its not that bad. the cold is one thing, but you can easily shield yourself from the blustery up there or even wait in the station entrance area until the train comes.

also out here, outlying commuter rail stations at least have small heated waiting areas. i know in minneapolis they have heated areas for people waiting on busses too. bus waits are by far the worst, those should be everywhere where it gets cold.

I can kind of agree with the Philly point in terms of unrealized potential. SEPTA has recently been upgrading old infrastructure though and have plans to turn the trolleys into something more like Boston's green line or the streetcars in Toronto. during the pandemic there was a lot of talk about finally using regional rail like an s-bahn. They're installing raised platforms at many stations that didn't have them, which I assume is in support of this.

Stations have heaters, it's not a big deal.

Not to mention that many of them have in closed lobbies that you can wait in.

Toronto is probably the winner, you're right. The urban rapid transit expansion underway is pretty impressive considering the relatively minor expansions over the past few decades. Hopefully they don't take as long to come online as Eglinton is. And then of course, as you mention, there's the GO upgrades and expansions, which aren't totally about Toronto, but for GO all roads lead to Toronto.

I'd say the second place would be Montreal, just due to the REM. It's not quite as impressive because it mostly involves repurposing existing ROWs, but it will result in 67km of 'light metro' service around Greater Montreal. I think it'll be a game-changer as the suburbs have mostly just had slow commuter rail and buses into the city.

Ottawa is probably third. Another laggard until very recently, it's really aggressively expanding the O-Train and not skipping a beat, despite its existing line being rife with issues. Far out suburbs like Orleans are going to soon have very easy access to Downtown Ottawa, uOttawa, and VIA services.

After that I'd say Edmonton. It's currently undergoing the largest single increases in track to the LRT system since it first came to be in the late '70s. There's currently 27km under construction (in two phases - the first is just wrapping up and the other has recently begun construction), with extensions to the existing lines either under construction or soon to be.

Calgary and Vancouver, which were probably the most aggressive rapid transit expansionists in recent decades seem to be taking a bit of a break. But Calgary has the Green Line and Vancouver has the Broadway extension to look forward to. Calgary also just recently implemented a BRT system.

Southern California, probably has by far the most rapid rail transit expansion programme in the country over the next 2 decades. LA Metro is doubling the size of its rail network in the next 10 years to 200 miles, and will likely triple the current network at full planned buildout by the 2040s-2050s (pending likely new rail transit tax measures) to up to 300 miles of light rail/subway across LA County. San Diego, as mentioned earlier, has a $160 billion vision to expand and reshape rail transit across the county. The Link Union Station Project will almost double Metrolink/Amtrak frequency and capacity by 2028, and Metrolink's $10 billion SCORE program will ensure at least 30 minute bi-directional frequencies on all Metrolink lines by 2028 through increased double tracking. Not to mention countless BRT projects planned.

LA Metro's Planned 2028 Rail Network under Twenty-eight by '28 (likely by 2030s):
https://i.redd.it/aq6if9i0fca81.png

LA Metro's Full Planned Buildout (Funded + Unfunded Projects):
https://i.imgur.com/9JjNZsp.png

I'm not sure how a transit system as extensive and widely used as Muni or BART could be called a disaster. As for Muni's average speed, train lines aren't averaging 10 mph (not in the subway or surface areas that aren't shared with traffic), and neither are certain bus lines, especially at non-rush hour times. But it is true that buses (which carry most Muni passengers, by far) and trains on some of the above ground sections, are often slowed down by traffic and the constant intersections and bus stops. Muni has been dealing with that by adding bus-only lanes to a bunch of streets, and eliminating some bus stops, and is also working out some new train route configurations to make the subway flow more efficiently, as there were too many train lines converging on the market street subway.

BART and Muni have both been expanding over the past several years, with the Central Subway, Van Ness BRT, and BART extensions to SJ, Antioch, and the Oakland airport. Muni also plans to extend the market street subway to SFSU/Park Merced, in the southwest corner of the city (replacing existing surface rail), and to possibly extend the central subway to North beach and Fisherman's wharf, as well as build a BRT line down Geary Blvd. A new transbay tube is also officially in the works, with BART and Capitol Corridor planning to have it built by 2040. That's a long time from now, but at least the idea is more than just talk these days. The rumors are that it might include a new subway through western SF (Geary blvd and 19th ave), but we'll see. Both systems are also currently updating and expanding their train fleets.

In addition to that and Caltrain electrification, there was the construction of SMART in the north bay, and its planned expansions, as well as expansions of the ferry system.

Pretty much all of this stuff has had delays and cost overruns, but that kind of thing isn't unique to the Bay Area.

Yeah, things could be better (I'm jealous of LA's rail plans!), but I don't think SF/the Bay Area has been doing terrible by American standards.

When the extension of the Purple Line opens, the Red Line is no longer going to serve Downtown LA? It's seems weird that you would have to make a transfer to get from Hollywood to Downtown.

The maps don't show interlined sections properly.

It does, Google Earth Pro unfortunately obscures the interlining

^Thanks for the clarification guys.

One problem with American transit is it only serves centralized places of employment. It doesn't get people to sunday afternoon dentist appointments or that fun restaurant on the other side of town, and you can't take it to enjoy a day at the beach or go hiking. LA interestingly could be an exception to this rule, only because of it's awesome geographic location making leisure and "staycation" activities right there in the city, and almost-dense-yet-decentralized layout of the place where there's all sorts of stuff along major roads.

But I wouldn't want to be carless in Dallas-Fort Worth even if there was a multi-line metro system here, because you just couldn't go and do anything. I feel like a lot of Americans probably feel this way.

For these reasons I think buses should get more attention since they can go more places. I like Colorado's Bustang system. Also there should be subsidized, loss-leader low ridership routes to high value destinations if it means more people use transit overall. A bus to a regional park. A bus to the city's largest mall. A bus to the medical center. And so forth.

I'm just concerned that LA's light rail is largely slow and street running unlike Seattle's Link, whose future expansions will be grade separated and be as subway like as possible.

The prioritization of rail projects in LA is also weird. East San Fernando Valley gets a street running LRT while the Vermont Corridor has to settle for BRT when it should be getting a grade separated LRT at least. LA is almost too pro-transit for its own good. Every suburb screams for light rail. In San Diego, the suburbs are all NIMBY which forces SANDAG to concentrate building rail in the urban core.

What is missing from the metro los angeles map is the commuter rail map which would fill in the missing sections to the northwest, north east, east and south east. Some infill station, frequent trains, some grade separation and laus run thru tracks would help connect more of the county and adjacent counties that aren't building anything much except Santa Ana oc.

LA Metro's buses and trains are up to about 80% of pre-COVID ridership (best rebound among big agencies in the country), while NYC is hovering around 58% and SF is languishing around 45%, and it seems clear to me that the reason for those disparities is in line with your observation here.

Metro and the larger local agencies (Big Blue, Long Beach, etc.) are much more focused on local service than with getting commuters into and out of downtown LA. While downtown is physically the hub of the public transit network here and thus is very well served by bus and train, it is merely one of the larger of several employment nodes located around the city and region. And many other jobs aren't in a node at all, they're just scattered along major boulevards. Because of all that, LA's public transit system really was built in a way that gets people to the dentist and that restaurant across town, as the current ridership stats indicate.

I think the 2 big ones are L.A. and Toronto although Toronto will have vastly higher ridership.

Montreal is no slouch. Montreal's RER system will be completed in a couple year and will be 65km of completely grade separated automated rapid transit using LRT trains. It will include a large downtown tunnel connecting to the Metro network. Another new REM system is proposed for the city's eastside.

Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Dallas, Edmonton, Ottawa, Austin, SF, NYC, and Miami also get honourable mention.

All Canadian cities seem to be investing heavily into their transit systems and much of this is due to Trudeau sending tens of billions their way strictly for urban transit. He has even set aside billions for transit agencies to get rid of all their diesel buses and transform over to zero emissions ones.

For the US, the situation is a little less rosy as the big infrastructure fund was shrunk down so much that most of the transportation funding will go to highways and Amtrac most of which will be spent in NY on a tunnel.

Of course there are many US cities that have done little to improve their systems over the years like Chicago, Boston, and Philly and it shows with some of their rotting stations and rolling stock that looks like it should be moved to the Smithsonian.

There are many US cities with just rudimentary transit systems but the biggest failure, by far, is Detroit. It doesn't have any form of rapid transit and has none under construction or even proposed. Even BRT seems just too much for this city of 4 million. For a city the size and importance of Detroit, to not have any form of rapid transit {little alone even a passable regular bus service} is scandalous but probably even more unbelievable is that the vast majority of Detroiters don't seem to care.

i can't speak for boston or philly, but i feel your assessment is overly harsh on chicago.

while it's true that the CTA hasn't engaged in the construction of any brand new el lines since the early '90s (orange line out to midway), they have been making continuous improvements to many of the archaic century-old el lines, and the the rolling stock is actually fairly up to date for a giant legacy american heavy rail rapid transit system.

over the past 30 years, the green, brown, pink, southside red, and northside blue lines lines have all gone through extensive and very expensive renovation projects to keep them running well into the 21st century. and the red/purple northside quad-track mainline is currently in a multi-billion dollar rebuild as well. many of the stations in the loop have also been extensively renovated. and new infill stations have been opened up over the years as formerly vacated sections of the near south and near west sides have been gentrifying - like morgan/lake, cermak-mccormick place, and the soon to be under construction damen stops on the green line. all told, these renovation/rehabilitation projects have cost the agency untold billions of dollars, which has made finding money for actual new-build expansions quite difficult to find. all part of the problem of having a rapid transit system that first opened back in the 19th century.

as for the rolling stock on the el, the CTA is currently in the process of acquiring 846 new 7000-series el cars to the tune of $1.3 billion. as they continue to come into service over this decade, they will eventually replace the entire 2600-series and 3200-series fleets that date from the 80s/early 90s. this will leave the 714 cars of 5000-series as the only older cars in the fleet, and they were all built between 2009 - 2015. so the el is actually well on its way to having a very up to date fleet.



So saying that the CTA "has done little to improve its system", currently and in the recent past, is a bit unfair in my eyes. Could it have been doing a whole lot more? Well of course, but given our nation's miserly attitude towards transit investment, the CTA has been lucky enough to get the billions of dollars it has gotten to rebuild its crumbling rail infrastructure and replace its outdated rolling stock. Those are still real transit wins with tangible benefits for the city of chicago, even if they aren't nearly as sexy as "OMG!!! city X is gonna build a hundred new miles of rail transit!"

I think Chicago's biggest failure in terms of growth and expansion, and it's biggest gap compared to Toronto, is in the bus network, not just of CTA but also of Pace. Compare the growth of Pace to that of Mississauga Transit and Brampton Transit since the 90s. In 1996, Brampton Transit was around 1/5 the size of Pace, carrying less than 19k riders per weekday, but by itself it is now larger than the entire Pace system, carrying 144k riders per weekday in 2016. Mississauga Transit carried 100k riders per weekday in 1996, and by 2019 the system doubled in size, carrying 201k riders per weekday. That's growth of over 220k daily boardings for just these two systems. In comparison, Pace went from 125k to 135k, only 10k growth for a much larger service area.

You think we need to focus less on "sexy" transit improvements? Not focus so much on "new miles of rail transit"? Maybe look at Pace instead. Old systems like CTA and Metra are not up-and-coming systems like TTC, GO, Mississauga, Brampton because they have such a huge rail system that they have successfully maintained and kept running, so of course they must be given credit for that, but that doesn't explain the failure of Pace Suburban Bus. 8% growth since 1996 is just pathetic. Pace serves a population of 4-5 million but ridership is lower than King County, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Orange County, Honolulu. Even with a "miserly attitude" towards transit, Chicagoland can do a lot better, as all of these other places show.

100% Agreed.

In addition, the one actual rail expansion being talked about is a giant waste of money that is going to serve almost nobody. So hopefully that doesn't ever see the light of day.