MISC | Most Agressive Urban Area for Rail Line projects?

[bmfarley]

What urban area on Earth is the most aggressive for planning and constructing new light-rail or heavy rail lines or extensions? Right now? (not commuter rail or intercity high-speed rail)

Not trying to start a thread on who's better or not or anything, not at all. I don't care for a competition here. I am genuinely interested to learn who's doing the most right now. I could read each of the individual threads here, but the actual information is buried within each.

I only know of what is happening in California. I am somewhat familiar with what is happening in Barcelona and Madrid; however, I don't speak or read Spanish. So, my knowledge there is lacking. It seems Los Angeles is being quite aggressive right now. Numerous rail projects are funded and either in construction or advanced planned stages. As I see them, they include the following:

Los Angeles
Exposition Phase I
Exposition Phase II
Foothill Extension Phase 2A
Crenshaw
Green Line South Bay Extension
Green Line to the Los Angeles Airport
Regional Connector (Downtown Los Angeles Subway)
Westside Subway Extension
Foothill Extension 2B
Gold Line East Los Angeles Extension to Whittier or El Monte

Again, the above are said to be funded projectes. Each is either light-rail or heavy rail. Not commuter rail or streetcar. The first 3 listed are under construction right now. The total mileage of the above is about 70-80 miles (100-120 kilometers), which might be modest relative to others urban areas around the planet.

Who else is as busy as Los Angeles? Or, more busy?

[mopc]

Sao Paulo perhaps.

Sao Paulo has 2 monorail lines under construction (the largest with 24km and capacity for 500,000 passengers a day, the other 20km for 300,000/day), about 12km of full underground metro (line 5 extension) and the all-new, 34km line 6, to start construction in 2013, with a capacity for over 1 million pax/day.

At least two suburban heavy rail lines (including an international airport link), another monorail and several extensions of existing lines are planned.



The Sao Paulo system today carries 6 million/day and it will jump to over 10 million/day by 2020.


And a number of Asian cities, especially in China (over 20 metros u/c or in expansion), India, Thailand, Malaysia.

[trainrover]

Rail-lines-down-streets reveal too mild an agression, hence certainly not the topmost-appearing city here ...

[hoosier]

It has to be a city in China- no city in the U.S. even comes close to the urban rail being constructed in major Chinese cities.

[mcarling]

Beijing and Shanghai each probably has more urban rail currently under construction than all of North America.

[FM 2258]

Originally Posted by hoosier

It has to be a city in China- no city in the U.S. even comes close to the urban rail being constructed in major Chinese cities.

I've never seen a subway expansion as fast as I saw in Guangzhou and Shenzhen.....absolutely impressive. I loved riding both of their lines last October 2010.

[Silly_Walks]

Anyone who thinks a US city is even close to number 1 in amount of public transportation being built at this moment, is highly delusional

[mcarling]

Originally Posted by Silly_Walks

Anyone who thinks a US city is even close to number 1 in amount of public transportation being built at this moment, is highly delusional

Probably not. Ignorance is a more likely explanation than delusion.

[Woonsocket54]

Originally Posted by bmfarley

What urban area on Earth is the most agressive for planning and constructing new light-rail or heavy rail lines or extensions? Right now? (not commuter rail or intercity high-speed rail)

Planning and constructing are totally different things. There's a whole cottage industry in the US devoted to creating PDFs describing rail lines that have no chance of being built.

Now suppose we took your question and tweaked it a little and corrected for spelling:

What urban area on Earth is the most aggressive for planning and constructing new light-rail or heavy rail lines or extensions that have above a 0% chance of being built within the lifetimes of people who are alive today?

Then the answer is the name of a city in China. Probably Beijing, Guangzhou or Shanghai.

[trainrover]

Originally Posted by Woonsocket54

There's a whole cottage industry in the US devoted to creating PDFs describing rail lines

(pardon my highlighting ...)

Sounds awfully mighty Canadian too

[bmfarley]

Anyone? No one knows and the best idea is that the most active is a city in China? Probably right.... Probably. But c'mon, no hard info?

[bmfarley]

Originally Posted by Woonsocket54

Planning and constructing are totally different things. There's a whole cottage industry in the US devoted to creating PDFs describing rail lines that have no chance of being built.

Now suppose we took your question and tweaked it a little and corrected for spelling:

What urban area on Earth is the most aggressive for planning and constructing new light-rail or heavy rail lines or extensions that have above a 0% chance of being built within the lifetimes of people who are alive today?

Then the answer is the name of a city in China. Probably Beijing, Guangzhou or Shanghai.

I went back and corrected the spelling for you. I don't think the question needs to be parsed, let alone corrected. LA's projects are funded. 3 are under construction and 3 more begin within next 3 years.

So, what other urban areas are as active?

[mcarling]

Originally Posted by bmfarley

I went back and corrected the spelling for you. I don't think the question needs to be parsed, let alone corrected. LA's projects are funded. 3 are under construction and 3 more begin within next 3 years.

So, what other urban areas are as active?

Beijing has 8 metro lines currently under construction, plus 10 more in planning. Shanghai has 9 metro lines currently under construction, plus 10 more in planning.

[trainrover]

Originally Posted by bmfarley

I don't think the question needs to be parsed

I suggest individually hyperlinking when listing a region's projects, for I perceive your question more of an abonimable advancement than any genuine query.

[horlick97]

Originally Posted by bmfarley

What urban area on Earth is the most aggressive for planning and constructing new light-rail or heavy rail lines or extensions? Right now? (not commuter rail or intercity high-speed rail)

Not trying to start a thread on who's better or not or anything, not at all. I don't care for a competition here. I am genuinely interested to learn who's doing the most right now. I could read each of the individual threads here, but the actual information is buried within each.

I only know of what is happening in California. I am somewhat familiar with what is happening in Barcelona and Madrid; however, I don't speak or read Spanish. So, my knowledge there is lacking. It seems Los Angeles is being quite aggressive right now. Numerous rail projects are funded and either in construction or advanced planned stages. As I see them, they include the following:

Los Angeles

Exposition Phase I
Exposition Phase II
Foothill Extension Phase 2A
Crenshaw
Green Line South Bay Extension
Green Line to the Los Angeles Airport
Regional Connector (Downtown Los Angeles Subway)
Westside Subway Extension
Foothill Extension 2B
Gold Line East Los Angeles Extension to Whittier or El Monte

Again, the above are said to be funded projectes. Each is either light-rail or heavy rail. Not commuter rail or streetcar. The first 3 listed are under construction right now. The total mileage of the above is about 70-80 miles (100-120 kilometers), which might be modest relative to others urban areas around the planet.

Who else is as busy as Los Angeles? Or, more busy?

Singapore's MRT has 89 stations with 146.5 kilometres of lines now. The addition of the lines currently under construction and those approved for construction will bring the MRT network to 278 km by 2020. xx

[micro]

Shanghai built 420 km metro lines in just 15 years and outplayed London as the most extensive metro network in the world. Is that what you'd call 'aggressive'?

[Woonsocket54]

Based on wiki, here are cities in China ranked by length of metro rail currently under construction (list is not complete):


Shanghai - 219.7 km
Beijing - 194.6 km
Chengdu - 138.83 km
Tianjin - 131.4 km
Foshan - 122.5 km
Xian - 76.9 km
Guangzhou - 73.4 km
Wuhan - 60.93 km
Nanjing - 54.59 km
Chongqing - 49.56 km
Shenzhen - 46.7 km
Changsha - 45.8 km
Wuxi - 29.42 km
Shenyang - 19.3 km

[micro]

Originally Posted by Woonsocket54

Based on wiki

Why don't you post the link?

[trainrover]

Because we just might become aghast to see the N-American data listed in the negative, at the bottom ...

[sbarn]

Somewhere in China would without a doubt be the most active.

As for others... I think London should certainly get a nod for many of their rail projects, particularly Crossrail and ThamesLink, among others. I'm not familiar with them, so someone else could certainly add more info on these projects.

I am familiar with New York, which is surprisingly active with the new number 7 line under construction, the 2nd Avenue subway, East Side Access (new LIRR tunnel to allow LI bound trains to enter Grand Central), the Fulton Street Transit Center, WTC transit center.