Despite the ridership struggles facing transit systems in the United States, nations and cities around the world are investing dramatically in new lines. In this annual post, I review what projects were completed in 2023—and what’s coming over the next year. Skip to Details on transit projects planned to open in 2024 Data for this compilation can be viewed freely on Transit Explorer or purchased for use in Shapefile, GeoJSON, and CSV formats. Transit Explorer has been dramatically expanded since last year, now covering metros—as well as many other types of lines—around the world ..read more

Using the data embedded in the Transit Explorer database, I calculated key statistics on how transit investment has changed over time in the United States and a number of other countries. These data point to some intriguing trends, notably a decline in investment stateside combined with significant expansion in countries like Canada, Egypt, France, Israel, and Turkiye (I have not yet assembled data for countries in south and east Asia, where transit expansion is proceeding even more quickly). (Relatedly, for the Urban Institute’s Urban Wire, I calculated key trends in housing adjacency to rail ..read more

Last year, three lines Americans have been waiting on for decades—the Green Line extension in Boston, the Crenshaw Line in Los Angeles, and the Silver Line to Dulles Airport outside Washington—finally opened. Though they took years to be completed, they were greeted enthusiastically by riders and political officials content to bring better service to more people. Similar reception greeted new rail and bus lines opening in Athens, Cairo, Guadalajara, Helsinki, Paris, and dozens of other cities around the world. And much more is planned for 2023: Finally, Long Island Rail Road service will reach ..read more

2021 was theoretically going to be a big year for transit projects across the United States. Boston’s Green Line Extension, Honolulu’s Rail Transit, Los Angeles’ Crenshaw Line, Miami’s Downtown Commuter Line, and Washington’s Silver Line Phase II were all supposed to open. None of them did. The Covid-19 pandemic, difficulties keeping workers on the job, and failure in acquiring affordable materials all got in the way. But in a year of difficulties getting people to ride transit, perhaps the delays weren’t as problematic as they could have been. 2022, we can hope, will be different. According t ..read more

The COVID-19 crisis put a damper on transit expansion throughout much of the world in 2020. Construction sites were paused for months, and then slowdowns followed, intended to address concerns related to worker safety. Tax revenues meant to pay for project costs declined. And ridership dropped precipitously on existing transit lines as white-collar employees were instructed to work from home. In the United States, questions were raised about what role future bus and rail service would have in an altered, post-COVID world. Despite the death and pain the pandemic has caused, 2020 was also a year ..read more

We’re two weeks out from the 2020 United States presidential election, and the winner will undoubtedly play an important role in directing American urban policy. Given the importance of the presidency and the high stakes of the position on every policy area, it is hard not to focalize on this electoral race as key in establishing what sort of future the United States will have. Hoping to respond to the economic crisis brought on by COVID-19 and the prospect of Democratic control over both houses of Congress and the White House, Senate Democrats have begun preparations for a $1 trillion infrast ..read more

20 new transit lines will open in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in 2020. These new transit lines won’t be adequate alone to counter the large-scale investment in highway construction that dominates most metropolitan regions. But they will significantly improve public transportation for thousands of riders in many large cities. There’s also a lot more on the way. About 60 more major transit projects will be under construction in 2020 and are expected to open by 2026. Some cities, like Montréal and Seattle, will essentially double the size of their urban rail systems during that time. Us ..read more

» Cities across the U.S. added more than 1,200 miles of expanded transit service between 2010 and 2019. But all that construction isn’t keeping up with the need. It’s been a busy decade for many cities throughout the U.S. From coast to coast, they’ve been building up their transit networks, offering riders something more than run-of-the-mill bus routes. Overall, American cities added more than 1,200 miles of new and expanded transit lines between 2010 and 2019, spending more than $47 billion in 2019 dollars to do so. They’ll continue making such investments into the 2020s, as I document ..read more

» In Chicago, conflicts between local transit services and the commuter rail network have impinged on peoples’ mobility for decades. The institutional context encourages divides, not cooperation, to the detriment of riders. All across the developed world,* cities have transitioned their commuter rail networks—services designed for infrequent, relatively long-distance travel at peak hours between suburbs and central cities—into regional rail systems. Regional rail, exemplified by Germany’s S-Bahn and France’s RER systems, encompasses all-day, two-way, frequent service, often with through-run ..read more

» The number of riders using transit in the U.S. continues to decline. But a comparison with French cities shows that the American experience is not a universal one. Transit ridership declined again in the United States in 2018. As a whole, the nation’s transit systems lost 2 percent of their riders over the previous year—about 200 million fewer trips, according to the American Public Transportation Association. The number of people boarding buses and trains has declined tremendously since the last peak in 2014. To what can we attribute this change? American transit ridership is cycli ..read more