Category: General

Openings and Construction Starts Planned for 2020

Post author By Yonah Freemark
Post date 28 January 2020
27 Comments on Openings and Construction Starts Planned for 2020

20 new transit lines will open in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in 2020.

These new transit lines won’t be adequate alone to counter the large-scale investment in highway construction that dominates most metropolitan regions. But they will significantly improve public transportation for thousands of riders in many large cities.

There’s also a lot more on the way. About 60 more major transit projects will be under construction in 2020 and are expected to open by 2026. Some cities, like Montréal and Seattle, will essentially double the size of their urban rail systems during that time.

This compilation of new transit projects is based on The Transport Politic’s transit database, Transit Explorer 2. This database is frequently updated and provides information about existing, under construction, proposed, and cancelled fixed-route transit throughout North America.

Thanks to support from Chicago Cityscape, Transit Explorer 2 is much faster and more usable for people accessing the site than previous versions.

In addition, the data it includes has been improved and expanded dramatically compared to the past. It includes almost 7000 transit stations (including for commuter rail, not previously included), and almost 1000 transit lines. Now additional information, such as the year that stations were opened and their grade—e.g. subway or elevated—is also available.

Data can be viewed freely on Transit Explorer 2 or purchased for $25 in Shapefile or GeoJSON formats for those who would like to use the data for research or other uses, such as using ArcGIS or QGIS.

Download Transit Explorer 2 geographic data

This is the 12th year of my compilation of new transit projects on The Transport Politic. Find previous years here: 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019

New transit investments completed in 2019

In 2019, roughly 200 miles of new fixed-guideway transit service was opened throughout North America; these projects cost a total of roughly $7 billion to complete.

In Canada, the most exciting intervention was the opening of the Confederation Line in Ottawa, which includes a new downtown tunnel and a light rail network that replaces an oversubscribed busway; it is designed to eventually carry about 240,000 daily riders. The Confederation Line’s benefits will be magnified by several extensions planned for the next few years.

In the U.S., the opening of a new busway on 14th Street in Manhattan attracted considerable attention, as the project immediately increased transit ridership but did not ramp-up surrounding traffic. It may be a model for other American cities looking to improve their bus options—demonstrating that giving bus services dedicated lanes and freeing them from being stuck behind cars is an effective way to get people to ride.

Throughout this article click on to explore the line on Transit Explorer 2.

Regional rail (Relatively frequent service on mainline rail tracks) opened in 2019

Denver Gold Line—11.2 miles, part of an overall $2.1 billion project including other lines
SMART Train Phase 2—2.1 miles, $43 million

*Denver Gold Line station at 41st and Fox. Credit: RTD.*

Commuter rail opened in 2019

Fort Worth TexRail—27.2 miles, $1 billion

Metro rail opened in 2019

Panama Linea 2—13.1 miles

Light rail opened in 2019

Denver Southeast Rail Extension—2.3 miles, $233 million
Ottawa Confederation Line—7.7 miles, C$2.1 billion
Phoenix Gilbert Road Extension—1.9 miles, $184 million
Waterloo Ion Light Rail—11.8 miles, C$770 million

Bus rapid transit (Improved bus service with dedicated lanes) opened in 2019

*Indianapolis Red Line. Credit: IndyGo.*

Albuquerque ABQ Rapid Transit—14 miles, $133 million
Calgary Southwest Transitway—13.7 miles, C$304 million
Indianapolis Red Line—13.1 miles, $96 million
New York City M14 SBS
San Diego South Bay Rapid—26 miles, $126 million
Seattle Swift 2 Green Line—12.4 miles, $67 million

Arterial rapid transit (Improved bus service, but no dedicated lanes) opened in 2019

Chicago Pace Pulse Milwaukee—7.6 miles, $14 million
El Paso Brio Alameda—12.2 miles, $36 million
El Paso Brio Dyer—10.2 miles, $36 million
Kansas City Prospect MAX—10 miles, $56 million
Minneapolis C Line—$30 million
Tulsa Aero—18 miles

Planned openings in 2020

In 2020, several long-awaited projects will open across the continent, including three heavy-rail routes, two new light rail lines, two commuter or regional rail extensions, and 13 improved bus projects.

In Vancouver, the metropolitan region has already opened four RapidBus bus rapid transit routes, which include dedicated bus lanes, queue jumps, all-door boarding, and relatively high levels of frequencies. A fifth new line is planned for opening in April.

*Miami’s new downtown station, to serve Tri-Rail trains. Credit: Tri-Rail.*

In Miami, a new downtown rail link will leverage the infrastructure built by Virgin Trains to extend the region’s Tri-Rail commuter rail system into the center of the city for the first time.

But the largest investments by far are being completed in the Honolulu, Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington regions. In Hawaii, the first phase of that state’s first rail line—an elevated route—will open. In Los Angeles, the Crenshaw Line, a $2.1 billion light-rail route that includes a subway portion and a new station near LAX Airport, will be completed. In the Bay Area, the BART rapid transit system will continue its slow path toward downtown San Jose with a $2.4 billion extension to Berryessa station. And outside of Washington, the Silver Line will finally reach Dulles Airport, thanks to a $2.8 billion extension

*L.A.’s Crenshaw Line tunnel at Martin Luther King Jr. station. Credit: L.A. Metro.*

Each of these projects is considerably delayed compared to original projections. Honolulu’s rail transit first phase was supposed to open in 2012; the Crenshaw corridor was supposed to open in 2016. BART’s extension all the way into central San Jose—now put off for many years into the future, was supposed to open in 2018. And Metro service to Dulles was originally planned for 2016.

Regional Rail opening in 2020

Denver: N Line Phase 1—13 miles, $343 million

Commuter rail opening in 2020

Miami: Tri-Rail Downtown Miami Link—9 miles, $69 million (combined with Virgin Trains downtown Miami terminal)

Metro rail opening in 2020

Honolulu: Rail Transit Phase 1—10 miles (East Kopolei to Aloha Stadium; remainder of project should open by 2025)
San Francisco Bay Area: BART to Berryessa—10 miles, $2.4 billion (first phase of project that will eventually extend to downtown San Jose and Santa Clara)
Washington: Silver Line Phase 2—11.4 miles, $2.8 billion (to Dulles and Loudoun County)

Light rail opening in 2020

Guadalajara: Linea 3 LRT—13.3 miles, ~US$1 billion
Los Angeles: Crenshaw Line—8.5 miles, $2.06 billion

*Winnipeg’s Southwest Transitway, under construction. Credit: Winnipeg Transit.*

Bus rapid transit opening in 2020

Grand Rapids: Laker Line BRT—13.3 miles, $71 million
Houston: Uptown BRT—4.5 miles, $193 million
Montréal: Sauvé/Côte Vertu BRT—2.9 miles
Omaha: Omaha BRT—8 miles, $31 million
San Francisco Bay Area: East Bay BRT—9.5 miles, $216 million
Washington: US 29 Flash BRT—13.5 miles, $31 million
Winnipeg: Southwest Transitway BRT—4.7 miles, C$508 million
Vancouver: RapidBus R1 King George Boulevard; R2 Marine Drive; R3 Lougheed Highway; R4 41st Avenue; R5 Hastings Street

Arterial rapid transit opening in 2020

Albany: BusPlus Blue Line—15 miles, $42 million

A busy decade to come

Despite the relatively limited investments made in transit improvements in the 2010s, cities throughout North America will expand their fixed-guideway transit networks substantially beyond 2020.

In this final section, I document all of the transit projects in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico that are already under construction or will enter construction in 2020 (at least preliminary work will be underway), and thus that are highly likely to be completed. The same cannot be said for the dozens of other proposed projects on Transit Explorer 2, many of which will fall to the wayside thanks to funding crises, political backlash, and other problems.

Four metropolitan regions will see extensive improvements to their transit systems in the coming years if projects under construction this year are completed.

Montréal will open the new REM automated heavy rail system in phases, roughly doubling the scale of its current metro network and creating new transit links throughout the metropolitan area.

*A rendering of a future Montréal REM station. Credit: REM.*

Thanks to referenda passed in 2016, both Los Angeles and Seattle will open large new extensions to their rail networks. In L.A., a new subway line will open to the west side, making travel to UCLA far less burdensome, and a light-rail subway downtown will allow commuters to travel from the west to the east side of the region without having to change trains. In Seattle, meanwhile, new light-rail extensions will open south, east, and north of the existing route, creating a regional transit network out of what is now a relatively limited service.

And in New York, the opening of the East Side Access project—which will bring Long Island Rail Road trains to Grand Central Terminal—and the Penn Station Access project—which will bring Metro-North trains to Penn Station—will radically improve the accessibility of the region’s central business district. The two projects will make it possible for people commuting from Connecticut and Long Island to have direct access to both the east and west sides of Manhattan’s central business district, saving hundreds of thousands of people each up to an hour a day in travel time.

*The new terminal station under Grand Central for the East-Side Access Project. Credit: MTA.*

In addition, Vancouver is expected to complete the first phase of its subway underneath Broadway—now the heaviest-used bus corridor in North America. Honolulu will complete its rail project. Boston will expand its urban rail transit system for the first time since the 1980s. San Francisco will get a new subway downtown for light-rail trains. And Washington will get the U.S.’ first true circumferential transit line with the Purple Line light-rail project.

Transit projects expected to open in 2021

Streetcar: Charlotte CityLynx Gold Line Phase 2 ; Milwaukee Lakefront Line ; Tempe Streetcar
Light rail: Boston Green Line Extension ; Edmonton Valley Line Phase 1 ; Monterrey Linea 3 ; San Diego Mid-Coast Corridor LRT ; San Francisco Bay Area Central Subway ; Seattle Northgate Link ; Toronto Line 5 Eglinton
Metro rail: Mexico Linea 12 Extension ; Montréal REM Central and South Shore Branch
Commuter rail: Philadelphia Media/Elwyn Extension to Wawa
Bus rapid transit: Milwaukee East-West BRT ; Minneapolis Orange Line ; Reno Virginia Street BRT ; San Francisco Bay Area Geary BRT ; San Francisco Bay Area Van Ness BRT ; Seattle RapidRide H
Arterial rapid transit: Chicago Pace Pulse Dempster ; Minneapolis D Line BRT

Transit projects expected to open in 2022

Streetcar: Orange County OC Streetcar
Light rail: Los Angeles Regional Connector ; New York (Jersey City) Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Extension ; Ottawa Trillium Line South ; Sacramento H Street Light Rail Alignment ; Seattle Tacoma Link Extension
Metro rail: Honolulu Rail Transit Phase 2 ; Montréal REM Deux-Montagnes and Airport Branch
Regional rail: Dallas Silver Line ; San Bernardino Arrow Redlands ; San Francisco Bay Area SMART Train Phase 2 North ;
Commuter rail: Mexico Tren Interurbano de Pasajeros ; Monterey County Rail Extension ; New York Long Island Rail Road East Side Access
Bus rapid transit: Chapel Hill North-South BRT ; Montréal SRB Pie-IX ; Portland Division BRT ; Seattle RapidRide G ; Spokane Central City Line

Trans it projects expected to open in 2023

Light rail: Minneapolis Southwest Corridor ; Seattle East Link Blue Line ; Toronto Line 6 Finch LRT ; Washington Purple Line
Metro rail: Los Angeles Airport Connector ; Los Angeles Purple Line Extension Phase 1 ; Montréal REM Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Branch
Commuter rail: Boston South Coast Rail Phase 1 ; New York Metro-North Penn Station Access
Bus rapid transit: Portland (Vancouver WA) The Vine Mill Plain ; Saskatoon BRT

Transit projects expected to open in 2024

Light rail: Ottawa Confederation Line East ; Phoenix Northwest Phase 2 ; Phoenix South Central ; Seattle Federal Way Link ; Seattle Lynnwood Link ; Seattle Redmond Link ; Toronto Hurontario LRT

Transit projects expected to open in 2025

Streetcar: Seattle Central City Connector
Light rail: Los Angeles Foothill Gold Line Extension to Pomona ; Ottawa Confederation Line West ; San Jose Eastridge to BART LRT
Metro rail: Los Angeles Purple Line Extension Phase 2 ; Vancouver Broadway Subway to Arbutus

Transit projects expected to open in 2026

Metro rail: Honolulu Rail Transit Phase 3 ; Los Angeles Purple Line Extension Phase 3

Despite the massive investments planned throughout North America in the coming years, cities throughout the U.S. and Canada should be investing considerably more in improved transit—especially through better buses. These countries continue to under-allocate street space for buses compared to much of the rest of the developed world, and the result is that most cities are failing to take advantage of the lowest-cost mechanism to improve public transportation options and reduce automobile dependency.

We can only hope that, as we move into the 2020s, more cities will learn from New York’s success on 14th Street and find the political means and financial capacity to dedicate more space on their streets to people, rather than to cars.

Image at top: Based on “Public Roads of the contiguous United States,” by WClarke (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Too little, too late? A decade of transit investment in the U.S.

Post author By Yonah Freemark
Post date 7 January 2020
8 Comments on Too little, too late? A decade of transit investment in the U.S.

» Cities across the U.S. added more than 1,200 miles of expanded transit service between 2010 and 2019. But all that construction isn’t keeping up with the need.

It’s been a busy decade for many cities throughout the U.S. From coast to coast, they’ve been building up their transit networks, offering riders something more than run-of-the-mill bus routes.

Overall, American cities added more than 1,200 miles of new and expanded transit lines between 2010 and 2019, spending more than $47 billion in 2019 dollars to do so. They’ll continue making such investments into the 2020s, as I document on the interactive Transit Explorer website, and in The Transport Politic’s annual update article (coming later this month for 2020).

In this post, I’ll document those investments—but also show that they have been inadequate, at least so far, in stemming declining transit ridership in many U.S. cities.

First things first: What do I mean by improved transit service?

What I don’t measure here is perhaps the most important element of transit effectiveness: The frequency and speed of service. Trains and buses that show up more often and that travel more quickly are more useful, and thus more likely to be attractive to potential riders. Some, such as David Levinson, have developed effective measures of accessibility that measure how such services change over time. The costs of providing more frequent journeys are typical reflected in transit operating expenditures.

But what I do consider are the capital investments, in the form of new and extended transit lines, that can play an important role in dramatically improving peoples’ day-to-day transit experience. If done right, these investments can also actually improve the efficiency of transit operations by, for example, giving buses dedicated lanes so they can travel more quickly, or replacing a bus with a train that can fit more passengers.

Using data from Transit Explorer and available in this spreadsheet, I’ve documented all of the new and extended ‘quality’ transit lines in the U.S. completed from 2010 to 2019. By ‘quality’ I mean something more than a basic bus route.

I’ve categorized the investments made by U.S. cities according to their modes—arterial rapid transit, bus rapid transit, commuter rail, regional rail, metro, light rail, and streetcar.

To clarify, bus rapid transit projects include at least some dedicated lanes (such as Indianapolis’ Red Line), whereas arterial rapid transit projects (often marketed as BRT, such as Tulsa’s Aero BRT) often involve improved station amenities and better buses, but no dedicated lanes. Regional rail projects typically involve the creation of all-day, relatively frequent, two-way service (such as Denver’s A Line)—whereas commuter rail concentrates on peak-hour, inbound services.

As noted, U.S. cities added about 1,200 miles of quality transit services between 2010 and 2019.

Just over half of new miles added were through bus lines, with the rest added in the form of extended rail lines.

Of those rail projects, just 26 miles were in the form of metro investments—heavy-rail lines like new subways or elevated trains that often carry the most passengers through the densest parts of the country. And just 37 miles were in the form of streetcars, perhaps a surprising fact given the frequent discussion of that transportation mode’s deficiencies.

Rather, the majority of new rail projects in terms of mileage came in the form of either light rail or regional rail, two dependable, effective transit options.

The growth in mileage of quality bus lines has not been matched by the spending local, state, and national governments have dedicated to transit. Indeed, over the past decade, only about 8 percent of transit-expansion funds have been allocated to arterial rapid transit or bus rapid transit projects. The rest has gone to rail lines.

Whether this distribution of expenditures is a good or bad thing is a question that can be interpreted subjectively—rail projects may attract more riders, they typically provide a higher quality of service, and they’re typically faster and more reliable—but what is unquestionably true is that American cities have underinvested in expanded quality bus lines.

A total of about $3.6 billion was spent on new bus expansion projects over this period. That means the average American contributed just $1.10 in tax dollars annually to the construction of facilities for new or expanded quality bus lines, out of a total of about $14.50 every year on transit expansion overall.*

The average American consumer spent $8,427 on automobile transportation in 2016.

These costs, of course, do not include expenditures on transit operations, such as the salaries of drivers and the costs of fuel. Those costs often significantly outweigh those of capital investments. Nevertheless, it is unquestionable that Americans are spending very little to expand their bus systems. They’re spending a bit more on expanding their rail networks.

Whatever the distribution of new transit mileage and expenditures, how can we explain the fact that ridership on public transportation throughout much of the U.S. has declined substantially over the past decade? Shouldn’t all those new, higher-quality bus and rail routes have produced some positive outcomes in terms of ridership? And why are other countries seemingly capable of building transit ridership?

One explanation is that many new American transit routes are poorly designed, typically remain inadequately integrated into urban development projects, and focus more on low-density suburban areas than urban neighborhoods likely to attract more riders.

Yet another key cause is undoubtedly the continued investment of American cities and states in new roadways.

Even as the country was adding 1,200 miles of expanded transit service, it added an estimated 28,500 new lane-miles of arterials—roadways like Interstates, highways, and the four-plus-lane “stroads” that constitute many of our cities and suburban areas. This is infrastructure hostile to pedestrians and transit users—and likely to reinforce patterns of automobile dependency and sprawl.

That’s roughly 24 times as many new roadway miles as improved transit miles. Who can blame Americans for continuing to drive? Transit offerings simply have not kept up.

Ceasing the continuing expansion of the public roadway network is an essential element of any effort to reduce the carbon footprint of transportation, which is now the single-largest contributor to American greenhouse gas emissions.

From this perspective, it should be concerning to U.S. policymakers that, not only do Americans contribute about 3.6 times as many carbon emissions per capita as their peers in countries like France, but also that per-capita emissions in the U.S. fell by only 21 percent between 1980 and 2014, versus by 50% in France.

If the American addiction to the automobile has been aided and abetted by the growth in roadways, it has also been encouraged by inadequate construction of new and expanded transit lines, at least from a relative perspective.

Below, consider the mileage added to quality public transit networks in the U.S., Canada, and France between 2010 and 2019, which I’ve divided up between bus investments on the left and urban rail investments on the right (I have not included regional or commuter rail in this calculation because of inadequate data from France).

In both cases, U.S. cities added roughly similar mileage compared to their peers in France, and significantly more than cities in Canada. So far, so good.

But it won’t escape readers’ understanding, of course, to recognize that the U.S. is in fact far more populous than either Canada (1/9th as large) or France (1/5th as large).

Indeed, when adjusting those investments in new transit mileage to each country’s population, all those new projects in the U.S. seem depressingly modest.

Over the past decade, U.S. cities added an average of fewer than 2 miles of urban bus improvements per million inhabitants—and fewer than 1 mile of rail improvements. France, meanwhile, gained more than 10 and 3, respectively.

Let’s now consider just those projects with dedicated lanes—in other words, excluding streetcar and arterial rapid transit lines. Dedicated-lane transit expansions are most likely to actually improve peoples’ commuting habits because they’re less likely to get stuck behind traffic.

On this count, shown on the red, rightmost section of the following chart, the U.S. has fallen truly behind these two peers. Over the past decade, it produced less than one-fifth the dedicated-lane transit mileage as France on a per-capita basis, and about 50% less than Canada.

We’re left with a dismal portrait of transit expansion in the U.S.—especially since, compared to most other developed countries, it already had poor transit offerings in 2010.

Despite 1,200 miles of new transit lines, states and cities in the U.S. have added far more mileage to their roadways. Despite tens of billions of dollars in expenditures, U.S. cities have increased their transit systems less substantially than cities in Canada and significantly less than those in France. The U.S. has a lot of work to do if it wants to encourage more transit ridership and identify mechanisms to reduce transportation-related greenhouse-gas emissions.

The good news that that American residents are, from a comparative perspective, spending very little on investing in transit-system expansion through new lines and the extension of existing lines.

It’s true that American transit projects are significantly more expensive to build than those outside the U.S., especially in cities like New York and San Francisco. Indeed, if costs were lower, we could build more. But we’re still dedicating very little of the public purse to new and expanded lines.

Every reasonably sized city in the country should be identifying corridors for bus rapid transit, reallocating street space for that purpose, and ceasing roadway expansion. The speed of implementing such improvements has been far too slow given the poor quality of most bus service throughout the country and the relatively low cost of making such changes.

But that requires cities to take seriously their responsibility to find the means to get people out of their cars. It requires activists to make the case that the era of automobile dominance must come to an end.

The federal government, meanwhile, should expand its support for new busways and rail lines, dramatically increasing the share of Americans with easy access to high-quality transit lines.

In today’s climate, such a proactive agenda has no real political legs in Washington—it would be very unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled Senate, let alone be proposed by President Trump. But there’s an election in 2020.

For further information about the projects in the U.S. and Canada examined in the writing of this article, the database of projects is available here.

* It is worth noting that these figures are in estimated 2019 dollars, based on the midpoint of the construction period of each line. Also, I do not include projects that were under construction between 2010 and 2019, but which will not open until 2020 or later. This means that the figures quoted in this article represent spending only on projects that were completed between 2010 and 2019; thus spending occurred in a period roughly ranging from around 2005 to 2019.

General

The perverse incentives produced by institutional division

Post author By Yonah Freemark
Post date 19 September 2019
12 Comments on The perverse incentives produced by institutional division

» In Chicago, conflicts between local transit services and the commuter rail network have impinged on peoples’ mobility for decades. The institutional context encourages divides, not cooperation, to the detriment of riders.

All across the developed world,* cities have transitioned their commuter rail networks—services designed for infrequent, relatively long-distance travel at peak hours between suburbs and central cities—into regional rail systems. Regional rail, exemplified by Germany’s S-Bahn and France’s RER systems, encompasses all-day, two-way, frequent service, often with through-running, meaning service from suburb to suburb via downtown. Regional rail is typically also integrated into the metropolitan transit fare system, such that a ride on regional rail costs no different than one on a local bus and train, as long as the origin and destination are the same.

These regional rail services have transformed metropolitan travel in the places where they’ve been implemented because they make show-up-and-go, fast service available to whole regional populations, not just those who live in center cities, where frequent local rail and bus options are available.

Why is it, then, that U.S. transit agencies have failed, practically universally, to adopt such changes? Why is commuter rail service in every U.S. city where it’s offered so infrequent? And why is it typically so much more expensive than other types of transit?

There are a number of reasonable explanations—commuter rail often travels on tracks also used by freight, so it’s difficult to add service; commuter rail journeys are longer, so they cost more to provide; and suburban Americans are less comfortable using transit than their foreign counterparts, so there is less demand for the service.

Yet there are also institutional constraints that have made U.S. regions so incapable of investing in regional rail. These are resolvable problems, but doing so will require a significant political lift.

Even so, if American cities are serious about moving people into transit, reducing transportation-related greenhouse-gas emissions, and providing an alternative to car-dependence at the metropolitan scale, regional rail is a necessary investment. It is the only mechanism available to provide fast, frequent, reliable, and long-distance transportation for large numbers of people. Finding the political will to surmount these institutional constraints and develop regional rail should be a priority in virtually every metropolitan area.

Chicago: A difficult case study

The Chicago metropolitan area would, in theory, make for an ideal place to implement regional rail. Less than a third of the area’s nine million inhabitants live in the central city, but Chicago’s downtown Loop is a massive jobs hub, and much of the region grew out along rail lines, now operated by Metra, the commuter rail service.

For years, advocates in Chicago have pushed for improvements on Metra Electric, a commuter line that runs south from downtown through the city and into the suburbs. They argued that it could provide frequent, all-day service and allow transfers to-and-from Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) local bus and rail routes; the Electric, which once had faregates and frequent all-day service, also had the advantage of operating on tracks not shared with freight trains. These improvements, they suggested, would increase transit use, reduce commute times, and help reinvigorate a low-income community.

The Chicago region, like most metropolitan areas around the U.S., has rapidly lost transit riders over the last decade, and needs a new strategy to build back the use of public transportation.

This year, change finally seemed to be afoot: The state passed a huge gas-tax increase, providing new funding for transportation investments. And Cook County President Toni Preckwinkle announced that she wanted to subsidize Metra to increase service not only on the Electric, but also on the adjacent Rock Island line, and reduce fares to levels equivalent to those on the CTA—just $2.50 a ride in the city.

But this week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced her opposition to the proposal. The fact that Preckwinkle was Lightfoot’s opponent in last February’s mayoral race suggests that personality politics may be partly to blame. Officially, for the new mayor, however, the policy is problematic because it would shift riders from CTA onto Metra, hurting the CTA.

CTA is an independent agency that the mayor of Chicago controls through appointees. Metra is a state agency whose board is largely composed of appointees from Chicago-region counties, including Cook County.

This leaves Cook County’s proposal with an unclear future. It’s not obvious that Metra will be able to assemble the political constituency to move forward without the city’s agreement, since the majority of people who would benefit from the service live and work in the city.

If Mayor Lightfoot’s opposition is successful, the citizens of the city will be worse off. The proposal to improve and cheapen Metra services would boost overall transit ridership, reduce car dependence, increase equity of access, and generally make the Chicago region a better place to live.

So what gives? Much can be explained by the current institutional configuration of transit in the Chicago region, which isn’t so far off from those of transit systems elsewhere in the U.S.

Institutional constraints at play

Let’s consider the current institutional configuration of transit systems in the Chicago region. The CTA, again, is controlled by the mayor, since she can appoint four of its seven board members (the other three are appointed by Illinois’ governor). Of Metra’s 11 board members, five are appointed by suburban county boards, one is appointed by the Cook County president, one is appointed by the mayor of Chicago, and four are appointed by suburban members of the Cook County board.

There is also an organization called the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA), which is supposed to oversee CTA, Metra, and Pace, the suburban bus service, but whose actual power is largely limited to distributing a small share of grant funds and vetoing the other agencies’ budgets, a power it has not engaged in.

CTA and Metra largely receive funding from the same sources: Sales taxes collected throughout the Chicago region and state financial assistance; together, these accounted for 95 percent of public subsidies to the two services in 2019. In other words, generally the same taxpayers are paying for services operated by CTA and Metra (though the transit-related sales tax rate in Cook County and Chicago, 1.25%, is higher than in the rest of the region, 0.5%).

Despite these shared sources of funds and official oversight of both agencies by RTA, CTA and Metra operate as if they were competitors. As an example, the CTA runs express bus services to the South Side, such as the #6, J14, and #26 buses, which serve destinations just adjacent to station stops of the Metra Electric—despite the fact that Metra Electric services are faster and more reliable.

Metra services, meanwhile, are more expensive than their CTA equivalents. One-way travel between the Loop and the South Side of Chicago costs between $4 and $5.50, compared to $2.25 for CTA bus and $2.50 for CTA rail fares. Metra’s fare doesn’t allow for transfers to other parts of the city on CTA services, whereas such transfers cost $0.25 for those using the CTA.

Cook County’s proposal would address some of these deficiencies, making Metra trains more convenient from both a timing and cost perspective.

It is unquestionably true that Mayor Lightfoot is right in suspecting that such changes would move riders out of CTA and onto Metra.

People on much of the South Side of Chicago are currently using CTA services instead of Metra for two reasons. First, they’re cheaper; many people who ride transit are financially constrained, and they make choices that reflect that fact. Second, CTA is more convenient, since its buses and trains operate more frequently.

Making Metra cheaper and more frequent would address those two problems to a significant degree. Allowing people access to regional rail service would improve their lives, allowing them to spend less time in transit and increasing the distance they could travel in a given period of time.

But Mayor Lightfoot has little incentive to encourage people to move from CTA to Metra. Doing so would reduce her political constituency by moving riders from a service she controls to one she does not. It would also put pressure on CTA’s finances by reducing its revenues to some degree.

Moreover, CTA officials are right to believe that relying on Metra to make wholehearted change is a tenuous bet at minimum. For instance, despite a state mandate for Metra to accept the Ventra transit card used by CTA and Pace, the agency still doesn’t accept the card in conventional forms. The suburban control of Metra’s board, meanwhile, means the agency has for decades undermined its urban customers—those living in the city of Chicago—to prioritize service for suburban riders. And even as CTA has slowly but steadily improved—for example, buying up-to-date railcars and buses—Metra remains stuck in the 1970s from a technological perspective. So encouraging a shift to Metra won’t necessarily be all roses.

The result, however, is a continued competition for riders, an absurd situation when both CTA and Metra are relying on the same market of passengers and both are receiving public subsidies from the same tax sources.

This is not an effective strategy for growing transit ridership.

What is the purpose of public transportation?

Setting aside institutional conflicts for a moment, this Chicago case raises questions about what the purpose of public transportation is, and what its goals should be, in a modern city. From my perspective, the answer to this is relatively straightforward: Provide high-quality service that encourages people to stop relying on automobiles to get around, and that ensures that everyone has access to affordable and reliable mobility.

If this is a shared view, then increasing regional ridership should be one of public transportation’s primary goals. But increasing regional ridership does not necessarily mean increasing the ridership of every individual service—it means improving the services as a whole such that the system is more attractive in general.

This isn’t a particularly complicated concept. For example, when a transit agency opens a new rail line, it generally expects people using buses along the same route to move to the new line. And that’s great! When people move from buses to rail on the same route, they’re generally getting faster, more reliable, more comfortable service. There’s nothing wrong with that. And the investment in this improved service will, in turn, bring in more passengers.

The problem with Mayor Lightfoot’s approach is that it acts as if the goal for regional transit should be to increase ridership on the CTA, not on the system as a whole. To pursue this deeply questionably line of logic would be to oppose investing in a new rail line because doing so might result in less ridership on existing buses. On the face of it, the city’s position on improvements for Metra Electric appear to be motivated by agency promotion, not by the region’s best interest of increasing transit ridership.

The result of stopping improved Metra service may be, yes, the maintenance of existing levels of CTA ridership (though they are declining, so something is amiss already). But it certainly will not produce the increase in ridership associated with providing people who need it better access to transit.

As I noted, however, there are institutional and historic reasons why the CTA might be concerned about moving people out of its services and onto Metra.

A course forward for thinking about regional transit

I’m hardly the first person to suggest that a lack of regional integration in transit systems produces pathologies when it comes to the motivations of officials involved in related decision making.

But the Chicago case should remind us that an institutional configuration that separates control of transit agencies in the same metropolitan area to different political actors can produce negative outcomes for the region as a whole. We have yet to resolve this situation related to Metra Electric improvements, but decades of little to no integration between CTA and Metra suggests that the current environment isn’t working.

Simply integrating services does not necessarily solve the problem, however. New York’s MTA, for example, technically oversees the New York City Subway, buses, Metro-North Railroad, and Long Island Rail Road—and yet neither Metro-North nor Long Island Rail Road offer regional rail services, and neither offers free transfers to Subway or bus services, let alone reasonably priced fares in areas where service is overlapping.

Moreover, Chicago’s CTA does have the distinct benefit of being directly answerable to the city’s mayor, which I’m convinced improves political accountability and makes the service better over the long run.

So simply saying that CTA and Metra should be merged into a regional entity will not, by itself, make today’s problems disappear.

Even so, the agencies need to find a way to agree on a new set of ground rules. It should be self-evident that the goal of transit in the Chicago region is to grow overall ridership, not ridership on a particular service—and that might mean sacrifice on one service or another once in a while. Moreover, it should be obvious that the current situation, where customers are treated as if they’re supposed to choose between competing services—despite the fact that both are subsidized by the same tax revenues—is unacceptable.

If Chicago’s transit agencies are able to move toward such a détente, they would be taking a big step forward toward reducing the conflicts native to the current institutional configuration. They would also be moving the region toward a transit service that actually benefits the people of the metropolitan area. Perhaps Chicago could be a model for the rest of the country.

* Frequent, all-day, two-way regional rail services are currently available in Basel, Bilbao, Leipzig, Madrid, Milan, Munich, Paris, and Zurich, among others. They are in development in Brussels, Buenos Aires, Geneva, and Toronto, among others.

Image at top: Metra tracks on Chicago’s South Side, from Flickr user The West End (cc).

France General United States

Is transit ridership loss inevitable? A U.S.–France comparison

Post author By Yonah Freemark
Post date 9 September 2019
22 Comments on Is transit ridership loss inevitable? A U.S.–France comparison

» The number of riders using transit in the U.S. continues to decline. But a comparison with French cities shows that the American experience is not a universal one.

Transit ridership declined again in the United States in 2018. As a whole, the nation’s transit systems lost 2 percent of their riders over the previous year—about 200 million fewer trips, according to the American Public Transportation Association. The number of people boarding buses and trains has declined tremendously since the last peak in 2014.

To what can we attribute this change?

American transit ridership is cyclical, but since the 1950s, Americans have been car-dependent. That car dependency is the product of a vicious circle: Reliance on automobiles encourages the development of automobile-focused urban environments, which, in turn, encourage more car use. Roughly three quarters of workers commute by car alone nationwide, and that’s remained true since 1990.

Recent changes, including the rise of ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, unquestionably have limited transit’s performance. Numerous studies demonstrate that ride-hailing has increased congestion, slowing buses, and siphoned people out of transit in cities like New York and San Francisco. Moreover, in cities like Los Angeles, cheaper vehicle-acquisition options and the widening of who is allowed to get a license has reduced transit’s appeal. Finally, poor service provision among transit operators is a major problem; since 2004, the number of vehicle miles provided by bus systems has declined by 3% in the New York metro area, 10% in Miami, 12% in Chicago, and 15% in Los Angeles.

Just how universal is the U.S. experience?

To evaluate this question, I collected data on total transit ridership in the 30 largest urban areas in both the U.S. and France* between 2002 and 2018 (including bus, urban rail, ferry, and paratransit services). For the U.S., I used information provided by the National Transit Database; these 30 urban areas accounted for about 89 percent of national ridership in 2018. For France, I contacted transit agencies and examined online reports (I did not include TER regional rail services, since these operate beyond urban areas). Unfortunately, the French data are incomplete, but they still tell a compelling story about the deficiencies of transit performance in the U.S. It is worth noting, of course, that the French regions are quite a bit smaller than the American ones, with median populations of about 500,000 versus 3.1 million.

Let’s first consider how ridership changed before and after 2010.

In the following graph, I chart the ridership performance of all 30 U.S. and French urban areas between 2002 and 2018. The heavy lines show the change from 2010 for the average U.S. region (in black) and the average French region (in blue). (This is not the total ridership, which would be dominated by New York and Paris.)

Between 2002 and 2010, both countries saw increases in transit use in their major cities. The average U.S. city’s ridership increased by 6 percent over that time (though the peak was in 2008). In some cases, the increase was even more dramatic; the New York region’s ridership boomed by 20 percent during this time. French cities increased their ridership by 30 percent on average.

This trend has diverged dramatically since the Great Recession, however. While the average French urban region saw its ridership increase by 32 percent between 2010 and 2018, U.S. regions saw ridership decline by 6 percent on average.

Ridership in the typical large U.S. region is lower now than it was in 2002.

Change in transit ridership compared to 2010, major U.S. and French urban areas

Average ridership by city has declined every year in the U.S. since 2014. It has increased every year in France since 2000.

It’s worth considering in more detail what has occurred in the largest urban areas in both countries.

Below, on the left, I chart how total transit ridership changed in each of the ten largest U.S. and French regions between 2010 and 2018 (2017 for some French cities because of insufficient data availability; see the bottom of the post with the same graphs, but the Bay Area and Seattle added). The ten largest U.S. urban areas accounted for 71 percent of nationwide transit ridership in 2018.

In three U.S. urban areas—Boston, Houston, and New York—ridership increased (though Houston’s ridership is considerably lower now than it was in 2006). In the other seven regions, ridership declined, with Los Angeles leading the way numerically (annual ridership fell by more than 100 million), and Atlanta and Miami leading the way on a percentage basis (losing 26 and 22 percent of riders, respectively).

In all of the ten largest French urban areas over that period, on the other hand, ridership increased on transit services.

Perhaps more interesting is per-capita transit ridership, which adjusts boardings on bus and rail services to the number of people living in each of the regions. This figure is a better reflection of just how well local transit systems are actually serving the population of a metropolitan area.

From this perspective, shown on the right below, the U.S. performance over the past eight years has been miserable. All of the ten-largest U.S. regions saw a lower per-capita transit ridership in 2018 than 2010; this figure declined by 15 percent on average. The decline in Atlanta—30 percent fewer riders per capita—was the worst.

At the same time, all of the ten-largest French regions saw a higher rate of per-capita transit ridership; this figure increased by 18 percent on average for these areas.

Since 2010, then, U.S. transit systems have failed to expand their market share—in fact, they’ve almost universally lost ground compared to the population of the urban regions they’re supposed to be serving. The French cities have moved in the opposite direction.

The result is that a French urban region like Rennes—with a population of about 750,000—now serves more overall annual transit riders than the Dallas region, in which 5.8 million people live. There are now at least 12 French urban regions where local residents take an average of at least 100 transit trips a year (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lille, Nantes, Strasbourg, Rennes, Grenoble, Dijon, and Reims).

There are only two U.S. metropolitan areas—New York and San Francisco—where this is the case.

There are, of course, some exceptions to these national trends. Of the 22 French regions for which I have data on ridership from 2010 to 2017 or 2018, all saw an increase in per-capita ridership. However, it is true that I may be missing data on urban areas that saw declines; for example, Valenciennes, a city in northern France, saw a reduction in ridership between 2010 and 2015, but I do not have more recent information.

Moreover, among the 30-largest U.S. urban areas, two saw an increase in per-capita ridership from 2010 to 2018: Las Vegas (+3%) and Seattle (+5%). So there are some American success stories.

For region-by-region trends, the following interactive charts—first for the U.S., then France—allow a visualization of change over time. (These may be difficult to view on mobile devices.)

What explains the generalized success of French regions in building transit ridership—and the failure of U.S. regions to do the same?

Unquestionably, there are national trends at play; there may be broad cultural or economic differences that have recently made U.S. transit (even) less attractive than buses and trains in France.

At the same time, there are reasons to be skeptical of that claim. Seattle’s increased transit use—the region’s services carried 50 percent more riders in 2018 than in 2003—suggest that it is possible to increase ridership, even in the U.S.

The rise of ride-hailing and lower gas prices in the U.S. are often highlighted as causes of transit’s decline. But Uber is available in most French cities and fuel costs are actually lower in France than they were in 2014.

There are, however, certain changes in France that have made transit more effective. Most medium and large French cities have invested in tramway services; length of those lines increased from about 115 miles nationwide in 2000 to 515 miles today. Many cities, such as Metz, have developed effective bus rapid transit services. In both cases, and throughout the country, these services have been designed to serve the densest neighborhoods, rather than auto-dominated suburban communities, as is common along U.S. light-rail lines. They’ve been allocated independent street right-of-way, rather than forced to sit behind traffic, as is common for U.S. BRT lines. French cities have invested heavily in pedestrian-dominated city centers even as U.S. cities have hesitated to take lanes away from cars. And they’ve limited development in exurban communities where transit is unlikely to work.

At the same time, perhaps most importantly, U.S. transit providers simply haven’t increased service to account for a growing population. Between 2010 and 2018, vehicle-miles provided by New York region transit services actually declined by 1.6 percent even as population increased by 4.6 percent.

In the Paris region, transit service provided increased by 6.9 percent over the same period, as population increased by 3.8 percent.

Is it surprising that per-capita transit ridership declined in New York even as it soared in Paris?

Shifting people out of cars and into transit is an essential strategy for cities hoping to reduce pollution, combat climate change, and improve the vitality of their neighborhoods. The U.S. strategy, as this comparison shows, hasn’t worked.

Full data on ridership change can be found here. * I compare the U.S. and France for two principal reasons: First, both are wealthy, modern Western countries with a large number of urban regions; second, I know French and am able to acquire data from there more easily than elsewhere.

Ridership changes in major urban regions, including the Bay Area (combining San Francisco and San Jose urban areas) and Seattle.

General Infrastructure

Openings and Construction Starts Planned for 2019

Post author By Yonah Freemark
Post date 8 January 2019
22 Comments on Openings and Construction Starts Planned for 2019

Despite recent declines in transit ridership in the U.S., the construction of major transit networks continues across the country—as well as Canada, Mexico, and the rest of North America.

Use Transit Explorer
to explore transit
projects across
North America.

In 2019, there will be 89 major heavy rail, light rail, streetcar, bus rapid transit, and commuter rail projects under construction across the continent. These projects will add more than 830 miles of new fixed-guideway transit—generally high-quality service that will improve the lines of residents. In total, they’ll cost more than $91 billion to complete—most of which is funded by local governments.

In the U.S., the Trump Administration has repeatedly been reluctant to invest in new transit lines, even as the U.S. Department of Transportation has continually poured money into highways across the country. Nevertheless, following the Democratic takeover of the U.S. House after the November 2018 elections, the government has begun releasing funding commitments for major new projects. Those grants are likely to continue as long as Democrats continue to hold control of the House.

But, as in years past, high construction costs plague infrastructure projects in the U.S.—and those high costs make the completion of effective transit networks more difficult. Among heavy rail projects under construction in 2019, the average line in the U.S. will cost $650 million per mile—compared to just $362 million per mile in Canada (when adjusted to U.S. dollars). Among light rail projects, the average U.S. line will cost $339 million per mile to build, compared to just $146 million per mile in Canada.*

In this article, I first compare the networks that are being completed in cities in the U.S. and Canada, showing how different regions are promoting different priorities in their investments. I then document all of the projects planned for opening this year and that are under construction. These are all also mapped out, with additional data, on Transit Explorer, which I update throughout the year. Finally, I provide a table with data on all the projects under construction in North America.

This is the 11th year of my compilation of new transit projects on The Transport Politic. Find previous years here: 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018

Network effects and scales of construction

The investments in new rail and bus corridors documented here will certainly alter the manner in which people move around cities across North America. Yet the effectiveness of these investments in making it possible for people to conduct their lives using transit will depend on more than just whether new lines are constructed. It also depends on where those lines are located and how they relate to one another.

It is possible to induce high levels of commuting into downtown office jobs by creating a radial network of lines from throughout a region into the central business district. This type of transit system works best for 9-to-5 commuters and is frequently the model used by commuter rail agencies in the U.S. Yet a radial system is less likely to allow people to conduct other elements of their lives—getting to school, to shopping, or to entertainment—because it fails in serving other parts of the city. Moreover, other than in the downtown core, where it promotes hyper-concentration, it encourages dispersal elsewhere. The alternative is a grid of routes that creates a multi-nodal, multi-destination system of transportation. This allows people to not only get downtown, but to other parts of the city, and it makes denser development possible in other neighborhoods.

The other important question in orienting the design of a transit network is whether to prioritize dense, central communities, or whether to extend the system as far as possible into the hinterlands of the region. The first approach has the advantage of serving neighborhoods that are already walkable and that have the greatest chance of encouraging people to use transit for many trips. The second approach serves people who take the longest trips, though it does so in a way that will likely work most effectively only for those aforementioned 9-to-5 commuters.

Metropolitan regions in different parts of the U.S. and Canada are using varying methods in designing their networks, as illustrated in the following maps, taken from Transit Explorer, all of which are at the same scale. I’ve included a comparison with New York City for context.

Denver, Minneapolis, and Portland are developing primarily radial networks, focusing on expanding access into their downtowns. Their lines—not only those that already exist, but also those under construction and proposed—are widely spaced across the region.

On the other hand, Atlanta, Montréal, and Toronto are largely pursuing a grid of new lines that focus on their respective regions’ densest areas. This approach is likely to increase overall transit use more effectively, though it may not provide as useful an alternative to regional traffic. Los Angeles and Seattle are pursuing transit investment programs that tow the line somewhat between the two.

Projects planned for 2019 opening

In 2019, two heavy rail lines, seven light rail lines, ten bus rapid transit lines, and six commuter rail lines are expected to open. Of these, the most expensive to build was the 10-mile extension of San Francisco’s BART network to San Jose. This project, which has been under construction since 2013 and was supposed to open in 2018, is expected to serve about 46,000 daily riders; it will eventually be complemented by a further extension of BART to Santa Clara.

Yet the most expensive does not mean the most transformative. Ottawa’s Confederation Line, a new light rail project that replaces a preexisting busway and complements it with a downtown subway, will serve far more users—an expected 240,000 daily riders. In Guadalajara, the city’s third light rail line will serve even more: almost 350,000 trips a day.

Among others, San Francisco’s new Central Subway, which will extend its T-Third Muni Line through downtown, is also remarkable in that it’s been being actively discussed since the 1990s and is the first subway completed in central San Francisco since the BART Market Street tunnel in 1973.

These projects will feature frequent, all-day service. The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for each of the new lines opening this year. Fort Worth’s TEX Rail project, which commences operations on January 10, is only scheduled for hourly service between downtown Fort Worth and the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. That will limit the route’s usefulness for people who rely on transit and can’t wait an hour for the next train to show up. The system is planned for half-hourly service once additional trains arrive, yet the project is indicative of a problem among many major transit projects in the U.S.: we’re willing to spend billions of dollars on construction, but we have less interest in paying the long-term costs of making sure trains and buses on these lines are frequent and reliable.

Find a full listing of these projects below; to access their route maps on Transit Explorer, click the icon.

Heavy Rail
- Bay Area: BART Silicon Valley Phase I (10 miles, $2.4 billion; supposed to open in 2018)
- Panama: Metro Linea 2 (13.1 miles)
Light Rail
- Bay Area: Central Subway (1.7 miles, $1.6 billion)
- Denver: Southeast Extension (2.3 miles, $233 million)
- Edmonton: Valley Line Stage I (8.1 miles, C$1.8 billion)
- Guadalajara: Linea 3 (13.3 miles, $1 billion)
- Ottawa: Confederation Line (7.7 miles, C$2.1 billion)
- Phoenix: Gilbert Road Extension (1.9 miles, $184 million)
- Waterloo: ION Phase I (11.8 miles, $770 million)
Bus Rapid Transit
- Bay Area: East Bay BRT (9.5 miles, $176 million)
- Calgary: Southwest BRT (13.7 miles, C$304 million)
- Chicago: Pace Pulse Milwaukee BRT (7.6 miles, $14 million)
- El Paso: Brio Alameda (12.2 miles, $36 million) ; Brio Dyer (10.2 miles, $36 million)
- Houston: Uptown BRT (4.5 miles, $193 million)
- Indianapolis: Red Line BRT (13.1 miles, $96 million)
- Minneapolis: C Line ($30 million)
- San Diego: South Bay Rapid (26 miles, $128 million)
- Seattle: Swift 2 Green Line (12.4 miles, $67 million)
Commuter Rail
- Bay Area: SMART Larkspur Extension (2.1 miles, $43 million)
- Denver: Gold G Line (11.2 miles, $2.1 billion; supposed to open in 2018)
- Fort Worth: TEX Rail (27.2 miles, $1 billion)
- Mexico: Tren Interurbano Toluca (35.9 miles, $2 billion)
- Toronto: GO to Niagara (42.6 miles, $120 million) ; GO to Bloomington (C$82 million)

Other projects under construction in 2019—but opening in 2020 or later

Dozens of additional projects will be under construction in 2019 but aren’t planned for opening this year. Of these, by far the most expensive to build will be New York’s East Side Access project, which will extend Long Island Rail Road service to Grand Central Terminal by 2022 ($10.3 billion), and Honolulu’s rail transit investment, which will cross Oahu using automated, elevated trains in 2025 ($8.2 billion).

Yet other regions feature more new projects under construction. In Los Angeles, the new downtown subway for light rail trains—the Regional Connector—is expected to open in 2021, and in doing so improve service for two other light rail lines, the Crenshaw Line (2020) and the Gold Line Foothill Extension (2026). LA also has construction underway on all three phases of its Purple Line subway extension to the city’s west side (2026).

In the Seattle region, the massive expansion of the Link light rail system funded by voters in 2008 is underway, with three expansions from central Seattle east and north. In Montréal, the REM automated metro network is under construction, with scheduled completion in 2023. And in Toronto, four new light rail lines, a subway extension, and several bus rapid transit projects will be under construction this year.

Find a full listing of these projects below; to access their route maps on Transit Explorer, click the icon.

Heavy Rail
- Chicago: Red and Purple Lines Modernization Phase 1 (1.9 miles, $2.1 billion, 2025—renovation)
- Honolulu: Rail Transit (20 miles, $8.2 billion, 2025)
- Los Angeles: LAX People Mover (2.3 miles, $2.7 billion, 2023) ; Purple Line Extension Phase 1 (3.9 miles, $2.8 billion, 2023), Phase 2 (2.6 miles, $2.5 billion, 2025), Phase 3 (2.5 miles, $2 billion, 2026)
- Mexico: Linea 12 Extension (2.5 miles, $153 million, 2021)
- Montréal: Réseau express métropolitain (41.6 miles, C$4.5 billion, 2023)
- Toronto: Scarborough Subway Extension (3.9 miles, C$3.4 billion, 2026)
- Washington: Silver Line Phase 2 (11.4 miles, $2.8 billion, 2020)
Light Rail
- Boston: Green Line Extension (4.7 miles, $2.3 billion, 2021)
- Los Angeles: Crenshaw Line (8.5 miles, $2.1 billion, 2020) ; Gold Line Foothill (12.3 miles, $1.5 billion, 2026) ; Regional Connector (1.9 miles, $1.8 billion, 2021)
- Minneapolis: Southwest Corridor (14.5 miles, $1.9 billion, 2023)
- Monterrey: Linea 3 (4.7 miles, $439 million, 2020)
- Ottawa: Confederation Line East (7.5 miles, 2022) and West (9.3 miles, 2023) ; Trillium Line South (9.9 miles, 2021)
- San Diego: Mid-Coast Corridor (10.9 miles, $2.2 billion, 2021)
- Seattle: Northgate Link (4.3 miles, $2.1 billion, 2021) ; East Link (14 miles, $2.8 billion, 2023) ; Lynnwood Link (8.5 miles, $3.1 billion, 2024)
- Toronto: Eglinton Crosstown (11.8 miles, C$5 billion, 2021) ; Hurontario LRT (11.6 miles, C$1 billion, 2022) ; Finch West LRT (6.8 miles, C$1.2 billion, 2023) ; Hamilton LRT (6.7 miles, C$760 million, 2024)
- Washington: Maryland Purple Line (16.2 miles, $2.1 billion, 2022)
Streetcar
- Charlotte: CityLynx Gold Line Phase 2 (2.5 miles, $150 million, 2020)
- Orange County: Streetcar (4.1 miles, $408 million, 2021)
- Phoenix: Tempe Streetcar (3 miles, $202 million, 2021)
- Sacramento: Riverfront Streetcar (1.2 miles, $209 million, 2022)
- Seattle: Central City Connector (1.3 miles, $197 million, 2020) ; Tacoma Link Extension (2.4 miles, $166 million, 2022)
Bus Rapid Transit
- Chicago: Pace Pulse Dempster (15 miles, $10 million, 2020)
- Grand Rapids: Laker Line (13.3 miles, $71 million, 2020)
- Indianapolis: IndyGo Purple Line (14.8 miles, $139 million, 2021)
- Kansas City: Prospect MAX BRT ($54 million, 2020)
- Milwaukee: East-West BRT (7 miles, $54 million, 2020)
- Minneapolis: Orange Line (17 miles, $151 million, 2021)
- Montréal: Sauvé/Côte Vertu (2.9 miles, 2020) ; SRB Pie-IX (6.8 miles, $264 million, 2022)
- Omaha: BRT (8 miles, $31 million, 2020)
- Portland: Division Corridor (15 miles, $175 million, 2022)
- Reno: Virginia Street BRT (1.8 miles, $80 million, 2020)
- St. Petersburg: Central BRT (11 miles, $41 million, 2021)
- San Francisco: Van Ness BRT (2 miles, $309 million, 2021) ; Geary BRT (6.6 miles, $35 million, 2021)
- Spokane: Central City Line (6 miles, $72 million, 2021)
- Toronto: Viva Rapidways (2020)
- Washington: Montgomery County US 29 BRT (13.5 miles, $31 million, 2020)
- Winnipeg: Southwest Rapid Transit Stage 2 (4.7 miles, C$508 million, 2020)
Commuter Rail
- Dallas: Cotton Belt (26 miles, $1.1 billion, 2022)
- Denver: North N Line Phase 1 (13 miles, $343 million, 2020)
- Monterey: Rail Extension (2022)
- New Jersey: Lackawanna Cutoff (7.3 miles, 2020)
- New York: East Side Access (3 miles, $10.3 billion, 2022) ; LIRR Third Track (9.8 miles, $2.6 billion, 2022—renovation)
- Philadelphia: Wawa Extension (3 miles, $151 million, 2020)
- San Bernardino: Arrow/Redlands Rail (9 miles, $285 million, 2021)
- Toronto: GO to Bowmanville (12.4 miles, 2024)

Comparing projects across the continent

The following sortable table provides detailed information about each of the 89 major transit projects under construction in North America in 2019.

The projects that are expected to serve the most number of riders on a per-mile basis—a typical measure of project effectiveness—are Monterrey’s Linea 3, New York’s East Side Access project, and Los Angeles’ Regional Connector. Each will serve more than 45,000 riders per mile on a typical weekday.

Expensive projects that nonetheless are expected to serve very few riders per mile include Fort Worth’s TEX Rail, Denver’s Gold Line, and Los Angeles’ Crenshaw Line, all of which will serve fewer than 2,000 riders per mile.

Of the eight most expensive projects in terms of their per-mile construction cost, seven are subways, including New York’s East Side Access project, San Francisco’s Central Subway, Toronto’s Scarborough Subway Extension, and Los Angeles’ Purple Line extensions and Regional Connector. Boston’s mostly at-grade Green Line extension will be almost as expensive to build.

Mode	Region	Project	Miles	Cost ($)	Cost/ Mile	Construct	Daily riders	Riders/ Mile	Grade	ROW
Heavy Rail	Bay Area CA	BART Silicon Valley Berryessa Extension	10	2400	240	2013-2019	46000	4600	At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Bay Area CA	East Bay BRT	9.5	176	19	2015-2019	36000	3789	At grade	Independent (mostly)
Light Rail	Bay Area CA	Central Subway	1.7	1578	928	2013-2019	35100	20647	Subway	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Bay Area CA	Van Ness Avenue BRT	2	309	155	2016-2021	25000	12500	At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Bay Area CA	Geary BRT	6.6	35	5	2018-2021	94000	14242	At grade	Semi-Independent
Commuter Rail DMU	Bay Area CA	SMART Train Phase 2	2.1	43	21	2017-2019	800	381	At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Boston MA	Green Line Extension	4.7	2300	489	2013-2021	45000	9574	At grade (mostly)	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Calgary AB	Southwest Transitway	13.7	304	22	2016-2019	46000	3358	At grade	Semi-Independent
Streetcar	Charlotte NC	CityLYNX Gold Line Phase 2	2.5	150	60	2017-2020	5700	2280	At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Chicago IL	Pace Pulse Milwaukee Line	7.6	14	2	2017-2019	4100	539	At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Chicago IL	Pace Pulse Dempster	15	10	1	2019-2020			At grade	Shared
Commuter Rail DMU	Dallas TX	TEX Rail	27.2	996	37	2016-2019	13700	504	At grade	Independent
Commuter Rail	Dallas TX	Cotton Belt	26	1100	42	2019-2022			At grade	Independent
Commuter Rail EMU	Denver CO	North Metro Phase 1 (N)	13	343	26	2014-2020			At grade (mostly)	Independent
Light Rail	Denver CO	Southeast Rail Extension	2.3	233	101	2016-2019	6600	2870	At grade	Independent
Commuter Rail EMU	Denver CO	Gold Line (G)	11.2	2100	188	2012-2019	18000	1607	At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Edmonton AB	Valley Line Stage 1 Southeast	8.1	1800	222	2016-2020	42000	5185	Subway/At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	El Paso TX	Brio Alameda Corridor	12.2	36	3	2016-2019			At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	El Paso TX	Brio Dyer Corridor	10.2	36	4	2017-2019			At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Grand Rapids MI	Laker Line	13.3	71	5	2019-2020	4400	331	At grade	Shared
Light Rail	Guadalajara MX	Linea 3	13.3	994	75	2014-2019	348000	26165	Elevated/Subway	Independent
Heavy Rail Automated	Honolulu HI	Honolulu Rail Transit	20	8165	408	2011-2020	119600	5980	Elevated	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Houston TX	Uptown (Post Oak) BRT	4.5	193	43	2016-2019	19000	4222	At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Indianapolis IN	IndyGo Red Line	13.1	96	7	2017-2019	11000	840	At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Indianapolis IN	IndyGO Purple Line	14.8	139	9	2019-2021	9600	649	At grade	Independent (mostly)
Bus Rapid Transit	Kansas City MO	Prospect Avenue MAX		54		2018-2020			At grade	Shared
Light Rail	Los Angeles CA	Crenshaw Line	8.5	2058	242	2014-2020	16000	1882	Elevated/Subway/At grade	Independent
Heavy Rail	Los Angeles CA	Purple Line Extension Phase 1	3.9	2840	728	2014-2023	16800	4308	Subway	Independent
Light Rail	Los Angeles CA	Regional Connector	1.9	1756	924	2014-2021	90000	47368	Subway	Independent
Heavy Rail	Los Angeles CA	Purple Line Extension Phase 2	2.6	2477	953	2018-2025	36100	13885	Subway	Independent
Heavy Rail	Los Angeles CA	Purple Line Extension Phase 3	2.5	2000	800	2018-2026			Subway	Independent
Light Rail	Los Angeles CA	Foothill Gold Line Extension to Montclair	12.3	1500	122	2017-2027			At grade	Independent
Streetcar	Los Angeles CA	OC Streetcar Santa Ana/Garden Grove	4.1	408	100	2018-2021	7300	1780	At grade	Shared
Heavy Rail	Los Angeles CA	LAX Airport Connector	2.3	2700	1174	2019-2023	95000	41304	Elevated	Independent
Heavy Rail	Mexico MX	Linea 12 Extension	2.5	153	61	2016-2021	26000	10400	Subway	Independent
Commuter Rail	Mexico MX	Tren Interurbano de Pasajeros Toluca-Valle de Mexico	35.9	1978	55	2014-2018	230000	6407	Subway/At grade	Independent
Streetcar	Milwaukee WI	Lakefront Line	0.4	29	73	2017-2020			At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Milwaukee WI	East-West BRT	7	54	8	2019-2020	9500	1357	At grade	Semi-Independent
Light Rail	Minneapolis MN	Southwest Corridor/Green Line Extension	14.5	1858	128	2017-2023	34000	2345	At grade (mostly)	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Minneapolis MN	C Line		30		2018-2019	9000		At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Minneapolis MN	Orange Line	17	151	9	2017-2021			At grade	Shared
Commuter Rail	Monterey CA	Monterey County Rail Extension	38	137	4	2018-2022			At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Monterrey MX	Linea 3	4.7	439	93	2013-2020	280000	59574	Elevated/Subway	Independent
Automated Heavy Rail	Montreal QC	Reseau Express Metropolitain (REM)	41.6	4480	108	2018-2023	167000	4014	Elevated/Subway/At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Montreal QC	SRB Pie-IX	6.8	264	39	2018-2022	70000	10294	At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Montreal QC	Sauve/Cote-Vertu	2.9			2019-2020	40000	13793	At grade	Independent (mostly)
Commuter Rail	New York NJ	Lackawanna Cutoff Phase 1	7.3			2014-2020			At grade	Independent
Commuter Rail EMU	New York NY	East Side Access	3	10333	3444	2006-2022	162000	54000	Subway	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Omaha NE	Omaha BRT	8	31	4	2019-2020			At grade	Shared
Light Rail	Ottawa ON	Confederation Line	7.7	2100	273	2013-2019	240000	31169	Subway/At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Ottawa ON	Trillium Line South	9.9			2019-2021			At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Ottawa ON	Confederation Line West	9.3			2019-2023			At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Ottawa ON	Confederation Line East	7.5			2019-2022			At grade	Independent
Heavy Rail	Panama PA	Linea 2	13.1			2014-2019			Elevated	Independent
Commuter Rail	Philadelphia PA	Media/Elwyn Extension to Wawa	3	151	50	2017-2020			At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Phoenix AZ	Gilbert Road Extension	1.9	184	97	2015-2019	4000	2105	At grade	Independent
Streetcar	Phoenix AZ	Tempe Streetcar	3	202	67	2017-2021			At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Portland OR	Division Transit	15	175	12	2019-2022	10000	667	At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Reno NV	Virginia Street BRT	1.8	80	44	2018-2020			At grade	Shared
Streetcar	Sacramento CA	Downtown Riverfront Streetcar	1.2	209	174	2019-2022			At grade	Shared
Commuter Rail DMU	San Bernardino	Arrow Redlands Passenger Rail Project	9	285	32	2019-2021	1200	133	At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	San Diego CA	South Bay Rapid	26	128	5	2016-2019			At grade	Shared
Light Rail	San Diego CA	Mid-Coast Corridor Transit	10.9	2112	194	2015-2021	33800	3101	At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Seattle WA	Northgate Link	4.3	2100	488	2012-2021	60000	13953	Elevated/Subway	Independent
Light Rail	Seattle WA	East Link	14	2800	200	2016-2023	50000	3571	Elevated/Subway/At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Seattle WA	Swift 2 Green Line	12.4	67	5	2017-2019	4700	379	At grade	Semi-Independent
Streetcar	Seattle WA	Center City Connector	1.3	197	152	2017-2020	20100	15462	At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Seattle WA	Lynnwood Link	8.5	3070	361	2018-2024	70000	8235	At grade	Independent
Streetcar	Seattle WA	Tacoma Link	2.4	166	69	2018-2022			At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	Spokane WA	Central City Line	6	72	12	2019-2021	3000	500	At grade	Shared
Bus Rapid Transit	St. Petersburg FL	Central Avenue BRT	11	41	4	2019-2021	5400	491	At grade	Semi-Independent
Light Rail	Toronto ON	Eglinton Crosstown	11.8	4990	423	2011-2021	170000	14407	Subway/At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Toronto ON	Viva Next Rapidways Yonge (Phase 1)	5			2015-2020			At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Toronto ON	Viva Next Rapidways Yonge (Phase 2)	1.3			2015-2020			At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Toronto ON	Viva Rapidway Highway 7 West Phase 2				2016-2020			At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Toronto ON	Viva Highway 7 Rapidway Phase 2				2016-2020			At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Toronto ON	Finch West LRT	6.8	1200	176	2018-2023	40000	5882	At grade	Independent
Commuter Rail	Toronto ON	Richmond Hill Line Extension to Bloomington		82		2017-2019			At grade	Independent
Commuter Rail	Toronto ON	GO Extension to Niagara Falls	42.6	120	3	2017-2019			At grade	Independent
Commuter Rail	Toronto ON	Lakeshore East Bowmanville Extension	12.4			2019-2024			At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Toronto ON	Hamilton LRT B-Line	6.7	760	113	2019-2024	31000	4627	At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Toronto ON	Hurontario LRT	11.6	1000	86	2018-2022	110000	9483	At grade	Independent
Heavy Rail	Toronto ON	Scarborough Subway Extension	3.9	3350	859	2019-2026			Subway	Independent
Heavy Rail	Washington DC	Silver Line Phase 2	11.4	2778	244	2014-2020			Elevated/At grade	Independent
Light Rail	Washington DC	Purple Line	16.2	2100	130	2017-2022	69000	4259	At grade (mostly)	Independent
Streetcar	Washington DC	Anacostia Initial Line	1.1	54	49	?-?			At grade	Semi-Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Washington DC	US 29 Flash BRT	13.5	31	3	2018-2020			At grade	Shared
Light Rail	Waterloo ON	ION Light Rail Transit Phase 1	11.8	770	65	2014-2019	27000	2288	At grade	Independent
Bus Rapid Transit	Winnipeg MB	Southwest Rapid Transitway (Stage 2)	4.7	508	109	2016-2020			At grade	Independent

Note: Canadian projects are listed in Canadian dollars, which as of January 8, 2019 are each worth 0.75 USD.

* Costs are not uniformly presented (some are year of expenditure, others are in year of planning).