Are Elevated or Underground Metro Systems Better?
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
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Chicago is one of the only cities in the world with elevated metro lines running through downtown. Why is that? Are underground lines better than above ground?
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www.mylondon.n... because most of it,actually runs above the Overground
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australasiantr...
www.thestar.co... transit is generally considered,It also avoids traffic delays
ny.curbed.com/...
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Written by Dave Amos.
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Black Lives Matter.
Trans rights.
As a rider, I prefer trains with a view. As a resident, I’d prefer they be underground due to the noise. There are pros and cons to each, but I’d rather have rail transit than none, so whatever gets built and used is fine with me.
Yeah; this is where having a network of two halves might be more effective. You have trains that serve longer transits so they travel at higher speeds but don't stop at every stop; so it might stop at the airport, the city center/convention center, and major transfer points. And then trains that serve the shorter transits and so they travel at lower speed (and so less noise) and hit more stops - so not just the airport and major transfers but regular stops along the line.
Both can use mostly the same lines and stations, while serving different slightly overlapping needs. Some stations might serve both on the same track, some might have multiple tracks, some might have bypasses.
It also means that service can be adjusted more finely - local trains can run longer in the day and may have increased schedule outside the work day because residents have post-work things to do. The longer transit trains can be very busy during rush hour with frequent service but might have a reduced service outside the work day.
i live less than a block from an elevated BART line and i can barely hear it honestly
There’s no pros for above street. None.
@@xr6lad cost, scenic view from the train, geographic challenges to building underground.
@@xr6lad Man, did you even watch the video?
Its worth noting that on the noise front, a new concrete elevated line will be much much quieter than the 100 year old lines with steel supporting structures that we have in Chicago and NYC
True. Modern metro systems are very quiet.
Much quieter is an understatement. Modern viaducts are basically silent from below, and still pretty quiet above
(Personally I enjoy hearing the roar on the old structures, but I understand its better for health to have less noise)
Concrete insulates noise better than exposed steel.
In the Bay Area, BART’s elevated tracks are on single concrete pylons. The only noise you hear is the sound of the wind and the notorious BART track grind 😂, but none of the bass heavy rumbling that the Chicago L makes.
@@jyw0000as someone who’s ridden BART hundreds of times, you’re far more likely to experience hearing loss WHILE riding it rather than being near its elevated track 😂
The Orange Line, which was completed 30 years ago, was built with concrete and the CTA is currently rebuilding a section of the Red Line on the north side of the city with modern concrete construction
As a mainly elevated transit system, I love riding the Skytrain in Vancouver. Especially on clear, sunny days with breathtaking views of the mountains dotted with the dense, urban construction at and around some of the stations.
WORD. Sometimes I'll just hop in the Skytrain and look out the window and the city and landscape.
@@appletree13man my long commute to Surrey is not as bad when the views are beautiful especially going urban, rural, suburban, riverfront, forest mix
Agree, gotta love the view when riding the SkyTrain and any other elevated metro.
One of my favorite things on a morning/evening commute is catching the flash of a low sun off glass towers in the distance.
@@appletree13 the expo and millenium lines are my go tos for joyriding, doing that since 2007 baby!
One thing I like about elevated trains are the views... You get to see and understand the city you're passing through. In contrast, with underground systems you go down one hole and pop out another, rather like a mole, with little sense for the distance or direction in which you've travelled, or what you've missed seeing in-between.
Also, modern elevated trains seem to be much quieter than the EL, presumably in large part due to the mass dampening and sound-blocking properties of the solid concrete bases on which they rest...
Not to mention, there are places where you just can't build underground, largely due to high water tables and low elevations relative to sea level.
As a New Yorker, I absolutely love the classic look of an el train. Nothing beats it! Wish more cities in the U.S. had it
As a Chicagoan, I also love the look of the ‘L’. I like New York’s but Chicago feels more coordinated
Build modern ones like Mumbai
It'd have been nice if they'd kept the 3rd Avenue el at least.
It looks cool but I hate how absolutely noisy they are. Glad that they’re majority underground now
Yeah, you guys have also got architecture that would make an elevated train a real treat.
I live in Honolulu and have been following skyline extensively. There is nothing inherent about that project that required it to be so expensive. They’ve been dealing with lawsuits, expensive land, and it really is mismanaged (as everything is in Hawaii). Our constructions costs for anything is routinely way higher than anywhere else. Even road maintenance or construction is ridiculously expensive. The H3 highway, even though was built as a higher up bridge, was the most expensive highway built per mile in the US I believe.
If Honolulu would have tunneled the project, my guess is they would’ve spent over a billion dollars per kilometer. The train is now being constructed in the city and they are spending 496 million dollars to move the utilities down only one road. The costs for everything here is just insane.
Interesting. I had never thought of that, but it makes so much sense. Shipping everything needed for public works there has to be soo expensive.
@@faenethlorhalien Despite what people say about shipping or the Jones act, the cost of materials is negligible due to shipping. These materials are sent in massive bulk which brings down cost. I work in real estate and the cost of lumber and concrete is a bit higher than the mainland but not by much. The biggest obstacle is the fact that the price for labor when compared to production is insanely high. There’s a huge deficit in human capital in Hawaii. Also, every government body is mismanaged and at odds with each other so there is no streamlined permit process. This drives up costs dramatically.
This isn’t exactly hard evidence by I know the owner of a union tile company that did work at the stations of skyline and even though they accepted his bid which would be higher than anywhere on the mainland, he ended up losing money on the jobs because the plans were not detailed (meaning things needed to be redone) and his guys also needed to be sent home early due to lack of coordination.
corruption, probably
Honolulu can't build a subway because the tunneling work would have been ridiculously expensive due to its unique geological features
I am so tired of literally everything in the US. We are a disease. We can't do anything right and we fuck up everything that falls within our borders, and often, vast regions beyond them.
i love a good combination of both. there’s something cool about going through tunnels and popping up right at your destination, while you just can’t beat the view of trains riding above the street
More to the point, this allows the lines to be built downtown with a minimum of disruption, and then extended into the suburbs at much less cost!
Most metros in India that opened in the 2010s and 2020s are elevated but some of them like Bangalore, Pune, Lucknow and Ahmedabad had a limited number of underground stations in the city center. Other systems like Chennai and Delhi have extensive city center tunnels.
mumbai metro have lines that are underground too the line 3 is underground
Kolkata metro blue line is almost completely underground, it runs through the main parts of the city
while it’s true that bangalore doesn’t have a completely underground line. many portions of the upcoming blue and pink line are underground, especially the blue line stations near the airport.
and of course many of the stations in the city centre are underground but many aren’t too
You missed an important consideration: hydrology. Although there are subways in Chicago, The area was naturally a marsh not much higher than lake Michigan and the Chicago river. Flooding can be a major concern. Also the soil needs to have strong shear strength, preferably bedrock, otherwise construction gets really onerous to shore up the soil. Makes subways more expensive relative to build. This is why elevateds are prominent in Bangkok, Manila, and in tropical cities in general.
True, and on the other hand you have terrain considerations -- trains can't climb steep hills (unless you're talking about cable cars), so in mountainous areas, the lines have to be underground so they don't have to follow the terrain like an elevated line does!
Yes.. “geology” is the word that might be more important than hydrology. Hard to make tunnel walls out of sand, silt, or muck. Mountains usually portend the existence of rock nearby. But for Chicago, downtown street level is actually 1-2 stories above ground level to get above the boggy ground level.
I think what's even more fascinating is that both of Chicago's subway lines (Blue & Red) can reroute to the elevated section and continue on as normal if the tunnels ever corrode and/or flood.
Service wouldn't be hindered besides a few stations being skipped
Good point.
For the same reason in London there are few underground lines South of the Thames (and in some case they're not even under-ground).
Over all at the time the system was developping, tunneling there was challenging and expensive. Though they mainly built above ground railways (at grade or elevated) that never became part of the metro system
Well, Manila is currently building a subway and it's one of the most anticipated and ambitious transportation projects in the country so far. Although it is indeed hella expensive, 33km for almost 9 billion USD.
As a Chicago-born transit nerd, I love elevated trains and will take them above subways any day. It also means that drivers can see exactly how much faster a train can be (thinking of Blue Line and the Eisenhower) and that can spur more transit construction.
All that said, if a subway is what gets built, so be it. A metro is a metro.
edit: wrong highway thanks @A-M4
But the CTA should definitely sound insulate the highway median stations as they are super loud. I would also love floor to ceiling platform screen doors in the subways to cut down on noise but I imagine it would be very expensive and disruptive especially considering how long the platform is in the State Street subway
"It also means that drivers can see exactly how much faster a train can be "
Damn.. now THAT is an ORIGINAL point! I never considered that!
@@kpopgrrl Platform doors are for safety, not for noise reduction -- and safety-wise, waist-high is better than floor-to-ceiling (although they won't prevent a suicide, they will prevent an accidental fall, and at the same time if someone is trapped between the doors and the train, he/she can usually climb back over to the platform)!
@@agentorange153 They can do multiple things at the same time. I've been to the Seoul subway so I know how the walls and doors help insulate sound.
I do think the shorter doors would probably work better on elevated or at-grade platforms, which is also what they use in Seoul elevated stations (and other elevated stations in Japan, other countries, and the new Honolulu Skyline)
@@kpopgrrl My point is that waist-high is better for safety than full-height, regardless of whether the station is underground, elevated or at-grade!
AS A DUTCH PERSON I think Rotterdam absolutely nailed this.
Basically the system is elevated most of the time, but underground in the city centre where above ground was impossible. The system is mainly used to connect suburbs to the city centre.
They treat it more or less like they do with trains. So sound shields whenever needed and a lot space around the stations anyway. (the metro stations often being major local bus stops as well)
Personally, I love taking the C line from Spijkernisse and slowly getting deeper and deeper into the city seeing the buildings getting higher and higher and higher!
I love the Rotterdam metro system, the public transport obsessed Netherlands has nothing like it! :P
I like elevated because I get to know a city better and as a result can navigate much easier. I love Chicago's L system and look forward to the CTA having leadership that takes transit seriously.
I used to live very close to the Red Line in Chicago's Rogers Park. You'd be surprised how quickly you get used to it. Sometimes I had to pause a convo depending on where I was in the apartment, but it just becomes background noise.
One great thing about elevated lines on the Subway systems in Berlin and Hamburg is also when they don't go directly above a street, there'll often go right over shops and restaurants. It's super cool being in a bar where the rooftop is basically a subway track. Also some of the best night clubs in Berlin are located within the elevation structure of the subway.
Typical German, only thinks about where to have the next beer ;-) 🍺 But yes, it's cool to have all those shopping areas with direct transit access (BTW, in New York they also have shops and cafes right inside some of the bigger station complexes, like Columbus Circle for example)!
I've seen footage in China where the elevated rail was built to go through some buildings too.
@@GTAVictor9128 exists also in Berlin
The elevated rail noise argument: It's worth mentioning that above ground lines are still significantly quieter than even a modestly size road.
Moreover, the noise may be louder but a train only passes once every few minutes on the most busy lines. Along major arterial roads, the traffic noise is CONSTANT.
@@GTAVictor9128 Plus your eardrums won't explode whenever it rains
Rain makes roads so much louder while trains are barely affected at all
I feel like the video was still a little too dismissive of the problem of noise, to be honest. Maybe this is just me speaking as someone with sensitivity to sound and who would really struggle living next to a rail track, but writing people off as NIMBYs for not wanting that stress and reduced quality of living doesn't seem particularly fair to me.
@@ph5.484unfortunately they’re not going to base a cities entire train infrastructure on a very small percentage of people with hearing sensitivity.
I’d say it depends upon the age of the trains & condition of the rails. Older trains are louder than new trains, in Vancouver the Mark 1 trains(once considered quite) are now the loudest trains on the Skytrain network. Thing like tight curves also create more noise & the condition of the rails also determine how loud the trains are. In some cases elevated trains are louder than the road noise(unless there’s a really loud vehicle)
I visited Chicago a few years ago, it's such a cool place. It reminded me a lot of Melbourne, Australia (my hometown). The street grid, elevated tracks and huge number of skyscrapers really reminded me of home.
Berlin has a couple of metros U1/U2/U3 and trains (sbahn) that run partially or totally elevated. those are my favorite ones. there's even a new elevated sbahn buing built and i cant wait to use it.
5:11 ahh it is so cool that you filmed what was my stop for over 7 years! I probably watched one of your videos standing right at that platform. Love the focus on Chicago, here!
We're currently in the heated process of expanding our ground level light rail in Phoenix and this video really makes me feel like an elevated rail is what's needed. The previous expansion down Central through downtown was super contentious as most people saw it as removing vital road lanes for a rail system that, considering how our city is designed, won't see much use at the moment. Building over would certainly solve that and we don't even have much of a skyline for it to work around, the rail would be the tallest thing in most parts of the city.
True -- ground-level light rail is a non-starter, it's really the worst of both worlds (combining the slow speed of road transit with the inconvenience and inflexibility of rail transit)! If you want REAL public transit which people actually USE, rapid transit (whether elevated or underground) is THE way to go!
One place where light rail can be a viable solution is if almost all of it is separated, the passenger volume is relatively low and the part where it does interfere with roads is not too busy. When demand gets higher and the sharing of roads becomes too disruptive, the shared part can be put underground and eventually the entire track could be upgraded to a metro one. On the other hand, car dependent places would probably just opt for one more lane in those cases...
@@Kenionatus **cough** **cough** light metro, and then upgrade it with higher demand **cough**
@@agentorange153
Or you could add Transit Signal Priority, but that's contentious
@@HallsofAsgard96 Not a solution -- the tram would still have to slow to a crawl when crossing a street in case someone runs the red, the ONLY way this could possibly work is if you also add automatic crossing gates like for a real railroad!
The Berlin Stadt-Bahn that runs right through the city centre east and west is beautiful for passengers. It passes right through the museums on its way to Alexanderplatz. Even as a commuter, I sometimes plan my routes to have more overground trains, since it's more scenic.
As a rider of the L it’s also helpful for me to be able to see the train platform as I’m approaching it; I can see if the train is arriving and I need to hustle, and when I’m exiting I can get a better sense of where I am on the street. Just a small thing, but helpful when navigating in a hurry!
Vancouver's SkyTrain is a great example of over/under/at-grade. Underground for three stations downtown (although waterfront was originally not really underground.
Elevated from downtown for three stops, dipping into a slightly below ground station, then elevated for all but one more of the Expo Line.
That's definitely one of the benefits of using conventional, steel-wheeled metro trains (I know the SkyTrain uses Linear Induction Motors, but apart from that it uses conventional railway infrastructure for the tracks and switches) as it can easily transition from at grade, to underground and elevated.
@@creaturexxii Vs. Montreal Metro, which uses rubber-tired trains, and therefore had to be built completely underground because these trains can't run if there's snow on the tracks!
Vancouver ; the overrated city of homless , drugs and crimes and rain.
@@jeanbolduc5818 I love rain, but I can definitely do without these other things -- however, this is a video specifically about transit systems, not about comparing cities as a whole!
@@agentorange153 IKR! Thankfully, Montreal's coming to its sense in building out its latest project, the REM.
Beyond the cost savings, a major advantage of elevated metro is that its infrastructure represents substantially less embodied carbon than tunneled metro, which can be so substantial that it may take decades for a new heavily tunneled metro line to save more CO2 emissions than was emitted during construction.
@@alexanderdvanbalderen9803 depends on the ground type - normally anything underground stays at a near constant temperature, but with enough activitiy and insulating ground, you can run into the problem that London's underground has with its super warm tunnels
@@alexanderdvanbalderen9803 the one and only underground system I experienced to get hot was the NYC subway ... not sure what they did wrong for stations to heat up like a tropical monkey house at the zoo.
Most subway systems don't require climate control or ventilation at all; They stay rather cool even on the hottest day in summer
@@EnjoyFirefighting I was in NYC and noticed this during the summer. On my life some of the stations were 10-20 degrees hotter than the air outside.
@@empireoftruth3291 not only hot, but also intense humidity at some stations
Why is CO2 even an issue??? It's not like it's toxic or anything!
Another difference between London & New York is that London (North of the river) is built on clay which is easy to tunnel through. However New York is build on granite which is much harder to tunnel through. That is probably another reason that New York did not build tunnels in the 19th century.
I grew up in Inwood, in Northern Manhattan half a block from where the IRT lines come up from underground into an "El". (I remember people standing under the El during air drills we used to have when 8 was young.
But my point is that the amount of noise associated with the El wasn't really that bad - we were all very very used to it. As I say - half a block away
As someone who lived above a subway line in Brooklyn and later next to an elevated line in Queens; you get used to the noise very quickly. The elevated line didn't lightly shake my apartment the way the underground did.
You didn't live literally next to one then. You can't even hear the person next to you in my apt. I'm literally at eye level with the train on Broadway in Astoria. It's a nightmare.
@@kittenmasakiIt depends on the building. I've been in the newer buildings in L.I.C and you can't even feel or hear the 7 train going by on 21st.
@@kittenmasakiI should add that I had the opposite experience in Philly where I was five blocks away from the subway there, inside of a newer building and it would shake the place🤣
Awesome, saw my old stop on the brown line. Making me homesick!
I LOVE the L (and Chicago in general). It’s so easy to use and I love a ride with a view. I’d kill for good transit here in Florida but with the way we’re all so spread out here it’d be EXTREMELY costly to get any city here up to par with other metropolitan areas in the country 🥲 anywho, in Florida it would have to be at grade/elevated anyways cause we can’t dig 6 inches without hitting water haha
I'd be interested to see a video comparing suspended railways (e.g. Chiba and Shonan in Japan) with conventional elevated railways discussing why suspended railways are better in certain situations (or at least, why they are chosen).
Are you referring to suspended vs. conventional monorail lines?
Suspended rails, which are basically Wuppertal Schwebebahn system, opened in 1901, are very peculiar and worth to build in very peculiar and rare cases (which is why in more than 120 years just few systems of this kind were built worldwide).
Basically if there is lack of space and you can't build underground. Wuppertal is a city along a river in a narrow valley. So they created this system hanging on the river itself, and over some city street.
Then, if you have even steep slopes (as in Chiba case) that system is fine. But in most cases you can build underground instead of going schwebebahn.
And 'conventional' monorail could face steep slopes too
@@urbanfile3861 So what are the advantages and disadvantages of schwebebahn vs. "conventional" monorail (like the one in Seattle)?
Falling under the cost to build for subways is the composition of the ground. Chicago used to be a swamp so digging tunnels is very expensive. So even though downtown Chicago is dense the L will never go underground as the swampy ground makes cost prohibitive and the caissons from the skyscrapers would have to be planned around.
Singapore is even more swamp and they built it
Chicago already has two subway lines, as pointed out in the video. The main issue is cost
@@pimpnamedslickback7780That would have required the natural materials below ground to be frozen using liquid Nitrogen, before tunnelling.
Chicago has subways, still called the L, but running underground. There is also miles of the system at grade level. The biggest line in the system is both elevated, subway and grade level.
I used to live in a high rise building directly above an underground portion of chicago's red line. 13th floor and I STILL could hear it every time a train passed.
One big advantage of above ground rail is easier and better ventilation.
Some London underground lines suffer from terrible air quality and the gradual heating up of the air in the tunnels over many decades of insufficient ventilation and most of the tube trains' energy being ultimately converted into heat through friction.
Not at all.
That example of the tube is irrelevant. Modern underground railways can (and almost always are) very well ventilated, the only reason the tube isn't is because it's old.
In my City Kolkata India, here both Underground and Elevated Metro system functioning at the same time
before watching the video: underground ones greatly reduce the noise impact for the surrounding area and residents; Also it's not an eyesore or blocks the view and sunlight in front of residential buildings, historic buildings etc and you simply have more space above ground ... more space for anything from trees to space for ladder trucks from the fire department.
The further you get to the outskirts it makes sense to let the underground lines get up onto ground level. Below ground lines aren't exposed to the weather conditions above, unless it's like on the NYC subway which gets flooded in case of a hurricane.
There is one more factor. Comfort.
Honestly, I'm not sure how it is in New York or in London, but in Moscow underground metro is always warm in winter and chill in summer.
There is also an elevated train system and... it's cold on its stations in winter. Although there are more comfortable German trains on these lines
Except that's not something that changes between the two. In bad (often old) systems you can have stations be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter regardless of if they are elevated or underground. Just like how good systems can have either elevated or underground stations that are the perfect temp. all year round.
"Let's follow this TRAIN of thought" . Well done sir, well done.
Elevated and underground are both better than whatever Calgary did with the C-Trains running in the middle of the road in downtown, which I find annoying since they always have to keep stopping at traffic lights at intersections. Trains shouldn't be stopping to give way to cars.
Miami's Metrorail and Metromover are both elevated and also go through Downtown Miami and Brickell
THATS WHAT IM SAYING
There were several plans to eliminate the elevated structure in the central city and construct more subway tunnels. However as the State Street Subway was delayed by the Great Depression, then WWII, the Dearborn Street Subway was pushed back and plans for the LaSalle Street Subway became so expensive by the 1950s, that the city abandoned the plans.
The two lines in the Santo Domingo metro both have underground and elevated portions. They're extending line 2 and eventually line 1 with what appears to be mostly above ground tracks. Like you mentioned in the video it seems the downtown portions were made underground to not disturb those important streets while further out the elevated parts are used more.
Most metro systems have both underground and elevated portions, although usually a system would predominantly use one or the other -- it's uncommon for a metro system to be 100% elevated, and even more rare for it to be 100% underground!
I like elevated or at grade (as long as it's not mixed with traffic) because it's nice to see where you're at and is basically free advertising of the transit compared to driving in traffic. And as someone who's wife gets motion sickness from cars and stuff, having the option to look out the window helps compared to being in a tunnel where you can't see anything.
As a student who lives in lakeview that goes to UIC, you unintentionally mapped my morning commute in video
Another nicely researched and done video -with nothing artificial added- from one of the top UA-cam urbanism experts.
5:23 the Chicago resident quote should have said, “so often you won’t even notice it.”
i think it shouldn't be such a dividing question. it should be a question for each part of each line. vienna has 6 underground lines. not a single one of them is entirely underground. 2 of them (u4 and u6) are mostly above ground. u1 and u2 are underground in the city center but as they go into the outer districts they come out of the ground and are elevated and sometimes also at grade.
Most cities actually have a mixture of elevated and underground lines!
As someone who's been on the London Tube in the summer, I'll say this: underground definitely isn't better if there's clay all around it.
Chicago also has the fact that parts of the city were built over wetlands as a consideration. Below street level means dealing with drainage, making elevated appealing for eliminating that particular issue.
5:22 I was waiting for the resident to say “it goes by so often, you don’t even notice it.”
I’m from Miami so definitely above ground🔥
I find street noise considerably less bearable than train noise, at least with modern tracks and trains.
@5:30
"How often does the train go by?"
"So often that you won't even notice."
I feel like with the dense urban nature of Manila, tunneling would’ve been more or less harder with being hit with a lot rainfall and flooding throughout the year, back when it was built. Leading to systems being more so overhead wires and elevated, though with newer lines having third rail and tunneled sections at more developed areas. Also it also shows that the proposed commuter railway is being built on top of current Philippine National railway right of way due to having many grade crossings and elevated expressway following the same ROW
Manila will have a subway to be finished in 2028, constructed by Japan
Very good video! Elevated and underground sections of metro networks both have their own benefits and downsides. Good comparision.
Here in the Philippines, the current metro rail has a combination of elevated, at-grade, and underground stations. The ones that are underground are in the more developed parts of the metropolitan area while the elevated ones are over the busier parts of the avenue the line runs through. The light rails meanwhile only have one station underground.
The views on the elevated parts aren't really that good-looking but some of them act as terminals to malls.
I have such a childhood glee and love of transit that directly comes from traveling underground via subway, specifically the State Street subway funny enough. So I’m incredibly biased in its favor, I love subway stations. But that said, a good view from an elevated line is lovely too
As an American in a non-major yet still squarely metropolitan area, I’d be happy with any rail based transit. Buses suck.
I think it is worth adding that the law at the time didn't allow for lines above ground to be built in the London city centre, hence why the London Underground was first built below ground.
As a Person living in Chicago, I'd Els are better since they tend to be cheaper.
Chicago's L has unfortunately not recovered from the pandemic, while also suffering from the same flaws all US transit systems do in existing solely for feeding into downtown
The METRA needs to get upgraded to high frequency service
@@qjtvaddictUnion Station should be directly connected to CTA lines, the fact that it isn't is kind of baffling when you look at how well integrated urban rail and metros are in other cities around the world. Metra needs to increase ridership first to make it viable to bring prices down and increase frequency, and I think the way to do that is to make it easier to access any point in the city via public transit from Metra stations.
Definitely the most disappointing part of the el. All those miles of track but not much of a network.
ya, CTA is super helpful to get around most places in a pinch, and great for commuting to and from downtown, but in general, if I haven't planned my trips specifically around L stations, I usually just end up driving for most things. Chicago transit is basically screwed for the next 60+ years by the 75 year privatization of our streets (parking) that basically means we can't build better walkable streets for half a decade. Possibly the best reason to move out of here at some point in the next decade, if other US cities become more walkable and less car centric.
I think New Yorkers turned against elevated trains in 1933, when King Kong attacked an el and killed a lot of passengers on it.
I live in Taibei, in Beitou off the Xinyi-Danshui line, aka the red line. out where I'm at the line is above ground, before going underground near the edge of the Shilin District and central Taibei. The above ground line is honestly not very noisey, it seems they did a great job with noise protection on the above ground lines here. The whole system uses a mix of the two, with most the above ground sections being more on the edges of the city, with the exception of the Wenhu Line which runs above ground near the city center. It's a great system nothing much to complain about!
I live a block away from the elevated part of the one train in NYC, and I barely notice the noise.
I'm not sure how this keeps coming up but I am reasonably certain the Chicago 'L' do not have "streetcar origins" like what RM Transit said or what you just mentioned at 4:10 that "the original loop was a trolley loop" . As far as I am aware, that was never true. The loop was an intentional combination of the already existing South Side and Lake Street 'L's, with the Metropolitan being completed soon after. Even the originally constructed portion of the Loop was just the extension of the Lake Street 'L' to Wabash, branching away from its initial water street terminus
There was a street-level loop for streetcars that existed before the current L structure was built (Chicago used to have a massive streetcar network until it replaced them with buses in the 1950s). I think that's what the "streetcar origins" is referring to.
The scene in Blues Brothers with the noise from L trains constantly passing the apartment was not an exaggeration.
You are really underselling how amazing modern windows are at canceling all the noise. I stayed in a hotel right next to the EL, less than 5 feet and didn't hear a single thing because of the windows were modern
In Jakarta, we have three different train systems. One is one is on the ground, one is below, above and elevated while the other one is mostly elevated. It interesting to ride a train from below ground and suddenly we got elevated
4:00 Chicago trains are so short so they can make tight curves
I lived near an el line for 5 years in Chicago, and what the video says is true - you get used to the sound. Honestly, it's regularly enough that police and ambulance sirens were actually worse, and general car traffic could be just as obnoxious as a train passing. Admittedly, I only heard any of this when the window was open.
My favorite view of the city from the el is on the brown or purple line after it makes its turn east between the Armitage and Sedgwick stations - gives a gorgeous view of the skyline for a brief few moments. The view from the river crossings are a close second.
Train noise is only loud up close, it doesn't carry far!
My favorite metro is the Vienna U-bahn... it's got a mix of underground, elevated & 2 lines that operate on the old historic Stadtbahn.
As a transit enthusiast, I'd kill to have a nice view of line 6 of Paris. Well, not too close, but ideally a nice view, I don't mind the noise.
Ig it’s considered something different but there’s the metro mover in downtown Miami too
"How often does the train run by?" (Jake Blues)
"Often enough you won't even notice it." (Elwood Blues)
That was neat. Not train related, but I didn't realize that back then, Chicago was as big a city as NYC
One thing is making me O_O about Chicago transit is at 5:21 - i mean there is windows right next to train line (and in this video it not worst case). Doesn't people get little concerned by fact that passing train passengers have great view of their home insides? (albeit seeing passing train from your window maybe cool).
Speaking to the noise... Depending on the frequency of the line, it might be loud every few minutes or every 30 minutes for only seconds at a time. I live basically on a highway and it is loud all day at all times with no break
Love love love when you get out 'on scene' !!
The big deal with transportation, in general, is that in North America (USA and Canada), we tend to concentrate the population around the services the nation provide, such as universities, hospitals, government offices and such.
Decentralizing is the key word, but in reality in these parts of the world, we keep constructing high rise buildings to maintain the largest number possible of people in the same area.
That brings another problem : cars and places to park them, two expensive alternatives.
The reason people buy cars to drive in the city is simply because our transportation systems suck, and it does, purposely, to force people to keep buying more cars, which in turn need fuel that is getting scarce and costly; let alone the damage to our own environment.
An elevated train is obviously easier and cheaper to build, but the very people who drive every day for hours at the time, need larger and wider roads to accommodate the huge numbers of vehicles that are making our cities unlivable; which is worse than the noise the trains generate.
A decent transportation system, above ground (trains and buses), is what is truly needed to make the cars go away from big cities as in other parts of the world.
Northern European countries provide that and most of the private cars are driven when people go out of the city, leaving a lot of room for emergency and commercial vehicles; let alone the fact that these people walk more than we do in our car fixated societies.
Greetings from Toronto.
My city (Stuttgart) is built right into the hills so the metro is constantly swapping between being above and below ground lol.
How could you talk about Chicago trains without including that clip from 'The Blues Brothers'?
"How often does the train go by?"
"So often you won't even notice it."
As a insensitive New Yorker I'll say the benefit of the elevated line is fewer homeless in the winter
Minor correction, the first loop wasn't trolley cars, it was cable cars
In Tampa, Florida underground is not a option and acquiring property in already developed areas is difficult given the shear number of different interested parties. So if we do expand on city wide metro we will likely have to go elevated like in Miami, and develop with easement permissions rather than outright ownership. Will also help deal with flooding
I think another advantage of an underground railway is that there is more flexibility when building lines that cross, making interchange stations easier to build and maintaining capacity. This is especially important the centre of many cities where many lines cross
Note to the video poster regarding content at 6:10 -
In New York, the 7 train's route runs on the IRT FLUSHING line, not the FLUSHING AVE line.
The line is named for the outer borough terminal of the physical rail line, which is the neighborhood of Flushing, Queens. Flushing Ave is a street in Brooklyn that comes nowhere near the IRT Flushing Line.
When you're referring to the line's underground portion under Manhattan's 42nd Street, you could probably just describe that as such.
Otherwise, really good video.
Great video. Thank u.
Was that Chicago Resident called Elwood Blues?
As someone who has grown up in London and Chicago and currently lives just feet away from Chicago's Green line, underground trains are much better- much faster and less noise pollution above ground.
Apropos the noise of elevated lines, I was expecting a Blues Brothers clip 😅
It still saddens me that they got rid of the elevated train line in Liverpool. I imagine we'd have a beatles song about it too if it had still existed.
Elevated all the way! I love the train noises so much that I purposely got an apartment next to a train line.
Edit: Also, with subways, it gets depressing being underground with nothing to look at.
You should ride the Moscow Metro some time, this might change your mind about the "nothing to look at" part!
I don't care wether its above or below I just wish more of them would get built!
Lived in Berlin and Vienna, which both have a substantial network of both underground and above ground lines, and interconnected metro and train lines. I much prefer above ground. I also really liked the sky train in Bangkok
“How often does the train go by?”
“So often you won't even notice it.”
Miami also has elevated lines through downtown. (Although calling them "lines" plural is kinda cheating.)
Please come to Bangkok, we have elevated metros both in CBD and for commuter lines.
Wait, when did Thailand legalize CBD???
Where is the location of the photo at 0:08 (Chicago, 1895)? Is that the South Side L or Lake Street L? I can't tell for the life of me; I haven't seen that pic before.
Elevated trains can be quiet. I spent 2 hours in a city parknin amsterdam just a hundred fet or so from the main rail line and didnt even notice the trains going by.
Granted that requires an effort on maintenance I havent seen attempted in north america.
Really well done video! As a Chicagoian we are literally one of the least talked about cities in urbanism in the usa despite being the only ones other than new york to have actual city urbanism. The cta is the only transit system in the usa thats comparable to new york and it shows haha, im glad the L gets a good rap here. People really think they must be super loud or something, and they can be, but they're no louder than a lifted truck trying to go 20 miles an hour, and they also fucking SPARK. No cooler looking metro system in my opinion
OH MY GOD!!!! A TRANSIT UA-camR TALKED ABOUT SKYLINE!!!!!!!
lived in japan for a bit and all of their rail is above ground for the most part and it was pretty great imo... moral of the story is any mass transit system is better than none at all.