The GIANT Metro Expansion You've Never Heard of | Istanbul Metro

Special thanks to Oğulcan Er, Mert Ertuğ, & Loccus Loccus for helping with this video!

We've talked about a lot of different metro systems around the world, but none that seem to be growing as fast and as much as the Istanbul Metro. Watch the latest and greatest Transit Explained to learn more!

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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!

Reece Martin (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.

[mriz]

Istanbul is like Playing Cities skylines and you observe the insane traffic build up and decided to go crazy on Transit building.

[shughes]

I visited Istanbul in May this year and was blown away by the public transit. I took the tram (t1 and t2), cable car, gondola, metro (M2 and M1), bus, and multiple ferries with the same transit card. It was a great experience and over 8 days I never even bothered with a taxi.

[dannyfratina]

Good video but you left out a key component: boats! I know you mentioned them, but it's worth explaining further - if you want to cross between continents, there is a huge network of boats of various sizes that can take you huge distances for the price of a metro, and it uses the same payment system / tap card as the full metro/bus/etc system. Most boats come every 30 minutes, some locations have a boat leave every 15 minutes. The boats are huge, very calm, have lots of indoor and outdoor seating, are equiped with small cafes, and often will have live performers playing music on one end. What a gift to people traveling around Istanbul to have access to this form of transport.

[kasyon]

I was awe struck when I visited Istanbul in 2019, since my previous visit in 2011. The amount of infrastructure that got built in less than a decade was astounding.
Comparatively in the UK almost nothing has changed in my city. In fact our transit infrastructure is degrading...
Good job to whoever is planning out Istanbuls transit, they do not shy away from a challenge.

[ugurrr]

It's crazy that at least 2-3 lines were opened since this video was released and another one to be opened in a few days.

[timzermunk]

One feature you didn't mention is the Istanbulcard. It functions much like London's Oyster card, but also allows access to some other facilities, such as the public toilet near the Blue Mosque.

[efeberkealici]

As an İstanbulite, I appreciate a lot to see that you cover our metro system, which indeed is undergoing a giant extension program. The aspects and details you tell in the video are researched well and mainly true, albeit I would like to add a couple of elements.

That being said, even though you have mentioned the importance of the Marmaray suburban in its own video, I still think that it deserves an explanation. Although Marmaray is considered a suburban rail, it is far from being one, as it stretches all along highly-populated residential areas and has almost a metro-like frequency (a Halkalı - Gebze train every 15 minutes and an Ataköy - Pendik train every 7.5 minutes). It is worth mentioning once again that Marmaray creates the backbone of the entire Istanbul metro and connects all those M1, M2, M4, M5 (and later M3, M9, M11, M12, M8, M10) with each other. Also integrated into the Istanbulcard system, Marmaray is mostly used between Yenikapı and Söğütlüçeşme to transfer between the above-mentioned metro lines.

Secondly, the M6 line mentioned in the video is accepted as a "mini-metro", which generally is used by the students and lecturers of the Boğaziçi University (which is the last station in the line). The same mini-metro classification can be applied to the M14 line which will offer a connection to Çamlıca Hill, the television tower, and the mosque there. Due to the comparably less ridership and a smaller distance the lines take, they are build with only a track between the stations to be able to cut the construction costs.

Moreover, I have encountered some outdated information in the video regarding the HızRay project. The route planning for it is expanded to the west, namely to Beylikdüzü (which was Halkalı, also shown in the video) and the corridor it will follow is moved to a northern one, especially on the Asian side of the line. The HızRay project is generally compared with the Elizabeth Line in London.

The last thing I would like to add is that you forgot to add the latest extension of the system, the suburban that was inaugurated a couple of months ago between Halkalı and Bahçeşehir. Due to the lack of a signalization system and double tracks, there are only four services every day (two in Halkalı-Bahçeşehir and two in Bahçeşehir-Halkalı direction). There are some rumors on the other hand that the total service count will be raised to 10 in the following months.

Once again, thank you for making a video about the metro system of Istanbul and indirectly helping İstanbul to gain attention. I am looking forward to seeing other videos regarding the transit in Istanbul!

[hksrm]

Nothing compares to Istanbul. It's not a city it's more of a country. Everything in one place, industry, tourism, education, commerce, luxury, poverty, natives, refugees. It's beutiful but also intimidating. Metro lines are the arteries that feed the construction sites of this constantly growing giant city.

[RusNad]

I have to say the amount of improvement in the 2 or 3 years between my 1st and 2nd visit to Istanbul was insane to the point that a lot of stops were not even shown on google maps yet. I do feel that the service is still disjointed and that it's a bit of a pain to travel long distances inside the city but marmaray and metrobus definitely have improved that a lot.

[zulalerdogan]

I lived in İstanbul my whole life. This expansion happened so fast even i still get asthonished. I remember 6 years ago i used to take bus everyday to get to my school but now i don't remember the last time i took a bus. I use metro all the time, they are life savers. They're fast, clean, most of them arrive every 3 minutes or so and cool (if you've visited İstanbul on summer you'll relate) and there are still new metro lines on the way. By the way great video!

[realagentpenguin]

Istanbul's metro network is impressive! It's vast, it has great trains and on top of that.... it has trams, metro buses and cable cars to support them. This is just super cool!

[BanesPlanes]

I visited istanbul few months ago. And i was stunned how good the metro systems are. I enjoyed the marmaray soo much, because i could get from atakoy to asian side very very quickly. And it is very cheap. Looking forward to another trip to Istanbul

[hpsauce]

It is great to see istanbul developing so rapidly, such an important city deserves a world class transport network.

[mobilinsan]

The thing that made me a transit and urbanism enthusiast was İstanbul, the city that I born and live in. And listening the metro system -that I literally memorized- from you was astonishing. Thank you for the İstanbul Explained video that I've been waiting since the time I subscribed to the channel.

[johnforestersworstnightmar]

As an American, I’ve never been so jealous. I live in Philadelphia and we haven’t gotten a new metro extension since the 1960s and our current regional rail system still runs at a lower frequency and services less places than it did in the 1950s. So far there is only have 1 planned expansion to a car dominant edge city that is a massively expensive project that will serve only a laughable amount of people. 2 other subway expansions have been kicked around since the 1920s but still haven’t gotten a serious evaluation. It’s so infuriating to live in a richer country that can’t even seem to maintain a basic transit system, let alone sensibly expand it.

[sygneg]

After last visiting Turkey in 2019, I never knew that there was this much expansion happening in the city! These expansion plans will definently help Istanbul, as their tram lines were severely packed and barely anyone could get on and off due to overcrowding.

[mdhazeldine]

Wow, pretty impressive system. I know the city has a lot of history but when you look into it, it's much bigger and more developed than you'd think, given how little you hear about it. What they're building makes the Elizabeth Line look like a little pet project. haha

[moharrammoharrami]

It's genuinely fantastic. I haven't been to many cities, but Istanbul has the best transport system I've ever seen. I was there on September 2021, and I hadn't needed a taxi even a single time during my 20 day stay.

[bjornnilsson]

Having actually worked with Metro Istanbul (i.e. on the supplier side) I think what you say at 14:33 sums up their entire philosophy and organizational culture. They're NUTS, but in a very good way. I've never worked with any organization that are "solution oriented" to the same level and they also seem to have no fear of failure whatsoever. Given that transit demand in the greater Istanbul area is near limitless I think this is very fortunate.

[Rahshu]

I've been watching this city for years! Istanbul is so interesting, and the growth has indeed been explosive. The Marmaray got very delayed because of the many archeological finds. Istanbul is such a damned ancient city that it's pretty much inevitable. Thessaloniki has been having the same problem. Athens had it, Rome had it, Mexico City had it. If you want to preserve your past, you gotta be patient. I can't wait to see how big Istanbul's transport system gets in the coming years! It's like watching China it changes so fast.