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Openings and Construction Starts Planned for 2017

Transit construction in 2017

» There are major transit infrastructure projects under construction throughout North America thanks to significant interest from local officials and support from national governments. That momentum is likely to continue thanks to the passage of several transit-supporting tax referenda last November. But in the U.S., there are big questions about the impact of the incoming Trump Administration.

New rail and bus routes are being built by virtually every large metropolitan area in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Almost 800 route-miles of new transit infrastructure–most of it with dedicated lanes–is now under construction, at a total cost of almost $80 billion, to eventually serve some three million daily riders.

Transit Explorer has been updated to offer the latest information on existing, planned, and proposed routes.

Every January, I compile information on all the transit projects to keep track of what kind of investments are happening. See the end of this post for a full list of projects opening in 2017, as well as a list of projects that will enter the construction phase this year. I keep this information up to date on Transit Explorer, but this post serves as a summary of all that is happening in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

This is the ninth year of my annual compilation of new transit projects on The Transport Politic. Find previous years here: 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 .

Transit investment in 2016

The new year’s eve opening of New York’s Second Avenue Subway, or at least its first three stations, capped off an impressive year in new transit investments. Though it certainly meant a lot to New Yorkers, it was arguably less transformative than new projects that opened elsewhere. Seattle’s light rail system grew both north and south, instantly doubling ridership and allowing direct connections to the University of Washington. Denver linked its rail network to its airport. Los Angeles extended its light rail lines both east and west, finally offering its residents direct access to the beach. Vancouver’s SkyTrain became the world’s longest automated rail network. Meanwhile, streetcars returned to Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Washington, D.C.

In November, voters approved referenda in Atlanta, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Raleigh, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle that will direct billions of dollars in the coming decades to massive transit expansions. Voters in cities across the U.S., at least, seem to think investing in transit is a good idea.

The Obama Administration’s Department of Transportation capped off 2016 and began 2017 by approving several major Full Funding Grant Agreements, which essentially guarantee federal support for the completion of transit projects. The agency officially lent its support to the reconstruction of a portion of Chicago’s North Side Red and Purple Lines; it provided $1.6 billion for the extension of Los Angeles’ Purple Line subway further west; it provided $500 million to a commuter rail project connecting Fort Worth to its airport; and it offered millions for bus rapid transit projects in Reno, Salt Lake, and San Francisco.

What impact will the Trump Administration have?

Yet the future of these projects, and ones like them, is murky. In her confirmation hearing this week, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Transportation, Elaine Chao, failed to promise to support existing transit funding contracts. Does that mean projects that are now under construction could be cancelled? Probably not. But it does add a degree of mystery about what the federal role will be in funding future projects.

Indeed, President-elect Trump’s entire infrastructure plan is an unknown entity. During the campaign, his advisors floated the idea of a $1 trillion plan whose primary beneficiaries seemed likely to be profit-seeking corporations and toll roads, but the prospects for such a proposal are unclear in the incoming Congress. We don’t know what the new administration’s first moves will be in terms of actually supporting new transit.

In Canada, in contrast, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed to providing billions of dollars in new federal funding for transit projects across the country. Toronto’s ability to continue expanding its transit network seems assured at least for the moment.

Projects underway this year

Despite the concerns about changes in Washington, 2017 will be a big year for new transit expansions. San Francisco’s BART and Toronto’s TTC heavy rail systems will both be extended. New light rail lines will open in Charlotte, Denver, Guadalajara, and Monterrey–as well as new streetcars in Detroit and St. Louis. And new bus rapid transit routes will serve customers in Albuquerque, Fresno, Oakland, San Jose, and the Chicago suburbs.

Moreover, construction is set to begin on some game-changing investments in a number of cities. Montréal’s REM project, notably, will by 2020 or so provide a brand-new, 42-mile automated heavy rail network that will double the city’s metro system. Indianapolis will invest in the country’s first electric bus rapid transit line. And the Caltrain system will be electrified to provide more frequent, faster trains. These are important and beneficial improvements.

Gloomy trends

Whatever the environment for expansion, the future of transit in the U.S. is threatened by deeper problems having to do with the economy as a whole, as well as low gas prices. Since mid-2014, the number of vehicle-miles traveled in the U.S. has skyrocketed, meaning people are driving more than they ever have on American roads. At the same time, transit ridership for most agencies around the country is declining.

What is unquestionable is that spending on new projects–despite the glitz associated them them (and the attention they get on this site and others)–is not adequate to support increasing transit ridership. More must be done to make transit more appealing, and alternatives less so.

Projects opening in 2017 (click on the to see the route on Transit Explorer):

Heavy rail

Commuter rail

Light rail

Bus rapid transit

Streetcar

Projects beginning construction in 2017 (click on the to see the route on Transit Explorer):

Heavy rail

Commuter rail

Light rail

Bus rapid transit

Streetcar

There’s more…

Dozens of other transit projects are under construction around the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, but are not listed here because they won’t open for service this year or they started construction before 2017. Information about all of them is available on Transit Explorer. The five most expensive projects in the U.S. and the most expensive in Canada fall onto that list: New York’s East Side Access (more than $10 billion); Honolulu’s Rail Transit project (more than $6 billion); Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown light rail ($5 billion); Los Angeles’ Purple Line Extension Phase 1 ($2.8 billion); Seattle’s East Link Light Rail ($2.8 billion); and Washington’s Silver Line Phase 2 ($2.8 billion). None of these projects will open before 2020.

On the horizon, there are two equally large projects that have yet to get started but seem likely to move forward. New York’s Second Avenue Subway Phase 2, recently entered into the federal funding approvals process. That potentially-$6 billion project would extend the Subway to 125th Street. And a new tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting New York to New Jersey and providing access for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit, could end up costing more than $20 billion.

Despite local support for more transit infrastructure, the high costs of new investment in the U.S. are limiting the number of projects that can be funded. The massive cost of tunneling is especially problematic; the San Francisco Central Subway, at more than $900 million a mile, is particularly expensive, but so is the Los Angeles Regional Connector ($750 million a mile) and Purple Line extension, phase 1 ($730 million a mile), as well as Seattle’s Northgate Link ($490 million a mile). Seemingly simple, mostly at-grade light rail projects, like Minneapolis’ Southwest Corridor ($130 million a mile) and Charlotte’s Blue Line extension ($125 million a mile), are expensive.

Even the seven streetcar projects under construction in 2017–other than Seattle’s Center City Connector, they don’t even remove a lane of traffic for their construction–average almost $60 million a mile. Suffice it to say that U.S. transit costs a lot more to build than similar investments in other countries.

If cities don’t get these costs under control, even their billions in new local-taxpayer-provided funds won’t be enough to make an adequate dent in their overall mobility needs. If nothing else, this is the challenge for 2017.

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Finance General Maps

Openings and Construction Starts Planned for 2016

Construction

» More than 240 miles of new fixed-guideway transit is expected to come online in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico this year. Also, check out a new way to visualize existing, planned, and proposed transit lines in North America: Transit Explorer.

Cities across the country are waking up to new bus and rail lines in droves. In 2016, North American transit agencies are expected to open 245 miles of new fixed-guideway transit lines, including 89 miles of bus rapid transit, 93 miles of commuter rail, 7 miles of heavy rail, 39 miles of light rail, and 18 miles of streetcars. This is more than triple the new mileage of such lines opened in 2015.

Use Transit Explorer to visualize the routes of existing, planned, and proposed transit lines, and to learn about their individual characteristics.

Thanks in part to significant expenditures by national governments—such as the Urban Circulator and TIGER grants distributed by the U.S. Department of Transportation—but also due to the allocation of significant new funding from cities and states to transit agencies, 2016 will be a banner year, bringing new rail and bus lines to neighborhood after neighborhood. Projects opening this year, listed in detail below but including nine bus rapid transit lines, eight streetcar routes, seven light rail lines, six commuter rail lines, and two heavy rail extensions, will have cost more than $15 billion to build.* Three of these projects—the Second Avenue Subway in New York, University Link in Seattle, and BART Warm Springs Extension outside of San Francisco—each took more than seven years to build.

In the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, projects costing a total of $70 billion and representing more than 470 miles of new, fixed-guideway transit will be under construction by the end of the year, with completion expected in the coming decade. Much more is in planning.

This is the eighth year of my annual compilation of new transit projects on The Transport Politic. Find previous years here: 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015.

In order to provide a comprehensive view of the scope of investment planned, I worked with Steven Vance to develop a new resource, Transit Explorer, that offers readers an interactive and open-source mechanism to view these projects, an improvement over the Google Maps system I’ve used in the past. Transit Explorer shows new projects in the context of existing fixed-guideway lines.

A long route to 2016

More than any recent year, 2016 will be marked by the return of the modern streetcar in the U.S. A total of eight streetcar projects will open, including five in cities with no previous service—Cincinnati, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Washington. While the two Missouri projects have advanced relatively easily, the three others have had long and sometimes tortuous histories that demonstrate the lengths to which many American cities struggle to get new transit projects off the ground.

After having been advanced by transit advocates, Cincinnati’s line was subject to a failed fatal ballot measure in 2009 that would have killed it, later funded by the city, and then awarded state and federal support. In 2011, the project lost its state funding thanks to an intervention by now-presidential aspirant, then-Ohio governor John Kasich and in 2013 it was practically killed by new anti-streetcar mayor John Cranley. But now the line is finally ready for operation, and downtown Cincinnati and the nearby Over-the-Rhine neighborhood have been gentrifying in bubbly anticipation.

Perhaps more than anywhere else, in Detroit civic leaders have pinned their hopes for the city’s renaissance on a proposed new rail line. Just a three-mile line, the streetcar will undoubtedly have little ability to cure what ails the Motor City, but it has been a long time coming. In the 2000s, local leaders proposed a 9.3-mile light rail line connecting downtown with the suburbs on Woodward Avenue, the city’s main drag, but the project became mired in delays such that in 2008 private investors representing local companies drew up a competing, much-shorter project that has evolved into the “M-1 Rail” line to open this year.

This project took a number of remarkable leaps towards its realization, including the assembly of funding not only from private funders but also non-profits, including the Kresge Foundation, which contributed $35 million. The project was supposed to be completed by 2013, and received aid from the U.S. Department of Transportation in the form of a $25 million TIGER grant. By 2010, state leaders developed a proposal for a regional BRT network, a plan that could be seen as complementary or potentially competing, depending on whether funding could be identified. Indeed, despite the streetcar’s federal support, facing overwhelming municipal funding problems in late 2011 city officials proposed shutting off the project because of a fear that Detroit wouldn’t be able to pay operations costs. After intense negotiations in 2012, including an agreement from private backers that they would fund operations, the federal government committed another $25 million TIGER grant to the project, securing enough support for the line to move toward completion this year.

Political troubles may have been the name of the game in Cincinnati and Detroit, but in Washington there has been relatively steady commitment from elected officials for building a streetcar—combined with poor technical execution. Originally promised to Northeast D.C. in 2002, the streetcar on H Street and Benning Road east from Union Station was meant to link a neighborhood far from the region’s Metro system. But the city government was distracted, initially building another set of tracks across the river in Anacostia instead. That line began construction in 2004, received streetcars in 2007, had tracks laid in 2010… and has yet to open for service.

Cincinnati Streetcar Detroit M-1 Rail Kansas City Streetcar Loop Trolley H St/Benning Rd Streetcar
New streetcar lines are expected to open in Cincinnati, Detroit, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Washington in 2016.

In the meantime, city officials made big plans, in 2009 announcing a 37-mile, eight-route, $1.5 billion streetcar system that would serve virtually the whole city. At the center of the network would be an east-west line running from Georgetown to Anacostia, including the aforementioned initial H Street Northeast link. Construction there began in 2009 with completion expected in 2012. Tracks were installed in 2011, but service kept being delayed by problem after problem and cost increase after cost increase. In 2015, new mayor Muriel Bowser evaluated the possibility of cancelling the project, but decided instead to focus in on the east-west segment, leaving the rest of the system for some future decade. Now this first route is supposed to be up and running in the next few months, though given this fraught history, one never knows.

In 2016, existing streetcar networks in Dallas, New Orleans, and Seattle are expected to be expanded for riders. Meanwhile, construction will continue or begin in El Paso, Milwaukee, and Oklahoma City as planning ramps up for streetcars in Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Tempe.

The large number of streetcar projects opening this year should not be mistaken for a nationwide consensus about the benefits of these new transit systems. Already, mostly funded projects in Arlington, Virginia and Fort Worth, Texas have been cancelled. The merits of mixed-traffic streetcars as mobility providers have always been, and will continue to be, questionable: They’re slow; they get stuck in traffic; they’re not even particularly good at moving a lot of people around.

Yet they’re likely to remain a growing element of American transit planning because, more than anything else, they offer mid-sized cities the opportunity to create new rail networks at relatively low costs.

Which isn’t to say that streetcars are the only investments cities are making. To the contrary. In fact, we’ll see several gigantic, expensive, and most certainly not mixed-traffic transit projects open in 2016, at least according to agency officials. L.A.’s Metro light rail network will finally (almost) reach the beach thanks to the $1.5 billion expansion of the Expo Line to Santa Monica; Seattle will open a $2 billion tunnel for its light rail trains to the University of Washington; and the Bay Area’s BART system will extend another few miles south in the East Bay.

In New York City, the Second Avenue Subway’s 1.7-mile, $4.9 billion first phase, theoretically to serve 200,000 daily riders, will run Q trains into the Upper East Side after nine years of construction. Maybe. And the $4 billion World Trade Center transportation center—perhaps the most expensive station in the world, and definitely one of the most extravagant—will finally open its winged lobby to the public.

Second Avenue Subway World Trade Center transportation center Denver commuter rail University Link Expo Line
The most expensive new projects expected to open in 2016 are New York’s Second Avenue Subway and World Trade Center Transportation Center; Denver’s three-line electrified commuter rail system; Seattle’s University Link light rail tunnel; and Los Angeles’ Expo Line light rail extension to Santa Monica.

To round out this surprisingly long list are a series of new rail lines in Denver constructed by what is likely the largest design-build-maintain-operate contract ever signed in the U.S. for a transit system. The Eagle P3 was finalized in a $2.1 billion, 2010 agreement that includes about 37 miles of electrified commuter rail operating on newly built tracks running west, north, and east from downtown’s Union Station. Declining sales tax revenues in 2009 almost killed the project, but in 2016, riders will get fast, sort-of-frequent service to the Denver airport, among other destinations.

If all this new rail hasn’t been enough to raise your inner transit-loving glee, perhaps you’ve been hoping for buses. Good golly, don’t be worried; there are several BRT routes planned for opening later this year, and even more after that planned for new construction. Check out the following lists—or use Transit Explorer.

The following new or expanded lines are expected to open to the public in 2016:

Construction is expected to begin on the following projects in 2016:

Progress in 2015

Cities across the continent outfitted themselves with significant new transit infrastructure in 2015. The most expensive project, by far, was New York’s 7 Subway extension, which added about one mile and one station to Gotham’s network—for the remarkably high cost of $2.4 billion.

Loop Link CTfastrack Viva BRT
In 2015, BRT lines with significant infrastructure opened in Chicago, Hartford, and Toronto.

But the year may also be remembered for adding four significant BRT corridors to the continent. CTfastrack’s connection between downtown Hartford and New Britain is a full-scale busway offering service in an entirely dedicated corridor. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Jacksonville, and Toronto, dedicated lanes opened with significant stations and other features for their buses. If these services are successful in attracting new ridership to transit and in providing measurable speed improvements, we are likely to see more of these lower-cost BRT projects in the future.

Projects that were completed in 2015:

Looking ahead

One need search no further than the Access to the Region’s Core tunnel proposed to connect New Jersey and New York City to know that even after funding has been secured and construction has begun, changes in estimated costs or new political leadership threaten to derail the completion of transit expansions. In 2015, the Baltimore Red Line, a light rail project that would have run east-west through the city, fell victim to a change in gubernatorial leadership. Several of the projects noted above will also likely be cancelled in the coming months.

But the broader story presented here suggests dramatic and nationwide commitment to expanded fixed guideway transit in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Though 2016 may be a high-water mark when it comes to transit line openings, we’re likely to see many years like it in the coming decade.

Indeed, regions are continuously searching for ways to ramp up investment on better transit. In November 2016, Los Angeles County and the Seattle metropolitan area are likely to ask their voters to devote new tax revenues to building more. In L.A., a repeat of 2008’s Measure R could fund a new subway through the Sepulveda Pass, among other projects. In Seattle, the passage of a third Sound Transit referendum could fund light rail to Ballard and West Seattle. There’s a lot to look forward to.

* The average cost per mile expected to be completed in 2016 will be:

  • $4 million for bus rapid transit
  • $30 million for commuter rail
  • $778 million for heavy rail (though the sample is very small—just two projects!)
  • $141 million for light rail
  • $46 million for streetcar

2016 streetcar photo credits: Flickr users 5chw4r7z, Sean_Marshall, Glithander, Scott Thomas Smith, and mariordo59, respectively (cc).
2016 major projects photo credits: Flickr users Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Anthony Quintano, airbus777, Sound Transit, and Steve and Julie, respectively (cc).
2015 BRT projects photo credits: Flickr users John Greenfield, airbus777, and wyliepoon, respectively (cc).