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PROPOSED TEXT for metro, a big project. This is for experimenting and discussion

"Metro" redirects here; for other uses of the word, see metro (disambiguation); for specific metro systems, see list of rapid transit systems.

For lower-order public transit systems, see tram, light rail, bus, and bus rapid transit.

A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated, or metro system is a railway system, usually in an urban area, with a high capacity and frequency of service, and grade separation from other traffic.

1 Characteristics and nomenclature
2 Extent
3 Importance, functions, and station design
4 Technology
5 History
6 Finance
7 Similarities to light rail
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Characteristics and nomenclature

Image from the Moscow Metro.

There is no one term that all English speakers would use for rapid transit or metro systems. This is a reflection on national and regional usage and differing definitions of what exactly a ‘metro’ system is.

A common definition would be:

an urban, electric mass transit railway system
which is totally independent from other traffic
and which has high service frequency.

The terms "subway" (American) or "underground" (British) additionally specify that the tracks and stations are mainly:

located below street level.

In some cities the word 'subway' applies to the entire system, in others only to those parts that actually are underground.

The terms "rapid transit" or "metro" tend to view this as a less important characteristic and are happy to include systems that are entirely elevated or at ground level (at grade).

Rapid transit systems that are above street level may be called "elevated" systems, often shortened to el or L, as in Chicago 'L'.

For a more comprehensive listing showing names of this kind of system in cities around the world, see the list of rapid transit systems.

[edit] Extent

Farringdon station in London is shared by Underground trains (foreground) and Thameslink suburban rail services (left).

In larger metropolitan areas the underground system may extend only to the limits of the central city, or to its inner ring of suburbs, with trains making relatively frequent station stops. The outer suburbs may then be reached by a separate commuter, suburban or regional rail network, where more widely spaced stations allow a higher speed. These trains are often more expensive, less frequent, and, in some cities, operate only during rush hours periods. Sometimes, for political reasons, commuter lines are operated by a separate authority that tends not to co-operate with the city's transit authority (except in Japan, where the commuter routes are frequent in suburbs and form the backbone of the networks).

A completed portion of the still-in-progress Delhi Metro.

Many of these regional railways were first built to operate in one direction from a city centre terminus, but some have been extended across the city centre, sometimes running in tunnels. By making multiple stops in the city, they can offer suburban passengers a choice of stations and also provide useful transportation within the city. A notable example is the Paris RER system, where (in co-operation with the city's transit authority) several pairs of existing suburban lines running in opposite directions from the city have been extended in tunnel to join up and form new through routes across the city. They are provided with frequent service and, within the city, the same fares as the Métro are charged, providing an integrated network. In Tokyo, and Osaka, Japan private companies operate the world's most extensive suburban railways, each with their own fare system that integrates with the entire system. In German-speaking countries, the Paris style system is called an S-Bahn. In Italian-speaking countries such a system is called Linea S or Treno Suburbano. In some cases, such as the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and Washington Metrorail systems, the rapid transit system itself runs to the suburbs and effectively functions as a regional rail service as well. (Note, however, that the Washington, DC, area has two regional rail services as well: VRE and MARC.) Where there are separate systems, the rapid transit system is typically a self-contained service with its own dedicated tracks and stations and technologically incompatible with other railways. Suburban rail services, on the other hand, often share tracks and stations with long-distance trains (historically they were usually operated by the same company, which also owned the rails and ran freight, although this has become less common) and are subject to the same standards and regulations. There are exceptions; some London Underground lines share tracks with suburban rail services. In some cases, underground railway lines have been extended by taking over existing regional rail lines, notably the Central and Northern Lines in London. The Athens Metro's Blue Line shares tracks with suburban rail services in order to connect the metro to Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport, but does not stop at the suburban rail stations because the platforms of the stations are a lot lower than the train's floor. In Hong Kong and São Paulo, Brazil, metro-like frequent service is provided by electrifying existing railway lines, while continuing to share the tracks with the much less frequent intercity and freight trains. The KCR West Rail in Hong Kong is designed to accommodate intercity and freight traffic in future, whilst at present provides only metro-like service.

Elevated railways were a popular way to build mass transit systems in cities around the turn of the twentieth century, but they have fallen out of favour and many elevated lines were later demolished, being replaced by subways or buses. Elevated rail saw something of a resurgence in the late twentieth century, with the construction of a number of new lines such as the Docklands Light Railway in London and the Bangkok Skytrain and Vancouver SkyTrain; in the United States a few such lines have been built, including the AirTrain JFK and the Las Vegas Monorail, but these are typically seen as more futuristic, and are not representative of the overall trends in U.S. transit development.

[edit] Importance, functions, and station design

Place-Saint-Henri station of the Montréal Métro

The volume of passengers a metro train can carry is often quite high, and a metro system is often viewed as the backbone of a large city's public transportation system. In many cities passengers beginning their journeys on a streetcar/tram, bus, or suburban rail system must finish their journey into the city center on the metro as their first mode of transport will terminate at a metro station to avoid congesting the city center above ground. Budapest is a perfect example where the two more modern metro lines connect with buses and trams and also with two circular streetcar/tram routes (one closer to and one further from the city center) that allow travel between suburbs and also into the centre of the city by changing onto the metro.

In some cities, the urban rail system is so comprehensive and efficient that the majority of city residents go without an automobile. London, Moscow, New York City, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo and Osaka are such examples; these cities have the most extensive and convenient metro systems in the world. In greater Tokyo, by far the world's most extensive rail system for any metropolitan area, the region's 15 line subway network is a mere fraction of the over 75 heavy rail lines, transporting well over 20 million people daily, where the majority of suburban residents in addition to city dwellers do not own automobiles and depend on rail as the primary means of travel. Osaka, Japan is similar to Tokyo's system except about half as big, but still has a ridership exceeding that of New York City.

The metro in Warsaw - Wierzbno station.

The car-oriented cities in the United States have very low rates of transit usage. About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in just one city: New York (see Transportation in New York City). Older cities such as Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Philadelphia follow New York distantly, while the rest of the cities in the United States have only partial or poorly-used systems, especially in sunbelt cities such as Los Angeles, Dallas, Las Vegas or Houston.

In the Western Hemisphere, Mexico City also has a large system. In Canada, only Toronto and Montréal have extensive metro networks serving their urban centers (see Toronto subway and RT and Montréal Métro); Vancouver's SkyTrain also provides high-grade service, but at present acts primarily as a connection between Vancouver and the surrounding area.

Greenbelt station, the terminus of the Green line on the Washington Metro, is a typical example of the entrance concourse of a metro station.

Most underground systems are for public transportation, but a few cities have built freight or postal lines. One example was the Post Office Railway, which transported mail underground between sorting offices in London from 1927 until it was abandoned in 2003. Similarly, in its early days the London Underground's Metropolitan Line (then the Metropolitan Railway) transported goods as well as running passenger trains. Another example was the Chicago Tunnel Company, which had a dense grid of tunnels under downtown Chicago.

During the Cold War an important secondary function of some underground systems was to provide shelter in case of a nuclear attack.

Urban rail systems have often been used to showcase economic, social, and technological achievements of a nation, especially in the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. With their marble walls, polished granite floors and splendid mosaics, the metro systems of Moscow and St. Petersburg are widely regarded as some of the most beautiful in the world. Modern metro stations in Russia are usually still built with the same emphasis on appearance. Similarly, the Independent Subway System in New York City was built to compete with the private IRT and BMT systems, and succeeded in running them out of business (in conjunction with other factors, such as fare limits). The New York City subway system (actually only approximately 60% of total track miles are underground) is now owned by the city government. In fact, almost all subway systems around the world are owned by government entities.

This station of the Paris Métro Line 14 has automatic platform-edge doors.

[edit] Technology

Main article: Rapid transit technology

Most rapid transit trains are electric multiple units. Power is commonly delivered by a third rail, or in systems without much length in tunnel, by overhead wires. Most run on conventional steel railway tracks, although some use rubber tires. Crew sizes have decreased throughout history, with some modern systems now running completely unstaffed trains. The method of tunnel construction used varies from place to place, depending on the situation. Cut-and-cover tunnels are constructed by digging up city streets, which are then rebuilt over the tunnel. Alternatively, tunnel-boring machines can be used to dig deep-bore tunnels.

[edit] History

The Helsinki metro, the northernmost metro system in the world, began operating in 1982.

Millennium Underground old phase at Heroes square in Budapest, Hungary (1896)

The 2750-foot (850-m) Cobble Hill Tunnel in Brooklyn, New York (now part of New York City) is sometimes claimed to be the "world's oldest subway tunnel". This was formed in 1850 when an open cut on the Brooklyn and Jamaica Railroad in the middle of Atlantic Avenue was bricked over to form a tunnel. The company was later taken over by the Long Island Rail Road, but the tunnel was closed in 1861. This tunnel has been characterized as a "subway" because it was a railway carrying tunnel underneath a city street. However, it was not a true subway, as its purpose was simply to reduce the effective grade on the existing railroad line and eliminate the need for horses to provide help for locomotives on the steepest part of the grade. It had no stations and was used for long-distance regional rail and streetcars.

The London Underground, usually referred to by Londoners simply as "the Underground" or more familiarly "the Tube", began operations on January 10, 1863 on the Metropolitan Railway. The Underground currently serves 274 stations and runs over 253 miles (408 km) of lines. There are also a number of stations and tunnels that are now closed, some of which can be seen from trains.

A major breakthrough in the development of modern electrically-driven rapid transit occurred when the American inventor Frank J. Sprague successfully tested his system of multiple-unit train control (MUTC) on the Chicago L in 1897. MUTC, which allowed all the motors in an entire train to be dependably controlled from a single point, freed rapid transit systems from dependence on locomotive-hauled coaches.

Istanbul's Tünel from 1875 was the first underground railway in continental Europe

The first underground railway in continental Europe was the Tünel, an underground 573-meter funicular between the quarters of Beyoğlu and Galata in the European part of Istanbul, completed in 1875 by French engineers on behalf of the Ottoman Empire. It rarely figures as continental Europe's first metro, though, partly because of its limited length, partly because the cars were pulled by horses until the line was converted to electric operation in 1910. After the Tünel, the first underground railway to be completed in continental Europe was opened in Budapest in 1896, after only two years of construction. It stretches from Vörösmarty tér (the city centre) to City Park and the local zoo, over a total length of 3.7 km (2.3 mi). It is now part of the Budapest Metro and remains largely in its original state, with the original cars modernised and the stations restored in keeping with their original design, and with the route the same except for a very short extension north to Mexikói út to connect with the city's tram network. It lays claim to a second title, that is the first electric underground railway with overhead cables, like the Newcastle system, rather than the more common third rail) in the world. The 10.4 km (6.5 mi) Glasgow Subway in Scotland opened the same year and used cable haulage until it was electrified in 1935.

The first line of the Paris Metro opened in 1900. Its full name was the Chemin de Fer Métropolitain, a direct translation into French of London's Metropolitan Railway. The name was shortened to métro, and many other languages have since borrowed this word. The Berlin U-Bahn (for underground railway) opened in 1902; because large sections of the line were elevated, it was also called Hochbahn (high railway) until the 1920s.

Boston has the oldest subway tunnel in the United States, part of the Green Line downtown, dating from 1897. The original construction was a short four-track tunnel downtown, with only two stations, built to take light rail cars from outlying areas off the streets. Later subways in Boston carried full-size trains; the Green Line still operates with light rail equipment. In 1901, heavy rail trains began to use the tunnel as part of the original configuration of the Main Line Elevated, the first elevated railway in Boston.

Typical PATH subway platform at Exchange Place in Jersey City, New Jersey, which helps to connect New Jersey with Manhattan.

The New York City Subway, which has become the world's largest (by some measures), did not open its first section until 1904, but this was a fully separate four-track line, stretching 9 miles (14.5 km)[1] from City Hall to 145th Street. Extensions were soon built, reaching the Bronx and Brooklyn; this is now part of the IRT system. Two major subway systems, operated by the BMT and the IND were constructed later, and many pre-exisiting elevated railway lines were incorporated into the BMT and IRT systems. Subway trains now run on right-of-way first used in 1863, and converted R44 subway cars run on the 1860 Staten Island Railway.

Budapest metro, the first electric metro line in Europe.

In 1907, the first line in Philadelphia, now part of the Market-Frankford Line, began running on both elevated and underground structures.

The oldest subway in the Southern Hemisphere opened in 1913 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, which is also the oldest one in Latin America and the whole Spanish-speaking world. [2] The system is now known as el subte.

Asia's oldest commuter heavy rail lines are in Japan, with private companies Meitetsu railways (Nagoya) opening in 1895, and Tokyo's Keihin Kyūkō in 1896, both still serving dense urbanized areas. Asia's first cities to have subway lines are Tokyo in 1927 and Osaka in 1933. Japan's rail system is quite different from others in that the vast majority of its rapid transit is above ground, and privately owned and operated, and train stations blur the dinstiction between vast underground malls and corporate skyscrapers and gigantic high rise department stores. Train stations in Japan, like highways in the US, become the center and backbone of town and create their own skyline, especially in suburbs like Saitama and Fujisawa. Other major Japanese cities also have subway systems, including Yokohama, Nagoya, Sapporo, Kobe, Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Sendai.

In the past 30 years, a number of cities in Korea have also developed modern and extensive subway systems. The largest, Seoul, has nine lines over approximately 178 miles of track (approximately 287 km). Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju and Daejeon also have subway systems. China and India are rapidly expanding their urban rail systems as well.

The first underground in the former USSR (in Russian метрополитен metropoliten or метро metro) opened in 1935 in Moscow. The first line — between Sokolniki and Park Kul'tury — was 11.2 km long. The Moscow metro was built during the reign of Stalin, and is one of the most elaborately decorated undergrounds of the world, with its stations often being called underground palaces. (As of 2005, the Moscow metro has 278 kilometers of railways and 171 stations.) In Russia and other republics of the former Soviet Union as a whole, subways opened in Saint Petersburg (1955), Kiev (1960), Tbilisi (1965), Baku (1967), Kharkov (1975), Tashkent (1977), Yerevan (1981), Minsk (1984), Nizhniy Novgorod (1985), Novosibirsk (1986), Samara (1987), Yekaterinburg (1991), Dnepropetrovsk (1995), Kazan (2005). In Volgograd and Krivoj Rog in 1980s a "metrotram" opened – it runs underground, along with common city trams.

In 1949, A metro system was inaugurated in Lisbon. It was the first underground rail system in the Portuguese-speaking world.

The Toronto Subway (1954) used the first aluminum subway car (which was at the time also the longest car in the world), which reduced weight and therefore operating costs.

In Brazil, the first underground opened in 1974 in São Paulo, and now carries some four million passengers on an average weekday as part of the São Paulo Metro. Part of it consists of converted older railways; some of its stations actually date from the 1880s. Underground lines have been built also in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife, Porto Alegre and Brasília.

The Washington Metro in Washington, DC opened in 1976, as part of changing attitudes towards transportation in the United States, leading to subway systems in many cities that had done without.

In 1979, Hong Kong's subway line, the MTR, began operations. It currently has seven lines, including four that run underneath Victoria Harbour. By 1982, the British section of the Kowloon-Canton Railway, now known as KCR East Rail, started to provide metro-like service upon electrification was completed.

The MTR of Hong Kong

Recent developments include new, elevated lines such as AirTrain JFK in New York City and surface lines such as the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail across the Hudson River in New Jersey. These are often seen as futuristic, or at least modern, and are compared favorably to old-style elevated railways.

1987 saw the Mass Rapid Transit in Singapore being completed. It was the world's first heavy rail system to feature platform screen doors. The country made news again by having the world's first automated heavy rail system. The network has three lines with another one to be ready by 2010.

An Alstom Metropolis train waiting on the Mass Rapid Transit of Singapore.

The most recently completed fully underground heavy rail metro line in North America is the LACMTA Red Line in Los Angeles, which goes from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, through the mid-Wilshire area, East Hollywood, central Hollywood, and finally ending 17 miles away in North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley. Construction was started on this line in 1986 and completed in 2000. In autumn 2005, several politicians including Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa indicated a desire to complete the originally conceived subway route along Wilshire Boulevard to West Los Angeles and Santa Monica. As the original construction took 14 years, this line will likely not open before 2020.

[edit] Finance

Many early urban railways were constructed by private enterprise, either independently as in London, or under a government franchise as in Paris. Profitable suburban railways in Japan are among the oldest in the nation, and were built and operated privately and cheaply through what had been rural areas, now often dense urban areas. Later, direct government control and ownership became the norm worldwide as corporations found it difficult to maintain profitability, although in recent years, this trend has been reversed to some extent with moves towards public-private partnership, as in Japan's spinoff of the formerly unprofitable Japan National Railways.

One reason urban railways today cost so much to build is because they are built after a city has become dense and land values have become high, necessitating tunnels and elevated tracks. In Japan, where skyscrapers, corporate offices, malls, and departments stores are built beside and connect seamlessly to existing train stations, often stations create their own skylines and cities.

Whatever its original financing, any metro system requires ongoing expenditure to maintain and replace its trains, tracks, tunnels, and other infrastructure. Any under-financed system will become unreliable and unpleasant to use, and eventually unsafe, and thus will lose public support as it used to happen to New York's system between the 1970s through the mid 1980s, where its trains were infamous for graffiti and vandalism.

In the United States, the lack of metro, subway, or other rapid transit systems except in a few of the larger cities has been attributed to automobiles, buses, and advocacy of public road-funding to compete effectively against existing streetcar and trolley systems. In addition, an agreement between many cities, counties, and rich and poor communities to fund construction and obtain right of way must occur, often stalling or derailing the process. These went into decline early in the twentieth century due to a variety of factors including public preference, government regulation, corporate influence and decline in ridership due to failure of the operators to maintain their facilities. (The decline of rapid transit outside of major metropolitan centers gave rise by some to the General Motors Streetcar Conspiracy, a conspiracy theory that automobile and oil interests directly engineered the dismantling of tram networks and blocking rapid transit development.

In Hong Kong, where land prices are high, new railway projects are financed by the development right of lands adjacent to the routes, depots and stations the government granted to the railway companies. Thanks to the high density of urban development and high ridership, railway operations are usually profitable.

[edit] Similarities to light rail

A Boston Green Line car at Boston University

There has always been some crossover between rapid transit and "lighter" streetcar/tram systems. For example, some lines of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company in New York City and San Francisco's Muni were elevated in built-up areas and ran at street level, often along streets, in less crowded areas.

In many German cities, such as Hannover, the opposite applies, with trams descending into tunnels to cross the city centre.

In the other direction, interurban streetcars provided rapid transit-style transit from cities to suburbs and other cities, running mainly on separate rights-of-way (sometimes sharing tracks with intercity rail) but using streetcar equipment. Most interurbans have been abandoned, but some (like the Norristown High Speed Line near Philadelphia) have been reconstructed to rapid transit specifications.

Additionally, many streetcar/tram systems include underground and (less commonly) elevated sections, in which everything about the system except the right-of-way is built to streetcar standards. Notably, the first subway in the United States, Boston's Green Line, opened in 1897 to take streetcars off downtown streets, though it did carry elevated trains from 1901 until the Washington Street Subway opened. Likewise, San Francisco's Market Street Subway carries Muni Metro light rail on the upper tracks and Bay Area Rapid Transit metro trains on the lower level.

The coming of modern light rail in the 1970s brought new crossovers. New systems were built and old streetcar/tram systems were upgraded with higher capacity and speeds, but retaining some aspects of streetcars and trams. Some systems known as light rail, such as the Docklands Light Railway in London and New York City's AirTrain JFK, are rapid transit systems but commonly described as light rail (though some argue the light rail in AirTrain's case may be a mislabeling of Bombardier's Advanced Rapid Transit). Other light-rail systems may use high platforms but otherwise run as streetcars. A few systems similar to interurban streetcars have come back, such as New Jersey's River Line, which operates over freight rails for most of its trip, and along streets on one end. The KCR Light Rail, which runs as streetcars, operates with high platforms, with some of its sections elevated or street level right-of-way, and some at ground-level by away from streets.