Yeah there's a reason e.g. China can afford to build HSR covering the entire country along with dozens of metro systems, other than the standardization which reduces costs, they actually spend money on infrastructure rather than war. There's a lot of hype about Chinese military build-up, but it's still at a tiny fraction of the US spending on the military, even as a fraction of GDP it's only HALF that of the US.
@@dijikstra8actually your on the wrong track. They are spending the money we bailed out banks with on trains, not their military budget. But the U.S. like to keep things fair, why you think we handicap ourselves so many times
@@kylezdancewicz7346 Haha well we can argue about where the money is coming from, but the fact remains that none of that money is being spent on infrastructure in the US, instead being spent on bailing out the wealthy and on trying to subjugate the entire world under US dominance.
@Th3RealRyan we got that military industrial complex to help. But if we’ll spend trillions upon trillions on roads and car infrastructure why should we let what remaining public infrastructure rot.
@Th3RealRyan you would get jobs from the work to improve the transit infrastructure and also induce new opportunities through improved mobility. So yea, no it wouldn't. Sit down.
@Th3RealRyan so one industry gains jobs as the other loses them. What is the problem? No one said the military is a parallel industry dingus. The point is it is explicitly irrelevant to literally everything such that you can take money from what it is doing and apply it freely for public good and the only argument is "bUh wUT abOOt duhhhh uhhhHHH aiRpLaNes??"
@Th3RealRyan the jobs would be transferred to the public infrastructure projects and ACTUALLY BENEFIT THE PUBLIC friggin dingus. The result of improved public infrastructure is increased productivity and induced demand. Because instead of money getting pissed away on an aircraft carrier it actually improves the community. You thought you were making a good counterpoint and you weren't. It was straight up dumb and a big problem in society is people saying dumb contrarian shit thinking it is smart because it advocates for the dumbass wasteful and destructive ways things are and have been done. Your comment was foolish and incorrect and should not be countenanced by anyone that seriously wants the world to be better. People that spout ignoramous talking points like your's need to be made to think twice or at all, or however many times is needed to realize they're wrong and keep quiet.
@Th3RealRyan you are though. Why would you assume a dollar spent pissed over an aircraft carrier produces fewer jobs than a dollar spent enhancing public infrastructure necessary for commerce and life in general? You thought you had some point but you didn't. Simply advocating for the current wasteful and destructive practices under the most vapid of talking points. Quite a silly position that should be made obvious to everyone until attitudes such as yours are no longer normalized.
@@Unknown_Ooh Stop the bullshit. You'd rather trust your money to be used as it is right now (i.e. bombing children overseas, destabilizing foreign governments, etc), rather than entertain the slightest idea of improving your own quality of life? Says a lot about americans.
@@Unknown_Oohsomebody is too trusting of corporate oversight. The real problem here is government projects are carried out by contractors who half ass everything. The government is required to use these inferior profit driven entities which are not only a vector for corruption, but also low quality work.
Its not that bad tbh, all of this is highly optomistic because it assumes the US will finally break past its chronic addiction to contractors and bureaucracy. middle men have infested the system, and they will fight tooth and nail to stay there.
@@lookoutforchris same in the uk. We have a budget deficit of £120bn a year.. we pay £116bn a year to pay INTEREST on debt. Although to be fair we’re still better than the US, because we still get free healthcare and an above 2% GDP a year on our nuclear armed military. The military industrial complex really has the US by the balls.
@@moosesandmeese969The northeast IS the densest conurbation in the US, and has some of the very few remaining historic pre-automobile urban cores which are generally better suited to transit, but…what? The Great Lakes region, Texas Triangle, Cascades, Southeast the three megalopolises in California? Hello? There’s a MASSIVE gulf between “Biggest” and “Only,” and while the NEC is clearly the former, it’s a LOOONG way from the latter.
@@IONATVS Well I didn't say "only" I said "most" and you can clearly see that. It's just not even comparable, even the small towns are better. Dallas and Philadelphia have similar populations but the two couldn't be more different.
Worthy of being repeated, the military budget is for a single year. Seems like a good trade. I'd suggest running the Yellow line to Burtonsville would be a better alternative instead of taking over the Glenmont segment.
Seems to me that since all of these projects would be built in phases or wouldnt all start at the same time, during at least 10 years it would be rather easy to reroute just like 10 or 15% of the military budget each year in order to fund them and still reach the goal of 850b
@@vasquenI have a solution so we can keep or improve the effective military budget while giving to the transit budget. Get working on streamlining that bureaucracy. I mean every time the government requires anything built they have to put out a contract to the defense contractors. This includes stuff like usps too. Even a small cut down on bureaucracy would save lots of money to go to transit and other services
Personally I'd create a national program of building automated light metro systems like the REM system in Montreal that has been financed and built by a P3 contractor deal. All trains are electric, powered by overhead wires, are automated and have strong HVAC systems to deal with cold and hot weather... These seem light years ahead of anything in the USA right now short of maybe the Honolulu starter line...
converting various light rail systems (dallas, seattle, houston, phoenix) to light metro alongside building entirely new systems in places like las vegas, nashville, tampa & oklahoma city would work wonders
As someone who is most familiar with Boston, out of these cities, here is what I would suggest. I definitely agree that the first thing should be repairing all the neglected issues and paying off the big dig debts. However, after that, I would suggest that the North-South Rail Link should be built and the commuter rail would be electrified and turned into an S-Bahn system like Philadelphia's SEPTA after the frequency increases. This would also include all the things needed to turn a commuter rail network into an S-Bahn network, such as EMU trains, grade separation, station modernization, double tracking, and signal modernization, to name a few. The D Branch of the Green Line (which is more like light rail) should be deinterlined from the rest of the green line (which is more like streetcar subway) and should take over the two new branches of the green line in Somervile. I prefer doing this with a tunnel from Lansdowne to South Station under the existing rail alignment then to North Station above the North South Rail Link. The remaining green line branches terminate at Haymarket. With that, I suggest adding a light rail branch from Newton Highlands to Needham Junction, replacing the Needham Line on the commuter rail and having the Orange Line take over the other part of the branch to West Roxbury and maybe even Dedham Mall. This frees up capacity on Southwest Corridor for S-Bahn and better serves development in West Roxbury compared to tunneling under Washington St. I would also suggest an automated light metro line (like Montreal REM) under Mass Ave from Harvard Square to JFK/UMass. This could also be extended to Watertown along the same route as the existing red line branch proposal. Another automated light metro line would replace the Washington St silver line from Tufts Medical Center to Nubian Station and it would be tunneled. This could later be extended under Warren St to Franklin Zoo. Other extensions would be a blue line branch just west of Wood Island to take over the existing Silver Line route to Chelsea and then continuing to Everett, and the red line extension to Arlington Heights and the red blue connector. The silver line to the seaport should be converted to a branch of the green line (streetcar subway) from Boylston to Seaport. An interurban line would be built along the existing trail right of way from Malden Center to Lynn. I don't think the A branch makes much sense given that it would have to run in mixed traffic due to the street being too narrow and instead the existing bus route should be improved.
not to mention extending the blue line up to lynn or salem, since the line is already pretty small, and could go up further north to connect with the denser cities of essex county mass and connect them into the downtown area of boston on the single rail line extension, along with the bus routes that connect up with lynn and salem mass, just an idea i feel like that got left out from the video
@@boston_and_maine There is already the newburyport/rockport commuter rail line that goes up there and the commuter rail is not short of issues itself, extending the commuter rail electrification project through all lines should give better service to those areas, a blue line extension to marblehead would be interesting though.
To anyone unaware, we could build a whole new interstate highway system every single year and still have roughly $230 billion left over. The cost per mile to build bidirectional railroad tracks is roughly 2/3 that of a 4 lane split highway.
I would build High Speed Rail everywhere it’s feasible first. Then I would have Amtrak live up to its potential Then I would implement a mobility master plan for every major US city. 3 major steps with a LOT of parts within Cost for this is unknown
@@transitcaptain we should also build a High Speed Rail that serves the entire East Coast from Maine to Florida. They would have stops at Every State with their respective Transit Agencies some states may have more than one stop and for an East Coast High Speed Rail we can have it stretch to Miami. The Stops would be located at Portland ME Manchester NH Boston MA Providence RI Bridgeport CT Penn Station NY Newark Penn Station NJ Philadelphia PA Baltimore MD Washington DC Richmond VA Raleigh NC Myrtle Beach SC Charleston SC Savannah GA Jacksonville FL Orlando FL Miami FL These Stops would ensure that the entire East coast gets served by a High Speed Rail which would be a better alternative for Flying local airlines.
@@Reformperson a few of these don't really make sense, everything south of raleigh and north of boston. the rest I pretty much agree with (though prefer routing through long island with a tunnel under the sound). Manchester and Portland are just too small and the route is too out of the way to really justify hsr, though there absolutely should be good regional rail connections or intercity connections. After Raleigh, going to myrtle beach misses huge population centers just so it can 'run along the coast'. Go to charlotte with a potential stop in the greater greensboro / winston-salem / high Point metro area, with a pretty significant metro population of 1.6 million. for comparison myrtle beach has under 400k people. charlotte itself has 2.8 million, so for a pretty small diversion you get 4 million more people. this has the added benefit of future interlining with a atlanta to charlotte coridoor. you then go south to columbia for another 900k people, and from there you can divert back to charleston for 800k, savannah for 400k, jacksonville for 1.6 mil, and orlando for 2.5 mil. I would not bother going any further south, and honestly orlando might be too far because brightline might reach jacksonville. Anyways, because the entire east coast of florida south of orlando is urbanized, building hsr there would be pretty challenging, and I think it would be better just to upgrade brightline to be more fast and frequent for a true higher speed rail connector. I also think the connection between columbia / charlotte and jacksonville is pretty weak and so connecting brightline with the extended north east coridoor just wouldn't be feasible. anyways, below is a easier to read version of the changes I would make: Boston MA Providence RI Bridgeport CT Jamaica NY ...(other stop on long island)... Penn Station NY Newark Penn Station NJ Philadelphia PA Baltimore MD Washington DC Richmond VA Raleigh NC Greensboro NC Charlotte NC Columbia SC ...(onward to atlanta with a stop in augusta)... brightline (not connected with above) Jacksonville FL Orlando FL Miami FL
Yeah, IIRC City Nerd had a vid on the 50ish North American city pairs with higher potential than a fairly successful Spanish HSR line (Madrid - Valencia IIRC), and with this kind of funding you could probably triple the number of city pairs that are feasible, adding Cascadia to the “obvious corridors” list and connecting the many smaller islands of service left at the end of that vid to each other to create a cohesive network.
I think we should use that money to make it so all metro statistical areas over 1 million have atleast 50 miles of heavy rail or light rail with its own right of way for smaller metro areas
@@ayeeeeeeee6240 I’m talking about metro areas over a million, not the cities over 1 million. Also I said give them heavy rail OR light rail, so the smaller cities probably would get light rail, but they should have their own right of way
Here's the projects I would give priority for a ridiculously high budget expansion of Chicago transit services, other than the obvious covering of the CTA's upcoming budget cliff: *RAIL* - Cicero crosstown (1990s proposal, already studied) - Circle Line (2000s proposal, already studied) - Red Line Extension (already almost in construction but a few extra tens of millions could fund a fair bit of extra TOD, which the project really needs) - Brown Line extension to the Blue Line (potentially track improvements to allow Brown Line service all the way to the airport?) - At least one of the lines in the Loop should be buried to reduce train congestion and rush hour station crowding. My vote goes to the Brown Line (because it's the highest ridership line that enters the Loop, and because if the subway section is built to a high train capacity the Purple Line can also be taken out of the Loop, leaving a much more reasonable 3 lines sharing the Loop tracks), but I can understand arguments for any of the other 3 lines too. - Track and signalling upgrades system-wide (basically a more ambitious and system-wide Red Ahead project) - All new projects built automated to reduce the already massive need for additional train operators; potential automation of the Red and/or Blue lines if the money is there and it can be done without too much service disruption - Infill stations, most notably on the Pink, Orange, and Green lines, where there are some CRAZY gaps between stations. - If the money is there, extra funding to the CTA's ongoing recruitment effort to be physically able to increase rail service back to at LEAST pre-COVID levels - This is not counting any Metra projects, because I have no clue what I would want changed there, because I've only ever taken Metra once. But something definitely has to be done to increase Metra's connectivity to the CTA; they have 3 termini and none are connected to the El, it's ridiculous. *BUS* - Ashland BRT - System-wide review of routes and service levels (the aim being to bring back the massive amount of routes and service that has been cancelled since the 90s and then in the wake of the 2008 crash) - Full fleet electrification - I guess if BRT can actually be built cheaply and to a high standard, some funds can go to studying potential BRT projects that the city itself can then implement fully on its own later. - Again, extra funds to contribute to the CTA's ongoing effort to have more than 1 bus driver for the whole system. (this is an exaggeration but it is genuinely really bad they're trying but it takes a shitton of money and it only got worse when COVID hit) The hope for the rail projects would be to build as much as possible elevated, since 1 - it's part of the existing character and culture of Chicago, and 2 - it keeps costs down; the majority of the Circle Line was supposed to be elevated, and if there wouldn't be too much outcry there's no reason the Crosstown couldn't be built elevated either, so I think this is relatively achievable. Assuming significant portions of the financing for these projects would be coming from the city government, TIF districts, and debt, rather than purely federal spending, I think these could reasonably be accomplished within the bounds of a multi-hundred-billion-dollar transit expansion nationwide without representing an unfair prioritisation of Chicago. If we could get the suburbs on board, they could help finance some pretty big expansions for Metra and Pace too.
Definitely excited to see what you want to do with Chicago, since it's both the third largest city in the US and (by ridership) the third largest metro. WMATA should not be overtaking us in ridership when we are 3 times the size of DC.
I like your CTA plan a lot and I appreciate that you are looking to leverage improvements that have already been researched and validated. I live in the west side (West Town) close to a multi-line Metra that I use quite a bit and have thoughts about the system. This is all armchair stuff so take it for what it’s worth: - Increase Metra level of service. Off-peak times of an hour on weekdays and TWO HOURS on the weekend condemns Metra to being a one-shot to downtown service. - All track that Metra uses they buy or build to have exclusive use. Decrease service interruptions and increase LOS - Add Metra cross-line services. I remember a north-south line proposed about 20yo, but pretty far west. I’d propose a N-S line that would have an O’hare stop and link to job rich areas of the close west suburbs. The current line to O’hare LOS is miserable to the point of random. - Make a big regional transportation plan. Metra and CTA ignore each other, victims of their history and lack of shared purpose. Stations shouldn’t be 10-20 minutes walks away from each, when they should be co-located. Amtrak, the airports, and IDOT should all be a part of it.
The only thing I would add for New York/New Jersey would be to expand regional rail more. Extend the LIRR from Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn to Manhattan all the way to Grand Central and Penn Station and through run the trains to Metro North. There should also be a regional rail connection to LaGuardia and JFK airport.
@@nujabraska only thing we’d have to tackle is Gwinnett and Cobb NIMBYs. I’d set my expectations low and have rail expanded into Clayton and further in Fulton and dekalb
So, for the future Pacific section, here's a few suggestions from me based on places I've been to or have some familiarity with. San Diego - reroute the Orange Line trolley from its current sad little terminus before Courthouse up to Balboa Park on Park Ave. Replace some of the parking at the zoo with a station and more park attractions. Continue up through North Park, connect to the Green Line in Mission Valley, and then keep going north to Mesa College. LA - give the Metrolink Rancho Cucamonga line the Caltrain treatment. Electrify, straighten, multitrack. Allows for a potential one-seat ride from LA Union to Vegas in the future. Potentially also extend the A Line to Rancho Cucamonga, for redundancy and a two-seat ride from Long Beach to Vegas. Bay - Finish the BART Santa Clara extension. Build the Geary Ave Subway to the Golden Gate Bridge to connect to Marin and SMART (this could be either a BART or MUNI branch line, but preferably BART). Build a BART connection to Vallejo: this could either take the form of a branch from Walnut Creek up to Martinez, then over the Benicia Bridge, or extending the Richmond spur north to Port Costa and over the Carquinez Bridge. Replace the stupid eBART with regular BART. Finish the Caltrain extension to Salesforce Tower, then electrify the Capitol Corridor and run a standard gauge tunnel under the Bay, thus allowing Caltrain and future CAHSR to connect directly from SF to Sacramento. Extend the electrified Capitol Corridor down to Santa Cruz. Statewide - build CAHSR. Region-wide - build PNWHSR and then connect it to CAHSR, allowing for high-speed rail all the way from Vancouver to San Diego.
Seattle's Eastside could really do with connecting the loop around Lake Washington by confirming and building the proposed Brown Line as well as the Green Line extension to Woodinville. If budget only allows one line to be done, it should be the Brown Line, so that I-405 can finally catch a break.
Also build the High Desert Corridor connector to connect Brightline West and CAHSR, connect SD across the border to Tiajuana, send a line out from LA to Phoenix AZ via the coachella valley, remove the stupid grade crossings on the CAHSR’s Anaheim spur, and generally fully fund and accelerate all the LA Measure M transit project plans, and make Orange County actually participate in transit…at all.
@@IONATVS Agree with all, but I did also mention the Rancho Cucamonga line specifically because then Brightline West could extend there. I'd personally rather have the two projects connect at LA Union than with a third weird project in the high desert, just seems overall more efficient. And yeah I would be so stoked if CAHSR extended south to Tijuana too, especially if it also connected up to Cascadia HSR and made it possible to ride a single train from Canada to Mexico. Unlikely to ever happen, but would be sick.
More for bay: Build the second transbay tube to support both conventional rail and bart, extending Amtrak service into downtown SF and overcoming the transbay bottleneck for the BART Geary st extension . Perhaps bring Caltrain to Oakland Jack London too Branch the geary st subway South to SFSU and Daly city Perhaps extend the new BART lines through more of Oakland along 580 Build the Dumbarton rail link and extend Caltrain service to Union City. Actually extend BART to Livermore instead of building Valley Link Extend the central subway to Park Presidio Build some form of light rail for East bay expand VTA for San Jose. Build more BART infill stations (30th St mission, San Antonio)
When you do the south you HAVE to expand Charlotte's light rail system! I can give a rundown but there is a red line that is already approved. New lines would be the Silver line from the airport through the east and I'd recommend a line going from downtown to over near matthews or similar areas. I lived by Charlotte in the past and have always wanted the metro to grow there
The biggest waste of taxpayer dollars is the over-bloated, oversized military that isn't even as effective as it could and should be... Even just diverting a small chunk of that towards sustainable transit and affordable housing would go a long way in fixing many of America's underlying and chronic issues...
The "biggest"?! Not compared to the quadrillions of dollars presently wasted on stuperhighways and air travel, both modes which can stand to give up at least half of their governmental oversubsidization....
Cutting $50 billion per year from the military could be done while still keeping global supremacy, plus $30 billion (out of ~60) from federal highway budget. 80 billion per year at basically no cost
@@BoredSquirell Also, let’s not forget about the AIRLINES guzzling billions of dollars in oversubsidization annually…. They could also stand to have a huge chunk of THEIR budget cut; the treatment they give their passengers is worse than them being inmates aboard a county jail bus!
For the Harlem line infill stations, the stop spacing is already incredibly short; 149th st would totally make sense, but the stops between Tremont and Melrose could be consolidated into one with platform extensions for Melrose and Tremont.
@@marcosharko9590 It's supposed to be more like rapid transit than commuter rail, a replacement in other words for the 8 train (which had far too many stations about three blocks apart). The Harlem line above Fordham has the same close stations it always had. The exact location of stations is a judgment call, but I think there should be at least one between Tremont and Melrose and another one between Tremont and Fordham.
I would have liked for you to have mentioned funding for military members to be educated on rail construction and to maintain these new systems so that these people can get jobs after the military budget vanishes.
There's only a couple of things I would add: The first thing I would add is a Mass. Avenue Subway which would be an alternate route tunnel for the Red Line in Boston which would run from JFK/UMass station to Harvard Square station. An alternate route is necessary because the main subway through downtown Boston had its own version of DC's Orange Crush before Covid. It would run across Back Bay and have stops at Edward Everett Square, Boston University Medical Center, Washington Street (Purple Line), Massachusetts Avenue / Symphony (Orange and -Green- Silver Lines), Hines (Silver and Green Lines), MIT, Central, and Harvard. Where the existing Red Line Subway enters Massachusetts Avenue the new subway would dodge one block over, and with flying junctions, each subway could run one-way until Harvard Square where the Arlington Heights and Watertown Branches diverge. The second thing I would add is a further extension of the Arlington Heights Branch to the Mass. Highway Department office at 519 Appleton Street at Route 2 and the Lexington town line and build the branch's terminal there. That would ensure that Arlington Heights, which is a reasonably dense neighborhood, won't drown in traffic and parked cars of commuters seeking a park and ride trip into town because they'll have direct access off the Route 2 expressway instead.
IMO you should have started with nationalization of all four Class I freight railroads. A very rough estimate to purchase them outright would be $300 Billion. This would immediately improve Amtrak, CA HSR, and every transit line that lies on or adjacent to a freight railroad RoW. Of course, there would be many other benefits as well, including a general improvement in service and a huge reduction in future construction costs for transit projects near freight RoWs. You could then spend many more billions to electrify everything, which would pay itself off in a decade or two. The best thing about this is that the railroads would actually be self-sustaining and would not require taxpayer funding in the future. That would still leave hundreds of billions of dollars for local transit. Frankly, doing all of these projects at the same time would get difficult. You’ll run out of experienced construction workers in NYC to build everything. Better to spread out construction geographically by electrifying all of the freight railroads in rural areas.
Incredible work! Being from the Philadelphia suburbs, I would like to add one or two lines. I would add/upgrade the Morrisville freight line stretching from the NJ Transit yard in Morrisville, PA in the east, all the way to King of Prussia, making a tunnel loop there to connect the mall (one of the biggest malls in America), Children’s Hospital, and the casino, possibly with a transfer station for the Reading Line that passes just north of King of Prussia at near Valley Forge. I would extend the line down to where the Morrisville line merges with the Thorndale line at Frazer, and then (although a logistical nightmare) resurrect the Frazer line at Immaculata University leading back down to connect to West Chester from the north, which would connect to the West Chester Line back to Philadelphia. This would give the whole of the northern and much of the western suburbs direct access to Trenton in NJ, where they could transfer onto either NJ Transit or Amtrak straight to NYC. This cross metro line could also have transfer stations where it intersects many of the regional rail lines, making transfers possible without going all the way down to Glenside, Jenkintown, or Center City at 30th Street or Jefferson.
If we’re doing fantasy… I’d like to see L to Secaucus through Hoboken, 7 through Hoboken to Jersey City (and maybe onward to Newark or south Jersey City), the 6 connected to the PATH tunnels running to Newark Penn and Newark Liberty, and the C going to Fort Lee over GWB. And replace most bus lines in NYC with central street, signal priority having, protected lane tramways. Also throw in a modern automated metro from Fort Lee to Staten Island to replace the hudson bergen LR, with connections to the other lines heading into Jersey.
Coming from the DC region, the yellow line idea is great. But I would build the silver line extension under DC further north to provide more east-west connectivity up north which is much needed. I would also skip out on the southern loop line idea and instead extend the purple line in a light elevated metro kind of way west to Tysons, and build a somehow fit a metro line towards Columbia Pike.
I went to school in New Haven, and live nearby now. It's waking distance from Union Station to the Green/Yale, even shorter from State Street Station. If we are spending Pentagon sized money, build a tunnel under the harbor to straighten the NEC. Were it not now a trail, I would say rebuild the Farmington Canal Line now that there's a lot of development along it. I would be commuter rail from Plainville to New Haven. Or build a spur from the NEC to Tweed airport.
* NYC: Full Second Avenue Line (plus crosstown 125th Street Line), IBX, Utica Avenue Line, Queenslink, A Line west on Fordham Road to Coop City, 6 line to Coop City, likely 1 or 2 new lines in Queens; * LA: D Line to Santa Monica, full build-out of Measure R/M plans, new lines on Venice Blvd, Southeast Gateway Line north from Union Station, etc. * Chicago: crosstown line; new east-west line that runs underground beneath the Loop to serve the most eastern downtown neighborhoods * Boston: North-South Rail Link, Blue Line can be extended to replace one of the Green Line routes * Miami: tons of expansion (ex. Miami Beach, FIU, Hard Rock Stadium) * Detroit: new subway network of 2 or 3 lines * Seattle: remove all at-grade LRT and convert the whole network to light metro * Portland: LRT tunnel in downtown to speed up travel * San Fran: 2nd BART Tunnel + new regional rail tunnel; subway on Geary; more MUNI grade separation * Houston: LRT, not BRT, on University Corridor; Purple/Green Line south to Hobby Airport and west to Northwest Mall (will be terminus of Texas Central Railway) * Dallas: D2 subway * Washington DC: Blue Line Loop, new line to serve northern DC neighborhoods * Phoenix: new LRT lines; downtown LRT subway * San Diego: Purple Line, airport LRT line, downtown subway * Philly: Roosevelt Blvd line; new diagonal subway lines; extension to Navy Yard, PATCO to University City * PATH: JFK Blvd line in Jersey City; extension to Brooklyn's Atlantic Terminal from WTC * Atlanta: new diagonal lines to serve new neighborhoods; Clifton Corridor LRT; extension to Cobb County
Absolutely NOTHING should be built along 125th street; a very nasty active fault line exists along that corridor! The 2nd avenue line should instead be extended into the Bronx, to eventually connect with the extended D train at Co-op City, as it will be extended from Norwood....
@@gevans446 absolutely all this would be done let’s start what can be done with NYC, which include an extension from Metropolitan Ave to Marathom Pkwy taking over the Hoarce Harding Line. This would be served by a deinterlined A line which would displace the M on Culver to the new Ft Hamilton Line to Staten Island which would allow the M to run along Forest Ave to Arlington South Ave. the nest new Line would be the Northern Blvd Line which would allow the line to be a relief line for the 7 and with that the new Subway would take over service from the expanded 7 to Bayside Bell Blvd, and an east to west connection along Nothern Blvd would be served by an extended Astoria Line, serving LGA along the way. Now let’s discuss PATH, we should also extend it past Newark to Arlington South Ave to connect with M Trains there and also Staten Islanders can also get to Newark Airport by just using the train. With NJT we should focus on decongesting the Lincoln tunnel by adding another terminal at Eltingville Transit Center, as we can send south Jersey lines to Eltingville such as the 319, along with expanded services from hourly trains to trains running every 30 minutes. Last but not least we will discuss MDT which includes a light rail to replace the 38 max bus line, and with that we can increase bus service in Miami on other routes with a Light Rail line that runs to Florida City from the Dadeland South Station. As for a line for Miami we will have a new Red Line run to Miami Beach to the Hard Rock Stadium.
AFA Los Angeles, a subway on Vermont Avenue is a logical idea, especially if you've ever seen the bus routes that serve Vermont Avenue. While the B line serves the segment of Vermont Avenue north of Wilshire Boulevard, to the south of Wilshire is the segment that SCREAMS for a subway. It might go as far south as the C line light rail (formerly the Green Line) along the Century Freeway. Some of the L.A. locals might suggest another southern destination for a Vermont Avenue line. (AFA my Philly suggestions, I've got a long comment here already.)
The T is definitely gonna wind up to East Harlem and west side across 125 street to connect to the 1 Broadway line. The brand new 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line will definitely hit south Bronx again connecting to the 2 5 trains at Gun Hill Rd and 149 street and then under ground at 140 street Thrid Avenue and south ferry or Battery park place. I'm telling you. There is no way in hell the T trains is going to replace the furmer 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line. The 8 trains is definitely gonna happen again on Thrid Avenue Elevated line I tell you that right now. Y'all already know that the Q T lines is definitely booked going to East Harlem after leaving 116 street making a left curve to East Harlem and west side. I definitely know they are definitely making enough room for the Thrid Avenue Elevated line to hit the elevated structures girldles trestles and under ground this time in Manhattan.
The T is definitely gonna wind up to East Harlem and west side across 125 street to connect to the 1 Broadway line. The brand new 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line will definitely hit south Bronx again connecting to the 2 5 trains at Gun Hill Rd and 149 street and then under ground at 140 street Thrid Avenue and south ferry or Battery park place. I'm telling you. There is no way in hell the T trains is going to replace the furmer 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line. The 8 trains is definitely gonna happen again on Thrid Avenue Elevated line I tell you that right now. Y'all already know that the Q T lines is definitely booked going to East Harlem after leaving 116 street making a left curve to East Harlem and west side. I definitely know they are definitely making enough room for the Thrid Avenue Elevated line to hit the elevated structures girldles trestles and under ground this time in Manhattan.
I love you for turning a shower thought into an actual video although it would be really cool to make one focused on national high speed rail or just non east corridor focused
I couldn't resist the fact that you included Philadelphia into your "fantasy". First, as you may have heard, Roosevelt Boulevard as a rapid transit corridor is again a possibility being discussed. It's being proposed as you suggested, though you have the station north of Cottman misnamed: it's "Rhawn-Holme". The new northern station is pronounced "ne-SHAM-in-nee" with accent in the 2nd sylllable. (I was on the Citizen's Advisory Committee on the 1995-2003 version of this proposal.) AFA your Market-Frankford proposal, for a branch line along 6th Street into South Philadelphia, I would suggest sending the Ridge Avenue line to the 6th Street corridor. In addition, a new tunnel for PATCO in Philadelphia should be built, going on Arch Street to the area of 30th Street Station, with its obvious connections...or potentially, using your proposal of a crosstown tunnel near the current Commuter Rail Tunnel in Center City. We'd get back the Locust Street Subway, extending that to a connection to your 22nd Street line, and going under the Schuylkill River to the University of Pennsylvania campus. At 33:35, the end of one of your branches is pronounced "CEE-dar-brook"...it's a shopping mall that's just over the City Line into Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County...it's not far from where I currently live. A Roxborough line has been proposed since 1913, though that line would have gone via 29th Street in North Philadelphia. There's a provision built into the Henry Avenue Bridge over Wissahickon Creek for a rapid transit line, so one of your ideas will finally use that line. Now, do you propose your 22nd Street line as a 2 track or 4-track line? Also, 22nd Street ends at Erie Avenue, so, to get to Cedarbrook Mall, you have to figure a way there from 22nd and Erie. AFA your Circle route, on the south end, the segment along Oregon Avenue might have to be elevated, due to the water table being near the surface, and there is also an old oil plume in the ground in the area near the Passyunk Avenue bridge. One more thing: your rapid transit extensions ignore Philadelphia International Airport (PHL). Some plans in the 1930s contemplated access to that area on two routes: one branching from the Broad Street Subway just north of the Snyder Avenue station, going SW on Passyunk Avenue into SW Philadelphia, following its path until it meets the current Airport RRD line to Island Avenue, where it would meet a line coming from the U of P area along Woodland Avenue to Island Avenue, then turning south on Island Avenue, meeting the Passyunk Avenue line, and reaching the PHL area. As in the Oregon Avenue section of the Circle line, the section on Island Avenue south of Buist Avenue would have to be on a combination of Elevated and ground ROW, due to the water table being close to the surface. If you want to talk more, I can be reached via e-mail at "michael_t_greene@yahoo.com". I can't wait to see what you may have in mind for Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Hey, I noticed that you didn’t add HSR to connect the North Eastern Megatropolis. High Speed Line connecting from Washington to Boston would be amazing.
i’m so excited for what you’re gonna say about miami!! its rail transit is in dire need of expansion, especially to miami beach, east-west through coral gables and little havana, and a corridor south to homestead
Nice plan for NYC, I'm from Floral Park, and let me tell you that the Hillside extension is not going to happen and will never happen because Floral Park will do anything in its power to reject this. Earlier in the summer of 2024, the MTA had plans to extend the Q110 to end in Floral Park in the MTA Queens Bus Map Redesign. Floral Park was STRONGLY against this plan to have MTA buses end in FP. Ultimately, the MTA took FP off the end of the Q110. So, knowing all this, the Hillside expansion will never happen or end in FP because I know the FP government will strongly oppose this plan and will do what they did with the 3rd rail and go to the State Government about this unless the MTA corporates with FP. Great video!
There is a proposal to continue the NFTA subway northbound in Buffalo, connecting the South and North UB campuses and stop along many walkable neighborhoods along the way. I think the proposed cost was $1.3B in 2019, so probably a few hundred million higher now due to post-pandemic inflation.
you shouldve said in the title that this was supposed to just be a north east list, got me all excited for intercity high speed rail and better chicago infrastructure😔
I love the way you added the Thrid Avenue Elevated line. The 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line could definitely start at Gun Hill Rd and Batincal gardens Frordam plaza and 149 street free transfers to the 2 5 trains and 138 street connecting to the 6 Pelham line and parkchester bound and Brooklyn Bridge bound 6 trains free transfers and use the esgalaters and elevators. At 140 street they could definitely dig under ground on Thrid Avenue to Battery park place or chatmam Square or south Ferry under ground. They don't ever have to worry about looking at there windows in Manhattan again except for the Boggie down south Bronx. I love you add the 6 Pelham line to co op city mall.
That is a COOL plan for NYC! That Northern Staten Island line was interesting too going underneath The Narrows and to St. George. I’m curious to see how you do LA! And also the Hampton Roads area of Virginia IF you get there.
Would definitely love to hear more about potential cities getting any transit at all! Can’t wait for future videos! Do think with this budget each year, you’d able to build an LRT, Metro, Regional Rail in every single city (500k+ tbh) :D
As for the Utica av line, the portal can be between crown st and Montgomery st as Utica av widens at that point, the cars will still have 2 lanes to drive thru on around it
This video is good, but it misses a lot of non-expansion stuff. PSDs/gates should be included in all rapid transit routes as well as CBTC(not just NY), as well as Metro North, LIRR, MBTA computer rail, NJ Transit, CT rail, MARC, and VRE electrification, service increases, high-level platforms, and expansions. Philly should also get accessibility. This video also misses any bus improvements.
Its really a shame neighborhoods like morris park are overlooked, as a resident I have to say that there is practically no transportation besides for bus rides to stations. Going to high school in brooklyn is really tough here, so I would suggest adding a S train route a new route connecting the center area of Morris Park (central in terms of business) of being around Hone ave to Colden ave on Morris Park ave or a new route connecting the same spot mentioned previously with E 180 st then following up to a new station on the ground preferably between 174st on the 2&5 line and Morrison-Soundview with the 6 train then connecting onto Hunts Point then 3 AV - 149st to 3 AV - 138st to 125st on the Lexington line then connecting to 135st or 110st Central Park to about 86th street to the upper part of Roosevelt Island and onto Queensboro Plaza to Queens Plaza to Court Square on the G train line then making stops accordingly to the Seneca av stop on the M Line the stop accordingly to Rockaway Blvd splitoff of the A train with connections to the J&Z lines and at the Court Square stop a new line/splitoff line of the new line reaching the upper half of the area between the E line and the LIRR underneath. Also a new 2nd line branching off the the first stops of the 1 or 4 train reaching the Morris Heights area and that 'coastline'ish area connecting to the 135st stop of the 1,2,3 line and continuing off from there. Coming for a true new yorker here.
Shame of it is transportation networks directly help the military too. The reason we even have highways and are a car centric society is because we saw how effective the Autobahn system was for the German military…
It'd be interesting to hear what we could do with what we spend on cars (including garaging, the cars themselves, maintenance, highways, parking etc.). Surely that would be more than the USA military budget!
At Lexington Av-51st, 4/5 should get express platforms. 2nd Av stop at 52nd creating a hub between 4,5,6,E,F and SAS, renamed East 52nd St. 4/5 riders can transfer to QBL local and express. Would help out 42nd and 59th a lot.
As a Bronx native who travels to Queens a lot, I don't think I even understand how much my life would change for the better if all of these NYC projects were built, holy mother of rail.
The first thing i can think of is fast tracking the Amtrak hudson tunnel. Get a million men to finish it in 2 years. The second is implementing a regional rail system that run separately from Amtrak. Prioritizing several cities. Charlotte to Atlanta, Nashville to Atlanta. These two routes could have high speed rail, which would be another company. Extend Amtrak from Nashville to Memphis. Jacksonville to New Orleans for Amtrak. Regional Rail from Nashville to Louisville. Create region rail for Chicago into St. Louis and Detroit. Create region rail in North Carolina using some Amtrak Infrastructure. But connect Fayetteville to Wilmington and Charlotte to Asheville. The Fayetteville line is completely cut off from the Raleigh line and this will help. Amtrak needs to go to Phoenix. Phoenix can be a branch for Albuquerque NM , Las Vegas and Denver. CTA needs a line from the Southside to the North Connecting every single parallel line. NYC Fix the Roger Junction. Extend the 2/5 to Avenue Z. Create an 8/9 line from Nevins Street underground station via Utica Avenue Extend the N/W to LaGuardia Airport. Create a Light Metro system using the Highway system. This will fulfill some of the lack of service in many area. It should operate under a different authority. Second Avenue extended to the Bronx. 3rd Avenue to Fordham Metro North and via Lafayette Avenue to Throggs Neck. Offer a Light Metro for 125th Street instead using Triborough right of way to LaGuardia Airport. Port Authority Bus Terminal North should be expanded. Possible Path to Paterson. Path World Trade Center with a branch to Paterson NJ.
what i think would be good for indianapolis: - convert the red line BRT into part subway, part elevated - elevated rail from airport to union station - revive regional rail system with connections to lawrence, fishers, carmel, warren park, avon, and greenwood - light rail connecting all eli lily facilities - subway from circle center to IUI and then elevated speedway - more that i cannot think off the top of my head
Amendment to the triboro express, the cross bronx portion should be further into the north. We can service the south west bronx with a separate rail project that will provide *actual service* from the south bronx into Astoria, which doesn’t exist yet
At least for projects like the Second Avenue Subway, the 90% cost savings makes sense. However, many people (like this channel) propose four tracks and dramatic, major trunk expansions. I also think that all new transit extensions, particularly Second Avenue should be built with moving block CBTC and platform screen doors. However, I think around 450 million per mile is more than reasonable for something like this. I would also try to build as much elevated as possible in the outer boroughs, particularly in high water table areas due to the fact that it is less expensive.
Extending Amtrak in Roanoke, VA to Bristol, VA while opening stations in Abington, Gates City, etc. Form there, extend from Bristol VA, to Johnson City, TN to Greeneville to Morristown, TN, to Knoxville, and stations in . And from Bristol, VA to Kingsport, TN and from Kingsport to Morristown. Johnson City to Kingsport. Knoxville to Nashville. Knoxville to Chattanooga, Chattanooga to Memphis. Stations opening up everywhere!!!
Probably my favorite video so far, just brilliant! < 3 06:48 (gotta ask, tho -> why no new regional tunnels? seems to me like they're at least as necessary as the ones you included in Bos/Phil)
@@moderatti not even in this optimistic scenario :_) ...then why not at least build central-penn + new penn stn empire connection>new stn downtown>atlantic ave?
This is quite possibly the best video on UA-cam. Question - why go through the hassle of rebuilding the eastern portion of the Jamaica line? It should still be feasible to build the South 4 street subway and connect the Utica, J, and M all there.
If it were to happen now they would have to put priorty on all Los Angeles projects because if the Olympics that is probably #1 priority if needing to prove that transportation deserves that budget. #2 priority High Speed Rail #3 other metro regions especially ones that desperately need upgrades
I will elevate all Light Rail lines across America and make underground sections for downtown areas. Or just use the skytrain model in Vancouver Canada. And automatic single car street running rail that encompasses the entire cities . You can have maybe 4/5 light Elevated Metro and a expansive street car system and still come out ahead. Philly has a good example of this right now. But they just don't have enough heavy rail lines. The Roosevelt Avenue lline is one line that could be built as a subway. But i proposed also more elevated rail for that city.
it is really unfortunate no other system in North America (other than the JFK airtrain) adopted skytrain system or vehicles. Automated light metro service is better than light rail, though guessing it’s almost the same for heavy rail costs so it’s infeasible. But at least Montreal and Honolulu has joined in the light metro service
I'm surprised there isn't a Bethesda-Tysons service in the DC proposal. Also, the Blue Line in Boston could be extended all the way west and provide express service to the Green Line, while Green Line service could branch more through Cambridge. For Philly, I think the RBS should be a separate line going to South Philly and the airport, PATCO should be expanded to the southwest, and the Broad-Ridge Spur a separate line extended to where your MFL branch is and continue to the northwest.
- hillside ave line to floral park is wild or any subway extension into nassau for that matter - hard to decide it should be elevated or underground for extension to gateway mall
For one, I think it'd be interesting to see what can be done for the most irredeemably car centric areas of the us. Looking at how people will actually be getting to and from stations could also be interesting. I mean, with that kinda budget, we might as well aim for 0% modal share for cars.
Philadelphia also has a proposal regarding the broad Street subway extension to the sports complexes in South Philly. Alan covered it in a different vid
For NJT thought the center city tunnels in philly, it would have to be electrified on all of those lines, or possibly just use ALP45 dual mode locomotives. Make sure to account for that!
For Southeast Queens, I am thinking, “Why not both?” The E can use the 1968 Plan for Action to head to Locus Manor, and the J can use the new alignment to 230th Street. Like to hear your thoughts on this.
Would be amazing to have a rail tunnel between grand central and penn. Then you could have single seat rides from anywhere in the tri-state region without having to change trains in manhattan or switch to subway to get to the other station.
I would have extended the L train *slightly* in Manhattan and curve it past 8th avenue to connect with the unused 10th avenue station on the 7 train and to cover a little bit of western Manhattan. Otherwise, no notes. This sounds like it would be amazing for NYC
Urban area Highways could be converted into light rail (which carries the equivalent of 9 lanes). Freight and passenger trams can be mixed. While rail maintenance may not be lower in cost than highway maintenance (I could not find info), the health benefits will be enormous. Very low speed limits on overcrowded highways can alleviate congestion if rail alternatives exist. In general, I'd argue that lower average speeds make everyone's lives better, and the urban fabric will densify and diversify. The money saved on the externalities of high speed and long distances can be spent to finance an uneconomic tram system even in low-density areas. Cute slow micro-trams, lots of local tramdriver jobs.
I don't think Metro-North Harlem Line needs any infill stations, but almost all of your other observations were spot-on! Also, I'd extend the north shore line of the SIRR across the bridge to NJ.
My god. I'm only about 9 minutes into the video, and the budget used so far is less than 4% and yet NYC has improved MASSIVELY already.
Yeah there's a reason e.g. China can afford to build HSR covering the entire country along with dozens of metro systems, other than the standardization which reduces costs, they actually spend money on infrastructure rather than war. There's a lot of hype about Chinese military build-up, but it's still at a tiny fraction of the US spending on the military, even as a fraction of GDP it's only HALF that of the US.
@@dijikstra8actually your on the wrong track. They are spending the money we bailed out banks with on trains, not their military budget.
But the U.S. like to keep things fair, why you think we handicap ourselves so many times
@@kylezdancewicz7346 Haha well we can argue about where the money is coming from, but the fact remains that none of that money is being spent on infrastructure in the US, instead being spent on bailing out the wealthy and on trying to subjugate the entire world under US dominance.
@Th3RealRyan we got that military industrial complex to help. But if we’ll spend trillions upon trillions on roads and car infrastructure why should we let what remaining public infrastructure rot.
@Th3RealRyan also technically it works because this is giving the military budget to transit for 1 year.
850....ANNUALLY. you can approve most of these projects with about 200 annually....
It also averages a yearly increase of about $70B-$125B a year, too. So uhh... yeah.
@Th3RealRyan you would get jobs from the work to improve the transit infrastructure and also induce new opportunities through improved mobility. So yea, no it wouldn't. Sit down.
@Th3RealRyan so one industry gains jobs as the other loses them. What is the problem? No one said the military is a parallel industry dingus. The point is it is explicitly irrelevant to literally everything such that you can take money from what it is doing and apply it freely for public good and the only argument is "bUh wUT abOOt duhhhh uhhhHHH aiRpLaNes??"
@Th3RealRyan the jobs would be transferred to the public infrastructure projects and ACTUALLY BENEFIT THE PUBLIC friggin dingus. The result of improved public infrastructure is increased productivity and induced demand. Because instead of money getting pissed away on an aircraft carrier it actually improves the community. You thought you were making a good counterpoint and you weren't. It was straight up dumb and a big problem in society is people saying dumb contrarian shit thinking it is smart because it advocates for the dumbass wasteful and destructive ways things are and have been done. Your comment was foolish and incorrect and should not be countenanced by anyone that seriously wants the world to be better. People that spout ignoramous talking points like your's need to be made to think twice or at all, or however many times is needed to realize they're wrong and keep quiet.
@Th3RealRyan you are though. Why would you assume a dollar spent pissed over an aircraft carrier produces fewer jobs than a dollar spent enhancing public infrastructure necessary for commerce and life in general? You thought you had some point but you didn't. Simply advocating for the current wasteful and destructive practices under the most vapid of talking points. Quite a silly position that should be made obvious to everyone until attitudes such as yours are no longer normalized.
Literally EVERYTHING
No not rly, there's the whole rest of the country
Somebody's a little too trusting of government oversight 😂
if they can build a big and powerful military they can build some rails
@@Unknown_Ooh Stop the bullshit. You'd rather trust your money to be used as it is right now (i.e. bombing children overseas, destabilizing foreign governments, etc), rather than entertain the slightest idea of improving your own quality of life? Says a lot about americans.
@@Unknown_Oohsomebody is too trusting of corporate oversight. The real problem here is government projects are carried out by contractors who half ass everything. The government is required to use these inferior profit driven entities which are not only a vector for corruption, but also low quality work.
Damn, this is honestly so sad. ALL of this for less than half of ONE YEAR'S military budget
Its not that bad tbh, all of this is highly optomistic because it assumes the US will finally break past its chronic addiction to contractors and bureaucracy. middle men have infested the system, and they will fight tooth and nail to stay there.
Wait till you find out how much we spend servicing the national debt.
@@lookoutforchris same in the uk. We have a budget deficit of £120bn a year.. we pay £116bn a year to pay INTEREST on debt. Although to be fair we’re still better than the US, because we still get free healthcare and an above 2% GDP a year on our nuclear armed military. The military industrial complex really has the US by the balls.
so glad that you´re making versions for other regions of the US bc i was about to get very disappointed to see nothing outside the northeast
To be fair most of the cities in the US that still resemble cities nowadays are in the northeast.
@@moosesandmeese969 ......what?
@@moosesandmeese969 what
@@moosesandmeese969The northeast IS the densest conurbation in the US, and has some of the very few remaining historic pre-automobile urban cores which are generally better suited to transit, but…what? The Great Lakes region, Texas Triangle, Cascades, Southeast the three megalopolises in California? Hello? There’s a MASSIVE gulf between “Biggest” and “Only,” and while the NEC is clearly the former, it’s a LOOONG way from the latter.
@@IONATVS Well I didn't say "only" I said "most" and you can clearly see that. It's just not even comparable, even the small towns are better. Dallas and Philadelphia have similar populations but the two couldn't be more different.
I find it unfair that the MBTA had to pay for debt of highway construction when they aren’t even using it
Stuperhighways----the greatest waste of ground-based transportation funding in the entire nation!
While this is unfair to mbta.
buses do run on the highway
So this wrong
@@idk-ol2itwhat buses are running on the highway?
@@jonl8816 one to waltham brighton watertown via 90 express buses run on highway
@@idk-ol2itassuming this is true and significant, buses should be allowed in the highway since funds are siphoned from MBTA to fund the highways.
Worthy of being repeated, the military budget is for a single year. Seems like a good trade. I'd suggest running the Yellow line to Burtonsville would be a better alternative instead of taking over the Glenmont segment.
Seems to me that since all of these projects would be built in phases or wouldnt all start at the same time, during at least 10 years it would be rather easy to reroute just like 10 or 15% of the military budget each year in order to fund them and still reach the goal of 850b
yeah maybe go to like 3 percent instead of 4 of gdp
@@vasquenI have a solution so we can keep or improve the effective military budget while giving to the transit budget. Get working on streamlining that bureaucracy. I mean every time the government requires anything built they have to put out a contract to the defense contractors. This includes stuff like usps too. Even a small cut down on bureaucracy would save lots of money to go to transit and other services
@@kylezdancewicz7346demilitarization is also the point
Glad you mentioned there would be other versions of this video focusing on different regions lol, I was about to call you out for northeast bias
same lol. i was about to say what about the rest of the country
Personally I'd create a national program of building automated light metro systems like the REM system in Montreal that has been financed and built by a P3 contractor deal. All trains are electric, powered by overhead wires, are automated and have strong HVAC systems to deal with cold and hot weather... These seem light years ahead of anything in the USA right now short of maybe the Honolulu starter line...
converting various light rail systems (dallas, seattle, houston, phoenix) to light metro alongside building entirely new systems in places like las vegas, nashville, tampa & oklahoma city would work wonders
don’t forget full height Platform Screen Doors too!
How about converting the existing subways and elevated metros to driverless automatic operation also?
@@EdwardM-t8p And throw MILLIONS of people out of work?! HELL to the NO!!
@@TheRandCrews More junk to go wrong....
As someone who is most familiar with Boston, out of these cities, here is what I would suggest. I definitely agree that the first thing should be repairing all the neglected issues and paying off the big dig debts.
However, after that, I would suggest that the North-South Rail Link should be built and the commuter rail would be electrified and turned into an S-Bahn system like Philadelphia's SEPTA after the frequency increases. This would also include all the things needed to turn a commuter rail network into an S-Bahn network, such as EMU trains, grade separation, station modernization, double tracking, and signal modernization, to name a few.
The D Branch of the Green Line (which is more like light rail) should be deinterlined from the rest of the green line (which is more like streetcar subway) and should take over the two new branches of the green line in Somervile. I prefer doing this with a tunnel from Lansdowne to South Station under the existing rail alignment then to North Station above the North South Rail Link. The remaining green line branches terminate at Haymarket.
With that, I suggest adding a light rail branch from Newton Highlands to Needham Junction, replacing the Needham Line on the commuter rail and having the Orange Line take over the other part of the branch to West Roxbury and maybe even Dedham Mall. This frees up capacity on Southwest Corridor for S-Bahn and better serves development in West Roxbury compared to tunneling under Washington St.
I would also suggest an automated light metro line (like Montreal REM) under Mass Ave from Harvard Square to JFK/UMass. This could also be extended to Watertown along the same route as the existing red line branch proposal. Another automated light metro line would replace the Washington St silver line from Tufts Medical Center to Nubian Station and it would be tunneled. This could later be extended under Warren St to Franklin Zoo.
Other extensions would be a blue line branch just west of Wood Island to take over the existing Silver Line route to Chelsea and then continuing to Everett, and the red line extension to Arlington Heights and the red blue connector. The silver line to the seaport should be converted to a branch of the green line (streetcar subway) from Boylston to Seaport. An interurban line would be built along the existing trail right of way from Malden Center to Lynn.
I don't think the A branch makes much sense given that it would have to run in mixed traffic due to the street being too narrow and instead the existing bus route should be improved.
not to mention extending the blue line up to lynn or salem, since the line is already pretty small, and could go up further north to connect with the denser cities of essex county mass and connect them into the downtown area of boston on the single rail line extension, along with the bus routes that connect up with lynn and salem mass, just an idea i feel like that got left out from the video
@@boston_and_maine There is already the newburyport/rockport commuter rail line that goes up there and the commuter rail is not short of issues itself, extending the commuter rail electrification project through all lines should give better service to those areas, a blue line extension to marblehead would be interesting though.
To anyone unaware, we could build a whole new interstate highway system every single year and still have roughly $230 billion left over.
The cost per mile to build bidirectional railroad tracks is roughly 2/3 that of a 4 lane split highway.
You’re forgetting the corruption in NY which would eat up billions upon billions.
I would build High Speed Rail everywhere it’s feasible first.
Then I would have Amtrak live up to its potential
Then I would implement a mobility master plan for every major US city. 3 major steps with a LOT of parts within
Cost for this is unknown
You need a HSR line through LI first and quad track the remaining 3 track segments in MD and MA.
@@transitcaptain we should also build a High Speed Rail that serves the entire East Coast from Maine to Florida. They would have stops at Every State with their respective Transit Agencies some states may have more than one stop and for an East Coast High Speed Rail we can have it stretch to Miami.
The Stops would be located at
Portland ME
Manchester NH
Boston MA
Providence RI
Bridgeport CT
Penn Station NY
Newark Penn Station NJ
Philadelphia PA
Baltimore MD
Washington DC
Richmond VA
Raleigh NC
Myrtle Beach SC
Charleston SC
Savannah GA
Jacksonville FL
Orlando FL
Miami FL
These Stops would ensure that the entire East coast gets served by a High Speed Rail which would be a better alternative for Flying local airlines.
@@Reformperson a few of these don't really make sense, everything south of raleigh and north of boston. the rest I pretty much agree with (though prefer routing through long island with a tunnel under the sound). Manchester and Portland are just too small and the route is too out of the way to really justify hsr, though there absolutely should be good regional rail connections or intercity connections. After Raleigh, going to myrtle beach misses huge population centers just so it can 'run along the coast'. Go to charlotte with a potential stop in the greater greensboro / winston-salem / high Point metro area, with a pretty significant metro population of 1.6 million. for comparison myrtle beach has under 400k people. charlotte itself has 2.8 million, so for a pretty small diversion you get 4 million more people. this has the added benefit of future interlining with a atlanta to charlotte coridoor. you then go south to columbia for another 900k people, and from there you can divert back to charleston for 800k, savannah for 400k, jacksonville for 1.6 mil, and orlando for 2.5 mil. I would not bother going any further south, and honestly orlando might be too far because brightline might reach jacksonville. Anyways, because the entire east coast of florida south of orlando is urbanized, building hsr there would be pretty challenging, and I think it would be better just to upgrade brightline to be more fast and frequent for a true higher speed rail connector. I also think the connection between columbia / charlotte and jacksonville is pretty weak and so connecting brightline with the extended north east coridoor just wouldn't be feasible.
anyways, below is a easier to read version of the changes I would make:
Boston MA
Providence RI
Bridgeport CT
Jamaica NY
...(other stop on long island)...
Penn Station NY
Newark Penn Station NJ
Philadelphia PA
Baltimore MD
Washington DC
Richmond VA
Raleigh NC
Greensboro NC
Charlotte NC
Columbia SC
...(onward to atlanta with a stop in augusta)...
brightline (not connected with above)
Jacksonville FL
Orlando FL
Miami FL
@@Reformpersonno it wouldn’t
Yeah, IIRC City Nerd had a vid on the 50ish North American city pairs with higher potential than a fairly successful Spanish HSR line (Madrid - Valencia IIRC), and with this kind of funding you could probably triple the number of city pairs that are feasible, adding Cascadia to the “obvious corridors” list and connecting the many smaller islands of service left at the end of that vid to each other to create a cohesive network.
I think we should use that money to make it so all metro statistical areas over 1 million have atleast 50 miles of heavy rail or light rail with its own right of way for smaller metro areas
give cities over 1 million heavy rail with LRT streetcars, give cities under some sort of lower-level LRT
@@ayeeeeeeee6240 I’m talking about metro areas over a million, not the cities over 1 million. Also I said give them heavy rail OR light rail, so the smaller cities probably would get light rail, but they should have their own right of way
Here's the projects I would give priority for a ridiculously high budget expansion of Chicago transit services, other than the obvious covering of the CTA's upcoming budget cliff:
*RAIL*
- Cicero crosstown (1990s proposal, already studied)
- Circle Line (2000s proposal, already studied)
- Red Line Extension (already almost in construction but a few extra tens of millions could fund a fair bit of extra TOD, which the project really needs)
- Brown Line extension to the Blue Line (potentially track improvements to allow Brown Line service all the way to the airport?)
- At least one of the lines in the Loop should be buried to reduce train congestion and rush hour station crowding. My vote goes to the Brown Line (because it's the highest ridership line that enters the Loop, and because if the subway section is built to a high train capacity the Purple Line can also be taken out of the Loop, leaving a much more reasonable 3 lines sharing the Loop tracks), but I can understand arguments for any of the other 3 lines too.
- Track and signalling upgrades system-wide (basically a more ambitious and system-wide Red Ahead project)
- All new projects built automated to reduce the already massive need for additional train operators; potential automation of the Red and/or Blue lines if the money is there and it can be done without too much service disruption
- Infill stations, most notably on the Pink, Orange, and Green lines, where there are some CRAZY gaps between stations.
- If the money is there, extra funding to the CTA's ongoing recruitment effort to be physically able to increase rail service back to at LEAST pre-COVID levels
- This is not counting any Metra projects, because I have no clue what I would want changed there, because I've only ever taken Metra once. But something definitely has to be done to increase Metra's connectivity to the CTA; they have 3 termini and none are connected to the El, it's ridiculous.
*BUS*
- Ashland BRT
- System-wide review of routes and service levels (the aim being to bring back the massive amount of routes and service that has been cancelled since the 90s and then in the wake of the 2008 crash)
- Full fleet electrification
- I guess if BRT can actually be built cheaply and to a high standard, some funds can go to studying potential BRT projects that the city itself can then implement fully on its own later.
- Again, extra funds to contribute to the CTA's ongoing effort to have more than 1 bus driver for the whole system. (this is an exaggeration but it is genuinely really bad they're trying but it takes a shitton of money and it only got worse when COVID hit)
The hope for the rail projects would be to build as much as possible elevated, since 1 - it's part of the existing character and culture of Chicago, and 2 - it keeps costs down; the majority of the Circle Line was supposed to be elevated, and if there wouldn't be too much outcry there's no reason the Crosstown couldn't be built elevated either, so I think this is relatively achievable.
Assuming significant portions of the financing for these projects would be coming from the city government, TIF districts, and debt, rather than purely federal spending, I think these could reasonably be accomplished within the bounds of a multi-hundred-billion-dollar transit expansion nationwide without representing an unfair prioritisation of Chicago. If we could get the suburbs on board, they could help finance some pretty big expansions for Metra and Pace too.
Definitely excited to see what you want to do with Chicago, since it's both the third largest city in the US and (by ridership) the third largest metro. WMATA should not be overtaking us in ridership when we are 3 times the size of DC.
I like your CTA plan a lot and I appreciate that you are looking to leverage improvements that have already been researched and validated. I live in the west side (West Town) close to a multi-line Metra that I use quite a bit and have thoughts about the system.
This is all armchair stuff so take it for what it’s worth:
- Increase Metra level of service. Off-peak times of an hour on weekdays and TWO HOURS on the weekend condemns Metra to being a one-shot to downtown service.
- All track that Metra uses they buy or build to have exclusive use. Decrease service interruptions and increase LOS
- Add Metra cross-line services. I remember a north-south line proposed about 20yo, but pretty far west. I’d propose a N-S line that would have an O’hare stop and link to job rich areas of the close west suburbs. The current line to O’hare LOS is miserable to the point of random.
- Make a big regional transportation plan. Metra and CTA ignore each other, victims of their history and lack of shared purpose. Stations shouldn’t be 10-20 minutes walks away from each, when they should be co-located. Amtrak, the airports, and IDOT should all be a part of it.
i just wanna say the level of research and knowledge that went into this video is incredible... i have a long way to go on my journey...
Im so hyped for a part 2
The only thing I would add for New York/New Jersey would be to expand regional rail more. Extend the LIRR from Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn to Manhattan all the way to Grand Central and Penn Station and through run the trains to Metro North. There should also be a regional rail connection to LaGuardia and JFK airport.
Exactly, no mention of PATH or PATCO, what gives?
@@bkark0935
It would probably help to bring them under one administration anyway
My man is blessing NYC 😂. In all seriousness though, these extensions in the city are sorely needed
With this kind of funding Atlanta could fully build out the beltline and expand marta. I can only dream
Rail to the battery? Fuck it, rail to Kennesaw
@@nujabraska only thing we’d have to tackle is Gwinnett and Cobb NIMBYs. I’d set my expectations low and have rail expanded into Clayton and further in Fulton and dekalb
So, for the future Pacific section, here's a few suggestions from me based on places I've been to or have some familiarity with.
San Diego - reroute the Orange Line trolley from its current sad little terminus before Courthouse up to Balboa Park on Park Ave. Replace some of the parking at the zoo with a station and more park attractions. Continue up through North Park, connect to the Green Line in Mission Valley, and then keep going north to Mesa College.
LA - give the Metrolink Rancho Cucamonga line the Caltrain treatment. Electrify, straighten, multitrack. Allows for a potential one-seat ride from LA Union to Vegas in the future. Potentially also extend the A Line to Rancho Cucamonga, for redundancy and a two-seat ride from Long Beach to Vegas.
Bay - Finish the BART Santa Clara extension. Build the Geary Ave Subway to the Golden Gate Bridge to connect to Marin and SMART (this could be either a BART or MUNI branch line, but preferably BART). Build a BART connection to Vallejo: this could either take the form of a branch from Walnut Creek up to Martinez, then over the Benicia Bridge, or extending the Richmond spur north to Port Costa and over the Carquinez Bridge. Replace the stupid eBART with regular BART. Finish the Caltrain extension to Salesforce Tower, then electrify the Capitol Corridor and run a standard gauge tunnel under the Bay, thus allowing Caltrain and future CAHSR to connect directly from SF to Sacramento. Extend the electrified Capitol Corridor down to Santa Cruz.
Statewide - build CAHSR.
Region-wide - build PNWHSR and then connect it to CAHSR, allowing for high-speed rail all the way from Vancouver to San Diego.
Seattle's Eastside could really do with connecting the loop around Lake Washington by confirming and building the proposed Brown Line as well as the Green Line extension to Woodinville. If budget only allows one line to be done, it should be the Brown Line, so that I-405 can finally catch a break.
Also build the High Desert Corridor connector to connect Brightline West and CAHSR, connect SD across the border to Tiajuana, send a line out from LA to Phoenix AZ via the coachella valley, remove the stupid grade crossings on the CAHSR’s Anaheim spur, and generally fully fund and accelerate all the LA Measure M transit project plans, and make Orange County actually participate in transit…at all.
@@IONATVS Agree with all, but I did also mention the Rancho Cucamonga line specifically because then Brightline West could extend there. I'd personally rather have the two projects connect at LA Union than with a third weird project in the high desert, just seems overall more efficient.
And yeah I would be so stoked if CAHSR extended south to Tijuana too, especially if it also connected up to Cascadia HSR and made it possible to ride a single train from Canada to Mexico. Unlikely to ever happen, but would be sick.
More for bay:
Build the second transbay tube to support both conventional rail and bart, extending Amtrak service into downtown SF and overcoming the transbay bottleneck for the BART Geary st extension . Perhaps bring Caltrain to Oakland Jack London too
Branch the geary st subway South to SFSU and Daly city
Perhaps extend the new BART lines through more of Oakland along 580
Build the Dumbarton rail link and extend Caltrain service to Union City.
Actually extend BART to Livermore instead of building Valley Link
Extend the central subway to Park Presidio
Build some form of light rail for East bay
expand VTA for San Jose.
Build more BART infill stations (30th St mission, San Antonio)
Portland: proposed SW line, tunnels under downtown for the Max, something to connect to St. John's and Vancouver WA
Please release the next episode I’ve been waiting for time
When you do the south you HAVE to expand Charlotte's light rail system!
I can give a rundown but there is a red line that is already approved. New lines would be the Silver line from the airport through the east and I'd recommend a line going from downtown to over near matthews or similar areas.
I lived by Charlotte in the past and have always wanted the metro to grow there
I can't wait for the Anchorage to Panama HSR line idea 😅
The biggest waste of taxpayer dollars is the over-bloated, oversized military that isn't even as effective as it could and should be... Even just diverting a small chunk of that towards sustainable transit and affordable housing would go a long way in fixing many of America's underlying and chronic issues...
Nah, just defund the Media and Scientology and abolish Scientology and use those funds towards this projects.
The "biggest"?! Not compared to the quadrillions of dollars presently wasted on stuperhighways and air travel, both modes which can stand to give up at least half of their governmental oversubsidization....
Cutting $50 billion per year from the military could be done while still keeping global supremacy, plus $30 billion (out of ~60) from federal highway budget.
80 billion per year at basically no cost
@@BoredSquirell Also, let’s not forget about the AIRLINES guzzling billions of dollars in oversubsidization annually….
They could also stand to have a huge chunk of THEIR budget cut; the treatment they give their passengers is worse than them being inmates aboard a county jail bus!
@@BoredSquirell no the funds should be cut from the media instead.
For the Harlem line infill stations, the stop spacing is already incredibly short; 149th st would totally make sense, but the stops between Tremont and Melrose could be consolidated into one with platform extensions for Melrose and Tremont.
180th?
@@qjtvaddict It's commuter light rail, not a subway. Stops every 30 blocks are too close together.
@@marcosharko9590 It's supposed to be more like rapid transit than commuter rail, a replacement in other words for the 8 train (which had far too many stations about three blocks apart). The Harlem line above Fordham has the same close stations it always had. The exact location of stations is a judgment call, but I think there should be at least one between Tremont and Melrose and another one between Tremont and Fordham.
I would have liked for you to have mentioned funding for military members to be educated on rail construction and to maintain these new systems so that these people can get jobs after the military budget vanishes.
Great video, would love to see a video focused on us out west…LA, SF, PDX, Seattle, Phx, salt lake, Vegas etc….
There's only a couple of things I would add:
The first thing I would add is a Mass. Avenue Subway which would be an alternate route tunnel for the Red Line in Boston which would run from JFK/UMass station to Harvard Square station. An alternate route is necessary because the main subway through downtown Boston had its own version of DC's Orange Crush before Covid. It would run across Back Bay and have stops at Edward Everett Square, Boston University Medical Center, Washington Street (Purple Line), Massachusetts Avenue / Symphony (Orange and -Green- Silver Lines), Hines (Silver and Green Lines), MIT, Central, and Harvard. Where the existing Red Line Subway enters Massachusetts Avenue the new subway would dodge one block over, and with flying junctions, each subway could run one-way until Harvard Square where the Arlington Heights and Watertown Branches diverge.
The second thing I would add is a further extension of the Arlington Heights Branch to the Mass. Highway Department office at 519 Appleton Street at Route 2 and the Lexington town line and build the branch's terminal there. That would ensure that Arlington Heights, which is a reasonably dense neighborhood, won't drown in traffic and parked cars of commuters seeking a park and ride trip into town because they'll have direct access off the Route 2 expressway instead.
IMO you should have started with nationalization of all four Class I freight railroads. A very rough estimate to purchase them outright would be $300 Billion. This would immediately improve Amtrak, CA HSR, and every transit line that lies on or adjacent to a freight railroad RoW. Of course, there would be many other benefits as well, including a general improvement in service and a huge reduction in future construction costs for transit projects near freight RoWs. You could then spend many more billions to electrify everything, which would pay itself off in a decade or two. The best thing about this is that the railroads would actually be self-sustaining and would not require taxpayer funding in the future.
That would still leave hundreds of billions of dollars for local transit. Frankly, doing all of these projects at the same time would get difficult. You’ll run out of experienced construction workers in NYC to build everything. Better to spread out construction geographically by electrifying all of the freight railroads in rural areas.
Incredible work! Being from the Philadelphia suburbs, I would like to add one or two lines. I would add/upgrade the Morrisville freight line stretching from the NJ Transit yard in Morrisville, PA in the east, all the way to King of Prussia, making a tunnel loop there to connect the mall (one of the biggest malls in America), Children’s Hospital, and the casino, possibly with a transfer station for the Reading Line that passes just north of King of Prussia at near Valley Forge. I would extend the line down to where the Morrisville line merges with the Thorndale line at Frazer, and then (although a logistical nightmare) resurrect the Frazer line at Immaculata University leading back down to connect to West Chester from the north, which would connect to the West Chester Line back to Philadelphia. This would give the whole of the northern and much of the western suburbs direct access to Trenton in NJ, where they could transfer onto either NJ Transit or Amtrak straight to NYC. This cross metro line could also have transfer stations where it intersects many of the regional rail lines, making transfers possible without going all the way down to Glenside, Jenkintown, or Center City at 30th Street or Jefferson.
If we’re doing fantasy… I’d like to see L to Secaucus through Hoboken, 7 through Hoboken to Jersey City (and maybe onward to Newark or south Jersey City), the 6 connected to the PATH tunnels running to Newark Penn and Newark Liberty, and the C going to Fort Lee over GWB. And replace most bus lines in NYC with central street, signal priority having, protected lane tramways.
Also throw in a modern automated metro from Fort Lee to Staten Island to replace the hudson bergen LR, with connections to the other lines heading into Jersey.
Coming from the DC region, the yellow line idea is great. But I would build the silver line extension under DC further north to provide more east-west connectivity up north which is much needed. I would also skip out on the southern loop line idea and instead extend the purple line in a light elevated metro kind of way west to Tysons, and build a somehow fit a metro line towards Columbia Pike.
I went to school in New Haven, and live nearby now. It's waking distance from Union Station to the Green/Yale, even shorter from State Street Station. If we are spending Pentagon sized money, build a tunnel under the harbor to straighten the NEC. Were it not now a trail, I would say rebuild the Farmington Canal Line now that there's a lot of development along it. I would be commuter rail from Plainville to New Haven. Or build a spur from the NEC to Tweed airport.
* NYC: Full Second Avenue Line (plus crosstown 125th Street Line), IBX, Utica Avenue Line, Queenslink, A Line west on Fordham Road to Coop City, 6 line to Coop City, likely 1 or 2 new lines in Queens;
* LA: D Line to Santa Monica, full build-out of Measure R/M plans, new lines on Venice Blvd, Southeast Gateway Line north from Union Station, etc.
* Chicago: crosstown line; new east-west line that runs underground beneath the Loop to serve the most eastern downtown neighborhoods
* Boston: North-South Rail Link, Blue Line can be extended to replace one of the Green Line routes
* Miami: tons of expansion (ex. Miami Beach, FIU, Hard Rock Stadium)
* Detroit: new subway network of 2 or 3 lines
* Seattle: remove all at-grade LRT and convert the whole network to light metro
* Portland: LRT tunnel in downtown to speed up travel
* San Fran: 2nd BART Tunnel + new regional rail tunnel; subway on Geary; more MUNI grade separation
* Houston: LRT, not BRT, on University Corridor; Purple/Green Line south to Hobby Airport and west to Northwest Mall (will be terminus of Texas Central Railway)
* Dallas: D2 subway
* Washington DC: Blue Line Loop, new line to serve northern DC neighborhoods
* Phoenix: new LRT lines; downtown LRT subway
* San Diego: Purple Line, airport LRT line, downtown subway
* Philly: Roosevelt Blvd line; new diagonal subway lines; extension to Navy Yard, PATCO to University City
* PATH: JFK Blvd line in Jersey City; extension to Brooklyn's Atlantic Terminal from WTC
* Atlanta: new diagonal lines to serve new neighborhoods; Clifton Corridor LRT; extension to Cobb County
Absolutely NOTHING should be built along 125th street; a very nasty active fault line exists along that corridor! The 2nd avenue line should instead be extended into the Bronx, to eventually connect with the extended D train at Co-op City, as it will be extended from Norwood....
@@gevans446 absolutely all this would be done let’s start what can be done with NYC, which include an extension from Metropolitan Ave to Marathom Pkwy taking over the Hoarce Harding Line. This would be served by a deinterlined A line which would displace the M on Culver to the new Ft Hamilton Line to Staten Island which would allow the M to run along Forest Ave to Arlington South Ave. the nest new Line would be the Northern Blvd Line which would allow the line to be a relief line for the 7 and with that the new Subway would take over service from the expanded 7 to Bayside Bell Blvd, and an east to west connection along Nothern Blvd would be served by an extended Astoria Line, serving LGA along the way.
Now let’s discuss PATH, we should also extend it past Newark to Arlington South Ave to connect with M Trains there and also Staten Islanders can also get to Newark Airport by just using the train.
With NJT we should focus on decongesting the Lincoln tunnel by adding another terminal at Eltingville Transit Center, as we can send south Jersey lines to Eltingville such as the 319, along with expanded services from hourly trains to trains running every 30 minutes.
Last but not least we will discuss MDT which includes a light rail to replace the 38 max bus line, and with that we can increase bus service in Miami on other routes with a Light Rail line that runs to Florida City from the Dadeland South Station. As for a line for Miami we will have a new Red Line run to Miami Beach to the Hard Rock Stadium.
AFA Los Angeles, a subway on Vermont Avenue is a logical idea, especially if you've ever seen the bus routes that serve Vermont Avenue. While the B line serves the segment of Vermont Avenue north of Wilshire Boulevard, to the south of Wilshire is the segment that SCREAMS for a subway. It might go as far south as the C line light rail (formerly the Green Line) along the Century Freeway. Some of the L.A. locals might suggest another southern destination for a Vermont Avenue line. (AFA my Philly suggestions, I've got a long comment here already.)
The T is definitely gonna wind up to East Harlem and west side across 125 street to connect to the 1 Broadway line. The brand new 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line will definitely hit south Bronx again connecting to the 2 5 trains at Gun Hill Rd and 149 street and then under ground at 140 street Thrid Avenue and south ferry or Battery park place. I'm telling you. There is no way in hell the T trains is going to replace the furmer 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line. The 8 trains is definitely gonna happen again on Thrid Avenue Elevated line I tell you that right now. Y'all already know that the Q T lines is definitely booked going to East Harlem after leaving 116 street making a left curve to East Harlem and west side. I definitely know they are definitely making enough room for the Thrid Avenue Elevated line to hit the elevated structures girldles trestles and under ground this time in Manhattan.
The T is definitely gonna wind up to East Harlem and west side across 125 street to connect to the 1 Broadway line. The brand new 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line will definitely hit south Bronx again connecting to the 2 5 trains at Gun Hill Rd and 149 street and then under ground at 140 street Thrid Avenue and south ferry or Battery park place. I'm telling you. There is no way in hell the T trains is going to replace the furmer 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line. The 8 trains is definitely gonna happen again on Thrid Avenue Elevated line I tell you that right now. Y'all already know that the Q T lines is definitely booked going to East Harlem after leaving 116 street making a left curve to East Harlem and west side. I definitely know they are definitely making enough room for the Thrid Avenue Elevated line to hit the elevated structures girldles trestles and under ground this time in Manhattan.
I haven't started the video yet but remember that the interstate highway system is also partly made for military purpose.
Bring back the 23 and 56 streetcar lines in Philadelphia.
No need BRT the 56 and increase regional rail service to 10 min frequency on the chestnut hill lines via short turns
I love you for turning a shower thought into an actual video although it would be really cool to make one focused on national high speed rail or just non east corridor focused
It will come eventually. I only spent 36 percent of the military budget so far.
@@jointransitassociation🤣
Great video! I’m excited to see what you would spend for Denver’s transit!
I couldn't resist the fact that you included Philadelphia into your "fantasy". First, as you may have heard, Roosevelt Boulevard as a rapid transit corridor is again a possibility being discussed. It's being proposed as you suggested, though you have the station north of Cottman misnamed: it's "Rhawn-Holme". The new northern station is pronounced "ne-SHAM-in-nee" with accent in the 2nd sylllable. (I was on the Citizen's Advisory Committee on the 1995-2003 version of this proposal.) AFA your Market-Frankford proposal, for a branch line along 6th Street into South Philadelphia, I would suggest sending the Ridge Avenue line to the 6th Street corridor. In addition, a new tunnel for PATCO in Philadelphia should be built, going on Arch Street to the area of 30th Street Station, with its obvious connections...or potentially, using your proposal of a crosstown tunnel near the current Commuter Rail Tunnel in Center City. We'd get back the Locust Street Subway, extending that to a connection to your 22nd Street line, and going under the Schuylkill River to the University of Pennsylvania campus. At 33:35, the end of one of your branches is pronounced "CEE-dar-brook"...it's a shopping mall that's just over the City Line into Cheltenham Township, Montgomery County...it's not far from where I currently live. A Roxborough line has been proposed since 1913, though that line would have gone via 29th Street in North Philadelphia. There's a provision built into the Henry Avenue Bridge over Wissahickon Creek for a rapid transit line, so one of your ideas will finally use that line. Now, do you propose your 22nd Street line as a 2 track or 4-track line? Also, 22nd Street ends at Erie Avenue, so, to get to Cedarbrook Mall, you have to figure a way there from 22nd and Erie. AFA your Circle route, on the south end, the segment along Oregon Avenue might have to be elevated, due to the water table being near the surface, and there is also an old oil plume in the ground in the area near the Passyunk Avenue bridge. One more thing: your rapid transit extensions ignore Philadelphia International Airport (PHL). Some plans in the 1930s contemplated access to that area on two routes: one branching from the Broad Street Subway just north of the Snyder Avenue station, going SW on Passyunk Avenue into SW Philadelphia, following its path until it meets the current Airport RRD line to Island Avenue, where it would meet a line coming from the U of P area along Woodland Avenue to Island Avenue, then turning south on Island Avenue, meeting the Passyunk Avenue line, and reaching the PHL area. As in the Oregon Avenue section of the Circle line, the section on Island Avenue south of Buist Avenue would have to be on a combination of Elevated and ground ROW, due to the water table being close to the surface. If you want to talk more, I can be reached via e-mail at "michael_t_greene@yahoo.com". I can't wait to see what you may have in mind for Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Honestly one of the best videos ive watched recently
Hey, I noticed that you didn’t add HSR to connect the North Eastern Megatropolis. High Speed Line connecting from Washington to Boston would be amazing.
i’m so excited for what you’re gonna say about miami!! its rail transit is in dire need of expansion, especially to miami beach, east-west through coral gables and little havana, and a corridor south to homestead
Nice plan for NYC, I'm from Floral Park, and let me tell you that the Hillside extension is not going to happen and will never happen because Floral Park will do anything in its power to reject this. Earlier in the summer of 2024, the MTA had plans to extend the Q110 to end in Floral Park in the MTA Queens Bus Map Redesign. Floral Park was STRONGLY against this plan to have MTA buses end in FP. Ultimately, the MTA took FP off the end of the Q110. So, knowing all this, the Hillside expansion will never happen or end in FP because I know the FP government will strongly oppose this plan and will do what they did with the 3rd rail and go to the State Government about this unless the MTA corporates with FP. Great video!
Please do a second post I love it 🙏
Lived in the Northeast my entire life. Yes to all of these!
please share this video around this is absolutely wild
There is a proposal to continue the NFTA subway northbound in Buffalo, connecting the South and North UB campuses and stop along many walkable neighborhoods along the way. I think the proposed cost was $1.3B in 2019, so probably a few hundred million higher now due to post-pandemic inflation.
This is an interesting video! please make more of this but for other cities like Los angeles, houston, chicago, etc
Awesome video, cant wait for the Midwest video
no chicago💀
@elrev_ctsos No -Bitches- West Coast?
you shouldve said in the title that this was supposed to just be a north east list, got me all excited for intercity high speed rail and better chicago infrastructure😔
Nah legit was wondering where the west coast love like LA Metro subway proposals
@@TheRandCrews and maybe one day seattle gets something better than their barely existent monorail 🙏
@@elritefr😭😭 I was hoping for more L lines and high speed rail
I love the way you added the Thrid Avenue Elevated line. The 8 Thrid Ave Elevated line could definitely start at Gun Hill Rd and Batincal gardens Frordam plaza and 149 street free transfers to the 2 5 trains and 138 street connecting to the 6 Pelham line and parkchester bound and Brooklyn Bridge bound 6 trains free transfers and use the esgalaters and elevators. At 140 street they could definitely dig under ground on Thrid Avenue to Battery park place or chatmam Square or south Ferry under ground. They don't ever have to worry about looking at there windows in Manhattan again except for the Boggie down south Bronx. I love you add the 6 Pelham line to co op city mall.
I was in Florida 15 years ago. They were tearing up old rail and giving away the land piecemeal in the suburbs. Crazy AF.
I think it'll be really interesting to see what u do to the twin cities!!
I wish all of these projects would happen
That is a COOL plan for NYC! That Northern Staten Island line was interesting too going underneath The Narrows and to St. George. I’m curious to see how you do LA! And also the Hampton Roads area of Virginia IF you get there.
Would definitely love to hear more about potential cities getting any transit at all! Can’t wait for future videos!
Do think with this budget each year, you’d able to build an LRT, Metro, Regional Rail in every single city (500k+ tbh) :D
As for the Utica av line, the portal can be between crown st and Montgomery st as Utica av widens at that point, the cars will still have 2 lanes to drive thru on around it
This video is good, but it misses a lot of non-expansion stuff. PSDs/gates should be included in all rapid transit routes as well as CBTC(not just NY), as well as Metro North, LIRR, MBTA computer rail, NJ Transit, CT rail, MARC, and VRE electrification, service increases, high-level platforms, and expansions. Philly should also get accessibility. This video also misses any bus improvements.
Its really a shame neighborhoods like morris park are overlooked, as a resident I have to say that there is practically no transportation besides for bus rides to stations. Going to high school in brooklyn is really tough here, so I would suggest adding a S train route a new route connecting the center area of Morris Park (central in terms of business) of being around Hone ave to Colden ave on Morris Park ave or a new route connecting the same spot mentioned previously with E 180 st then following up to a new station on the ground preferably between 174st on the 2&5 line and Morrison-Soundview with the 6 train then connecting onto Hunts Point then 3 AV - 149st to 3 AV - 138st to 125st on the Lexington line then connecting to 135st or 110st Central Park to about 86th street to the upper part of Roosevelt Island and onto Queensboro Plaza to Queens Plaza to Court Square on the G train line then making stops accordingly to the Seneca av stop on the M Line the stop accordingly to Rockaway Blvd splitoff of the A train with connections to the J&Z lines and at the Court Square stop a new line/splitoff line of the new line reaching the upper half of the area between the E line and the LIRR underneath. Also a new 2nd line branching off the the first stops of the 1 or 4 train reaching the Morris Heights area and that 'coastline'ish area connecting to the 135st stop of the 1,2,3 line and continuing off from there. Coming for a true new yorker here.
Shame of it is transportation networks directly help the military too. The reason we even have highways and are a car centric society is because we saw how effective the Autobahn system was for the German military…
Glad you didn't forget adding a new Staten Island subway connected to BKN
Please make the separate video about how to build cost effective and in budget metro or subway system in us
Please include California /Nevada with the pacific northwest video!
I'm super excited for the upcoming videos! Keep up the good work! A follow up would be cool too
It'd be interesting to hear what we could do with what we spend on cars (including garaging, the cars themselves, maintenance, highways, parking etc.). Surely that would be more than the USA military budget!
At Lexington Av-51st, 4/5 should get express platforms. 2nd Av stop at 52nd creating a hub between 4,5,6,E,F and SAS, renamed East 52nd St. 4/5 riders can transfer to QBL local and express. Would help out 42nd and 59th a lot.
As a Bronx native who travels to Queens a lot, I don't think I even understand how much my life would change for the better if all of these NYC projects were built, holy mother of rail.
The first thing i can think of is fast tracking the Amtrak hudson tunnel. Get a million men to finish it in 2 years.
The second is implementing a regional rail system that run separately from Amtrak. Prioritizing several cities. Charlotte to Atlanta, Nashville to Atlanta. These two routes could have high speed rail, which would be another company. Extend Amtrak from Nashville to Memphis.
Jacksonville to New Orleans for Amtrak. Regional Rail from Nashville to Louisville.
Create region rail for Chicago into St. Louis and Detroit.
Create region rail in North Carolina using some Amtrak Infrastructure. But connect Fayetteville to Wilmington and Charlotte to Asheville.
The Fayetteville line is completely cut off from the Raleigh line and this will help.
Amtrak needs to go to Phoenix. Phoenix can be a branch for Albuquerque NM , Las Vegas and Denver.
CTA needs a line from the Southside to the North Connecting every single parallel line.
NYC Fix the Roger Junction. Extend the 2/5 to Avenue Z.
Create an 8/9 line from Nevins Street underground station via Utica Avenue
Extend the N/W to LaGuardia Airport.
Create a Light Metro system using the Highway system. This will fulfill some of the lack of service in many area. It should operate under a different authority.
Second Avenue extended to the Bronx. 3rd Avenue to Fordham Metro North and via Lafayette Avenue to Throggs Neck.
Offer a Light Metro for 125th Street instead using Triborough right of way to LaGuardia Airport.
Port Authority Bus Terminal North should be expanded. Possible Path to Paterson. Path World Trade Center with a branch to Paterson NJ.
And Transit actually generates economic growth, and pays for itself in part with fares.
Triple the military budget
what i think would be good for indianapolis:
- convert the red line BRT into part subway, part elevated
- elevated rail from airport to union station
- revive regional rail system with connections to lawrence, fishers, carmel, warren park, avon, and greenwood
- light rail connecting all eli lily facilities
- subway from circle center to IUI and then elevated speedway
- more that i cannot think off the top of my head
Amendment to the triboro express, the cross bronx portion should be further into the north. We can service the south west bronx with a separate rail project that will provide *actual service* from the south bronx into Astoria, which doesn’t exist yet
At least for projects like the Second Avenue Subway, the 90% cost savings makes sense. However, many people (like this channel) propose four tracks and dramatic, major trunk expansions. I also think that all new transit extensions, particularly Second Avenue should be built with moving block CBTC and platform screen doors. However, I think around 450 million per mile is more than reasonable for something like this. I would also try to build as much elevated as possible in the outer boroughs, particularly in high water table areas due to the fact that it is less expensive.
Continue this series!!
Extending Amtrak in Roanoke, VA to Bristol, VA while opening stations in Abington, Gates City, etc. Form there, extend from Bristol VA, to Johnson City, TN to Greeneville to Morristown, TN, to Knoxville, and stations in . And from Bristol, VA to Kingsport, TN and from Kingsport to Morristown. Johnson City to Kingsport. Knoxville to Nashville. Knoxville to Chattanooga, Chattanooga to Memphis. Stations opening up everywhere!!!
Love the Albany LRT but if you’re gonna go to downtown, just cross the Hudson and connect it to the Amtrak station. 8th busiest in the nation.
In NYC, don't forget the boring stuff. A comprehensive overhaul and modernization of the signaling and control systems systemwide.
Probably my favorite video so far, just brilliant! < 3
06:48 (gotta ask, tho -> why no new regional tunnels?
seems to me like they're at least as necessary
as the ones you included in Bos/Phil)
They don’t think that NJ can be reasoned with. (Seriously)
@@moderatti
not even in this optimistic scenario :_)
...then why not at least build central-penn
+
new penn stn empire connection>new stn downtown>atlantic ave?
This is quite possibly the best video on UA-cam.
Question - why go through the hassle of rebuilding the eastern portion of the Jamaica line? It should still be feasible to build the South 4 street subway and connect the Utica, J, and M all there.
If it were to happen now they would have to put priorty on all Los Angeles projects because if the Olympics that is probably #1 priority if needing to prove that transportation deserves that budget.
#2 priority High Speed Rail
#3 other metro regions especially ones that desperately need upgrades
I will elevate all Light Rail lines across America and make underground sections for downtown areas. Or just use the skytrain model in Vancouver Canada.
And automatic single car street running rail that encompasses the entire cities .
You can have maybe 4/5 light Elevated Metro and a expansive street car system and still come out ahead.
Philly has a good example of this right now. But they just don't have enough heavy rail lines.
The Roosevelt Avenue lline is one line that could be built as a subway.
But i proposed also more elevated rail for that city.
it is really unfortunate no other system in North America (other than the JFK airtrain) adopted skytrain system or vehicles. Automated light metro service is better than light rail, though guessing it’s almost the same for heavy rail costs so it’s infeasible. But at least Montreal and Honolulu has joined in the light metro service
I'm surprised there isn't a Bethesda-Tysons service in the DC proposal.
Also, the Blue Line in Boston could be extended all the way west and provide express service to the Green Line, while Green Line service could branch more through Cambridge.
For Philly, I think the RBS should be a separate line going to South Philly and the airport, PATCO should be expanded to the southwest, and the Broad-Ridge Spur a separate line extended to where your MFL branch is and continue to the northwest.
You didn't cover any NJ side transit into NYC... (unless it is much later into the video?)
path extension to new york penn and newark airport
I have different ideas for what I would do with the subway, but we will always have different opinions and I’ve stopped bothering to argue them
- hillside ave line to floral park is wild or any subway extension into nassau for that matter
- hard to decide it should be elevated or underground for extension to gateway mall
Septa could sure use a share of that budget as soon as possible. Both service cuts and a strike are threatening the Philadelphia region.
For one, I think it'd be interesting to see what can be done for the most irredeemably car centric areas of the us. Looking at how people will actually be getting to and from stations could also be interesting. I mean, with that kinda budget, we might as well aim for 0% modal share for cars.
Philadelphia also has a proposal regarding the broad Street subway extension to the sports complexes in South Philly. Alan covered it in a different vid
For NJT thought the center city tunnels in philly, it would have to be electrified on all of those lines, or possibly just use ALP45 dual mode locomotives. Make sure to account for that!
For Southeast Queens, I am thinking, “Why not both?” The E can use the 1968 Plan for Action to head to Locus Manor, and the J can use the new alignment to 230th Street.
Like to hear your thoughts on this.
Looking at the budget's per year makes more sense. To have an in house employee construction firm there needs to be long term viability.
Would be amazing to have a rail tunnel between grand central and penn. Then you could have single seat rides from anywhere in the tri-state region without having to change trains in manhattan or switch to subway to get to the other station.
The T is actually on a year long track improvement program under Phil Eng 22:56
I think an south to east subway line in Baltimore and also rapid transit between Baltimore and DC to decrease traffic would be a good proposal
I would have extended the L train *slightly* in Manhattan and curve it past 8th avenue to connect with the unused 10th avenue station on the 7 train and to cover a little bit of western Manhattan. Otherwise, no notes. This sounds like it would be amazing for NYC
Good work, keep it up!
Urban area Highways could be converted into light rail (which carries the equivalent of 9 lanes). Freight and passenger trams can be mixed. While rail maintenance may not be lower in cost than highway maintenance (I could not find info), the health benefits will be enormous.
Very low speed limits on overcrowded highways can alleviate congestion if rail alternatives exist. In general, I'd argue that lower average speeds make everyone's lives better, and the urban fabric will densify and diversify. The money saved on the externalities of high speed and long distances can be spent to finance an uneconomic tram system even in low-density areas. Cute slow micro-trams, lots of local tramdriver jobs.
You should do this with Intercity and regional rail. Amtrak and other commuter railroad.
With Travel times and average speeds.
Include Buffalo in your Midwest video! It has a larger transit history and proposals lying around currently and tons of right-of-ways.
I don't think Metro-North Harlem Line needs any infill stations, but almost all of your other observations were spot-on! Also, I'd extend the north shore line of the SIRR across the bridge to NJ.
god bless you. this is a great video