How Transit Got Better in 2024!

[@SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

Love the 2 Line! Besides all the tech companies, it's also worth mentioning that Wilburton station serves the Overlake Medical Center campus. It's a great thing for hospitals to be served by light-rail or rapid transit because not only would healthcare workers be able to take it to work, but it increases healthcare access for a lot of people, it benefits patients by getting them to appointments, and also helps to hold down the healthcare costs by not having patients delay care until they are much sicker! A key reason Duke University stated for not wanting a light-rail system in Durham, NC was that an elevated rail line would "impact" the operations of Duke University Hospital due to vibrations, which is a completely wild thing to say when the Pink Line in Chicago goes through the Rush University Medical Center, and that doesn't impact operations! In NYC, Montefiore Medical Center's main campus in the Bronx is by Moshulu Parkway on the IRT Jerome Avenue Line, and that line doesn't impact the medical center's operations either! The reason its Bellevue Downtown station, which serves the Bellevue Transit Center bus station, isn't deeper into downtown is because of Kemper Freeman, who built Bellevue Square mall, Bellevue Place, and Lincoln Square downtown. In the 1990s when the then Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority created a 69-mile light-rail system plan (it included a Bellevue/Overlake line) that was submitted to voters in 1995, it was rejected thanks to a campaign by Freeman. When the plan was changed to just between Seattle and SeaTac with express buses to Bellevue, then it was approved in 1996. However in 2002, the Freeman-backed Sane Transit group sued Sound Transit after the 1 Line was reduced, saying that the reduction required the agency to put the issue to another public vote. In 2008, Freeman campaigned against the plan to extend to downtown Bellevue and backed city council candidates in an effort to route it alongside I-405 away from population centers (thankfully it chose the current alignment instead). Freeman then sued Sound Transit in 2009, arguing that the use of the I-90 HOV lanes for light rail was illegal, but his suit was ultimately rejected. And in 2016, he spent 210K to oppose the Sound Transit 3 measure, which thankfully passed with over 54 percent. So yeah, he has a history of opposing transit and being very hateful overall For those who don't know, the reason Lake Washington has floating bridges is because Lake Washington plunges to a depth of more than 200 feet, and the bottom is soft silt, which makes building a conventional suspension bridge with rooted towers quite difficult. Each tower would have to be about 630 feet tall, the state DOT says, twice the height of the sentinels holding up the Brooklyn Bridge! The idea of a floating bridge across Lake Washington was proposed originally in the 1920s by engineer Homer M. Hadley due to the reasons already mentioned, and so Hadley floated the idea of connecting hollow barges end-to-end. The original Lake Washington Floating Bridge opened in 1940 was renamed the Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge in 1967. It closed in 1989 for reconstruction and, following a severe storm that sank portions of the old bridge, the current incarnation of the I-90 floating bridge finally opened in 1993. The Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge for the 2 Line however opened in 1989. The Evergreen Point Floating Bridge to the north is the world's longest floating bridge at 7,710 ft/2,350 m.

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

In San Francisco, the L Taraval improvement project was completed in September 2024. Construction for the L Taraval Improvement Project started in 2019. The project was split into two segments A and B. Segment A started in 2019 and was completed in the summer of 2021, while Segment B was completed in 2024. Taraval St was a high-injury corridor, and L Taraval got around 30K daily, so this was needed. It was a Vision Zero priority project with a goal to improve the safety of the street and eliminate preventable collisions and injuries. As part of Segment A work, the original track on Taraval west of 46th, the only track in the city still set in granite Belgian blocks was replaced. In a nod to its history, the blocks were saved and re-set next to the new tracks. It now includes transit-priority traffic signals, bulb-outs to make pedestrian crossings safer, new trees, high visibility crosswalks, safety boarding islands and increased accessibility. There was infrastructure rehabilitation and replacement of worn rails, overhead wires, water and sewer lines, and repavement of the entire Taraval Street due to heavy usage from both cars and light rail, and infrastructure upgrades result in less rocking for riders on board the train and less noisy rails for other vehicles when driven over. Wish Caltrain's electrification was mentioned as well! The upgraded schedules were already incredible even before a single EMU was running yet. Hourly Caltrain on weekends and continuous service until midnight were inconceivable just years before electrification happened. Caltrain's electrification is even helping protect history! El Palo Alto, the reason Palo Alto got its name (it means "tall stick" in Spanish), is a historic 110 ft/34 m tall coast redwood on the banks of the San Francisquito Creek. El Palo Alto germinated around 940 AD, when the Ohlone people lived there! The area of what's now Palo Alto was first recorded by the 1769 expedition of Gaspar de Portolá. When he made it to the area in November 1769, his expedition camped by the tall coast redwood! The tree is now along Caltrain's tracks! When the San Francisco and San Jose Railroad was built right next to the tree, the soot led to the tree to decline in health. But now, thanks to Caltrain electrification, this eliminates the impact of smoke. Electric rail's main environmental benefit doesn't come from eliminating diesel trains, but rather taking cars off the road by means of faster and more frequent service! I know some people have complained about the step because it adds seconds to a train's time at the station, but the step is there for safety reasons! As someone with hip dysplasia and mild cerebral palsy, I'm glad it's there! And I love bi-levels/double deckers so much, so it's great they're sticking with them as EMUs! Though I will say, one restroom per train is definitely an interesting choice, especially when compared to the LIRR which has multiple restrooms per train in the odd-numbered cars. A fun fact about double deckers, the LIRR was actually one of the first operators of double deckers in the country, as the PRR first built prototypes of them for the LIRR in 1932, the world's first all-aluminum double decker! They were EMUs! Though they weren't exactly true double deckers, they functioned similarly to a gallery car, as the idea was a single level with a centerline aisle, and two levels of seats, with the second staggered above the first. The 1932 prototype could sit 120, while the fleet that entered service in the 1940s could sit 132. They were discontinued in the 1970s, with all scrapped except one, the 1932 prototype, which is preserved at the Railroad Museum of Long Island in Riverhead! Which is also home to two preserved M1s, the only M1s that've been to Grand Central. On October 1, 1998, 9547 and 9548 were the LIRR's Ambassador to the grand reopening ceremony of the restored terminal and were placed on view at track level to promote East Side Access. Bilevels wouldn't return to the LIRR until the 1990s with the C1s and C3s (C1s were sold in 1999 as they were just an experiment before the C3s and were mechanically incompatible with the C3s).

[@AverytheCubanAmerican]

The South Shore Line project not only eliminated street-running in Michigan City but also added a stretch of double-tracking between Gary and Michigan City and eliminated 20 at-grade crossings! I know people will miss the unique street-running segment, but with it now being double-tracked as well as it being grade-separated, it will lead to efficient, frequent, accessible, and safe operations. Not to mention leading to TOD! Wasn't mentioned here, but rolling stock wise, the R211Ts, the version of the R211 with the open gangways, entered service on the NYC Subway in February 2024, while the R211S, the Staten Island version, entered service on the Staten Island Railway in October. Though the original R211 entered service in 2023. While it's sadly not of course the entire R211 fleet, some R211s having open gangways is still a huge step in the right direction that they even have open gangways in the first place. I appreciate their LED displays, the LCD screens, and the cool headlights. Two touches I especially enjoy are the flashing red lights when the doors close, and the flip seats installed to allow for space for wheelchairs. The seating on the R211s is blue and gold, inspired by the New York state flag. The doors on the R211s are wider for both accessibility for wheelchairs and reduce station dwell time by 25 to 30 percent. Open gangways not only improve train capacity of course but also provide more space for people who use wheelchairs, bikes, strollers, or luggage, with the luggage part being a big plus for those going to JFK! On the Staten Island Railway, the R44s have been in service since 1973, the last ever cars built by the St Louis Car Company, so the R211S are a huge upgrade over the roller coaster experience of riding an R44. On top of the fact that the R211S have automated announcements and screens while the R44s don't! I especially like that the R211S has a red diamond symbol to represent the express variant. On the LA Metro, the CRRC HR4000 on December 20th. They have 41 seats and a total capacity of 246 people. The exterior design shows full-color LED destination signs, compared to the green monochrome dot-matrix flip-dot signs used with the A650s. Internally, it features more longitudinal seating than its predecessors to increase capacity, as well as open gangways. As for Damen...I see the river is not the only thing that Chicago is turning green! 😂Fitting it opened during brat summer. As the United Center lots are redeveloped, Damen will become an even better station! This is a step in the right direction! Don’t build parking lots or highways around your train stations! Make the station a destination in of itself and make it connected to the surrounding neighborhoods. The green trusses along the station’s bridge not only reflect the name of the line but are also a dynamic reference to the famous steel bridges throughout the city! From the bikeshare station (Chicago's 1,000th Divvy station) to its bus waiting area, wood-finished ceilings, huge glass mosaic, and serving United Center and Westhaven Park public housing, this station connects to the surrounding community in many ways, and its reopening rights many wrongs! The artwork at the station is called Promise (for tomorrow from the past looking to the future) by Folayemi Wilson. The work considers the migration of the various racial and ethnic groups moving in and out of Chicago’s Near West Side starting in the 19th century and makes direct reference to the pioneering work of Florence Kelley, who fought for government regulation to protect working women and children. In Summer 1892, Florence went door to door to collect information about the neighborhood, who was there, who was working, how were they working, were children working, etc. And the artist perfectly described her work as "The artwork asks the question, as the kids are looking up the stairs: Where are they going? What kind of Chicago future might the Green Line take them to?” Damen wasn't the only station to open in Chicago in 2024, as Metra's Peterson/Ridge on the UP North Line opened in May, serving the Edgewater neighborhood on the North Side. The station includes heated concrete stairs and ADA-compliant ramps, a glass and masonry warming house with side canopies and metal roof, two shelters with on-demand heating, an access drive with ADA pick-up/drop-off, five ADA parking spaces and 44 parking spaces along Ravenswood Avenue, bicycle parking, and a plaza with landscaping and irrigation system. A fun fact, now that I mentioned Chicago's St Patrick's Day tradition of turning the Chicago River green, they use a vegetable-based powder (the dye formula remains a secret), dubbed Leprechaun Dust, and its low concentration and quick absorption make it non-toxic. The Illinois EPA and a plumbers' union state that it's completely safe, the dye is innocuous and has no harmful effects on the wildlife that inhabits the Chicago River (including several species of fish) or the city’s drinking water, so all it does is just turn it green temporarily. The chemical dye used to turn the river green is not actually green itself but more of an orange color which turns green when it reacts with water! The first time the Chicago River took on a green hue was completely accidental. In 1961, Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local 130 poured a special, oil-based fluorescein dye into the river as a means of detecting leaks and other abnormalities such as illegal chemical pollution. By chance, Plumbers Local 130 leader Stephen Bailey noticed that one of the worker’s overalls were stained green from the dye and thus sparked the inspiration for the tradition starting in 1962 when they poured 100 pounds of it for the holiday! After it was realized the dye used was very harmful to the river, Chicago plumbers agreed to stop using fluorescein in favor of the vegetable-based formula in 1966.

[@gingybalopa4315]

Thanks for mentioning the South Shore Line! Indiana is commonly overlooked when it comes to transit because of our hostile state government, but we Hoosier's love our transit systems! The South Shore Line means so much to those of us who live in Northwest Indiana and grew up riding the train into Chicago. Let's hope our state government swims with the tide of transit improvements and not against it...

[@mrvwbug4423]

No mention of CalTrain electrification, probably the biggest transit project completion of 2024

[@himbourbanist]

man it is so insane that the South Shore Line was street-running in Michigan City. It made sense back in the days when it was basically a commuter trolley / interurban, but now that they run full, giant EMU trains it was an extremely peculiar line. It's kind of sad that the insanity of seeing a full size commuter EMU train stopping at a stoplight will no longer be the case, but the new alignment is obviously superior for OTP. What a weird line hahaha

[@alexkuhn7525]

It’s so nice to see you include Indianapolis in this recap! We often get overlooked on transit KZbin, so thanks for calling out our BRT network. The city just finalized the route for a new Blue Line to the airport and breaking ground soon!

[@californiamade5608]

Ha he mentions a BRT for a city that takes away funding for rail but doesn’t mention the largest commuter rail upgrade in the U.S. he has a bias page & shows jealousy to San Francisco Bay Area

[@jasperli]

Bro didn’t mention CalTrain electrification.

[@climateandtransit]

I realized that, but check out my newest short!

[@californiamade5608]

Bro, Ethan always does this to the San Francisco Bay Area. He shows older train rolling stock for San Francisco with MUNI & BART. He’s simply just envois of our beautiful Bay Area.

[@TohaBgood2]

Also missed the reopening of the Muni Metro L line after rebuilding it into light rail.

[@grahamturner2640]

3:08 did you film this video in 2024? At this point, it will be some point this year when the South Central project gets finished.

[@michaelhohe2168]

psst my last name is pronounced HOY. Thank you for mentioning me regardless, thanks for the Indianapolis mention, and thanks for the video!

[@climateandtransit]

Noted!

[@Token_Nerd]

you missed Caltrain electrification.

[@phriendlyphotog]

HM: In 2024, MDOT MTA did their final rounds of testing for the new Hitachi railcars for the Metro SubwayLink, and got their first delivery of CAF LRT vehicles for the Maryland Purple Line! Maryland's General Assembly also approved the use mounted bus cameras to enforce bus lanes in Baltimore City. The Red Line in Baltimore got announced as a light rail project in June, though it's looking more and more likely that it will be on the chopping block yet again with a Trump presidency. Awesome recap!

[@maitrilazaroff138]

Last year, Denver started construction on a BRT line on Colfax avenue!

[@Squrtie]

3:00 Yo I think I was standing right next to you in this shot and didn't realize it

[@Vergence]

Sacramento also saw new trains on its light rail gold line

[@user-ie1hg5ov1m]

If you watch NJB you'd think thinks like this would never happen here

[@maximusubaldo8360]

you forgot to mention that metra built 2 new stations in 2024.

[@danielportillo9266]

Phoenix has the most exciting transit expansion in the Southwest! I also went to the Northwest Extension Phase II and it was awesome. Also, you forgot to mention that the Thelda Williams TC will also be a BRT station in the future. The South Central Extension will extend South to Baseline Road/Central Avenue and split the line into two the A Line and B Line. The A Line will run from the Downtown Hub to Gilbert Road/Main Street. The B Line will run from Metro Parkway to Baseline Road/Central Avenue. The Capitol Extension will extend the A Line west to 15th Avenue. The I-10 West Extension will also extend the A Line further west to the Desert Sky TC.

[@grahamturner2640]

The thing is, there aren’t any set schedules for any of the projects you mentioned aside from South Central.

[@danielportillo9266]

@grahamturner2640 The Capitol Extension will open in 2028 and the I-10 West Extension will open in 2030. The Phoenix BRT will open in 2028.

[@wormstrench]

I was hoping you'd mention the new crrc subway trains for la metro

[@jeanbolduc5818]

the subway is falling aprt . crimes in the subway. 43 rd worst city in the world for traffic ( Tom Tom traffic index) , the subway is primitive and just got wifi network. Not a green city. Doug Ford is destroying bike paths and cyclists lives do not matter in Ontario . Toronto is a broken and polluted city built for cars with only one highway the 401.