Used to live there. Absolutely mind-boggling that the entire metro area is basically just a perfect grid of stroads. HOW have they not AT LEAST turned them into BRT corridors? I know Sahara Express exists, but that's pretty barebones. I think a slam-dunk flagship LRT project would be the Charleston Line. Crosstown corridor going through downtown and the arts district with plenty of developable/redevelopable land next to the stroad. Terminating in "downtown" Summerlin too.
The answer is probably something along the lines of:
The rank and file people want it. The people who go to Vegas and blow 50-60k a year or more don’t want it. So it won’t happen.
Vegas was one of the first places to implement Musks weird “Tesla Tunnel”. That tells me that the city doesn’t care about realistic urban planning.
Vegas doesn’t care to appease the people who don’t spend exorbitantly.
I mean, there are solutions for our problems. But no one wants to actually discuss what those are:
Force the wealthy to pay their fair share and close tax loopholes. Use revenue from things like weed sales to prop up infrastructure and urban planning on top of tax revenues.
Cut military spending and use those dollars for building up the United States.
Create really strict anti-corruption laws that impose something that is more than a slap on the wrist when individuals or corporations abscond with their infrastructure money.
Keep building up the USA until all of our quality of life is better.
Sounds pretty great to me, and yes I realize it’s not this simple, but idealizing a pleasant future is better than the current course of action: let corporations do whatever they want and hope for the best.
That would be a bad idea. You could then tack a transit component onto any larger project, and the whole thi k would be exempt from a NEPA review. Oil refinery with a light rail line from the nearby population center would then be exempt.
The reality is NEPA isn't what slows down transit projects in the U.S. It's a lack of political will to start them, and poor program management given how uncommon they are. The NEPA requirements are, at this point, simply good practice for project planning.
The solutions are for people to stop voting for absolute fucktards.
Las Vegas has a board of directors, and the city has plenty of money to develop infrastructure, but the people that live there continue to elect fucking idiots that do little for their community.
You see this throughout the United States. Everyone is hyper focused on the presidency and the stupid culture war issue du jour, but no one bothers to honestly reflect on the leaders in their own community. It’s honestly pretty ridiculous that democratically elected leaders throughout the country make very handsome income and do literally nothing for it.
Oh I'm aware. I'm not overly jaded when it comes to most cities - usually, I'm a pretty optimistic person. But in Vegas, it feels like all they care about is vanity projects.
What’s baffling are all the disconnected monorails.
Great example why privately ran public transportation doesnt work.
If they just connected all the monorails, they’d have a halfway decent system.
The monorail isn't really useful for destinations other than ones that contain stations. The stations are behind the casinos and walking to the strip can be a long labyrinth through some hotels. And walking to the other side of the strip can take forever.
Still, wish it had some connection to the airport. Building a station at the rental car facility and using that existing shuttle system is a no brainer.
I’d say Vegas could actually use a full on heavy rail subway line from the airport to downtown under the strip. Light rail appendages could connect to that main line and expand the system along major arterials across the city.
If Vegas is able to build spectacular architectural icons, stadiums, and what not I believe they can get it done! For me, I think the question is cost. Too bad the Monorail is not only somewhat disappointing, but also isn’t being considered for any expansion.
They don’t want locals getting around everywhere. They want rich people to take private transportation straight to the casinos and then stay there. Everything about the town starts to make sense once you live there for long enough.
I've heard that the taxi cab lobby prevented the main monorail from being extended to the airport. It's so dumb that it ends just a few blocks from the airport.
Vegas seems like it would be the easiest. A single line could connect the airport, Strip and Downtown. Maybe run a few lines out into the different neighborhoods and connect to UNLV.
I’d also argue that Vegas would benefit as the large number of service industry jobs means a light rail won’t become a boondoggle, most of those service industry jobs can not be done remotely. It would benefit both tourists and residents. Plus it would be convenient for the sports facilities.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas
If you sort by density, Las Vegas is way up there surprisingly, it’s a no brainer in terms of sticking a light rail system there
Cincinnati had one basically built but never really materialized. They definitely could make good use of it if it ever was created.
I could see Providence, Hartford, and Rochester with maybe some legacy systems that could do some good given the heavier density of the NE.
As for newer systems, agreed with your choices. Also Vegas has a surprisingly simple layout and could easily build one from the airport to the Strip to the Fremont/downtown area in one straight shot, but they have to make due for now with their shitty people mover.
I think a new system would have to be put a bit to the west. The current system is basically transporting people between casinos on the edge of the strip.
Not only that, but the fares are probably the highest I've seen in any city that I've ever been to.
Providence still has the tunnel under College Hill, the old burned bridge and the rail corridor through Riverside / Barrington / Warren / Bristol which is now a bike path. It's all there, but there's a lack of political will to build rail. And the other rail corridor from Olneyville through West Warwick is a bike path. But the city has a major BANANA problem.
I can't tell if it would be better or worse if you knew that [Rochester had a subway system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_subway) that was abandoned in the mid-50s, but if you didn't you do now.
Was infuriating to think about while waiting for a bus in waist-high snow on Mother's Day.
I didn't know about this, very interesting read!
Such a shame what has happened to public transit in this country. We went from having the greatest on Earth to being almost non-existent in the majority of the country.
That is super interesting, I never would have guessed. So many rust belt cities were relatively huge and bustling in the mid 20th centuries but can’t even be found among lists of cities by population these days
I wouldn't say it's pretty good. It's such a small loop that walking is almost always faster. I use it occasionally if I don't feel like walking or if the weather is bad but it isn't super practical.
Detroit. Its criminal that they never built a subway system ESPECIALLY back when its population was twice as high and over a million people in the city limits. It used to be one of the biggest cities in the country and not a sniff of mass transit. Ive always thought if they had a subway they could have pivoted when industry left towards tech or something different, but when the industry left you were left with a hollowed out husk of parking lots and highways everywhere and there was no appealing reason for other industries or people to come downtown and you end up in a death spiral. Its sad to imagine where Detroit would be today if they had built a subway system.
The people mover in Detroit was planned to be a full network like the skytrain in Vancouver but the funding got cut heavily under Reagan so it’s just one line that runs in a single direction loop
And yet, he was very popular in his time. 1984 was one of the most dominant presidential elections. Should serve as a reminder that things aren’t necessarily right or best just because they are popular with the majority of voters.
I think Detroit has to have the worst public transit system of any major US city, and by a pretty good margin.
No actual rail system, the bus system is fragmented and severely underfunded and unreliable, and there’s no express connection between the airport and downtown.
They were going to build one in the 1920s but the council vote was 1 vote short of being veto proof, and the mayor vetoed it. Insane to think what could’ve been.
Man thats so sad because in the 20s they were building heavy rail transit so Detroit would have gotten a legit system. Probably subways downtown and some cool elevateds outside the core Id guess. These days nobody in America builds hrt unless its an extension. Even nyc, hrt capital of the world in some cases is building the interborough express as light rail.
Agree, but you said twice as high? At one point the population was almost *four* times as high, over 2 million people. In the 50s, too, so massive relative to the country as a whole.
The Big 3 bought up the streetcars and dismantled them, entrenching the rule of automobiles in the metro area. And now the suburbs don’t want to fund regional transit because, well, racism and bootstraps and shit.
Don’t know why I got downvoted. I’m right. Everyone is acting like Detroit doesn’t have a streetcar. Oh boo hoo Detroit doesn’t have a streetcar. I’m saying that they do. Rejoice! Don’t get mad at me.
Detroit has had a streetcar for six years. According to Wikipedia they signed a deal to keep it free until 2036. That’s nice.
Nashville is a decent answer. The population growth is a bit smaller than that in Columbus, for example, but it receives a lot more tourism traffic that would probably be relevant for the efficacy of a LR system
The congestion to and from the airport has gotten ridiculous! Last weekend people were getting out of Ubers and walking along the exit to not miss their flight
Nashville voters rejected a pretty huge light rail system plan some years ago. It’s actually often used as a case study for other cities in learning from mistakes.
Yes and the bus system is poor — all routes collect in an enormous central terminal with infrequent service. There was recently a vote to get a legit system (including LRT, IIRC), but was rejected by voters.
Indeed, it was in 2018 - I actually did canvassing for it. Very disappointing stuff. Pretty certainly most of the cities people have suggested in this thread will get LRT before Nashville
Nashville suffers from the rather unique geography challenge of having a massive city proper that encompasses suburban areas that, in many other metros, would be located in other municipalities. It is tremendously harder to plan for something like the 2018 transit initiative when you’ve got to cater to suburbanites who really couldn’t possibly be served by much of any transit.
Columbus is the largest city in the United States without any kind of passenger rail, I believe.
There's certainly room for *something* there even if it doesn't cover the sprawling extent of the entire city.
Arlington TX lol to have 2 major cities with population around 1 million plus and they have no system connecting them is crazy….. but to be the city in the middle and have all the sporting venues and absolutely no form of transit to or from said places is CRAZY.
I believe Arlington is the largest city in the US to have no fixed-route transit at all, let alone rail lol. They should probably start with a bus line or two.
There is a commuter train that goes from Dallas to Fort Worth would have to check but I’m almost certain there has to be a stop in Arlington lol. but for a place so big to have no convenience for sporting events and concerts is still crazy to me.
I agree that many of the cities listed in these threads need big overhauls to their transit picture. However I think a lot of them are very far away from being able to solve those problems with just Light Rail. As others mentioned, these projects won't generate a real return on investment for these communities without fundamental changes to zoning, last mile transit (walkability, bike lanes, etc), and regional connections. That's not to say light rail wouldn't be great in these places, but it has to be packaged as a part of a larger regional plan. As the question is asked, I think the #1 candidates are cities where we can drop in a Light Rail without building everything else and the system will have the demand to sustain itself. A city that is viable in this regard:
* Has multiple dense and walkable areas, like college campuses, that can be connected via Light Rail
* Already has an airport, train station, bus station, etc that when connected to Light Rail can offer multi modal conectivity
* Has Demand (or foreseeable future demand) that exceeds the capacity of properly done BRT.
* Already has a BRT at large capacity that should be upgraded to Light Rail
* Has an existing rail right of way or highway median that would be a good place for a line.
Given those constraints, I'd say these would be my top picks:
* NYC, there are quite a few bus routes that could be upgraded to Light Rail given they have ridership higher than some cities metros. Lines like the M60, M15, B46, Bx12, Q58, etc. The [IBX project](https://new.mta.info/project/interborough-express) is a great example of this
* Pittsburgh - updating BRT busways (West and South busways) to Light Rail
* Tacoma, WA
* Long Beach, CA
* NEC cities like Stamford, Providence, or New Haven
* Oakland, CA
* Milwaukee, WI
* Tampa, FL
I think this is a good framework. Based on it, I'll add Richmond, VA to the list:
\* Richmond has built a BRT and proven concept, and is starting the process of building another BRT line
\* There are dense, walkable neighborhoods in the historic downtown
\* Amtrak and the state of Virginia are working on infrastructure improvements to add more volume through Richmond's Main Street Station
\* As major employers here demand RTO (for better or worse, mainly worse) there are job centers and residential neighborhoods throughout the metro area that need to be linked
\* Land use philosophy is starting to change - the city recently eliminated parking minimums
The sticking point would be ROW acquisition - not all of the GRTC Pulse is run in a dedicated lane. A road diet on the stroad where the Pulse currently runs is gonna be an uphill battle
Here's my not very crazy, related idea:
* Rehabilitate the Richmond Main Street train shed structure and add back the platforms and tracks
* Continue VRE service to Richmond, terminating at RVM
* Run the VRE bidirectional all day for gods sake!
* New VRE lines branching out from RVM
Not many people are going to commute the whole RVM to DC on VRE, but just by doing the first two bullets you've managed to complement the existing Amtrak services (which are busting ridership records due to high demand), instantly added regional/commuter rail to a region that no longer has it (and should), complement the BRT system without having to build a new ROW (they're already doing all the track work you mentioned), and overall improve access in and around Richmond. Plus now you have an opportunity to add some TOD or some shit around the new stations, which is definitely good considering how much the sprawling Richmond suburban developments are booming.
Also for reference, RVM to DC is something like 100 miles, similar to Philly-NYC
For reference, I have heard most of this mentioned various times as a "what if" that could be done after the current rail improvement projects in VA. But there's no actual plan and no commitment to actually doing it at the moment.
I’ll throw in Jacksonville, Florida. It is the (2nd-5th) fastest growing city in the country and is expected to significantly keep growing. 12th highest population in the country. Yet they only have 1 Amtrak line, and a subpar bus network for city travel.
There are multiple high density areas around city (downtown, surrounding historic neighborhoods, town center/UNF, International airport & river city marketplace) and just outside city (beaches, St. Augustine, orange park).
They could greatly benefit with a few commuter lines throughout the greater metro area, that could be supplemented by a tram/streetcar/bus network between hubs throughout the city.
Can I mention a Canadian city? Halifax badly needs light rail but amalgamated surrounding suburbs and farmland so any effort to get rail built gets shot down. We don’t even have tap on our buses, still using the old change slot.
If we are talking Canadian cities the answer has to be Winnipeg. Population-wise they rank 8th in Metro area and everybody else in the top 10 has or is planning to build some sort of rail based transit system. Especially given the success of Waterloo region's system, which has a much smaller population than Winnipeg. Cities like London and Halifax should also be at least trying to look into the idea seriously.
Surprised not to see what I thought was obvious. San Antonio is the biggest city in the US that doesn't have one. It's sprawl-hell, but even Houston and Dallas are ateast trying to make it work.
Seriously I had to scroll WAY too far to find San Antonio, a streetcar downtown would be a great place for non-bus public transit and would be well utilised
It’s actually expanding by a single station next year!
They’re also working with the FTA on a 7 mile extension North, but the final plan/verdict keeps getting delayed. We now have to wait until 2024 to see the final plan or if there’s federal funding for the project.
This. 🙃 It's so frustrating to think about how great the system could have been if the money originally allocated in the 70s hadn't been moved due to financial issues with NYC.
Raleigh is massively suburban and sprawling and their “downtown core” is anemic and littered with parking lots. That core is surrounded on all sides by suburban development patterns (excluding the college).
I agree they should have a light rail immediately but without fixing their zoning and development patterns, they’ll never see an return on that investment.
What Raleigh needs to do ASAP is thin out all their roads (why are there so many 4, 6, 8 lane roads within 0.25 miles of city center?) and do everything they can to infill those parking lots. Then build massively mixed use developments around the train station, and do as many trains to Charlotte and Durham and Richmond as much as possible (way more than the 5 a day they run now). And then you can build LRT lines I guess, but, again, literally 0.27 miles east from the capitol building is non-dense single family exclusive housing that continues all the way to 440 (and beyond). North is less than a mile for the same, and is also divided by the train yard and by 401 (the other side being also single family suburbs).
These areas should be of the same designs that make Raleigh nice now. Dense, mixed use, multi-family, small lots, no setbacks. Ample room for small businesses. But no one is building those - everyone wants a shitty McMansion instead. It really makes the feeling on the ground horrible as you walk around anywhere outside of the, what, 24 total blocks of actual city? And even in that 4x6 block grid of density, it’s still absolutely swimming in surface parking lots.
Honestly, Raleigh doesn’t need an LRT, they need infill development. It is almost an empty city, it feels like.
The zoning has been fixed!! Raleigh has some of the most progressive local regulations in the country. Parking maximums, missing middle + ADUs in all residential zoning districts, and TOD zoning within the walkshed of our 4 upcoming BRT corridors.
That said, it's difficult to undo decades of awful planning -- and many of the huge roads you mentioned are owned by NCDOT which makes it a little more difficult. But downtown is building tons of housing, as is midtown, as is the NC State area. There are nodes. Transit is next.
This is really really great news. I admit that my derision is based on several 2018-2021 visits, where, even ignoring COVID, I was disappointed in the town.
Do us all the honor and stick it to NCDOT. Give ‘em hell.
I agree, and light rail to the airport is a massive (and comparatively easy) first step.
But look at the political map of Raleigh. It is 85% suburban cul-de-sac single family housing neighborhoods. The road designs used for these, as well as the fact that they’re all already privately owned by many different thousands of people, massively inhibits the ability to acquire right of way. But expanding the Raleigh Union Station Amtrak right of way for the first third of the way towards the airport, and then acquiring new right of from the college west campus, and running along 40, makes this actually very feasible.
But, again, 440 inhibits this, suburban development inhibits this. Right now, you have to take a 1 stop Amtrak to Carey Station, and the. Transfer to a GoTriangle train that takes a convoluted, two-dozen-stop path to the airport?
Just run a shuttle from the airport to the state owned NCRR corridor nearest the airport. That's mostly a four track width ROW. Getting a second track and running hourly Durham - Raleigh locals along the existing ROW is "only" Brightline expensive, less than $10b. Build that line to accommodate a third and fourth track eventually, since the Southeast HSR corridor comes right through there. Pair with the 8/day Richmond trains from the S-Line once built and the additional 3/day Charlotte trips from the same, and a ~13 stop Triangle local service running hourly... Suddenly that's a system worth building around. And the ROW is already under state ownership.
Should RDU get a dedicated rail link eventually? Absolutely - it's a major employer and trip generator. But adding 500m-1b to get the tracks into the airport (and, worse, back out if it's not a spur) is probably a bridge too far for the phase 1 system.
Tell that to Sacramento lol, I admire Cleveland’s system a lot because they were the first pretty much to realize that you need connection to airports!
You could have said the same about Phoenix when they wanted to add a light rail. But then they did and the light rail corridor densified significantly (and still is). More than the projections were even anticipating. The fact is that building transit helps with infill because it’s easier to infill close to transit stations. For example, Houston doesn’t have low density zoning but is still low density because when you build freeways and no transit you’re going to end up with sprawl because sprawl is, essentially, transit oriented development… for car transit. So it ends up feeling like a chicken and egg scenario. You want to densify and infill but if the area only has car access to the rest of the city developers are building more sprawl instead since the occupants will need cars to have access to anything.
Hot take: Santa Barbara
Probably not number 1, but a tram train following the amtrak tracks from Carpinteria to amtrak mainstation, then going a tram route down state street, then down hollister, perhaps with a branch to UCSB/Isla Vista
Oh forreal, but in concert with a bunch of upzoning? And not a full metro, but street running light rail?
IDK, I'm also just imagining a crazy YIMBY future where SB gets a lot more housing.
As someone that grew up in Raleigh, I love your shout and passion but there are not enough dense nodes and employment centers to support a light rail or similar transit network in Raleigh.
I work in San Antonio and Indy often. They are two of my favorite cities that I think are quite under appreciated. Indy is a good call and could support it, and they almost did many years ago but voters were presented with and supported a BRT package. I’ll let an Indy resident chime in with their better-informed take tho.
The BRT we have (Indy) and are getting more of could be great but the driver shortage is killing reliability pretty strongly. As of now it’s alright at its best and not worth using at its worst.
I could see the case for commuter rail throughout the metro though, especially as some of the surrounding suburbs are becoming separate cities of their own (Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, etc)
But any form of light rail transit is currently banned in the city by the state so that’ll have to get fixed before we can get anywhere.
Las Vegas, Albany, Rochester, Columbus, Hartford, Halifax, Winnipeg, and Providence.
Detroit needs an actual light metro or heavy rail subway at this point. Quebec City and Omaha will be getting their own tram systems by the end of the decade.
Honorable mention: Arlington and Alexandria in Northern VA.
Hmm. Arlington and Alexandria have buses, and a regional subway system, and a surface commuter rail line, and HOV lanes.
Would people actually use a tram if it were offered? What would that offer that a dedicated bus right of way couldn't? Also, I'm not sure the folks in Old Town would tolerate a streetcar.
My impression (from living there many years ago) is that a major regional transit issue is that the Metro doesn't help you go laterally; it's only useful if you are going along one if the spokes that leads into DC. But this is a problem with lots of cities that have transit, and new travel patterns based on companies moving out to the burbs and people changing jobs every few years means that "everybody just goes downtown every morning and back to the suburbs at night" isn't really serving as many people as it would have with traffic patterns of 50-75 years ago.
I agree, but Denver is nowhere close to the answer on this topic. Several other cities that have much worse system, especially since Denver has one of the best bike networks in the US.
Milwaukee already has a streetcar with a second line(-ish) coming: [https://thehopmke.com/](https://thehopmke.com/)
Detroit has the QLine: https://www.qlinedetroit.com/
personally, I don't think the US should build any at-grade rail.
I don't know why people in an urban-planning subreddit cannot look around at all of the attempts in the US and see that they are failures. the best systems are the ones mostly grade-separated.
Americans are fickle transit riders. you can't operate a slow, infrequent system and expect to draw any meaningful number of people out of cars. you will get people who cannot afford cars, but that's about it. but that begs the question: why are we building a system designed to move all of the poor people out of the way of the wealthy people so that they can sprawl out more easily? that is effectively what these lines are doing.
for transit to actually draw people out of cars, it must be
1. grade-separated so that top speeds can be high and traffic/lights don't affect it
2. high frequency, which likely means it must be automated, given the expense and shortages of drivers.
in theory, light rail/trams can have high frequency, but transit agencies never prioritize quality of service over breadth of service. budgets are fixed and transit agencies would rather run high-cost bus lines through low density areas than put the money into the light rail/tram to keep the frequency to a level that draws people out of cars (<5min headway). on top of that, car-dominated cities never give surface light rail the priority in needs to be good. often mixing/crossing traffic and often not full traffic light pre-emption, and don't ticket drivers for blocking intersections.
the pro-car voters is too powerful and the transit agencies are too obsessed with breadth of service to make surface light rail good. so, rather than building surface rail and forever dooming a city's transit to be a place to put poor people, cities should build elevated light metros, like Skytrain.
I wish I could upvote this twice. Non grade separated rail in US cities is always too slow to pull people out of their cars and is too prone to delays. LA metro is a really good example of a system that serves a lot of destinations but can’t get people on board because it’s too slow (stops for cars) or prone to delays because of vehicle collisions.
The A line is over 40 miles long and is constantly hitting cars and stranding people on the other end of the county. It’s insane to build rails without grade separation in an urban environment.
Look for any large cities in any solid red state. There will be your answer (Indianapolis, Columbus, Louisville, Kansas City, St. Louis, Austin, San Antonio) these are criminally lacking transit.
The best red state for transit is by far Utah (or maybe Texas due to sheer size of DFW)
That would actually be a mistake because Columbia pike needs a buried heavy rail WMATA line with 5 stops all within 0.5 mi of each other like the Rosslyn ballston corridor
Buffalo and Rochester seem line no-brainers to me. Buffalo already has one light rail line running along Main Street, but it's not that useful on its own. It doesn't even reach UB's South Campus (in typical SUNY fashion, UB is scattered across several campuses that basically do not engage with the city at all).
Both cities have ideal layouts for light rail with fairly obvious right-of-way.
Actually Buffalo’s Lightrail line has one of the highest boardings per mile rates among LRL nationwide.
It act works very well because it connects one of the densest corridors in the city to downtown, the waterfront and several universities.
That being said, it shows small cities can support Lightrail if you focus on dense corridors.
Still that’s just more reason to expand the system.
Also exciting is that the NFTA is studying several BRT lines for the city.
Strongly agree. The popularity of the service where it is accessible is definitely proof of concept, the coverage just isn't that great, which means that it's never actually shifted the needle much in terms of mode share. I know probably 30 people who went to UB, and they all brought their cars with them, in part because the actual UB campuses are planning disasters of a typical Nelson Rockefeller fashion. I think a service on Delaware or Elmwood up to Tonawanda via the Buff State campus would be a smash hit. It would also be nice for South Buffalo and areas east of downtown to get...something. North Buffalo has the density to support better transit today, but it would also be such an injustice to consolidate services in places that are thriving exactly because they weren't redlined and neglected. It'll take more than better transit to right the historical wrongs inflicted on those neighborhoods, but you have to start somewhere.
I'm usually a bit of a BRT skeptic, but Buffalo is the kind of place where I think it makes decent sense if they're prepared to do it right, since you have the space to carve out the large ROW that good BRT requires. The road design means you could even plausibly use sleek new bi-articulated buses if you want the extra capacity, but maybe that's wishful thinking.
I'm not from Buffalo, but I grew up Upstate, have lots of family there, and always loved visiting, so it was really like a second home to me as a kid. Awesome food scene, great parks, pride of place (go Bills!). It has such great bones, and is like a mini Chicago in terms of the sheer density of great American architecture. On a personal level, there's probably no city I'd rather see bounce back to its former glory.
I think some type of light rail or streetcar would have been an amazing inclusion within the inner loop removal project in Rochester. The city core there, is decently dense compared to Buffalo, and continues to grow. Use that area as a central hub and connect out through RIT, U of R, the Airport. It would have a pretty good connection to all of the major job centers, as well as entertainment portions.
Raleigh resident here, just got back from being the only person on our sad express bus from downtown to Wake Forest.
What’s criminal is that we have so much rail right of way that is massively underutilized or unfit for passenger rail. Commuter rail to Durham is basically dead because running a 2nd track got absurdly expensive. FTA losing interest in traditional commuter rail post COVID doesn’t help, either. The S line connecting fast passenger rail to Richmond and DC feels like something that will be done long after I retire.
At least we have BRT coming, first segment comes online in 2025. 🤞it leads to more BRT towards the airport and Durham.
I don't know if it's number 1, but Chicago could benefit from a light rail / streetcar system in and around downtown to compliment the L heavy rail system. They could start with a line running from Navy Pier, through River North and West Loop to Union Station, going east to LaSalle Station, then south towards Museum Campus and McCormick Place. It could also have spurs out to the United Center and UIC campus, and a continuous line on Michigan Ave / LSD between McCormick Place and Lincoln Park.
>to compliment the L heavy rail system
100% We rely on buses to much for this. Dedicated lanes for trams connecting our train stations would be amazing. The boulevard system and wide arterials all over Chicago could easily fit a dedicated streetcar. You could also fit light rail along the lakefront if you just took one lane away from LSD.
The Triangle has been talking about building some sort of rail since I was in middle school in the early 90s, nothing has been built and I think the plan they were working on was scrapped and thrown away.
All plans for any kind of transit that makes sense in Raleigh get scrapped by conservatives who want the area to be 100% car-dependent suburbia . They hate the idea of transit and would rather pour our tax money into widening roads and highways. Meanwhile millions (possibly billions) of our taxes are wasted on studies and plans for rail transit just to be shot down.
Chicago- Lake Shore Drive.
It sees 150k trips daily; a third of which are via CTA Bus. A high capacity dedicated light rail line is capable of realistically moving 90K people daily. You could convert Lake Shore drive into an actual boulevard with light rail running down the eastern side of it.
I live in Raleigh, so it's my #1 choice as well. What really sucks is that, like many small cities in the US, Raleigh had a fairly robust electric street car / trolley system in the 19th century that was dismantled a hundred years ago from pressure from the automobile and oil lobbyist.
New York City. Much of the subway service is set up running in and out of Manhattan, I think a light rail/streetcar network could provide more reliable service than buses to fill in some of those gaps in the subway network, and replace some of the Select Bus Service routes. I've thought for years that Fordham Rd/Pelham Pkwy, where the Bx12 SBS runs, is a perfect corridor for a light rail. Design it to be higher capacity than the SBS, somehow not get caught in traffic light a bus, and it fills in a gap since it would run east/west and the existing subways in the Bronx all run north/south.
Same with running multiple connections between Queens and Brooklyn. And upgrade the Whitestone Bridge to run between Queens and the Bronx.
I just can’t see any non grade separated rail being useful in NYC (I live here too). Some guy double parking for half an hour and stranding a tram is inevitable. At least a bus can move around it. I ride the M15, M14 and M23 really regularly and they do some pretty serious zigs and zags to negotiate the constant construction and bad behavior of drivers.
SAN DIEGO COUNTY. we need to have surburb to surburb connections. Everyone drives, it’s crazy dangerous because of these massive stroads, bikers and pedestrians are getting hit ALL the time. Everyone has the mentality of “it won’t work, nimbys don’t want it” but we have so much room. My idea is from poinsettia train station put in a light rail to go through Palomar airport road up to CSUSM, to Fallbrook down the 76 to Oceanside back to Carlsbad. If people have good options they will use it.
Orange County. Far more distributed than LA, lots of little areas with downtowns that would make endless sense to connect with bike paths & light rail.
This area could be like the Jetsons, but a LOT of Orange County seems to want free trollies to get around within their area (looking at you, San Clemente & Laguna Beach) but actively resist any attempt to connect to a larger system, because then the "wrong people" might end up there. In a way, it's bad by design, to keep "those people" out.
Pittsburgh feels pretty awful. One local line that only goes south.
Only one amtrack line that runs the slowest trains ever to get to the east coast.
And just shit tons of freight and former rail sitting around rusting as a big tease of what used to be there.
Can’t believe no one’s mentioned SoCal. Between the awful urban sprawl, total car-dependence, high cost of living putting a lot of people into poverty, and the sky-high cost of driving (including gas, registration, insurance) it is the most needed candidate for light rail.
LA, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Pasadena, Pomona, take your pick.
columbus ohio has 1m people and currently has the largest construction project in the country being undertaken
downtown, the short north, and campus need a line so desperately
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill(/Cary/Morrisville/Apex/Garner) is a big one. There are some express routes that already make sense, like a multi-hub spoke system around RDU and downtown Raleigh (either union station or if digging a tunnel is an option, somewhere around nash/moore square). Any buildout of rail would need to be accompanied by aggressive upzoning and infill around the stations.
- Chapel Hill - Durham city center (there is already a heavy track right of way along this route but a more direct one might be desirable, or at least upgrading the existing track to increase speeds)
- Chapel Hill - Southpoint
- Durham city center - RDU
- Southpoint - RDU
- RDU - Raleigh fairgrounds (this track mostly already exists)
- Apex - Raleigh fairgrounds
- Raleigh fairgrounds - Raleigh Union Station (this track already exists)
- Raleigh Union Station - Crabtree Valley Mall
- Raleigh Union Station - Triangle Town Center (this track mostly already exists)
There was a plan for light rail between CH and Durham but Duke killed it
https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/09/092923-siegle-revisiting-durham-orange-light-rail
Columbus is my vote for sure. It’s a university city, state capital, and largest city in Ohio and has zero rail service. The city is a mess of inner city freeways and would greatly benefit from a few heavy rail metro lines, a couple streetcar/light rail lines, and an intercity rail station.
Austin *kinda* has light rail but Congress Avenue absolutely needs a proper streetcar. A few other streets lime Lamar, 6th, MLK, Guadalupe, and Cesar Chavez could be well served by one too.
Currently live in Raleigh and I half agree. I think linking all the downtown areas makes sense with some stops in between but the last mile problem is real.
No one wants gigantic parking structures near them which would be required to make it work here.
San Antonio, Texas is the largest US city with only buses and a light rail or streetcar downtown would be great
Also I recently moved from San Antonio to Louisville so this post seems especially rude to me specifically
Indianapolis. All of central Indiana used to have a very extensive light rail system until it was outlawed and demolished by state officials lobbied by the car industry. My suburb (Plainfield) actually still has its inter urban station
Interesting that all the cities are in states with supermajority Republican legislatures. It's getting to the point that Republican politicians are like Pavlov's dog, but rabid: at the mere mention of rail transit they start foaming at the mouth in opposition.
It’s not the idea of light rail that people are against. It’s the taxes needed to pay for it. Here in middle TN there was a tax measure on the ballot several years ago to raise taxes on hotel stays to pay for a light rail system that is badly needed and the voters shot it down. I partly understand why. I’ve kicked in cities where politicians made big promises and failed to deliver.
Oahu, Hawaii recently opened an elevated rail system that runs nearly empty every 10 minutes, even during rush hour. While it’s only partially complete and will have more riders once the current section extends past the airport to Kalihi, it still won’t be practical.
Americans love the convenience of having their own vehicle so they the have flexibility in their schedules and destinations. It’s challenging to develop rail solutions that will have sufficient coverage and speed that will convince large numbers of people to give up driving.
It doesn't even go to Honolulu yet. Once it does, I'm certain ridership will improve massively. Do TOD, and it will skyrocket. This mentality that ridership has to be present immediately is wrong. American urban design isn't conducive to good transit, but trying to change that without having infrastructure in place to make urban living practical is dumb. Hawaii did the right thing by building the transit first. After that's done, you can alter zoning around the transit. Hawaii also did right by making the system driverless, which gives it the potential for incredible headway and for 24/7 operations. It's an example we should seek to follow.
Chicago or LA to return it to it's old glory. I know Chicago has the L but there are so many places far from trains that would be perfect from a streetcar. Chicago used to be a streetcar city and we currently rely too much on buses. Light rail along the lakefront would be great too
Madison. We're exploding in population but barely have functional busses (unless you live on the Isthmus). To get to work I could take a 10 minute bike ride, a 30 minute walk, or... a 90 minute bus ride.
Atlanta. MARTA heavy rail runs north/south and east/west centered on downtown with a short spur off the northern arm. Heavy rail expansion and extension has been discussed for decades but never passes. We would be best suited for light rail integrated with the existing heavy rail since we don’t really have a grid system and trying to clear space for more heavy is not feasible at this point, but Atlanta is so spread out that a light rail system connecting all the inner suburbs would do wonders.
Miami - the south Florida metro area has a few that really need to do more. There’s the Tri- rail that just goes north and south from the Miami airport to west palm and is fine and affordable but nothing connects it to other places except the metro mover which just does like a little loop around downtown Miami, but doesn’t really take you anywhere else.
Then there’s the $$$ brightline, which is fun, but takes you essentially the same places as the tri rail, but for more money and less stops.
Without a doubt Nashville TN. Major, dense residential neighborhoods ie East Nashville, 12 south, Nations, Sylvan, germantown, others are close to downtown (one of the rare urban downtowns that is truly usable and nice w both sporting arenas within a mile of each other in or across river from downtown). Airport very close to downtown. There are zero public trans rail options of any kind today but enough growth to know where population is moving into. Blank slate.
Vegas is a no-brainer. All of its major destinations are in a straight line from the airport.
Used to live there. Absolutely mind-boggling that the entire metro area is basically just a perfect grid of stroads. HOW have they not AT LEAST turned them into BRT corridors? I know Sahara Express exists, but that's pretty barebones. I think a slam-dunk flagship LRT project would be the Charleston Line. Crosstown corridor going through downtown and the arts district with plenty of developable/redevelopable land next to the stroad. Terminating in "downtown" Summerlin too.
The answer is probably something along the lines of: The rank and file people want it. The people who go to Vegas and blow 50-60k a year or more don’t want it. So it won’t happen. Vegas was one of the first places to implement Musks weird “Tesla Tunnel”. That tells me that the city doesn’t care about realistic urban planning. Vegas doesn’t care to appease the people who don’t spend exorbitantly.
What a fucking stupid shit show this country has become.
I mean, there are solutions for our problems. But no one wants to actually discuss what those are: Force the wealthy to pay their fair share and close tax loopholes. Use revenue from things like weed sales to prop up infrastructure and urban planning on top of tax revenues. Cut military spending and use those dollars for building up the United States. Create really strict anti-corruption laws that impose something that is more than a slap on the wrist when individuals or corporations abscond with their infrastructure money. Keep building up the USA until all of our quality of life is better. Sounds pretty great to me, and yes I realize it’s not this simple, but idealizing a pleasant future is better than the current course of action: let corporations do whatever they want and hope for the best.
And exempt transit projects from NEPA
That would be a bad idea. You could then tack a transit component onto any larger project, and the whole thi k would be exempt from a NEPA review. Oil refinery with a light rail line from the nearby population center would then be exempt. The reality is NEPA isn't what slows down transit projects in the U.S. It's a lack of political will to start them, and poor program management given how uncommon they are. The NEPA requirements are, at this point, simply good practice for project planning.
Raleigh is trying to build a bike highway that will take about 12 years for environmental review.
The solutions are for people to stop voting for absolute fucktards. Las Vegas has a board of directors, and the city has plenty of money to develop infrastructure, but the people that live there continue to elect fucking idiots that do little for their community. You see this throughout the United States. Everyone is hyper focused on the presidency and the stupid culture war issue du jour, but no one bothers to honestly reflect on the leaders in their own community. It’s honestly pretty ridiculous that democratically elected leaders throughout the country make very handsome income and do literally nothing for it.
Oh I'm aware. I'm not overly jaded when it comes to most cities - usually, I'm a pretty optimistic person. But in Vegas, it feels like all they care about is vanity projects.
buses in LV are actually quite good (for buses).
Honestly a big gap between this and the second-best answer. It would be massively successful
What’s baffling are all the disconnected monorails. Great example why privately ran public transportation doesnt work. If they just connected all the monorails, they’d have a halfway decent system.
And let the poors from the Flamingo easily come to my Bellagio??? Unthinkable! - NIMBYs
The monorail isn't really useful for destinations other than ones that contain stations. The stations are behind the casinos and walking to the strip can be a long labyrinth through some hotels. And walking to the other side of the strip can take forever. Still, wish it had some connection to the airport. Building a station at the rental car facility and using that existing shuttle system is a no brainer.
I’d say Vegas could actually use a full on heavy rail subway line from the airport to downtown under the strip. Light rail appendages could connect to that main line and expand the system along major arterials across the city.
If Vegas is able to build spectacular architectural icons, stadiums, and what not I believe they can get it done! For me, I think the question is cost. Too bad the Monorail is not only somewhat disappointing, but also isn’t being considered for any expansion.
They don’t want locals getting around everywhere. They want rich people to take private transportation straight to the casinos and then stay there. Everything about the town starts to make sense once you live there for long enough.
Cost and lack of interest in supporting it by casinos.
I've heard that the taxi cab lobby prevented the main monorail from being extended to the airport. It's so dumb that it ends just a few blocks from the airport.
Thanks to Uber they aren’t as powerful
Vegas seems like it would be the easiest. A single line could connect the airport, Strip and Downtown. Maybe run a few lines out into the different neighborhoods and connect to UNLV.
I’d also argue that Vegas would benefit as the large number of service industry jobs means a light rail won’t become a boondoggle, most of those service industry jobs can not be done remotely. It would benefit both tourists and residents. Plus it would be convenient for the sports facilities.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas If you sort by density, Las Vegas is way up there surprisingly, it’s a no brainer in terms of sticking a light rail system there
Vegas should get a metro line, not a light rail...
Cincinnati had one basically built but never really materialized. They definitely could make good use of it if it ever was created. I could see Providence, Hartford, and Rochester with maybe some legacy systems that could do some good given the heavier density of the NE. As for newer systems, agreed with your choices. Also Vegas has a surprisingly simple layout and could easily build one from the airport to the Strip to the Fremont/downtown area in one straight shot, but they have to make due for now with their shitty people mover.
Unfortunately as so often the case, Cincinnati had one long ago that was well used. Those looooong steps down to the Columbia parkway aren’t new
People really have no clue how extensive streetcar systems were at the turn of the century. Absolutely huge, all over the place
Just to be clear, that’s 1900, not 2000. Although 2000 was on the upswing from the 1970s where things more or less bottomed out.
The people mover was the goofiest thing I’ve seen in awhile. I’m curious how much more it would’ve cost to put in an actual underground subway system.
I think a new system would have to be put a bit to the west. The current system is basically transporting people between casinos on the edge of the strip. Not only that, but the fares are probably the highest I've seen in any city that I've ever been to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Subway
Providence still has the tunnel under College Hill, the old burned bridge and the rail corridor through Riverside / Barrington / Warren / Bristol which is now a bike path. It's all there, but there's a lack of political will to build rail. And the other rail corridor from Olneyville through West Warwick is a bike path. But the city has a major BANANA problem.
I can't tell if it would be better or worse if you knew that [Rochester had a subway system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_subway) that was abandoned in the mid-50s, but if you didn't you do now. Was infuriating to think about while waiting for a bus in waist-high snow on Mother's Day.
I didn't know about this, very interesting read! Such a shame what has happened to public transit in this country. We went from having the greatest on Earth to being almost non-existent in the majority of the country.
That is super interesting, I never would have guessed. So many rust belt cities were relatively huge and bustling in the mid 20th centuries but can’t even be found among lists of cities by population these days
Cincinnati has a light rail line that is actually pretty good. They could definitely expand the system though.
I wouldn't say it's pretty good. It's such a small loop that walking is almost always faster. I use it occasionally if I don't feel like walking or if the weather is bad but it isn't super practical.
It's a streetcar not light rail. But yeah it is pretty great. Cincinnati/NKY would be great candidate for light rail.
Detroit. Its criminal that they never built a subway system ESPECIALLY back when its population was twice as high and over a million people in the city limits. It used to be one of the biggest cities in the country and not a sniff of mass transit. Ive always thought if they had a subway they could have pivoted when industry left towards tech or something different, but when the industry left you were left with a hollowed out husk of parking lots and highways everywhere and there was no appealing reason for other industries or people to come downtown and you end up in a death spiral. Its sad to imagine where Detroit would be today if they had built a subway system.
Was looking for this answer! Such a huge city to have no meaningful rail transit. Boston proper has the same population as Detroit, for comparison.
Their metro areas are similar in population as well
The people mover in Detroit was planned to be a full network like the skytrain in Vancouver but the funding got cut heavily under Reagan so it’s just one line that runs in a single direction loop
Reagan ruined everything. Its crazy how you can trace back almost every problem in this country directly back to him in one way or another.
Once again, every time I learn something new about Reagan it's always bad
And yet, he was very popular in his time. 1984 was one of the most dominant presidential elections. Should serve as a reminder that things aren’t necessarily right or best just because they are popular with the majority of voters.
I think Detroit has to have the worst public transit system of any major US city, and by a pretty good margin. No actual rail system, the bus system is fragmented and severely underfunded and unreliable, and there’s no express connection between the airport and downtown.
Definitely, and not too long ago it didnt even have its single crappy street car.
You take that back! We had the Peoplemover in all its squealing glory.
Yes, and now there’s that little fucking tram that just goes up and down a few miles of Woodward!! City of the future! Also…Fuck Reagan.
They were going to build one in the 1920s but the council vote was 1 vote short of being veto proof, and the mayor vetoed it. Insane to think what could’ve been.
Man thats so sad because in the 20s they were building heavy rail transit so Detroit would have gotten a legit system. Probably subways downtown and some cool elevateds outside the core Id guess. These days nobody in America builds hrt unless its an extension. Even nyc, hrt capital of the world in some cases is building the interborough express as light rail.
Chicago is literally rebuilding multiple entire heavy rail transit lines that are 100+ years old right now.
Agree, but you said twice as high? At one point the population was almost *four* times as high, over 2 million people. In the 50s, too, so massive relative to the country as a whole.
Yea my bad I was trying to remember off the top of my head I knew it was well over a million.
I agree, too bad city planners and leaders didn’t seem to have the vision or insight to pursue one in the past
GM and Ford are probably the reason this isn't a thing. Can't have motor city have anything other than motor transportation.
The Big 3 bought up the streetcars and dismantled them, entrenching the rule of automobiles in the metro area. And now the suburbs don’t want to fund regional transit because, well, racism and bootstraps and shit.
Detroit has a streetcar. It’s on Woodward Avenue. It’s called the QLine and it’s free.
Don’t know why I got downvoted. I’m right. Everyone is acting like Detroit doesn’t have a streetcar. Oh boo hoo Detroit doesn’t have a streetcar. I’m saying that they do. Rejoice! Don’t get mad at me. Detroit has had a streetcar for six years. According to Wikipedia they signed a deal to keep it free until 2036. That’s nice.
Nashville is a decent answer. The population growth is a bit smaller than that in Columbus, for example, but it receives a lot more tourism traffic that would probably be relevant for the efficacy of a LR system
The congestion to and from the airport has gotten ridiculous! Last weekend people were getting out of Ubers and walking along the exit to not miss their flight
I agree. Nashville needs LR. The tourist could plug any gaps in usage, and it needs the infrastructure if it wants to be a successful modern city.
Nashville voters rejected a pretty huge light rail system plan some years ago. It’s actually often used as a case study for other cities in learning from mistakes.
The Mayor and their body guard (wink) should not take trips on the city's dime is one lesson. That scandal killed any chance of it passing.
Give them a futuristic design urban maglev like the ones in Japan and China to woo the voters
Yes and the bus system is poor — all routes collect in an enormous central terminal with infrequent service. There was recently a vote to get a legit system (including LRT, IIRC), but was rejected by voters.
Indeed, it was in 2018 - I actually did canvassing for it. Very disappointing stuff. Pretty certainly most of the cities people have suggested in this thread will get LRT before Nashville
Nashville had a vote to build LRT and voters overwhelmingly rejected it. They don’t want it.
Nashville suffers from the rather unique geography challenge of having a massive city proper that encompasses suburban areas that, in many other metros, would be located in other municipalities. It is tremendously harder to plan for something like the 2018 transit initiative when you’ve got to cater to suburbanites who really couldn’t possibly be served by much of any transit.
Columbus, OH
Columbus, OH is one of the largest and fastest growing US cities with pathetic public transportation
Columbus is the largest city in the United States without any kind of passenger rail, I believe. There's certainly room for *something* there even if it doesn't cover the sprawling extent of the entire city.
Just something running up and down High Street would be a major win. Tons of development along that corridor.
Allowing OSU students to easily access the short north without driving would be a huge win for those businesses.
It doesn’t even have intercity Amtrak? That is wild
Nope. Torn down in the 70s
San Antonio is larger (both city and metro pop) and it has no passenger rail.
I believe what I read also includes Amtrak intercity service, which San Antonio is served by.
Yep, gotcha
Arlington TX lol to have 2 major cities with population around 1 million plus and they have no system connecting them is crazy….. but to be the city in the middle and have all the sporting venues and absolutely no form of transit to or from said places is CRAZY.
I believe Arlington is the largest city in the US to have no fixed-route transit at all, let alone rail lol. They should probably start with a bus line or two.
I hope Dallas’s transit agency is able to do something like the Silver Line where it’s a commuter rail that connects Ft. Worth, Arlington, and Dallas!
There is a commuter train that goes from Dallas to Fort Worth would have to check but I’m almost certain there has to be a stop in Arlington lol. but for a place so big to have no convenience for sporting events and concerts is still crazy to me.
Nope too far north. It stops in the HEB area. The only rail line in Arlington runs by the GM plant off of 360.
I agree that many of the cities listed in these threads need big overhauls to their transit picture. However I think a lot of them are very far away from being able to solve those problems with just Light Rail. As others mentioned, these projects won't generate a real return on investment for these communities without fundamental changes to zoning, last mile transit (walkability, bike lanes, etc), and regional connections. That's not to say light rail wouldn't be great in these places, but it has to be packaged as a part of a larger regional plan. As the question is asked, I think the #1 candidates are cities where we can drop in a Light Rail without building everything else and the system will have the demand to sustain itself. A city that is viable in this regard: * Has multiple dense and walkable areas, like college campuses, that can be connected via Light Rail * Already has an airport, train station, bus station, etc that when connected to Light Rail can offer multi modal conectivity * Has Demand (or foreseeable future demand) that exceeds the capacity of properly done BRT. * Already has a BRT at large capacity that should be upgraded to Light Rail * Has an existing rail right of way or highway median that would be a good place for a line. Given those constraints, I'd say these would be my top picks: * NYC, there are quite a few bus routes that could be upgraded to Light Rail given they have ridership higher than some cities metros. Lines like the M60, M15, B46, Bx12, Q58, etc. The [IBX project](https://new.mta.info/project/interborough-express) is a great example of this * Pittsburgh - updating BRT busways (West and South busways) to Light Rail * Tacoma, WA * Long Beach, CA * NEC cities like Stamford, Providence, or New Haven * Oakland, CA * Milwaukee, WI * Tampa, FL
I think this is a good framework. Based on it, I'll add Richmond, VA to the list: \* Richmond has built a BRT and proven concept, and is starting the process of building another BRT line \* There are dense, walkable neighborhoods in the historic downtown \* Amtrak and the state of Virginia are working on infrastructure improvements to add more volume through Richmond's Main Street Station \* As major employers here demand RTO (for better or worse, mainly worse) there are job centers and residential neighborhoods throughout the metro area that need to be linked \* Land use philosophy is starting to change - the city recently eliminated parking minimums
Given the bullets you listed I'd have to agree there is an opportunity.
The sticking point would be ROW acquisition - not all of the GRTC Pulse is run in a dedicated lane. A road diet on the stroad where the Pulse currently runs is gonna be an uphill battle
Here's my not very crazy, related idea: * Rehabilitate the Richmond Main Street train shed structure and add back the platforms and tracks * Continue VRE service to Richmond, terminating at RVM * Run the VRE bidirectional all day for gods sake! * New VRE lines branching out from RVM Not many people are going to commute the whole RVM to DC on VRE, but just by doing the first two bullets you've managed to complement the existing Amtrak services (which are busting ridership records due to high demand), instantly added regional/commuter rail to a region that no longer has it (and should), complement the BRT system without having to build a new ROW (they're already doing all the track work you mentioned), and overall improve access in and around Richmond. Plus now you have an opportunity to add some TOD or some shit around the new stations, which is definitely good considering how much the sprawling Richmond suburban developments are booming. Also for reference, RVM to DC is something like 100 miles, similar to Philly-NYC For reference, I have heard most of this mentioned various times as a "what if" that could be done after the current rail improvement projects in VA. But there's no actual plan and no commitment to actually doing it at the moment.
Agreed 100%!
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I’ll throw in Jacksonville, Florida. It is the (2nd-5th) fastest growing city in the country and is expected to significantly keep growing. 12th highest population in the country. Yet they only have 1 Amtrak line, and a subpar bus network for city travel. There are multiple high density areas around city (downtown, surrounding historic neighborhoods, town center/UNF, International airport & river city marketplace) and just outside city (beaches, St. Augustine, orange park). They could greatly benefit with a few commuter lines throughout the greater metro area, that could be supplemented by a tram/streetcar/bus network between hubs throughout the city.
Columbus ohio would be a good one
Can I mention a Canadian city? Halifax badly needs light rail but amalgamated surrounding suburbs and farmland so any effort to get rail built gets shot down. We don’t even have tap on our buses, still using the old change slot.
If we are talking Canadian cities the answer has to be Winnipeg. Population-wise they rank 8th in Metro area and everybody else in the top 10 has or is planning to build some sort of rail based transit system. Especially given the success of Waterloo region's system, which has a much smaller population than Winnipeg. Cities like London and Halifax should also be at least trying to look into the idea seriously.
Surprised not to see what I thought was obvious. San Antonio is the biggest city in the US that doesn't have one. It's sprawl-hell, but even Houston and Dallas are ateast trying to make it work.
Seriously I had to scroll WAY too far to find San Antonio, a streetcar downtown would be a great place for non-bus public transit and would be well utilised
Buffalo has one light rail line but desperately needs to expand.
It’s actually expanding by a single station next year! They’re also working with the FTA on a 7 mile extension North, but the final plan/verdict keeps getting delayed. We now have to wait until 2024 to see the final plan or if there’s federal funding for the project.
There are cities 3-4 times the size of Buffalo with zero urban rail.
This. 🙃 It's so frustrating to think about how great the system could have been if the money originally allocated in the 70s hadn't been moved due to financial issues with NYC.
i mean 1970s NYC waa actively & violently falling apart in every way imagineable so they kinda needed the money
No, I agree. Just saying how things could have been had NYC not been in such bad shape.
Raleigh is massively suburban and sprawling and their “downtown core” is anemic and littered with parking lots. That core is surrounded on all sides by suburban development patterns (excluding the college). I agree they should have a light rail immediately but without fixing their zoning and development patterns, they’ll never see an return on that investment. What Raleigh needs to do ASAP is thin out all their roads (why are there so many 4, 6, 8 lane roads within 0.25 miles of city center?) and do everything they can to infill those parking lots. Then build massively mixed use developments around the train station, and do as many trains to Charlotte and Durham and Richmond as much as possible (way more than the 5 a day they run now). And then you can build LRT lines I guess, but, again, literally 0.27 miles east from the capitol building is non-dense single family exclusive housing that continues all the way to 440 (and beyond). North is less than a mile for the same, and is also divided by the train yard and by 401 (the other side being also single family suburbs). These areas should be of the same designs that make Raleigh nice now. Dense, mixed use, multi-family, small lots, no setbacks. Ample room for small businesses. But no one is building those - everyone wants a shitty McMansion instead. It really makes the feeling on the ground horrible as you walk around anywhere outside of the, what, 24 total blocks of actual city? And even in that 4x6 block grid of density, it’s still absolutely swimming in surface parking lots. Honestly, Raleigh doesn’t need an LRT, they need infill development. It is almost an empty city, it feels like.
The zoning has been fixed!! Raleigh has some of the most progressive local regulations in the country. Parking maximums, missing middle + ADUs in all residential zoning districts, and TOD zoning within the walkshed of our 4 upcoming BRT corridors. That said, it's difficult to undo decades of awful planning -- and many of the huge roads you mentioned are owned by NCDOT which makes it a little more difficult. But downtown is building tons of housing, as is midtown, as is the NC State area. There are nodes. Transit is next.
That's so good to hear!
This is really really great news. I admit that my derision is based on several 2018-2021 visits, where, even ignoring COVID, I was disappointed in the town. Do us all the honor and stick it to NCDOT. Give ‘em hell.
I think RDU needs light rail in the triangle to support the more local systems. Ability to take mass transit to an airport is so big
I agree, and light rail to the airport is a massive (and comparatively easy) first step. But look at the political map of Raleigh. It is 85% suburban cul-de-sac single family housing neighborhoods. The road designs used for these, as well as the fact that they’re all already privately owned by many different thousands of people, massively inhibits the ability to acquire right of way. But expanding the Raleigh Union Station Amtrak right of way for the first third of the way towards the airport, and then acquiring new right of from the college west campus, and running along 40, makes this actually very feasible. But, again, 440 inhibits this, suburban development inhibits this. Right now, you have to take a 1 stop Amtrak to Carey Station, and the. Transfer to a GoTriangle train that takes a convoluted, two-dozen-stop path to the airport?
Just run a shuttle from the airport to the state owned NCRR corridor nearest the airport. That's mostly a four track width ROW. Getting a second track and running hourly Durham - Raleigh locals along the existing ROW is "only" Brightline expensive, less than $10b. Build that line to accommodate a third and fourth track eventually, since the Southeast HSR corridor comes right through there. Pair with the 8/day Richmond trains from the S-Line once built and the additional 3/day Charlotte trips from the same, and a ~13 stop Triangle local service running hourly... Suddenly that's a system worth building around. And the ROW is already under state ownership. Should RDU get a dedicated rail link eventually? Absolutely - it's a major employer and trip generator. But adding 500m-1b to get the tracks into the airport (and, worse, back out if it's not a spur) is probably a bridge too far for the phase 1 system.
Tell that to Sacramento lol, I admire Cleveland’s system a lot because they were the first pretty much to realize that you need connection to airports!
You could have said the same about Phoenix when they wanted to add a light rail. But then they did and the light rail corridor densified significantly (and still is). More than the projections were even anticipating. The fact is that building transit helps with infill because it’s easier to infill close to transit stations. For example, Houston doesn’t have low density zoning but is still low density because when you build freeways and no transit you’re going to end up with sprawl because sprawl is, essentially, transit oriented development… for car transit. So it ends up feeling like a chicken and egg scenario. You want to densify and infill but if the area only has car access to the rest of the city developers are building more sprawl instead since the occupants will need cars to have access to anything.
Hot take: Santa Barbara Probably not number 1, but a tram train following the amtrak tracks from Carpinteria to amtrak mainstation, then going a tram route down state street, then down hollister, perhaps with a branch to UCSB/Isla Vista
SB is like the size of a lot of suburbs no chance they add a metro or light rail for like 85k people
Oh forreal, but in concert with a bunch of upzoning? And not a full metro, but street running light rail? IDK, I'm also just imagining a crazy YIMBY future where SB gets a lot more housing.
As someone that grew up in Raleigh, I love your shout and passion but there are not enough dense nodes and employment centers to support a light rail or similar transit network in Raleigh. I work in San Antonio and Indy often. They are two of my favorite cities that I think are quite under appreciated. Indy is a good call and could support it, and they almost did many years ago but voters were presented with and supported a BRT package. I’ll let an Indy resident chime in with their better-informed take tho.
The BRT we have (Indy) and are getting more of could be great but the driver shortage is killing reliability pretty strongly. As of now it’s alright at its best and not worth using at its worst. I could see the case for commuter rail throughout the metro though, especially as some of the surrounding suburbs are becoming separate cities of their own (Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, etc) But any form of light rail transit is currently banned in the city by the state so that’ll have to get fixed before we can get anywhere.
Las Vegas, Albany, Rochester, Columbus, Hartford, Halifax, Winnipeg, and Providence. Detroit needs an actual light metro or heavy rail subway at this point. Quebec City and Omaha will be getting their own tram systems by the end of the decade. Honorable mention: Arlington and Alexandria in Northern VA.
Albany really could use commuter rail to connect all the population centers of the capital region together.
Hmm. Arlington and Alexandria have buses, and a regional subway system, and a surface commuter rail line, and HOV lanes. Would people actually use a tram if it were offered? What would that offer that a dedicated bus right of way couldn't? Also, I'm not sure the folks in Old Town would tolerate a streetcar. My impression (from living there many years ago) is that a major regional transit issue is that the Metro doesn't help you go laterally; it's only useful if you are going along one if the spokes that leads into DC. But this is a problem with lots of cities that have transit, and new travel patterns based on companies moving out to the burbs and people changing jobs every few years means that "everybody just goes downtown every morning and back to the suburbs at night" isn't really serving as many people as it would have with traffic patterns of 50-75 years ago.
Denver needs to reinstall and expand its formerly massive streetcar network. L.A. should too, as Eddie Valiant could attest.
Hey, LA is trying! They've raised a ton of capital funding, with a new extension opening nearly every year for the next decade.
I agree, but Denver is nowhere close to the answer on this topic. Several other cities that have much worse system, especially since Denver has one of the best bike networks in the US.
Hey, LA is trying! They've raised a ton of capital funding, with a new extension opening nearly every year for the next decade.
Milwaukee Detroit Oakland (they have BART but no light rail) Cincinnati Columbus Fresno
Milwaukee already has a streetcar with a second line(-ish) coming: [https://thehopmke.com/](https://thehopmke.com/) Detroit has the QLine: https://www.qlinedetroit.com/
personally, I don't think the US should build any at-grade rail. I don't know why people in an urban-planning subreddit cannot look around at all of the attempts in the US and see that they are failures. the best systems are the ones mostly grade-separated. Americans are fickle transit riders. you can't operate a slow, infrequent system and expect to draw any meaningful number of people out of cars. you will get people who cannot afford cars, but that's about it. but that begs the question: why are we building a system designed to move all of the poor people out of the way of the wealthy people so that they can sprawl out more easily? that is effectively what these lines are doing. for transit to actually draw people out of cars, it must be 1. grade-separated so that top speeds can be high and traffic/lights don't affect it 2. high frequency, which likely means it must be automated, given the expense and shortages of drivers. in theory, light rail/trams can have high frequency, but transit agencies never prioritize quality of service over breadth of service. budgets are fixed and transit agencies would rather run high-cost bus lines through low density areas than put the money into the light rail/tram to keep the frequency to a level that draws people out of cars (<5min headway). on top of that, car-dominated cities never give surface light rail the priority in needs to be good. often mixing/crossing traffic and often not full traffic light pre-emption, and don't ticket drivers for blocking intersections. the pro-car voters is too powerful and the transit agencies are too obsessed with breadth of service to make surface light rail good. so, rather than building surface rail and forever dooming a city's transit to be a place to put poor people, cities should build elevated light metros, like Skytrain.
I wish I could upvote this twice. Non grade separated rail in US cities is always too slow to pull people out of their cars and is too prone to delays. LA metro is a really good example of a system that serves a lot of destinations but can’t get people on board because it’s too slow (stops for cars) or prone to delays because of vehicle collisions. The A line is over 40 miles long and is constantly hitting cars and stranding people on the other end of the county. It’s insane to build rails without grade separation in an urban environment.
Nashville, Tennessee
Look for any large cities in any solid red state. There will be your answer (Indianapolis, Columbus, Louisville, Kansas City, St. Louis, Austin, San Antonio) these are criminally lacking transit. The best red state for transit is by far Utah (or maybe Texas due to sheer size of DFW)
Pound for pound, definitely Utah.
Arlington, VA. Needs one going straight down columbia pike with seamless transfer to WMATA yellow/blue lines at pentagon city.
That would actually be a mistake because Columbia pike needs a buried heavy rail WMATA line with 5 stops all within 0.5 mi of each other like the Rosslyn ballston corridor
I’d take that as well. Or even a half assed BRT route. Columbia Pike has the density needed to support it.
Buffalo and Rochester seem line no-brainers to me. Buffalo already has one light rail line running along Main Street, but it's not that useful on its own. It doesn't even reach UB's South Campus (in typical SUNY fashion, UB is scattered across several campuses that basically do not engage with the city at all). Both cities have ideal layouts for light rail with fairly obvious right-of-way.
Actually Buffalo’s Lightrail line has one of the highest boardings per mile rates among LRL nationwide. It act works very well because it connects one of the densest corridors in the city to downtown, the waterfront and several universities. That being said, it shows small cities can support Lightrail if you focus on dense corridors. Still that’s just more reason to expand the system. Also exciting is that the NFTA is studying several BRT lines for the city.
Strongly agree. The popularity of the service where it is accessible is definitely proof of concept, the coverage just isn't that great, which means that it's never actually shifted the needle much in terms of mode share. I know probably 30 people who went to UB, and they all brought their cars with them, in part because the actual UB campuses are planning disasters of a typical Nelson Rockefeller fashion. I think a service on Delaware or Elmwood up to Tonawanda via the Buff State campus would be a smash hit. It would also be nice for South Buffalo and areas east of downtown to get...something. North Buffalo has the density to support better transit today, but it would also be such an injustice to consolidate services in places that are thriving exactly because they weren't redlined and neglected. It'll take more than better transit to right the historical wrongs inflicted on those neighborhoods, but you have to start somewhere. I'm usually a bit of a BRT skeptic, but Buffalo is the kind of place where I think it makes decent sense if they're prepared to do it right, since you have the space to carve out the large ROW that good BRT requires. The road design means you could even plausibly use sleek new bi-articulated buses if you want the extra capacity, but maybe that's wishful thinking. I'm not from Buffalo, but I grew up Upstate, have lots of family there, and always loved visiting, so it was really like a second home to me as a kid. Awesome food scene, great parks, pride of place (go Bills!). It has such great bones, and is like a mini Chicago in terms of the sheer density of great American architecture. On a personal level, there's probably no city I'd rather see bounce back to its former glory.
I think some type of light rail or streetcar would have been an amazing inclusion within the inner loop removal project in Rochester. The city core there, is decently dense compared to Buffalo, and continues to grow. Use that area as a central hub and connect out through RIT, U of R, the Airport. It would have a pretty good connection to all of the major job centers, as well as entertainment portions.
Raleigh resident here, just got back from being the only person on our sad express bus from downtown to Wake Forest. What’s criminal is that we have so much rail right of way that is massively underutilized or unfit for passenger rail. Commuter rail to Durham is basically dead because running a 2nd track got absurdly expensive. FTA losing interest in traditional commuter rail post COVID doesn’t help, either. The S line connecting fast passenger rail to Richmond and DC feels like something that will be done long after I retire. At least we have BRT coming, first segment comes online in 2025. 🤞it leads to more BRT towards the airport and Durham.
I don't know if it's number 1, but Chicago could benefit from a light rail / streetcar system in and around downtown to compliment the L heavy rail system. They could start with a line running from Navy Pier, through River North and West Loop to Union Station, going east to LaSalle Station, then south towards Museum Campus and McCormick Place. It could also have spurs out to the United Center and UIC campus, and a continuous line on Michigan Ave / LSD between McCormick Place and Lincoln Park.
>to compliment the L heavy rail system 100% We rely on buses to much for this. Dedicated lanes for trams connecting our train stations would be amazing. The boulevard system and wide arterials all over Chicago could easily fit a dedicated streetcar. You could also fit light rail along the lakefront if you just took one lane away from LSD.
Yup came here to say exactly this lol
The Triangle has been talking about building some sort of rail since I was in middle school in the early 90s, nothing has been built and I think the plan they were working on was scrapped and thrown away.
They’re going to try for bud rapid transit I read
Seattle actually needs more dedicated space for more than just commuter LR (for local Seattle)
All plans for any kind of transit that makes sense in Raleigh get scrapped by conservatives who want the area to be 100% car-dependent suburbia . They hate the idea of transit and would rather pour our tax money into widening roads and highways. Meanwhile millions (possibly billions) of our taxes are wasted on studies and plans for rail transit just to be shot down.
Chicago- Lake Shore Drive. It sees 150k trips daily; a third of which are via CTA Bus. A high capacity dedicated light rail line is capable of realistically moving 90K people daily. You could convert Lake Shore drive into an actual boulevard with light rail running down the eastern side of it.
I live in Raleigh, so it's my #1 choice as well. What really sucks is that, like many small cities in the US, Raleigh had a fairly robust electric street car / trolley system in the 19th century that was dismantled a hundred years ago from pressure from the automobile and oil lobbyist.
New York City. Much of the subway service is set up running in and out of Manhattan, I think a light rail/streetcar network could provide more reliable service than buses to fill in some of those gaps in the subway network, and replace some of the Select Bus Service routes. I've thought for years that Fordham Rd/Pelham Pkwy, where the Bx12 SBS runs, is a perfect corridor for a light rail. Design it to be higher capacity than the SBS, somehow not get caught in traffic light a bus, and it fills in a gap since it would run east/west and the existing subways in the Bronx all run north/south. Same with running multiple connections between Queens and Brooklyn. And upgrade the Whitestone Bridge to run between Queens and the Bronx.
I just can’t see any non grade separated rail being useful in NYC (I live here too). Some guy double parking for half an hour and stranding a tram is inevitable. At least a bus can move around it. I ride the M15, M14 and M23 really regularly and they do some pretty serious zigs and zags to negotiate the constant construction and bad behavior of drivers.
San Antonio, TX—seventh most populated city in the US, and no light rail. Austin, TX, has light rail, but it’s laughably insufficient.
SAN DIEGO COUNTY. we need to have surburb to surburb connections. Everyone drives, it’s crazy dangerous because of these massive stroads, bikers and pedestrians are getting hit ALL the time. Everyone has the mentality of “it won’t work, nimbys don’t want it” but we have so much room. My idea is from poinsettia train station put in a light rail to go through Palomar airport road up to CSUSM, to Fallbrook down the 76 to Oceanside back to Carlsbad. If people have good options they will use it.
You can blame Duke for the NC triangle not having light rail
Orange County. Far more distributed than LA, lots of little areas with downtowns that would make endless sense to connect with bike paths & light rail. This area could be like the Jetsons, but a LOT of Orange County seems to want free trollies to get around within their area (looking at you, San Clemente & Laguna Beach) but actively resist any attempt to connect to a larger system, because then the "wrong people" might end up there. In a way, it's bad by design, to keep "those people" out.
Tampa Bay please
Atlanta. And no, its current streetcar doesn't count as a system yet. It's coming though. Very excited for the extension to Ponce.
Pittsburgh feels pretty awful. One local line that only goes south. Only one amtrack line that runs the slowest trains ever to get to the east coast. And just shit tons of freight and former rail sitting around rusting as a big tease of what used to be there.
Can’t believe no one’s mentioned SoCal. Between the awful urban sprawl, total car-dependence, high cost of living putting a lot of people into poverty, and the sky-high cost of driving (including gas, registration, insurance) it is the most needed candidate for light rail. LA, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ontario, Pasadena, Pomona, take your pick.
Madison Wisconsin could benefit from light rail. It’s so spread out .
columbus ohio has 1m people and currently has the largest construction project in the country being undertaken downtown, the short north, and campus need a line so desperately
san antonio
Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill(/Cary/Morrisville/Apex/Garner) is a big one. There are some express routes that already make sense, like a multi-hub spoke system around RDU and downtown Raleigh (either union station or if digging a tunnel is an option, somewhere around nash/moore square). Any buildout of rail would need to be accompanied by aggressive upzoning and infill around the stations. - Chapel Hill - Durham city center (there is already a heavy track right of way along this route but a more direct one might be desirable, or at least upgrading the existing track to increase speeds) - Chapel Hill - Southpoint - Durham city center - RDU - Southpoint - RDU - RDU - Raleigh fairgrounds (this track mostly already exists) - Apex - Raleigh fairgrounds - Raleigh fairgrounds - Raleigh Union Station (this track already exists) - Raleigh Union Station - Crabtree Valley Mall - Raleigh Union Station - Triangle Town Center (this track mostly already exists)
There was a plan for light rail between CH and Durham but Duke killed it https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2023/09/092923-siegle-revisiting-durham-orange-light-rail
Please please please build grade seperated metro instead of streetcars.
Columbus is my vote for sure. It’s a university city, state capital, and largest city in Ohio and has zero rail service. The city is a mess of inner city freeways and would greatly benefit from a few heavy rail metro lines, a couple streetcar/light rail lines, and an intercity rail station.
Chicago. Easy answer. It has a lot heavy rail with commuter and L lines, but no streetcars or light rail.
Ann Arbor, Mi
Austin *kinda* has light rail but Congress Avenue absolutely needs a proper streetcar. A few other streets lime Lamar, 6th, MLK, Guadalupe, and Cesar Chavez could be well served by one too.
Currently live in Raleigh and I half agree. I think linking all the downtown areas makes sense with some stops in between but the last mile problem is real. No one wants gigantic parking structures near them which would be required to make it work here.
San Antonio, Texas is the largest US city with only buses and a light rail or streetcar downtown would be great Also I recently moved from San Antonio to Louisville so this post seems especially rude to me specifically
Raleigh Raleigh Raleigh Raleigh Raleigh x 10000
Indianapolis. All of central Indiana used to have a very extensive light rail system until it was outlawed and demolished by state officials lobbied by the car industry. My suburb (Plainfield) actually still has its inter urban station
Columbus, OH. Easy.
Richmond needs 3 or 4 more BRT lines and I would be so happy if we build them.
Interesting that all the cities are in states with supermajority Republican legislatures. It's getting to the point that Republican politicians are like Pavlov's dog, but rabid: at the mere mention of rail transit they start foaming at the mouth in opposition.
It’s not the idea of light rail that people are against. It’s the taxes needed to pay for it. Here in middle TN there was a tax measure on the ballot several years ago to raise taxes on hotel stays to pay for a light rail system that is badly needed and the voters shot it down. I partly understand why. I’ve kicked in cities where politicians made big promises and failed to deliver.
All of them
You should give up on Raleigh. The state is run by republicans and they have limited the cities (and the governor) on what they can do.
New York City lol
Oahu, Hawaii recently opened an elevated rail system that runs nearly empty every 10 minutes, even during rush hour. While it’s only partially complete and will have more riders once the current section extends past the airport to Kalihi, it still won’t be practical. Americans love the convenience of having their own vehicle so they the have flexibility in their schedules and destinations. It’s challenging to develop rail solutions that will have sufficient coverage and speed that will convince large numbers of people to give up driving.
It doesn't even go to Honolulu yet. Once it does, I'm certain ridership will improve massively. Do TOD, and it will skyrocket. This mentality that ridership has to be present immediately is wrong. American urban design isn't conducive to good transit, but trying to change that without having infrastructure in place to make urban living practical is dumb. Hawaii did the right thing by building the transit first. After that's done, you can alter zoning around the transit. Hawaii also did right by making the system driverless, which gives it the potential for incredible headway and for 24/7 operations. It's an example we should seek to follow.
"#1" based on what criteria?? Potential?
Chicago or LA to return it to it's old glory. I know Chicago has the L but there are so many places far from trains that would be perfect from a streetcar. Chicago used to be a streetcar city and we currently rely too much on buses. Light rail along the lakefront would be great too
St Pete - Clearwater - Tampa - then on to Orlando.
Madison. We're exploding in population but barely have functional busses (unless you live on the Isthmus). To get to work I could take a 10 minute bike ride, a 30 minute walk, or... a 90 minute bus ride.
The ridership in Charlotte is pathetic.
None. Build proper metro systems and stop making excuses.
Not a city in itself, but Staten Island is a no brainer
Orlando , how can’t you have a rail line that can go between the parks and downtown Orlando ?
Atlanta. MARTA heavy rail runs north/south and east/west centered on downtown with a short spur off the northern arm. Heavy rail expansion and extension has been discussed for decades but never passes. We would be best suited for light rail integrated with the existing heavy rail since we don’t really have a grid system and trying to clear space for more heavy is not feasible at this point, but Atlanta is so spread out that a light rail system connecting all the inner suburbs would do wonders.
San Antonio desperately needs one. The new growth areas are a parking lot and any big event just back up every road on that side of town
An urban streetcar might be a good move for Toledo?
Tampa has a pretty short street car, but some kind of light rail connecting it to St Pete seems like a no brainer for the area
DC needs to expand its commuter service and run more frequent trips to central and eastern maryland
Miami - the south Florida metro area has a few that really need to do more. There’s the Tri- rail that just goes north and south from the Miami airport to west palm and is fine and affordable but nothing connects it to other places except the metro mover which just does like a little loop around downtown Miami, but doesn’t really take you anywhere else. Then there’s the $$$ brightline, which is fun, but takes you essentially the same places as the tri rail, but for more money and less stops.
Houstonby itself is the size of Rhode Island. It has over 6 million people in the greater metro area and something like 20 miles of rail.
Raleigh has twice shit the bed on rail transit. It needs to focus on BRT until it grows up a bit.
Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook
Without a doubt Nashville TN. Major, dense residential neighborhoods ie East Nashville, 12 south, Nations, Sylvan, germantown, others are close to downtown (one of the rare urban downtowns that is truly usable and nice w both sporting arenas within a mile of each other in or across river from downtown). Airport very close to downtown. There are zero public trans rail options of any kind today but enough growth to know where population is moving into. Blank slate.