Something to do with intercity coaches would be quite cool but also on how intercity buses can be a solution or on transit in extremities on the edge of the world would be cool too!
Just was chatting with someone about a possible new line and he suggested doing it as a BRT first but future-proof it for Light Metro upgrade later. This is for a North Western Link in Auckland, New Zealand where BRT has some familiarity but Light Metro isn't a thing.
Thought on if this is a good idea in general. It would seem to me that the profile of BRT and LM is quite different in places so you actually won't get a lot of savings when you come to upgrade to Light Metro.
Perhaps a more general article/video on upgrades. Often it seems to me that instead of upgrading a line you can but in something a few blocks away that will provide more capacity and relive the first line. So you end up with two good lines instead of just one.
So maybe this is a little vague, but what I would be interested in seeing is more discussion about ridership. From your YouTube channel and substack, I feel like I have a good cross country comparative understanding of different transit technologies, modes of operation, system design, construction costs, etc. What I don't have a good feel for is ridership.
I'm not even not sure I understand good ways to think about what "good" ridership looks like: is it per mode, is it per population, is it per km, is it per operating cost, something else?
System wide ridership numbers are heavily influenced by the organizational structure of the transit system. So I find I tend to compare Toronto (where I live) to the systems I'm most familiar with/are the most legible to me (so basically the Anglosphere, Paris, and Tokyo) and I lose that comparative perspective that I think you are very good at providing.
Ridership is an interesting topic - it can be super hard to compare since methodologies differ so greatly which can really distort things. That being said I feel like I mention quite frequently than Line 1 in TO moves around 750,000 per day prepandemic or that the SkyTrain in Vancouver moves several times as many people per day as the Portland Max - I just try to make very targeted comparison!
Maybe an article on methodology / why this is tricky is in order!
I personally would enjoy an article on methodology, or maybe a broader discussion of how reliable ridership estimates (or forecasts!) are.
But even the occasional reminder of data sources and methods would be useful to a more, shall we say curious but not enthusiast audience member. APTA is an easy find by Googling, and I can find European data with some effort, but I haven't invested the time to know if they're comparable, and for say... Mexico or South Korea, I'm just lost in trying to find data.
I'll stick with per-mile ridership. Some will quote per-station ridership, but that's shaky. It rewards systems like the BART which absolutely could and should serve more of the inner city while penalizing systems like the DC Metro which actually do a decent job of serving the inner core. It basically discourages systems from adding infill stations even in the densest areas.
Interchanges between modes and lines - there seems to be a worrying trend in places like Australia and London to build new transit lines such that interchange between lines and modes requires a lot of walking - even if through dedicated underground pedestrian tunnels. We seem to be moving away from cross platform transfers or even transfers to adjacent stations and depending more on long dedicated pedestrian walkways of several hundred yards/metres. Related is the removal of stops on bus and light rail services to increase the speed of the service. This is leaving those less mobile, eg the elderly or those with other medical conditions impacting their ability to walk, with great difficulties in accessing transit as they simply may not be able to walk the distances required.
A discussion on whether this trend should be reversed and what cities to you knowledge are designing their new transit or expansions with keeping walking to a minimum in mind.
I think this is sort of the reverse scenario I mention in my CPI video and it's def not just Australia and London that have been doing much more of this!
With Doug Ford giving away nature to his rich developer friends, talk about how to bring more transit to the Greenbelt so more people can visit. Having more people appreciate it might lessen its destruction. In other cities it’s much quicker and easier to reach natural areas.
Ok. Maybe talk about transportation modal split change, such as what Kingston Ontario is doing by eliminating parking minium standards. This would help reduce cost of new buildings, drive down private vehicles use and force more public transit usage. https://globalnews.ca/news/7917840/kingston-parking-rethink-planning/
Would love to know more about how/why some systems are built the way they are. I.e. there were/are controversial decisions like how many sharp turns, traffic lane crossings, etc. Got built into waterloo LRT. Presumably the designers know something we don't?
I would love to see more metros in the Global South explained, provided you get enough help in station and neighborhood pronunciation. You could also start a series on YouTube about hot-topic debates in transit governance, like an in-depth version of the free transit opinion video, perhaps with political scientists, historians and career transit experts such as rail schedule planners or traffic engineers as guests. Finally, of course, more Battles of the Giants. In addition, keep doing what you’re doing, you’re getting better and better at it. Hopefully 2023 will be a great year for channel growth!
With this in mind, I understand Lima Peru is in the middle of a large subway - surface rsil expansion. I've not seen anything on English about this, so perhaps it would be a good system to discuss in a Global South series.
Seeing Metro Manila lag so far behind on constructing their one subway line frustrates me to no end, considering their population size and post-2010 economic growth.
I would also like to add that I’ve been reading David S. F. Portree’s excellent blog series about hypothetical spaceflight ideas that agencies and contractors around the world seriously considered; perhaps a web series about the biggest missed transit opportunities and never-built projects would be great to watch
You could do a more videos on Belgium (more specifically its mainline rail network) and you should definitely do a video on the Brussels S-Train, metro, and trams, or maybe cover them in separate videos. I'd love to provide you with some information as I'm living in Brussels right now and I use all these systems on a regular basis.
I live in Brussels too (and I would love to see your take on belgian transit), but for a Substack article I think that the so called 'premetro' could be a very interesting topic. A premetro basically means building a short metro tunnel (wide, large stations,...) but first it's used by trams to get past busy areas. By then expanding the tunnel time to time and meanwhile growing demand, the conversion to a full metro line is relatively easy and cheap. This technique is used extensively in Brussels and also a bit in Vienna. Maybe an idea for some other (American) cities?
Maybe discuss the best location for TODs. Just speculation, but it seems like infill inner-city TODs perform better than greenfield TODs. And that TODs grouped into a mega-cluster work much better than mini TODs scattered throughout.
San Diego's Mission Valley IMO shows a ton of promise. SDSU is redeveloping a former stadium into a $4B satellite campus that is directly connected to the main campus by a 8 min LRT ride. In the same neighborhood, on the same LRT line is the city's largest mall and another $4B TOD, this time replacing a golf course. That's just counting under construction projects. A couple stations away there's a plan for a TOD bigger than the two TODs mentioned above combined, and since it's federal property, the NIMBYs can do nothing about it.
I’m quite puzzled that Metro Manila’s subway line (not system) is only just now being built, given the population size and the quick post-2010 economic growth.
I suspect this is more feedback than future suggestion - but transit isn't just about the moving parts itself, but also the way that infrastructure and logistical decisions can affect the utility of what's provided for different purposes and for different groups.
I'm thinking of a London example because I'm a Londoner. Staffing levels, for example, are different across different operators, and even across different modes with the same corporate owner. What made me think about it was some insightful stuff you were saying about London Overground that I watched recently. Upping train quality, reliability and service frequency are huge parts of the network's success. But critical to making this success viable was a commitment to staffing every single station from first to last train, whether or not the station had ticket barriers, to provide visible safety and information. The predecessor lines to the network weren't heavily used and were marginal or even dangerous at night, and certainly gave that feeling. Changing that makes a huge difference for everyone, but perhaps most of all for women, families and older people. Compare and contrast with the DLR, where staff are generally on the trains rather than at the station, or National Rail where your mileage will vary considerably.
The one thing I can think of is China. I'd definitely be interested to see your take on the ultra-fast expansion of Chinese metro and HSR systems. In general, I think a *lot* of people online are very eager to instinctively dislike or downplay China (often justified, of course) and this leads to dubious claims like whether all the Chinese HSR is just "trains to nowhere" or just the CCP trying to flex on the rest of the world. You stay away from that sort of "hot button" discourse well so I'd really appreciate your unbiased take on the matter!
What do you think the pandemic-accelerated trend of hybrid/remote work means for transit (and transit funding and transit development)? In many big US cities, for example, the trend has become clear: Tuesday and Wednesday ridership is ok, Thursday a bit less, but Mondays and Fridays it's quite down. Same on commuter rail. Maybe there is more ridership to gain but the flex office workers have gained via remote or hybrid is here to stay (I think). So as a transit expert, what do you make of it and what it means for the future? Also really enjoying your content through all your media: you deliver and write very well. Thx.
Thank you for all your hard work Reece! You have inspired me once again towards my love for Urban and Transit Planning. I would like to hear about your idea for a new downtown Toronto line, probably along Dundas and College. Another possibility is to have a loop line along Spadina, Queens Quay, Sherbourne and DuPont. I think a great topic is Changes on how to Beautify a City. I used to live downtown and would walk 2 hours a day in all types of neighborhoods and have lots of ideas for improvement. An example is building a square on Queen Street and Augusta. The city would have to expropriate land but it’s been done before. I can tell you why it would a great location. I have a few other ideas if you are interested, you can reach out to me please.
How about an article on how cities with low job density can maximize ridership? After all, only 20-25% of trips are commute trips, and that not only excludes leisure trips and tourists, it even excludes students traveling to school.
Regional Rail. Where it does/doesn’t work and the type of investments needed (signaling, tunneling, double-track) to enable frequent all-day service.
Something to do with intercity coaches would be quite cool but also on how intercity buses can be a solution or on transit in extremities on the edge of the world would be cool too!
Just was chatting with someone about a possible new line and he suggested doing it as a BRT first but future-proof it for Light Metro upgrade later. This is for a North Western Link in Auckland, New Zealand where BRT has some familiarity but Light Metro isn't a thing.
Thought on if this is a good idea in general. It would seem to me that the profile of BRT and LM is quite different in places so you actually won't get a lot of savings when you come to upgrade to Light Metro.
Perhaps a more general article/video on upgrades. Often it seems to me that instead of upgrading a line you can but in something a few blocks away that will provide more capacity and relive the first line. So you end up with two good lines instead of just one.
Thats the general approach I would recommend, the issue is BRT is expensive to operate - so keeping it operating may be challenging!
So maybe this is a little vague, but what I would be interested in seeing is more discussion about ridership. From your YouTube channel and substack, I feel like I have a good cross country comparative understanding of different transit technologies, modes of operation, system design, construction costs, etc. What I don't have a good feel for is ridership.
I'm not even not sure I understand good ways to think about what "good" ridership looks like: is it per mode, is it per population, is it per km, is it per operating cost, something else?
System wide ridership numbers are heavily influenced by the organizational structure of the transit system. So I find I tend to compare Toronto (where I live) to the systems I'm most familiar with/are the most legible to me (so basically the Anglosphere, Paris, and Tokyo) and I lose that comparative perspective that I think you are very good at providing.
Ridership is an interesting topic - it can be super hard to compare since methodologies differ so greatly which can really distort things. That being said I feel like I mention quite frequently than Line 1 in TO moves around 750,000 per day prepandemic or that the SkyTrain in Vancouver moves several times as many people per day as the Portland Max - I just try to make very targeted comparison!
Maybe an article on methodology / why this is tricky is in order!
I personally would enjoy an article on methodology, or maybe a broader discussion of how reliable ridership estimates (or forecasts!) are.
But even the occasional reminder of data sources and methods would be useful to a more, shall we say curious but not enthusiast audience member. APTA is an easy find by Googling, and I can find European data with some effort, but I haven't invested the time to know if they're comparable, and for say... Mexico or South Korea, I'm just lost in trying to find data.
APTA's quarterly reports include Canadian as well as US transit agencies, and they all seem to be reported in unlinked trips.
I second this. Any amount of transit is not worth the money if nobody uses it.
I'll stick with per-mile ridership. Some will quote per-station ridership, but that's shaky. It rewards systems like the BART which absolutely could and should serve more of the inner city while penalizing systems like the DC Metro which actually do a decent job of serving the inner core. It basically discourages systems from adding infill stations even in the densest areas.
Interchanges between modes and lines - there seems to be a worrying trend in places like Australia and London to build new transit lines such that interchange between lines and modes requires a lot of walking - even if through dedicated underground pedestrian tunnels. We seem to be moving away from cross platform transfers or even transfers to adjacent stations and depending more on long dedicated pedestrian walkways of several hundred yards/metres. Related is the removal of stops on bus and light rail services to increase the speed of the service. This is leaving those less mobile, eg the elderly or those with other medical conditions impacting their ability to walk, with great difficulties in accessing transit as they simply may not be able to walk the distances required.
A discussion on whether this trend should be reversed and what cities to you knowledge are designing their new transit or expansions with keeping walking to a minimum in mind.
I think this is sort of the reverse scenario I mention in my CPI video and it's def not just Australia and London that have been doing much more of this!
With Doug Ford giving away nature to his rich developer friends, talk about how to bring more transit to the Greenbelt so more people can visit. Having more people appreciate it might lessen its destruction. In other cities it’s much quicker and easier to reach natural areas.
I think we really just need to utilize the several GO lines we have passing through much better!
Ok. Maybe talk about transportation modal split change, such as what Kingston Ontario is doing by eliminating parking minium standards. This would help reduce cost of new buildings, drive down private vehicles use and force more public transit usage. https://globalnews.ca/news/7917840/kingston-parking-rethink-planning/
Muni Metro in San Francisco!!!!
Sounds good!
Queen-Hwy 7 BRT overview (Brampton-Vaughan)
Would love to know more about how/why some systems are built the way they are. I.e. there were/are controversial decisions like how many sharp turns, traffic lane crossings, etc. Got built into waterloo LRT. Presumably the designers know something we don't?
Yeah that's a good idea!
I would love to see more metros in the Global South explained, provided you get enough help in station and neighborhood pronunciation. You could also start a series on YouTube about hot-topic debates in transit governance, like an in-depth version of the free transit opinion video, perhaps with political scientists, historians and career transit experts such as rail schedule planners or traffic engineers as guests. Finally, of course, more Battles of the Giants. In addition, keep doing what you’re doing, you’re getting better and better at it. Hopefully 2023 will be a great year for channel growth!
I've definitely tried to move in that direction over time. Covering places like Delhi, Santiago, etc! It will only continue apace!
With this in mind, I understand Lima Peru is in the middle of a large subway - surface rsil expansion. I've not seen anything on English about this, so perhaps it would be a good system to discuss in a Global South series.
Seeing Metro Manila lag so far behind on constructing their one subway line frustrates me to no end, considering their population size and post-2010 economic growth.
I would also like to add that I’ve been reading David S. F. Portree’s excellent blog series about hypothetical spaceflight ideas that agencies and contractors around the world seriously considered; perhaps a web series about the biggest missed transit opportunities and never-built projects would be great to watch
You could do a more videos on Belgium (more specifically its mainline rail network) and you should definitely do a video on the Brussels S-Train, metro, and trams, or maybe cover them in separate videos. I'd love to provide you with some information as I'm living in Brussels right now and I use all these systems on a regular basis.
I am really focusing more on Substack here rather than videos :) But point taken!
I live in Brussels too (and I would love to see your take on belgian transit), but for a Substack article I think that the so called 'premetro' could be a very interesting topic. A premetro basically means building a short metro tunnel (wide, large stations,...) but first it's used by trams to get past busy areas. By then expanding the tunnel time to time and meanwhile growing demand, the conversion to a full metro line is relatively easy and cheap. This technique is used extensively in Brussels and also a bit in Vienna. Maybe an idea for some other (American) cities?
Maybe discuss the best location for TODs. Just speculation, but it seems like infill inner-city TODs perform better than greenfield TODs. And that TODs grouped into a mega-cluster work much better than mini TODs scattered throughout.
San Diego's Mission Valley IMO shows a ton of promise. SDSU is redeveloping a former stadium into a $4B satellite campus that is directly connected to the main campus by a 8 min LRT ride. In the same neighborhood, on the same LRT line is the city's largest mall and another $4B TOD, this time replacing a golf course. That's just counting under construction projects. A couple stations away there's a plan for a TOD bigger than the two TODs mentioned above combined, and since it's federal property, the NIMBYs can do nothing about it.
I think thats a great idea - integration of TOD is key as well as design! I have noted this down to discuss!
I’m quite puzzled that Metro Manila’s subway line (not system) is only just now being built, given the population size and the quick post-2010 economic growth.
I suspect this is more feedback than future suggestion - but transit isn't just about the moving parts itself, but also the way that infrastructure and logistical decisions can affect the utility of what's provided for different purposes and for different groups.
I'm thinking of a London example because I'm a Londoner. Staffing levels, for example, are different across different operators, and even across different modes with the same corporate owner. What made me think about it was some insightful stuff you were saying about London Overground that I watched recently. Upping train quality, reliability and service frequency are huge parts of the network's success. But critical to making this success viable was a commitment to staffing every single station from first to last train, whether or not the station had ticket barriers, to provide visible safety and information. The predecessor lines to the network weren't heavily used and were marginal or even dangerous at night, and certainly gave that feeling. Changing that makes a huge difference for everyone, but perhaps most of all for women, families and older people. Compare and contrast with the DLR, where staff are generally on the trains rather than at the station, or National Rail where your mileage will vary considerably.
The one thing I can think of is China. I'd definitely be interested to see your take on the ultra-fast expansion of Chinese metro and HSR systems. In general, I think a *lot* of people online are very eager to instinctively dislike or downplay China (often justified, of course) and this leads to dubious claims like whether all the Chinese HSR is just "trains to nowhere" or just the CCP trying to flex on the rest of the world. You stay away from that sort of "hot button" discourse well so I'd really appreciate your unbiased take on the matter!
What do you think the pandemic-accelerated trend of hybrid/remote work means for transit (and transit funding and transit development)? In many big US cities, for example, the trend has become clear: Tuesday and Wednesday ridership is ok, Thursday a bit less, but Mondays and Fridays it's quite down. Same on commuter rail. Maybe there is more ridership to gain but the flex office workers have gained via remote or hybrid is here to stay (I think). So as a transit expert, what do you make of it and what it means for the future? Also really enjoying your content through all your media: you deliver and write very well. Thx.
Thank you for all your hard work Reece! You have inspired me once again towards my love for Urban and Transit Planning. I would like to hear about your idea for a new downtown Toronto line, probably along Dundas and College. Another possibility is to have a loop line along Spadina, Queens Quay, Sherbourne and DuPont. I think a great topic is Changes on how to Beautify a City. I used to live downtown and would walk 2 hours a day in all types of neighborhoods and have lots of ideas for improvement. An example is building a square on Queen Street and Augusta. The city would have to expropriate land but it’s been done before. I can tell you why it would a great location. I have a few other ideas if you are interested, you can reach out to me please.
How about an article on how cities with low job density can maximize ridership? After all, only 20-25% of trips are commute trips, and that not only excludes leisure trips and tourists, it even excludes students traveling to school.
I would love to hear more about way of coordinating the yearly timetable for Europe, especially that was just released.