWII. My elders in my town, Memphis, used to ride the intercity passenger trains from their suburbs into downtown Memphis. For example, the folks that lived in the towns of Germantown and Collierville rode the Southern RR, the Cordova people rode the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis passenger train, the Bartlett folks rode the L&N and the Millington people, home of a very large Navy base, rode the IC.
I frequently visit the Chicago land area, and I wish we had a system like Metra, especially what they call the racetrack that runs through Downers Grove where I have family.
I hate being car dependent, but there is little choice in Memphis. Our transit system, Meta, leaves much to be desired, and bike commuting is dangerous, but before I retired, I used to ride my bike to the bus stop and put up with Meta since my employer offered free bus passes.
Video series idea: pick cities that are requested or that simply are not brought up very often in your videos and make a video about all the good and bad of the transportation network, public transp, active transport etc. Would be fun to have analysis of individual cities and to learn more about what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong
I think the best example of existing modern TOD on the GO network is Mount Pleasant GO station (Kitchener Line). The density isn't that high, but when compared to other suburban stations which were not adapted from historical intercity stations, it's actually pretty nice.
It's been a while since I've suggested a video topic, so here goes: A comparison of cost-benefits between grade separated transit infrastructure for private vehicles vs public transit. What I'm really interested in is the cost/capacity ratio of grade separated transit vs freeways.
Interesting station. Had to zoom in to really figure out the urban design -- reminds me a bit of Orenco Station on the west side of Portland metro.
That topic idea is tough. I'm trying to do a video every week! You're asking for a $500,000 consultant study! Kidding, I'll definitely chew on that one.