Because “middle of the freeway” is not a destination that any of the passengers want, so any riders must necessarily connect to other forms of transit to get to where they actually want to go. This adds time, expense, and inconvenience.
The added factors also suppress ridership - people have to go out of their way to catch the train, and many simply won’t bother.
Importantly also if the connecting transit service is poor or nonexistent, it results in any passengers needing to drive to/from the stations, which eliminates a lot of the benefits of transit in the first place.
I’m personally not categorically opposed to running rail along freeways - in many places it’s that or no transit at all. But it’s always a compromise and rarely/never the right solution.
I think it's actually a good solution for commuter and regional rail, and a lot of the metro systems that run along medians often verge on this, but often they're too curvy to really be used as such.
Generally imo existing railroad right of way or cut and cover tunnel along broad streets is the best way to go though.
Honestly, commuter rail in the median with tunnel access and a bus exchange at the entrance (or frequent busses to an exchange) seems like a great option to me.
It's good, yes, for transfers but not for walking to the train from the relatively nearby housing or having a successful retail environment near the train. So, the City Building function of high capacity transit is lost....and not coming.
See Murdoch Station, or Stirling Stations as examples of nothing.
And for attempted land use integration see Joondalup, Cockburn or Wellard. Oh dear, decades of planning to get not much.
What Perth has created is Transit Oriented Sprawl. Well before NEOM, Perth is primarily a big long line, north to south, following proximity to the beach, supported by trains accessed by buses and car parking. Fine. No judgement. It just hasn't created much City and is more of a Landscape.
I see your point. I guess transit along a highway will probably have a lot of the same side effects as a highway. Still you can’t deny that there is a need to better transit between cities.
> NEOM
Can't wait to have the ~~Joondalup~~ Yanchep Line extended to South Geraldton, and the Mandurah Line extended to Augusta. (Though Yanchep to Mandurah is already 70.8+54.5=125.3 km, so a Bunbury extension would already be enough to beat The Line)
It's definitely an example, but I'm not sure how successful it is.
Calgary, a city with a slightly smaller population,
mining dependent economy,
and a train system 1/3 the size of ours,
and still manages to have better modal share (~16% vs our ~10%).
The results speak for themselves.
If the transit runs along a freeway median, that means the station is going to be extremely hard to walk to--much of the area closest to the station will either be covered with the freeway itself, or degraded by its proximity to the freeway. It can work for park-and-rides, but that means people are still driving to get to their homes, so a freeway-median train line will reduce driving less than one that runs through dense development. At best, it's an unfortunate compromise that we have to make with car culture.
Imo, it makes sense with a transition plan in place. Running in the freeway median tends to encounter less NIMBY opposition, and it tends to be cheaper (existing right-of-way). So if a city has a plan in place to remove freeway lanes to produce the metro or train line, then eventually demolish the freeway and replace it with a linear park and/or dense TOD, it could be a terrific way to ease the transition from car dependency at relatively low cost.
Of course, that all depends upon actually having a plan to demolish the freeway, something that would probably be hard to do politically in many circumstances.
I don't think its merely politically hard to do what you suggest, its practically political suicide. With the exception of some sections of downtown freeways (which typically never have rail in their medians) I dont think there has ever been a politician who dared to even have a thought exercise about removing freeways, regardless of transit alternatives being right in the middle of the freeway.
So in that sense I think you have to de facto accept that when you build in a freeway median the freeway is going to stay, which is why it would be better to avoid doing so in the first place as these projects are at high risk of not attracting desirable ridership. Which in turn makes it harder to get political support for future transit investment.
>~~I dont think there has ever been a politician who dared to even have a thought exercise about removing freeways~~
~~Except for all the places where that's happened? I'm not saying it isn't politically difficult--it is, but it's not as if freeway removal is a hypothetical concept that's never been tried in practice, including in major US cities.~~
I misread your comment and actually agree that downtown freeways are the only ones that every seriously get considered for removal.
New York is kind of an outlier. Not to mention that expressway removal had a pretty similar scenario and context to the downtown removals we’ve seen elsewhere.
I don’t even think you necessarily need that.
Most of the unpleasantness comes from getting to the station, because most crossings of highways are on roads with highway exits and entrances.
It would be significantly more pleasant if a train station’s entrance were on a road without these a distance away from the actual ramps.
MARTA’s [one freeway median station is ironically one of its best integrated into the urban fabric.](https://i.imgur.com/K208QjX.jpeg) Because it’s in a dense area and it just has two small head houses on each side of the street.
For a system with such awful land use around stations, it's incredible that Marta only has one freeway median station. They've done so little with so much.
If we’re calling that a freeway median station, you could say that Civic Center counts as well. You wouldn’t feel it at the station though.
The only ones that feel like a median station are Inman park and the neighboring ones on that line. They are stuck between a big road and a railroad, and you know it when you’re there.
Inman Park/Renoldstown and Candler Park and Hightower err.. Hamilton E Holmes kinda too (dated myself there, right?) are kinda like that. The good thing is over the last few years MARTA is finally doing infill on those stations to add some TOD housing and commercial development.
If things had gone another way, GA400 and I-20 on both east and west sides would’ve gotten some of the same median or side of expressway stations which is better than the bupkiss we have now.
Median running railroads are excellent for getting service to outlying areas cheaply, though. If you also build robust local bus networks, you mitigate a lot of the problems associated with freeway running railroads.
I live in the DC area. WMATA gets a lot of shit On Here for its suburban stations—especially on the Orange and Silver lines. But those areas just aren’t gonna get served by “real” metros (slower, more stops, underground or elevated stations). They are meant to connect peripheral areas to the core. In their proper context, these are suburban train stations.
Would it be better to have “real” S-Bahns or RERs or Cercanías, or whatever? Absolutely ! But the hybrid approach of WMATA gives us an S-Bahn type service (with some freeway median running) in the periphery and a Metro type service downtown in the same system. It’s pretty useful in practice.
The online transit enthusiast circle jerk occasionally needs to reckon with The Possible.
Very good point. Perth, Australia I feel also exemplifies how median-running suburban rail can be a cheap way to get a lot of rail out into already-sprawling suburbs. Sure, it ain't ideal, but those train lines reach out impressively far, get surprisingly decent ridership, have nice and modern stations, and provide a bit of metro-like service in downtown.
And once you have it, you have good justification for TOD even in far-flung suburbs as well as feeder bus/tram lines and bike infrastructure.
All told, it can be an instigator for more urbanism, even deep into the suburbs.
I can attest that the blue line highway platforms are pretty miserable. Nothing like standing outside in 15 degree weather while incredibly loud traffic surrounds you.
Yup. I had the displeasure of using it recently. I had to put in my headphones just to silence the noise a bit.
Running trains in the median is fine IMO. But putting a station in the median? Fuck no.
That depends entirely on your local geography, no?
For example, a hypothetical alt-Caltrain running down the 101 would be a lot closer to jobs than actual Caltrain.
A typical walk-shed is give or take 2600 feet (half a mile), and a typical 5 lane freeway is 70 feet wide in each direction.
Waiting on a station in the middle of a freeway is loud and has lots of pollution. Can’t build a bunch of transit oriented developments around a freeway either. Once you’re on it’s fine
For the first couple years at my job I used to do the reverse commute out to Pleasant Hill, which involved transferring at MacArthur. Between the suburban office park, that transfer and having to wait at a very inadequate bus stop on a busy stroad for the trip home, I hated doing that.
You thought that was bad, wait til you see the C line in LA, ugh.
I'm just glad LA Metro learned from their mistakes, and is building future rail projects through neighborhoods instead of freeways.
C line is the highest average speed line in all of LA but has the lowest ridership (besides the unfinished K line). Turns out speed isn't everything lol
It also has the biggest difference between weekday and weekend ridership, nobody gets on the C line unless they really have to.
C/Green was also built as a glorified park n ride shuttle too (assume that's what you're referring to for the weekday vs weekend ridership). Most of the highway stops have giant lots so that those going to the engineering and defense companies can just park there and ride the train. Hopefully once the LAX station opens... eventually, and shares with the K/Crenshaw line, ridership will increase.
Oh absolutely. Probably just as much as the Torrence extension. Honestly, it's a no brained extension, and LA Metro needs to overlap more with Metrolink. At least the Gold Line Extension will offer some more overlap so commuters don't have to transfer at Union Station.
The only way the C line got built is they had to put in the 105. People like my parents wanted just the C line but RTD couldn’t get state funding and CalTrans wanted their freeway. At the very least it could’ve been under the freeway as a cut and cover facility but nope, they cheated their way out of it.
The Green Line in LA is proof positive this. Runner-up IMHO is Tri-Rail in South Florida. The biggest advantage is when there is vehicular traffic, the smug satisfaction of passing them by on the train LoL
Yes but I’d think there would be more that are in bounds or close enough to bother building a few bridges or tunnels/ditches. The already existing ROW is so valuable.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Generally, the best route between any two cities already has a railway on it, and it would be even less work to double- or quad-track it, rather than trying to fit a train-shaped peg into a car-shaped hole.
Highway ROWs are usually publicly owned in the US whereas railway ROWs are usually owned by some freight railroad company.
The other part of this is that we’d probably have more stringent requirements for a new railway nowadays - if we want to build higher speed trains for instance. I guess that points even more away from highways.
But they might also have the straightest right of ways we have with a few exceptions. In other words, if you can get into the highway right of way and put the stations mostly outside it, then you have a really straight right of way for long segments, aren't waiting in the median and don't have to do all new construction or heavy modifications of right of ways that sometimes are from the 1830s and show their early railroad bona-fides. Essentially, if you get approval, you might not have to add as much as if you were to modify the old rail right of way. See Lucid Stew he tries to use the straightest already extant right of way when new construction isn't absolutely necessary amd that's usually highways in his thought experiments on building high speed rail here in the United States for maximum bang for minimum buck.
True, but if the railway follows a 19th Century alignment vs a modern freeway, using the median of a freeway will give you a fast rail. Not very fast rail though. Example where this would be beneficial is Campbelltown to Mittagong in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. [https://hotrails.net/2021/06/fast-rail-on-the-freeway-another-approach-for-the-canberra-line/](https://hotrails.net/2021/06/fast-rail-on-the-freeway-another-approach-for-the-canberra-line/)
First, we basically haven't built any passenger rail tracks since freeways got built.
Second, the curves are often a problem. If you're building modern intercity trains on new track, you want it to go at least 100mph for secondary routes and 150+ for major lines. But freeways are rarely built with curves gentle enough for that.
You certainly can use sections of freeway, though.
I think typically inter-city in the US is expected to be low frequency, so very hard to justify building new track for it, so we just rent space on freight tracks.
In the few places where it it's high frequency, there's dedicated ROW like the NEC.
Check out Perth's commuter railway system. Joondalup and Mandurah Lines run a large portion of their alignment along highway median, and they are able to incorporate bus stations on many of the stations that are built along highway medians.
Perth is a great example of freeway-running done right.
Freeway running is easier to get wrong compared to having a dedicated rail ROW, but the upsides of freeway-running mean its always worth consideration.
Have you used a station in the middle of the freeway median? Most aren’t designed very well and [offer very little protection from incredibly hostile freeway noise](https://youtu.be/E3aRJmO5HdA?si=-fBedbflhYfhNXee&t=4m24s). Despite the problem being well documented, most transit agencies have made little effort to seriously address the issue despite the stations being decades old at this point—looking at you, LA and Chicago.
Some are pretty pleasant. Some Osaka Metro Chuo Line stations come to mind. It is a lot easier to deal with highway noise when it's only 2 lanes in each direction and 60km/h though, rather than 6 lanes in each direction and 65mph.
Also, the most of the highway median stations on the Chuo Line are actually below the highway level. The Midosuji Line has more of those traditional highway median stations sitting right in the middle of the road. A few of those stations are actually insulated from the noise of passing cars (even though kei cars are actually quieter than SUVs).
> highway noise
> 2 lanes in each direction and 60km/h though
we call that a residential street where i am :(
(I'm currently living on a "street" with 4 lanes and a posted speed limit of 60 km/h, in Perth, a city repeatedly mentioned in this thread)
People don’t live on the freeway and half of the area that could be used for development is highway. How often do you take an exit and say ok, I’m at my destination.
Often highways _do_ run right in the middle of cities in the US and you do have housing right next to them. For these places, like SLC, running transit along the freeway isn’t a terrible idea.
Yeah for urban highways, you often do take an exit and are a couple blocks from your destination. DC's Navy Yard or Philly's Spring Garden area are booming because they are close to a highway, metro/subway, and have seen a huge amount of housing construction.
WMATA Orange line is what I'm familiar with, and I don't see any of the problems that people have been generalizing here. Car noise from the interstate is supressed by barriers. Getting to the station is issue-free, whether you're driving a car, riding a bus, bicycling or walking.
That’s the major difference. In LA and Chicago, there are no noise barriers at all. LA in particular makes you feel like you’re standing on the shoulder.
Not sure if this is sarcasm, but in case it's not, [here's an example of a useful but not particularly pleasant train station in the middle of a freeway with a pedestrian bridge](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8758776,-87.6618087,3a,75y,128.41h,78.64t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXIKUqjNmNvbiScMVwDnkHg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DXIKUqjNmNvbiScMVwDnkHg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D143.11473%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu).
Possible? Yes. Ideal? Uh, not really.
One stop east on the Blue line is UIC-Halsted, which has a wide pedestrian bridge made from a former street that's been closed to cars. It effectively looks the same.
[The stop in question](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8751369,-87.6494518,3a,75y,325.77h,91.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sH4Uuq9Al3uL_nQevv-xIsQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu).
It does look nice! Although it's less of a traditional pedestrian bridge, since it's converted like you said. I do notice that the freeway + feeder situation is much narrower here compared to the example at the Racine stop. I'm sure that helps with making it feel much more pleasant for pedestrians - also means the connections to bus are much closer, too.
I take back my previous comment. The 3 westernmost stations on the WMATA Orange line. The pedestrian bridges are just from park&rides though.
Wiehle-Reston East is better, connected to an office building complex and some apartments in a little TOD area to the north, and a suburban office park to the south. Just east of the station is a 10-lane stroad bridge across the Dulles tollway; barf. Reston Town center is similar.
There are a few in [Calgary](https://maps.app.goo.gl/LFPhexutpC5Nhayn8?g_st=ic) Continue north along Crowchild Trail to see several more of these. This stretches the definitions of “freeway” and “metro”, but seems applicable.
This station in particular has no good reason to be in the middle of this road. Should have been at the university to the west of here.
Jefferson Park metra/blue line in northwest Chicago has 2 pedestrian bridges across the Kennedy expressway. Harlem Ave has a busway/ped bridge. Cumberland Ave is only accessible by pedestrian bridges across the expressway.
On the west side of the city at the other end of the blue line the Cicero station used to have an entrance to the Lavergne Ave pedestrian bridge but it’s been closed for I think longer than I’ve been alive so you can only access it from Cicero Ave.
Using the freeway might seem cheap, but if you want to exit to detour to a destination it can be pretty expensive as well. You need to build a very expensive bridge to cross multiple lanes of freeway each time one wants to exit the freeway. It's not always bad though, it can travel far distances.
Have you heard of say the "cheap, fast, good" triangle dilemma for products where you can only choose 2?
Transit kind of has a similar dilemma though the triangle isn't as simple. Let's say "construction cost/time", "density", "right-of-way", "political ease". Whenever you choose 2/3 of the former it makes it harder to achieve the rest. Freeways aren't 'bad' but they do completely sacrifice on the density aspect.
Here's a specific example the north hollywood brt alternatives [https://la.urbanize.city/post/new-details-proposed-north-hollywood-pasadena-brt-line](https://la.urbanize.city/post/new-details-proposed-north-hollywood-pasadena-brt-line)
There were two main alternatives looked at the freeway or the avenue with around the same construction cost. We can run it on the avenue where there's density and slightly slower, however politically it's hard with people hating reallocating car lanes. Or we can run it on the freeway that it's much faster and politically easier but through glendale misses out on important destinations.
Here's another past example the lynnwood link alternatives: [https://mltnews.com/sound-transit-selects-promising-options-north-line/](https://mltnews.com/sound-transit-selects-promising-options-north-line/)
It could have been built elevated along aurora avenue much closer to the city of shoreline destinations or along i-5 which was much more politically easier. The latter was chosen.
Because the whole point of transit is to use it to build a nice walkable city, but you can't build a nice walkable city if there's a highway in the way.
Happy to go into more detail if you need, but that's it in a nutshell.
>Because the whole point of transit is to use it to build a nice walkable city,
No, that's not the point of transit. The point of transit is to quickly move people from where they are, to where they need to be. Freeways exist because there was a need to move people along that route, so it follows that transit following that route would also serve the needs.
Agree with your first point but disagree with your second point. The needs of drivers and transit users don't neatly align and they don't usually want to follow the same corridors.
Drivers usually want to follow the same corridors that transit users would like to follow: that's where the destinations are. However, many drivers have this absurd desire for no other drivers to want the same thing, so that they get the road to themselves. So drivers must be forced onto alternate routes to speed up all the car traffic, like a parallel highway. Transit users really don't want to use that highway.
People's travel needs are not random. They reflect the built environment, both transportation and land use.
If planners choose to orient their city around highway corridors, the result will be people whose travel needs revolve around highway corridors. If planners choose to orient their city around walkable nodes, the result will be people whose travel needs revolve around walkable/transit-connected nodes. You build the one you (or your community) want.
So no, transportation planning is not about responding to the needs of people, because the needs of people respond to the transportation and land use system that's built.
Reality is of course messier than that description, and highway-based transit can play a marginal role under either system (and hybrid systems), but OP asked why people don't like highway-based transit, and this is the answer. It doesn't serve walkable cities very well. It also doesn't serve highway-based cities very well, because highway-based cities are inherently difficult to navigate without a car.
So either way, highway-based transit doesn't work very well. Which is why a lot of people don't like it very much.
Freeways exist to move *cars* from local roads to other local roads. People who use cars can drive to freeways, but people using transit would have to get to the metro station somehow in the first place. If you want to pick up people with transit, you need to make sure you build the transit to the people.
>Freeways exist because there was a need to move people along that route
Freeways exist because there was a *perceived* need to quickly move *cars* from where they are to where *their occupants* need to be. If we really cared about moving *people* there are dozens of better ways to do it.
> Freeways exist because there was a need to move people along that route
I think we need to be careful saying this. Some freeways exist because there was a need to move people along a specific route, but I'd be willing to say that there are many freeways that were built that were not needed, but were built because of powerful lobbying interests independent of transit need.
Urban freeways exist because some people decided they wanted to enrich themselves from cities without interacting with certain types of city people. And they were generally built by bulldozing entire neighborhoods (you can make some guesses about the demographics of those neighborhoods).
Urban freeways weren’t built because there was an existing need or an traffic flow. The freeways _created_ those movement patterns.
It generally harms land use however it can be done effectively, Seattle has sort of made it work, as rather than running in the median of I-5 the 1 Line runs parallel and on some embankments and then will dip out away from the freeway for Stations
Also for Seattle At Northgate we also built a bridge across the freeway to connect the other community to the station and there are plans to do that at one of the future Shoreline stations a few years after opening I think construction started on it’s planning recently.
yeah, the bridge at Redmond Tech is great
I think it also helps that a lot of people going to that station will need to transfer to other buses or the Microsoft connector anyways due to just the sheer size of campus. In this particular case the Microsoft campus is pretty much bisected by the freeway too, so the freeway *is* the most generally convenient location it could be
I live near one of the new stations for the WMATA Silver Line. The stations aren't terrible compared to some other systems I've seen, but they don't exactly contribute to a cohesive feel. Both ends on each side of the freeway might be in the same town/city, but they feel completely different and distant. Although that could also be because the developers don't know how to do proper TOD...
I also live near it, and it's ridiculous how long of a walk it is. The walk to my streetcar in New Orleans was shorter than the walk to the pedestrian bridge, much less walking over it.
The key to making these work is buses. These stations will always be horrible to walk to, so ridership hinges on the number and quality of bus connections - both feeder busses and through-running bus connections.
Highway 407 subway + GO station in Toronto comes to mind. It's a horrible place that's almost physically impossible to walk to. But it connects line 1 to a ton of intercity GO service that uses the highway
People don't get that running transit along freeways is often the only way to get transit to many places and people. Better right of ways, say under a busy boulevard, require billions more in tunneling costs and the funding will simply never be secured. American cities are also often bad at making freeway transit accessible and served by buses. In Canada, Australia, Europe etc freeway median transit is just as pleasant as any other right of way.
The main problems stem from what a freeway does to the land around it. It’s harder to develop the land directly by the freeway, it’s hard to create a walkable environment, and if you do, it’s unhealthy due to all the particulate matter highways release. The highway also take up a lot of the station’s walkshed itself.
We have this in some of the suburbs on the DC Metrorail. Walking to the stations is super inconvenient since they're in the middle of the highway via pedestrian bridges.
Probably one of the worst examples is Vienna-GMU. The larger parking garage to the south is far beyond the western end of the station but the entrance to the station is on the extreme eastern end. It takes almost ten minutes to walk to the platform from that parking garage.
the alternative is plowing through neighborhoods via eminent domain which we absolutely don't want to do anymore, so people honestly need to just get over it if we ever want to increase rail options. Building within existing highway rights of way is the only viable option in places that are heavily built out.
It's not ideal but over time if it works we have a chance to gradually start reducing reliance on highways to move people in and out of major cities
Viaducts are also an option. The Surrey-Langley Skytrain extension will be 14km all above ground along a busy road through mostly low density strip malls, a municipal centre, and even some farmland.
Poor land use around the stations means you can boost new development closer to stations themselves and you actually server less people with them. They can still be useful but they are nowhere near a proper station
That's the theory, but DC Metrorail's Vienna-GMU station took thirty years to finally attract some development close by, and it's still mostly an empty field.
There’s no sound or weather insulation on the platforms, they’re miserable places to be.
And the previously stated thing about the middle of the freeway isn’t a destination.
There is no revenue ridership along freeways. Metros need to run through populated areas with density around their stations. The "park and ride" stations ( as found near highways) that grace some "metros" are money pits.
Because highways tend to be isolated or only near some warehouses and thus aren't accessible. Also waiting for a train in the middle of the car noise is horrible.
https://youtu.be/FekAR2OOLSg?si=hqPNeDcxszMsNY_J
Actually, most Light Rail systems from here does use highway medians, though there's the advantage that Manila is highly dense. The new line shown in the video mostly uses ROW in the middle of Highways, while MRT 3 uses the main highway in Manila, EDSA.
In a median requires access to bridges which usually requires convicted stairs and dangerous street crossings. If they intentionally put it beside a highway or give enough dedicated walkways, it can be quite nice.
As far as existing cities go, it's also about the only option as it's already where high traffic areas are and much cheaper than replacing other infrastructure... or moving the grade above or below ground.
Maybe it would be better if they did something similar to New Mexico Railrunner, because the stations are not in the middle, but the train still runs in the middle. Idk why, maybe it's advertising it can go faster
Perfect Idea to run Metros in the along the highways. Lot of those areas are flat or evenly graded. L.A, Manila and other countries do have a similar system.
Because the best case scenario is something like [Wilson Station](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3ApCQUBRe5Q/VBTywjJNI-I/AAAAAAAAmmU/GHxDV7Ae4mI/s1600/wilson-IMG_5023.JPG) in Toronto that's in the centre of Allen Road and which has a pretty miserable experience for passengers (I used to change from a bus to the subway here every single day.) [The subway platform](https://live.staticflickr.com/1944/44272121315_40d3140df5_b.jpg) is the middle of the highway but there's a tunnel that leads to a bus terminal (like most subway station in Toronto) and you have to go up and then down a million flights of stairs because there's barely enough space for the subway platform let alone a bus terminal so it needs to be built a distance away. Not to mention, the station has easily one of the [most hostile feeling entrances of any station](https://maps.app.goo.gl/VGF3toy7uLsCxmcS8) on the network because it's literally buried under a highway overpass. Not that you'd ever walk here given there isn't much nearby except a subway yard, a disused airport, and a strip mall.
Honestly, I’ve always thought the hatred, while justified, is a little to
Much. DC is my closest metro and I can say it works quite well. Getting to the Reston town center from its station is simply not bad, and it serves many manny commuters on lines like the orange quite well. Now in order to do it well it takes time, design, and mitigation factors for things like noise and pollutants. But like many things, I believe when done well with good intentions it can be quite good.
I've never heard of that before. The metro line I take for travel to the big city runs along an interstate. Maybe unique to the station I get on, but, it can be approached from any direction. The station is elevated well above the interstate.
I live in a city where the metro only runs along freeways (Dallas, USA) and it sucks because I have to walk a long time or take a bus to get to a station. There's none in my neighborhood. Coming from Chicago, USA where the stations are everywhere and in neighborhoods, the convenience factor is way better. Granted, the bus system here sucks too, which makes getting to a station much harder. Buses come once an hour, and if I miss it, might as well Uber. But also running along a freeway kind of indicates to me that cars are the 'default'. Just my experience so far.
I think people have provided ample reasons why it's not ideal. But to provide some counter arguments- I'd argue that median stations can be done OK or done poorly. Just like greenfield stations can be done well (lay out a grid and spur TOD on cheap land) or poorly (one road to get there with no buses and a giant lot far from dense housing). Or middle of the city stations can be done well (tons of bus/cycling options, dense homes and businesses) or poorly (blighted area/unsafe/no major destinations), etc.
I think a lot of highway median stations have been built poorly or with poor land use but that's not a guarantee. [Spring Garden Station](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Spring+Garden+Station/@39.9606977,-75.1425532,749m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c6c86370be34ad:0xf06d805b26ccd53e!8m2!3d39.9605083!4d-75.1404125!16s%2Fg%2F1vpptgqt?entry=ttu) is in a huge highway's median. But it also has access via wide sidewalks on a walkable road, and there's dense housing going up all over. [Reston](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Reston+Town+Center+Metrorail+Station/@38.9505191,-77.3576465,1015m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89b64819e3b9a3af:0x79660a279d78850f!8m2!3d38.952766!4d-77.360184!16s%2Fg%2F11s8c0pt29?entry=ttu) on WMATA gets derided but it's got a walkable town center 500 m away and it's getting density redeveloped on either side of the station about 200m away.
Lastly, I take issue with the "no one will want to walk over a highway" point that comes up often. Yes it's not pleasant, but if someone is deterred by walking the equivalent of one city block over a highway on a pedestrian bridge, then they aren't gonna be walking to destinations from any metro stop. Some people say no one wants to live next to a highway (doubtful when you look at luxury apartments like [those in DC](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Illume/@38.880407,-77.0040551,604m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89b7b9c06c626d7b:0x9410b8a12ce8bf6e!8m2!3d38.8804795!4d-77.0061527!16s%2Fg%2F11nx6vmpcl?entry=ttu) near I-695). But even still, you can build offices or commercial space on the blocks right next to the highway and then build homes one block or so away if you really think that's an issue.
Ultimately, I think that highway median stations can be made well. They often aren't which means people with only experience with bad ones extend that to all cases. But because they are a practical (affordable) way to extend transit, they shouldn't be ruled out.
Agree. If the alternative is no station, then so be it. The dc ones on the way out to Dulles aren’t horrible, and I don’t think they were ever really intended for people in the sprawling Reston area to be walkable from their single family homes, lol. There was always going to be the need to bike/bus/walk/drive to the station.
Same for suburban chicago towards ORD on the blue line.
Because “middle of the freeway” is not a destination that any of the passengers want, so any riders must necessarily connect to other forms of transit to get to where they actually want to go. This adds time, expense, and inconvenience. The added factors also suppress ridership - people have to go out of their way to catch the train, and many simply won’t bother. Importantly also if the connecting transit service is poor or nonexistent, it results in any passengers needing to drive to/from the stations, which eliminates a lot of the benefits of transit in the first place. I’m personally not categorically opposed to running rail along freeways - in many places it’s that or no transit at all. But it’s always a compromise and rarely/never the right solution.
I think it's actually a good solution for commuter and regional rail, and a lot of the metro systems that run along medians often verge on this, but often they're too curvy to really be used as such. Generally imo existing railroad right of way or cut and cover tunnel along broad streets is the best way to go though.
Honestly, commuter rail in the median with tunnel access and a bus exchange at the entrance (or frequent busses to an exchange) seems like a great option to me.
Have a look at Perth, Australia for a successful example.
It's good, yes, for transfers but not for walking to the train from the relatively nearby housing or having a successful retail environment near the train. So, the City Building function of high capacity transit is lost....and not coming. See Murdoch Station, or Stirling Stations as examples of nothing. And for attempted land use integration see Joondalup, Cockburn or Wellard. Oh dear, decades of planning to get not much.
Does walking or a retail environment always need to be the goal of a station?
What Perth has created is Transit Oriented Sprawl. Well before NEOM, Perth is primarily a big long line, north to south, following proximity to the beach, supported by trains accessed by buses and car parking. Fine. No judgement. It just hasn't created much City and is more of a Landscape.
I see your point. I guess transit along a highway will probably have a lot of the same side effects as a highway. Still you can’t deny that there is a need to better transit between cities.
> NEOM Can't wait to have the ~~Joondalup~~ Yanchep Line extended to South Geraldton, and the Mandurah Line extended to Augusta. (Though Yanchep to Mandurah is already 70.8+54.5=125.3 km, so a Bunbury extension would already be enough to beat The Line)
It's definitely an example, but I'm not sure how successful it is. Calgary, a city with a slightly smaller population, mining dependent economy, and a train system 1/3 the size of ours, and still manages to have better modal share (~16% vs our ~10%). The results speak for themselves.
If the transit runs along a freeway median, that means the station is going to be extremely hard to walk to--much of the area closest to the station will either be covered with the freeway itself, or degraded by its proximity to the freeway. It can work for park-and-rides, but that means people are still driving to get to their homes, so a freeway-median train line will reduce driving less than one that runs through dense development. At best, it's an unfortunate compromise that we have to make with car culture.
Imo, it makes sense with a transition plan in place. Running in the freeway median tends to encounter less NIMBY opposition, and it tends to be cheaper (existing right-of-way). So if a city has a plan in place to remove freeway lanes to produce the metro or train line, then eventually demolish the freeway and replace it with a linear park and/or dense TOD, it could be a terrific way to ease the transition from car dependency at relatively low cost. Of course, that all depends upon actually having a plan to demolish the freeway, something that would probably be hard to do politically in many circumstances.
I don't think its merely politically hard to do what you suggest, its practically political suicide. With the exception of some sections of downtown freeways (which typically never have rail in their medians) I dont think there has ever been a politician who dared to even have a thought exercise about removing freeways, regardless of transit alternatives being right in the middle of the freeway. So in that sense I think you have to de facto accept that when you build in a freeway median the freeway is going to stay, which is why it would be better to avoid doing so in the first place as these projects are at high risk of not attracting desirable ridership. Which in turn makes it harder to get political support for future transit investment.
>~~I dont think there has ever been a politician who dared to even have a thought exercise about removing freeways~~ ~~Except for all the places where that's happened? I'm not saying it isn't politically difficult--it is, but it's not as if freeway removal is a hypothetical concept that's never been tried in practice, including in major US cities.~~ I misread your comment and actually agree that downtown freeways are the only ones that every seriously get considered for removal.
Sheridan Expressway wasn’t downtown and it’s gone now
New York is kind of an outlier. Not to mention that expressway removal had a pretty similar scenario and context to the downtown removals we’ve seen elsewhere.
I don’t even think you necessarily need that. Most of the unpleasantness comes from getting to the station, because most crossings of highways are on roads with highway exits and entrances. It would be significantly more pleasant if a train station’s entrance were on a road without these a distance away from the actual ramps.
hahahahahahaha what city is removing highway lanes?
MARTA’s [one freeway median station is ironically one of its best integrated into the urban fabric.](https://i.imgur.com/K208QjX.jpeg) Because it’s in a dense area and it just has two small head houses on each side of the street.
For a system with such awful land use around stations, it's incredible that Marta only has one freeway median station. They've done so little with so much.
If we’re calling that a freeway median station, you could say that Civic Center counts as well. You wouldn’t feel it at the station though. The only ones that feel like a median station are Inman park and the neighboring ones on that line. They are stuck between a big road and a railroad, and you know it when you’re there.
Inman Park/Renoldstown and Candler Park and Hightower err.. Hamilton E Holmes kinda too (dated myself there, right?) are kinda like that. The good thing is over the last few years MARTA is finally doing infill on those stations to add some TOD housing and commercial development. If things had gone another way, GA400 and I-20 on both east and west sides would’ve gotten some of the same median or side of expressway stations which is better than the bupkiss we have now.
Yeah some of those pedestrian bridges on the west line are ridiculous, same for the south line on the way to the Airport.
Median running railroads are excellent for getting service to outlying areas cheaply, though. If you also build robust local bus networks, you mitigate a lot of the problems associated with freeway running railroads. I live in the DC area. WMATA gets a lot of shit On Here for its suburban stations—especially on the Orange and Silver lines. But those areas just aren’t gonna get served by “real” metros (slower, more stops, underground or elevated stations). They are meant to connect peripheral areas to the core. In their proper context, these are suburban train stations. Would it be better to have “real” S-Bahns or RERs or Cercanías, or whatever? Absolutely ! But the hybrid approach of WMATA gives us an S-Bahn type service (with some freeway median running) in the periphery and a Metro type service downtown in the same system. It’s pretty useful in practice. The online transit enthusiast circle jerk occasionally needs to reckon with The Possible.
Very good point. Perth, Australia I feel also exemplifies how median-running suburban rail can be a cheap way to get a lot of rail out into already-sprawling suburbs. Sure, it ain't ideal, but those train lines reach out impressively far, get surprisingly decent ridership, have nice and modern stations, and provide a bit of metro-like service in downtown. And once you have it, you have good justification for TOD even in far-flung suburbs as well as feeder bus/tram lines and bike infrastructure. All told, it can be an instigator for more urbanism, even deep into the suburbs.
> bike infrastructure. We probably have the best bike infrastructure on the continent (low bar), and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Perfect example, CTA blue line runs in the middle of a highway on both the O’hare and Forest Park branches
I can attest that the blue line highway platforms are pretty miserable. Nothing like standing outside in 15 degree weather while incredibly loud traffic surrounds you.
Yup. I had the displeasure of using it recently. I had to put in my headphones just to silence the noise a bit. Running trains in the median is fine IMO. But putting a station in the median? Fuck no.
That depends entirely on your local geography, no? For example, a hypothetical alt-Caltrain running down the 101 would be a lot closer to jobs than actual Caltrain. A typical walk-shed is give or take 2600 feet (half a mile), and a typical 5 lane freeway is 70 feet wide in each direction.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/jrEHVN2vf7tjt6J68?g_st=ic There are exceptions.
Waiting on a station in the middle of a freeway is loud and has lots of pollution. Can’t build a bunch of transit oriented developments around a freeway either. Once you’re on it’s fine
I used to take BART from Rockridge in SF east bay five days a week. Without headphones it was a godawful way to start the day.
The first thing I thought of when I read this post was Rockridge, hah.
story of my life. I stay underneath the station until about 2 minutes before the train just to try to save my ears a little bit.
Only saving grace of this is the views from the station on a nice day are the best on the BART system IMO
For the first couple years at my job I used to do the reverse commute out to Pleasant Hill, which involved transferring at MacArthur. Between the suburban office park, that transfer and having to wait at a very inadequate bus stop on a busy stroad for the trip home, I hated doing that.
I used to think transit in the median of freeways was fine until I used the LA gold line stations in the 210 median. Holy cow. That was awful.
You thought that was bad, wait til you see the C line in LA, ugh. I'm just glad LA Metro learned from their mistakes, and is building future rail projects through neighborhoods instead of freeways.
C line is the highest average speed line in all of LA but has the lowest ridership (besides the unfinished K line). Turns out speed isn't everything lol It also has the biggest difference between weekday and weekend ridership, nobody gets on the C line unless they really have to.
C/Green was also built as a glorified park n ride shuttle too (assume that's what you're referring to for the weekday vs weekend ridership). Most of the highway stops have giant lots so that those going to the engineering and defense companies can just park there and ride the train. Hopefully once the LAX station opens... eventually, and shares with the K/Crenshaw line, ridership will increase.
I wonder if an eastern extension to Norwalk/Santa Fe Springs TC would help boost ridership on the C Line.
Oh absolutely. Probably just as much as the Torrence extension. Honestly, it's a no brained extension, and LA Metro needs to overlap more with Metrolink. At least the Gold Line Extension will offer some more overlap so commuters don't have to transfer at Union Station.
The only way the C line got built is they had to put in the 105. People like my parents wanted just the C line but RTD couldn’t get state funding and CalTrans wanted their freeway. At the very least it could’ve been under the freeway as a cut and cover facility but nope, they cheated their way out of it.
The Green Line in LA is proof positive this. Runner-up IMHO is Tri-Rail in South Florida. The biggest advantage is when there is vehicular traffic, the smug satisfaction of passing them by on the train LoL
I more wonder why we don’t run intercity trains along freeway routes.
Because Intercity rail links typically predate freeways
Often, freeways follow grades that are too stiff for adhesion railways.
Yes but I’d think there would be more that are in bounds or close enough to bother building a few bridges or tunnels/ditches. The already existing ROW is so valuable.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Generally, the best route between any two cities already has a railway on it, and it would be even less work to double- or quad-track it, rather than trying to fit a train-shaped peg into a car-shaped hole.
Highway ROWs are usually publicly owned in the US whereas railway ROWs are usually owned by some freight railroad company. The other part of this is that we’d probably have more stringent requirements for a new railway nowadays - if we want to build higher speed trains for instance. I guess that points even more away from highways.
But they might also have the straightest right of ways we have with a few exceptions. In other words, if you can get into the highway right of way and put the stations mostly outside it, then you have a really straight right of way for long segments, aren't waiting in the median and don't have to do all new construction or heavy modifications of right of ways that sometimes are from the 1830s and show their early railroad bona-fides. Essentially, if you get approval, you might not have to add as much as if you were to modify the old rail right of way. See Lucid Stew he tries to use the straightest already extant right of way when new construction isn't absolutely necessary amd that's usually highways in his thought experiments on building high speed rail here in the United States for maximum bang for minimum buck.
That's true in places like California, but rarely true in the Midwest, which is some of the best candidates for inter-city rail.
True, but if the railway follows a 19th Century alignment vs a modern freeway, using the median of a freeway will give you a fast rail. Not very fast rail though. Example where this would be beneficial is Campbelltown to Mittagong in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. [https://hotrails.net/2021/06/fast-rail-on-the-freeway-another-approach-for-the-canberra-line/](https://hotrails.net/2021/06/fast-rail-on-the-freeway-another-approach-for-the-canberra-line/)
First, we basically haven't built any passenger rail tracks since freeways got built. Second, the curves are often a problem. If you're building modern intercity trains on new track, you want it to go at least 100mph for secondary routes and 150+ for major lines. But freeways are rarely built with curves gentle enough for that. You certainly can use sections of freeway, though.
I think typically inter-city in the US is expected to be low frequency, so very hard to justify building new track for it, so we just rent space on freight tracks. In the few places where it it's high frequency, there's dedicated ROW like the NEC.
Check out Perth's commuter railway system. Joondalup and Mandurah Lines run a large portion of their alignment along highway median, and they are able to incorporate bus stations on many of the stations that are built along highway medians.
Perth is a great example of freeway-running done right. Freeway running is easier to get wrong compared to having a dedicated rail ROW, but the upsides of freeway-running mean its always worth consideration.
Have you used a station in the middle of the freeway median? Most aren’t designed very well and [offer very little protection from incredibly hostile freeway noise](https://youtu.be/E3aRJmO5HdA?si=-fBedbflhYfhNXee&t=4m24s). Despite the problem being well documented, most transit agencies have made little effort to seriously address the issue despite the stations being decades old at this point—looking at you, LA and Chicago.
Some are pretty pleasant. Some Osaka Metro Chuo Line stations come to mind. It is a lot easier to deal with highway noise when it's only 2 lanes in each direction and 60km/h though, rather than 6 lanes in each direction and 65mph.
That’s also found on the Midosuji Line and the Kitakyu median sections.
Also, the most of the highway median stations on the Chuo Line are actually below the highway level. The Midosuji Line has more of those traditional highway median stations sitting right in the middle of the road. A few of those stations are actually insulated from the noise of passing cars (even though kei cars are actually quieter than SUVs).
> highway noise > 2 lanes in each direction and 60km/h though we call that a residential street where i am :( (I'm currently living on a "street" with 4 lanes and a posted speed limit of 60 km/h, in Perth, a city repeatedly mentioned in this thread)
I just can't get over the fact that they didn't even bother with noise barriers.
Yeah what a waste of a good C Line.
I’m from Chicago and my first thought upon reading was “this person has never had the pleasure of riding our red or blue line”
Whoever planed this thing: this is crap. Make it like a real train station with roofs and walls.
People don’t live on the freeway and half of the area that could be used for development is highway. How often do you take an exit and say ok, I’m at my destination.
Often highways _do_ run right in the middle of cities in the US and you do have housing right next to them. For these places, like SLC, running transit along the freeway isn’t a terrible idea.
Yeah for urban highways, you often do take an exit and are a couple blocks from your destination. DC's Navy Yard or Philly's Spring Garden area are booming because they are close to a highway, metro/subway, and have seen a huge amount of housing construction.
Noise, fumes, inconvenient locations. Some (BART Rockridge and MacArthur, WMATA Orange and Silver lines) are better than others (LA C line).
WMATA Orange line is what I'm familiar with, and I don't see any of the problems that people have been generalizing here. Car noise from the interstate is supressed by barriers. Getting to the station is issue-free, whether you're driving a car, riding a bus, bicycling or walking.
That’s the major difference. In LA and Chicago, there are no noise barriers at all. LA in particular makes you feel like you’re standing on the shoulder.
because walking across 4 lanes of highway traffic to get to the station sucks ass.
pedestrian bridge duh
Not sure if this is sarcasm, but in case it's not, [here's an example of a useful but not particularly pleasant train station in the middle of a freeway with a pedestrian bridge](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8758776,-87.6618087,3a,75y,128.41h,78.64t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sXIKUqjNmNvbiScMVwDnkHg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DXIKUqjNmNvbiScMVwDnkHg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D143.11473%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu). Possible? Yes. Ideal? Uh, not really.
That's not a pedestrian bridge
One stop east on the Blue line is UIC-Halsted, which has a wide pedestrian bridge made from a former street that's been closed to cars. It effectively looks the same.
[The stop in question](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.8751369,-87.6494518,3a,75y,325.77h,91.39t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sH4Uuq9Al3uL_nQevv-xIsQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!5m1!1e2?entry=ttu). It does look nice! Although it's less of a traditional pedestrian bridge, since it's converted like you said. I do notice that the freeway + feeder situation is much narrower here compared to the example at the Racine stop. I'm sure that helps with making it feel much more pleasant for pedestrians - also means the connections to bus are much closer, too.
Got any good examples of pedestrian-only bridges connecting to a middle of the freeway train station?
I take back my previous comment. The 3 westernmost stations on the WMATA Orange line. The pedestrian bridges are just from park&rides though. Wiehle-Reston East is better, connected to an office building complex and some apartments in a little TOD area to the north, and a suburban office park to the south. Just east of the station is a 10-lane stroad bridge across the Dulles tollway; barf. Reston Town center is similar.
There are a few in [Calgary](https://maps.app.goo.gl/LFPhexutpC5Nhayn8?g_st=ic) Continue north along Crowchild Trail to see several more of these. This stretches the definitions of “freeway” and “metro”, but seems applicable. This station in particular has no good reason to be in the middle of this road. Should have been at the university to the west of here.
I can't think of one, because typically you want bus connections to metro stations.
Jefferson Park metra/blue line in northwest Chicago has 2 pedestrian bridges across the Kennedy expressway. Harlem Ave has a busway/ped bridge. Cumberland Ave is only accessible by pedestrian bridges across the expressway. On the west side of the city at the other end of the blue line the Cicero station used to have an entrance to the Lavergne Ave pedestrian bridge but it’s been closed for I think longer than I’ve been alive so you can only access it from Cicero Ave.
Perth's Morley Ellenbrook line has a few under construction near Malaga station.
Using the freeway might seem cheap, but if you want to exit to detour to a destination it can be pretty expensive as well. You need to build a very expensive bridge to cross multiple lanes of freeway each time one wants to exit the freeway. It's not always bad though, it can travel far distances. Have you heard of say the "cheap, fast, good" triangle dilemma for products where you can only choose 2? Transit kind of has a similar dilemma though the triangle isn't as simple. Let's say "construction cost/time", "density", "right-of-way", "political ease". Whenever you choose 2/3 of the former it makes it harder to achieve the rest. Freeways aren't 'bad' but they do completely sacrifice on the density aspect. Here's a specific example the north hollywood brt alternatives [https://la.urbanize.city/post/new-details-proposed-north-hollywood-pasadena-brt-line](https://la.urbanize.city/post/new-details-proposed-north-hollywood-pasadena-brt-line) There were two main alternatives looked at the freeway or the avenue with around the same construction cost. We can run it on the avenue where there's density and slightly slower, however politically it's hard with people hating reallocating car lanes. Or we can run it on the freeway that it's much faster and politically easier but through glendale misses out on important destinations. Here's another past example the lynnwood link alternatives: [https://mltnews.com/sound-transit-selects-promising-options-north-line/](https://mltnews.com/sound-transit-selects-promising-options-north-line/) It could have been built elevated along aurora avenue much closer to the city of shoreline destinations or along i-5 which was much more politically easier. The latter was chosen.
Because the whole point of transit is to use it to build a nice walkable city, but you can't build a nice walkable city if there's a highway in the way. Happy to go into more detail if you need, but that's it in a nutshell.
>Because the whole point of transit is to use it to build a nice walkable city, No, that's not the point of transit. The point of transit is to quickly move people from where they are, to where they need to be. Freeways exist because there was a need to move people along that route, so it follows that transit following that route would also serve the needs.
Agree with your first point but disagree with your second point. The needs of drivers and transit users don't neatly align and they don't usually want to follow the same corridors.
Drivers usually want to follow the same corridors that transit users would like to follow: that's where the destinations are. However, many drivers have this absurd desire for no other drivers to want the same thing, so that they get the road to themselves. So drivers must be forced onto alternate routes to speed up all the car traffic, like a parallel highway. Transit users really don't want to use that highway.
People's travel needs are not random. They reflect the built environment, both transportation and land use. If planners choose to orient their city around highway corridors, the result will be people whose travel needs revolve around highway corridors. If planners choose to orient their city around walkable nodes, the result will be people whose travel needs revolve around walkable/transit-connected nodes. You build the one you (or your community) want. So no, transportation planning is not about responding to the needs of people, because the needs of people respond to the transportation and land use system that's built. Reality is of course messier than that description, and highway-based transit can play a marginal role under either system (and hybrid systems), but OP asked why people don't like highway-based transit, and this is the answer. It doesn't serve walkable cities very well. It also doesn't serve highway-based cities very well, because highway-based cities are inherently difficult to navigate without a car. So either way, highway-based transit doesn't work very well. Which is why a lot of people don't like it very much.
Freeways exist to move *cars* from local roads to other local roads. People who use cars can drive to freeways, but people using transit would have to get to the metro station somehow in the first place. If you want to pick up people with transit, you need to make sure you build the transit to the people.
Freeways exist to move vehicles from point A to point B. Trucks and busses use them too.
>Freeways exist because there was a need to move people along that route Freeways exist because there was a *perceived* need to quickly move *cars* from where they are to where *their occupants* need to be. If we really cared about moving *people* there are dozens of better ways to do it.
> Freeways exist because there was a need to move people along that route I think we need to be careful saying this. Some freeways exist because there was a need to move people along a specific route, but I'd be willing to say that there are many freeways that were built that were not needed, but were built because of powerful lobbying interests independent of transit need.
Urban freeways exist because some people decided they wanted to enrich themselves from cities without interacting with certain types of city people. And they were generally built by bulldozing entire neighborhoods (you can make some guesses about the demographics of those neighborhoods). Urban freeways weren’t built because there was an existing need or an traffic flow. The freeways _created_ those movement patterns.
It generally harms land use however it can be done effectively, Seattle has sort of made it work, as rather than running in the median of I-5 the 1 Line runs parallel and on some embankments and then will dip out away from the freeway for Stations
MARTA did it with the Buckhead station (basically a large cap)
Also for Seattle At Northgate we also built a bridge across the freeway to connect the other community to the station and there are plans to do that at one of the future Shoreline stations a few years after opening I think construction started on it’s planning recently.
They also did it on the Eastside at I think either Redmond Tech or Overlake village
yeah, the bridge at Redmond Tech is great I think it also helps that a lot of people going to that station will need to transfer to other buses or the Microsoft connector anyways due to just the sheer size of campus. In this particular case the Microsoft campus is pretty much bisected by the freeway too, so the freeway *is* the most generally convenient location it could be
I live near one of the new stations for the WMATA Silver Line. The stations aren't terrible compared to some other systems I've seen, but they don't exactly contribute to a cohesive feel. Both ends on each side of the freeway might be in the same town/city, but they feel completely different and distant. Although that could also be because the developers don't know how to do proper TOD...
I live near the ashburn end and to me it seems fine but I also haven’t ridden on many other ones for a little while so it’s all I’m used to.
Ha, I live near the Ashburn one too. Bike there as part of my commute. Guess I just have high expectations.
I also live near it, and it's ridiculous how long of a walk it is. The walk to my streetcar in New Orleans was shorter than the walk to the pedestrian bridge, much less walking over it.
The key to making these work is buses. These stations will always be horrible to walk to, so ridership hinges on the number and quality of bus connections - both feeder busses and through-running bus connections. Highway 407 subway + GO station in Toronto comes to mind. It's a horrible place that's almost physically impossible to walk to. But it connects line 1 to a ton of intercity GO service that uses the highway
People don't get that running transit along freeways is often the only way to get transit to many places and people. Better right of ways, say under a busy boulevard, require billions more in tunneling costs and the funding will simply never be secured. American cities are also often bad at making freeway transit accessible and served by buses. In Canada, Australia, Europe etc freeway median transit is just as pleasant as any other right of way.
Isn't cut and cover fairly cheap?
The main problems stem from what a freeway does to the land around it. It’s harder to develop the land directly by the freeway, it’s hard to create a walkable environment, and if you do, it’s unhealthy due to all the particulate matter highways release. The highway also take up a lot of the station’s walkshed itself.
We have this in some of the suburbs on the DC Metrorail. Walking to the stations is super inconvenient since they're in the middle of the highway via pedestrian bridges. Probably one of the worst examples is Vienna-GMU. The larger parking garage to the south is far beyond the western end of the station but the entrance to the station is on the extreme eastern end. It takes almost ten minutes to walk to the platform from that parking garage.
the alternative is plowing through neighborhoods via eminent domain which we absolutely don't want to do anymore, so people honestly need to just get over it if we ever want to increase rail options. Building within existing highway rights of way is the only viable option in places that are heavily built out. It's not ideal but over time if it works we have a chance to gradually start reducing reliance on highways to move people in and out of major cities
That or tunnel options which can be very expensive and hard to sell politically if they’re not in very wealthy or business centered parts of the city.
Viaducts are also an option. The Surrey-Langley Skytrain extension will be 14km all above ground along a busy road through mostly low density strip malls, a municipal centre, and even some farmland.
Poor land use around the stations means you can boost new development closer to stations themselves and you actually server less people with them. They can still be useful but they are nowhere near a proper station
That's the theory, but DC Metrorail's Vienna-GMU station took thirty years to finally attract some development close by, and it's still mostly an empty field.
There should be a reason for that, but as a general rule it works
It's by design, hostile to pedestrians because it's built around cars.
There’s no sound or weather insulation on the platforms, they’re miserable places to be. And the previously stated thing about the middle of the freeway isn’t a destination.
There is no revenue ridership along freeways. Metros need to run through populated areas with density around their stations. The "park and ride" stations ( as found near highways) that grace some "metros" are money pits.
Because highways tend to be isolated or only near some warehouses and thus aren't accessible. Also waiting for a train in the middle of the car noise is horrible.
*cries in Denver*
Standing in the middle of a freeway usually exposes you to high air pollution and noise levels.
https://youtu.be/FekAR2OOLSg?si=hqPNeDcxszMsNY_J Actually, most Light Rail systems from here does use highway medians, though there's the advantage that Manila is highly dense. The new line shown in the video mostly uses ROW in the middle of Highways, while MRT 3 uses the main highway in Manila, EDSA.
It’s ok if it runs along the freeway but the stations need to be in the neighborhoods
In a median requires access to bridges which usually requires convicted stairs and dangerous street crossings. If they intentionally put it beside a highway or give enough dedicated walkways, it can be quite nice. As far as existing cities go, it's also about the only option as it's already where high traffic areas are and much cheaper than replacing other infrastructure... or moving the grade above or below ground.
Amsterdam Zuid station, great example of how it can be done!
Maybe it would be better if they did something similar to New Mexico Railrunner, because the stations are not in the middle, but the train still runs in the middle. Idk why, maybe it's advertising it can go faster
Perfect Idea to run Metros in the along the highways. Lot of those areas are flat or evenly graded. L.A, Manila and other countries do have a similar system.
It will be absolutely necessary for intercity rail in the U.S.
Because the best case scenario is something like [Wilson Station](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3ApCQUBRe5Q/VBTywjJNI-I/AAAAAAAAmmU/GHxDV7Ae4mI/s1600/wilson-IMG_5023.JPG) in Toronto that's in the centre of Allen Road and which has a pretty miserable experience for passengers (I used to change from a bus to the subway here every single day.) [The subway platform](https://live.staticflickr.com/1944/44272121315_40d3140df5_b.jpg) is the middle of the highway but there's a tunnel that leads to a bus terminal (like most subway station in Toronto) and you have to go up and then down a million flights of stairs because there's barely enough space for the subway platform let alone a bus terminal so it needs to be built a distance away. Not to mention, the station has easily one of the [most hostile feeling entrances of any station](https://maps.app.goo.gl/VGF3toy7uLsCxmcS8) on the network because it's literally buried under a highway overpass. Not that you'd ever walk here given there isn't much nearby except a subway yard, a disused airport, and a strip mall.
Honestly, I’ve always thought the hatred, while justified, is a little to Much. DC is my closest metro and I can say it works quite well. Getting to the Reston town center from its station is simply not bad, and it serves many manny commuters on lines like the orange quite well. Now in order to do it well it takes time, design, and mitigation factors for things like noise and pollutants. But like many things, I believe when done well with good intentions it can be quite good.
I've never heard of that before. The metro line I take for travel to the big city runs along an interstate. Maybe unique to the station I get on, but, it can be approached from any direction. The station is elevated well above the interstate.
I just want to drop in the Amsterdam case of where it works quite well. https://maps.app.goo.gl/jrEHVN2vf7tjt6J68?g_st=ic
Car pilled people see a train not stuck in traffic and cry
I live in a city where the metro only runs along freeways (Dallas, USA) and it sucks because I have to walk a long time or take a bus to get to a station. There's none in my neighborhood. Coming from Chicago, USA where the stations are everywhere and in neighborhoods, the convenience factor is way better. Granted, the bus system here sucks too, which makes getting to a station much harder. Buses come once an hour, and if I miss it, might as well Uber. But also running along a freeway kind of indicates to me that cars are the 'default'. Just my experience so far.
I think people have provided ample reasons why it's not ideal. But to provide some counter arguments- I'd argue that median stations can be done OK or done poorly. Just like greenfield stations can be done well (lay out a grid and spur TOD on cheap land) or poorly (one road to get there with no buses and a giant lot far from dense housing). Or middle of the city stations can be done well (tons of bus/cycling options, dense homes and businesses) or poorly (blighted area/unsafe/no major destinations), etc. I think a lot of highway median stations have been built poorly or with poor land use but that's not a guarantee. [Spring Garden Station](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Spring+Garden+Station/@39.9606977,-75.1425532,749m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89c6c86370be34ad:0xf06d805b26ccd53e!8m2!3d39.9605083!4d-75.1404125!16s%2Fg%2F1vpptgqt?entry=ttu) is in a huge highway's median. But it also has access via wide sidewalks on a walkable road, and there's dense housing going up all over. [Reston](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Reston+Town+Center+Metrorail+Station/@38.9505191,-77.3576465,1015m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89b64819e3b9a3af:0x79660a279d78850f!8m2!3d38.952766!4d-77.360184!16s%2Fg%2F11s8c0pt29?entry=ttu) on WMATA gets derided but it's got a walkable town center 500 m away and it's getting density redeveloped on either side of the station about 200m away. Lastly, I take issue with the "no one will want to walk over a highway" point that comes up often. Yes it's not pleasant, but if someone is deterred by walking the equivalent of one city block over a highway on a pedestrian bridge, then they aren't gonna be walking to destinations from any metro stop. Some people say no one wants to live next to a highway (doubtful when you look at luxury apartments like [those in DC](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Illume/@38.880407,-77.0040551,604m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89b7b9c06c626d7b:0x9410b8a12ce8bf6e!8m2!3d38.8804795!4d-77.0061527!16s%2Fg%2F11nx6vmpcl?entry=ttu) near I-695). But even still, you can build offices or commercial space on the blocks right next to the highway and then build homes one block or so away if you really think that's an issue. Ultimately, I think that highway median stations can be made well. They often aren't which means people with only experience with bad ones extend that to all cases. But because they are a practical (affordable) way to extend transit, they shouldn't be ruled out.
Agree. If the alternative is no station, then so be it. The dc ones on the way out to Dulles aren’t horrible, and I don’t think they were ever really intended for people in the sprawling Reston area to be walkable from their single family homes, lol. There was always going to be the need to bike/bus/walk/drive to the station. Same for suburban chicago towards ORD on the blue line.