Designing a Futureproof Transit System

From a bridge built with extra space for a subway, to a station with a knockout wall for a future connection, transit futureproofing is wonderful - and it's the topic of today's video!

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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 (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.

[Nalehw]

I mean, I'd be pleased if my city's transit was present-proof.

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

The fact the 63rd Street Tunnel opened for the subway in 1989 really puts into perspective just how long it took to complete East Side Access...I'm still not used to the fact Grand Central Madison is actually open. If it wasn't for the Roosevelt Island station not opening immediately after the trolley line above on the Queensboro Bridge (which was the last trolley line in New York State) and elevator down to the island both closed in 1957, we wouldn't have gotten the Roosevelt Island Tramway! Roosevelt Island was redeveloped to accommodate low- to mid-income housing projects in the 1970s, necessitating the construction of a new transit connection. And so as a solution until the subway station was ready, they came up with an aerial tramway.

It opened in 1976 with the far being 25 cents more than the subway fare so the tramway wouldn't draw away subway riders. But it became a permanent system as the subway project got delayed. Ridership declined once the station did open in 1989, but it's still popular among tourists. It was the last holdout of the subway tokens, and it wouldn't accept MetroCard until March 2004! It now costs the same as the subway and buses. And during the big transit strike in 2005, the aerial tramway was still in operation! The tram is currently operated by Leitner-Poma on behalf of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (a quasi-private NY state public-benefit corporation).

[DrakeFromStateFarm]

Definitely agree with the whole Seattle Transit fiasco, digging tunnels is one thing, but future proofing means you get more potential for easier transit down the line

[Lowspecgames-lrqz]

imo the ultimate case of future-proofing in the subway is Osaka's Midosuji Line. All of the stations were built to accommodate 12-car-long trains back in the 1930s. Although the line now uses 10-car trains due to the increased length of modern carriages, it is still impressive considering that other cities like Tokyo or Nagoya are suffering from capacity constraints with only 6-car trains on their major subway lines (Higashiyama, Ginza, etc.)

+10-car might sound like an overkill for non-asian folks, but the line runs train every 2 min during rush hour, despite having such huge trains. (and ofc all the trains are jampacked) it is actually one of the most successful subway lines in Japan with 230% of profitability!

[katrinabryce]

On the underground section of the Elizabeth line, some of the glass panels at either end of the platforms could be replaced with more platform screen doors to allow for longer trains in the future.

[EmilC]

While I have multiple gripes with the green line extension in Boston I'm glad that they still finish the project with future proofing in mind because it is not concluding on a teardrop turnout like the old days on the south side of all of their branches. It gives me more confidence that there's an opportunity to extend the lines outwards in the future whenever they can get more money. I also like how in Florida the sun rail commuter rail also terminates their stations in a manner that allows for future proofing as well which allows them to get started on there northwards extension to DeLand easily

[drdewott]

Here in Copenhagen we're in quite a pickle. Our first 2 metro lines, the M1 and M2 were severely underbuilt and now face immense overcrowding during rush hour (and yet somehow still performs below the ridership targets the whole project was budgettet for). And this is just after 20 years. The platforms in the downtown arent futureproofed for 4 car trains instead of 3 due to a budget cut by right wing politicians back in the day, not so much in length, but in passenger flow so that everyone can evacuate safely in time in case of an emergency. To retrofit the stations would require closing the whole trunk of the system for 2 whole years! And now Copenhagen so badly wants to get the M5, a brand new metro line going so they can have a secondary metro corridor across the city centre harbour and funnel passengers onto it so they can close the M1/M2 to upgrade it.

On the other hand though, there is decent futureproofing elsewhere in Greater Copenhagen. Busy parts of the S train network like the Northern corridor through Lyngby was actually built for Quadtracking, and despite a highway taking up a small bit of space at grade in one space, it should be very realistic to quadtrack this section in the future, potentially allowing extra high frequencies and faster services. The quadtracking measures were from a time where the railway to Hillerød was still a regional line with plans to separate those tracks from the S train system. But the politicians of the time made a "discount" solution and integrated that service into the S train system.
On a similar note, elsewhere in the same area, there's an unbuilt S train corridor along the highway that even had viaducts prepared for it. Many of them have been removed but some of those that still exist are actually gonna be used now by the Copenhagen Light rail for the last 2 stops of its route.
And on the Metro at least, at the M4's upcoming southern terminus at Copenhagen south, the tunnels overrun a long bit allowing for the line to be expanded (with 2 proposals currently up, though make of them what you will). And the city's new M5 metro lins is being planned with a junction box in mind to serve the... frankly quite stupid cross Øresund metro project to Malmö in Sweden should it be greenlit. But they also state now that western extension proposals for the M5 are now being developed with possibilities for junction boxes for a new branch to the Northwest and Brønshøj in mind. An area that has been starved of rapid transit ever since their tram line seized operations in 1972 and which has had pipe dreams of Subway service since the 1930's

[Ven]

Brightline FL future proofed it stations by making longer platforms to accommodate 10 passenger car trains over the current 4/5 coach trains. Brightline Miami station in particular was made to accommodate the eventually Tri-Rail connection. They also they have space to make the new single tracked section to Orlando double tracked when capacity deems it necessary. So many people were complaining about the single track not understanding is more than enough for the timetables Brightline is currently planning and allows money to be doesn't elsewhere in the meantime. Spain has used single tracking construction methods as well. Brightline West will continue to do the same.

[de-fault_de-fault]

The 63rd Street tunnel project included the connection to the otherwise underused express tracks at 57th/7th plus the hidden half of each level at 63rd/Lexington (now used by 2nd Avenue Line trains) and the lower level of the river crossing itself (now used for East Side Access). It's pretty amazing in retrospect to think that one North American transit project, albeit one that took 20 years to reach its phase 1 opening, contained so much forward thinking. This is one of the (unfortunately few) pieces of New York transit infrastructure to come out of the era that yielded the Washington Metro, MARTA, and BART. I often wonder what else we could have had if we got more done while the opportunity existed.

[HarekazeDesu]

There are also some good future proofing (or provisions) potential that have been completely wasted too, Singapore's Promenade station was provisioned as a cross platform interchange when the circle line was built, but when the downtown line was built, those provisions couldn't be used and instead the planners had to stack the 2 new platforms underneath the circle line platforms making a very weird 4 single stack platforms, with the circle line platforms being extremely wide for a line of that capacity. My guess is the original Nicoll Highway station (also provisioned for cross platform interchange) after the accident was rebuilt on a different place with no such provisions, forcing the planners to completely throw their plans out the window. Though it's infuriating that the station after, Esplanade, was made and completed as a standalone cross platform interchange, but we didn't get a nice paired setup like those on the MTR or our local City Hall/Raffles Place pair

On the other hand though, chinatown and macpherson stations had very well thought out provisions for the downtown line when they are built and had very convenient (albeit not cross platform) interchanges, much better than the one at Promenade though!

[bigmanted]

Imagine being a London railway tycoon building the first section of the metropolitan line not knowing people would use it 160 years later

[christian_maibaum]

Preliminary construction work can also turn out to be disadvantageous in retrospect if it no longer fits in with the planning. In Hamburg, the new underground line U5 will use some preliminary construction work that has existed for several decades and was originally intended for completely different routes that are no longer to be implemented today. However, in order to be able to use these preliminary construction works, a route is necessary that is not as straight as it could be if no preliminary construction works existed.

[Rdhawk]

reminds me of when i went to Delft in the Netherlands last year on a day trip while staying in Amsterdam. It's a relatively new build station and really only needs the 2 lines/one platform that are currently active but they have another 1 or 2 (can't really remember anymore) platforms (with i think space for a bypass as well) pre-built for future growth

[Julyst]

I think the example at Sheppard you pointed out will probably one day be very useful if and when we get an extension to Sheppard West.

[yukaira]

In Ottawa one of the new rail stations where an existing bus station existed was originally designed with an underground tunnel and concrete caps covering access holes, precisely for running trains in the future, the tunnel went from "abandoned" to construction site overnight.

[urbanfile]

Nice topic.
In Milan unfortunately I have to say we're going backwards on building infrastructures foreseeing for future possible upgrades.
Back in 1950s and for following decades, metro infrastructures used to be built with tons of these little and big 'things'. Many were used while the network expanded, others remained just predispositions.

Nowadays, with M4 and M5, designers didn't have this mindset.
Future ubgrades and implementations (for istance adding cars to current convoys) will be difficult and expensive.

Probably the reason is the two metro lines were born thank to project financing and have private shareholders who just thought to cut the building costs and ignored the rest (such as a better integration with the network, but that's another topic).

[dfwrailvideos]

Great video Reece! I noticed that a lot you talked about reminded me of what DART has been doing in Dallas. DART had bought extra space around the stations to allow for eventual platform extensions because it was visualized that trains were needing to be longer. There's also the Lightning and Taxi interlockings west of Belt Line station and north of DFW Airport station respectively. These were to allow a future expansion to the DFW North TEXRail station, but one that likely will never materialize. There's also the abandoned Knox/Henderson platforms underground and space around certain tracks to build new stations (when the demand arises) the lengthy tail tracks at Parker Road station for storing trains (and future expansion possibilities), the fact DART owns tracks into cities that haven't even bought into DART, the numerous crossovers spaced just enough apart to run trains on a single track, and other small things.

[stevenroshni]

Cities should be looking at land use at potential imminent domain spots to avoid building housing or anything else extremely difficult to remove. Even uses like power sub stations are okay for projects in mind that aren't likely to begin for 30 years as technical improvements hopefully decrease how much land is needed for that facility.

[guyfaux]

On a four-track trunk line like NYC has on some lines, "future-proofing" might have included both inside "express" tracks to be bi-directionally signaled like the middle tracks on three-track lines, so that more express service could operate "against traffic' in the peak direction in rush hours, especially Queens Boulevard. Sure, it bunches up the reverse peak trains all on the same track, but the new controls that allow trains to run closer together means that it won't result in too much congestion backing up the line into Manhattan.

[railotaku]

Another London example - Heathrow T5 station has an additional platform box for 2 tracks to the south of the HEx/EL platforms - it was easier to build it in case (cut and cover) before putting one of the largest airport terminals in Europe on top...