# Which major cities in industrialized nations lack rail transit?



## city_thing (May 25, 2006)

Hia-leah JDM said:


> All american cities! :lol: Besides 5 or 6 cities, american cities have extremely pathetic rail transit. New York, Boston, Philadelphia, DC, Chicago, and San Francisco and probaly a couple more are the couple cities that have a largely efficient system. Los Angeles apparently has a large one but not very efficient. Cities like Atlanta and Miami have systems but are severly missing a huge expansion. small light rail is not enough for american cities and its a huge issue in this country.
> One city I know that has no system what so ever is Orlando. We have nothing! nada! We were or are close to a deal for a commuter train but thats taking decades. Tampa too just has tiny trolly system.


Orlando has _no_ public transport? Not even buses?

How does that work...? 

Coming from outside the US - it's hard to imagine any city being able to exist without a decent public transport network of trains & buses & trams. I'm astounded (and in slight awe) of the fact that many American cities (like Detroit, Pheonix, Miami etc) can exist without huge rail networks and limited bus/light rail lines. I hate to imagine the traffic!


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## LtBk (Jul 27, 2004)

Over 50 years ago, American had good transit.


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## particlez (May 5, 2008)

^it's an interesting question. the US (and canada to a lesser extent) has been built around mobility, as opposed to accessibility. the wasted potential of rustbelt detroit and sunbelt tampa aren't even that different from the wasteful development patterns of postwar ny, chicago, boston, etc. just visit their seemingly endless suburbs. 

unfortunately the US suffers from both an embarrassment of riches, auto-penetration, lots of developable land, high incomes, and has embraced plutocratic neoliberal policies where the narrow selfish vested interests of developers, oil, banking, etc. have encouraged the consumption of low density, auto-dependent suburban development. 

i chuckle when libertarian types explain our development model as the natural outcome of our capitalist system. it was planned out. apart from saving money on public transit, there's NOTHING cheap about car-centric development. we've laid more utilities, paved more asphalt, and continually pay for its upkeep. now, plenty of other industrialized countries have messed up their cities too... just that we're explicitly #1 in this category.

as for the original question: should detroit's downtown people mover thingy county? it doesn't count for much, but it's still a tiny bit of rail in a city ruled by the car.


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## Ingenioren (Jan 18, 2008)

How about Las Vegas (2 million people)? They have a small monorail (6km) and thats it! 

In Norway the largest town without rail is Tromsø with 50 000 people, reason for this is the difficult geography. 

Iceland is probably one of the few developped countries without any rail at all (even the vatican have rail!) The capital is Reykavik (Metro pop: 200 000 people)


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Phoenix has to be the largest in the US. Even Detroit has an Amtrak station. Phoenix hasn't for 12 years now, and it's metro has 3.2m people. 

However, their light rail system is set to open later this month.


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## luv2bebrown (Nov 4, 2004)

dubai's first rail line is coming online in september. the city currently suffers from extreme round the clock gridlock. it will be an amazing experiment to see if rail can solve the city's transportation woes.


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## ssiguy2 (Feb 19, 2005)

Yes, Canada has sprawl {as does post-war Europe} but not to the same extent as the US. Also our transit systems have FAR higher ridership levels than in the US and systems far better developed and service levels are far superior. This is especially true for metros under 3 million. Most cities under 1 million in the states have remarably low levels of transit usership. Such is not the case in Canada. 
Canadian ridership is roughly 3 times the rate of the US but that number is even more gaping when you consider that Greater NYC/NJ carries 40% of all US transit trips.


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## Xusein (Sep 27, 2005)

Don't flatter yourself too much. :|

Canada may do much better per-capita, but it is sprawled out and car dependent and all of it's metros can use some more transit infrastructure. 

Both are far below European countries when it comes to PT. Canada may be slightly not as low, but it's still low.


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## ale26 (Sep 9, 2005)

^^ An example of that is how Toronto (5th Largest City in North America) is the transit system that carries the 3rd highest volume of riders in North America after New York and Mexico City.


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## davsot (Dec 27, 2008)

San Juan, PR. All of Puerto Rico lacks rail transit to link major cities. It's a shame really. The infrastructure was there 50 years ago.  

The SJ metro is also very small and hasn't moved from its Phase 1 construction. There are six phases! Because of the central government taking so long, individual municipalities have taken charge and decided to do all the financing themselves. Hopefully by 2010, we'll have phases 2 and 3 finished.

San Juan Metropolitan Area (SJMA) is home to 2.6 million people according to 2000 census.


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## davsot (Dec 27, 2008)

LtBk said:


> Over 50 years ago, American had good transit.


Exactly!


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

I think you'd have to go down to cities of less than 100,000, maybe less than 50,000 to find somewhere in the UK that didn't have any passenger rail whatsoever. 

Some towns don't have a great service though, and there are many places with otherwise good rail services - including mine - that are not on an electrified network and are served by diesels only.


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## the spliff fairy (Oct 21, 2002)

^ UK tiny villages are on rail routes. Just going from London to Reading, or London to Windsor via Waterloo and youll stop at communities of a few hundred, places like Wraysbury (pop. 660), Datchet (4,600), Virginia Water (4,800), Iver (7,700), Sunnymeads, Sunninghill, on and on. It takes up to 1hr 20 mins for the slow train from London to go 25 miles.


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## Jonesy55 (Jul 30, 2004)

^^ Wikipedia says that Corby (population 50,000) is the largest UK town without a rail service either in the town or within five miles but they are getting a service this year I think.


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## girlicious_likeme (Jun 12, 2008)

Canada, of course...
Very small network of rail... more improvements are needed. More people should be encouraged to take public transit.

but talks about HSR in Canada are starting to proceed.

Largest cities in Canada without a non-commuter train station: 
Calgary, AB with 1,070,000.
Mississauga, ON with 704,000.


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## ssiguy2 (Feb 19, 2005)

Calgary has the LRT CTrain which is NA most successful LRT system. The LRT systen itself carries 270,000 paassengers /day while only serving a city of one million. 

Quebec City and Winnipeg have no urban rail transit, both have metro pops of 720,000. Ottawa has a small 6km line, its not much really. BUT.....Ottawa was the first city in NA and amongst the first in the world to bring in a true BRT onee it's totally own roadways. Its very fast and has extremly high ridership of 300,000/day while serving a city of only 900,000.


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## Svartmetall (Aug 5, 2007)

^^ The CTrain carries 270,000 passengers per WEEKday, not per day - it's just one of those irritating ways that North American transit agencies report ridership statistics that artificially inflate their ridership compared to how the rest of the world reports ridership (by average ridership per day). 

The annual ridership in 2007 was 90.8 million according to the Calgary transit website which is still a respectable figure (but not 98.5 million as one would expect from extrapolating from the average passengers per day that was posted above).


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## girlicious_likeme (Jun 12, 2008)

ssiguy2 said:


> Calgary has the LRT CTrain which is NA most successful LRT system. The LRT systen itself carries 270,000 paassengers /day while only serving a city of one million.
> 
> Quebec City and Winnipeg have no urban rail transit, both have metro pops of 720,000. Ottawa has a small 6km line, its not much really. BUT.....Ottawa was the first city in NA and amongst the first in the world to bring in a true BRT onee it's totally own roadways. Its very fast and has extremly high ridership of 300,000/day while serving a city of only 900,000.


Ohhh. I was talking about VIA RAIL. lol


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## bobbybishop (Feb 1, 2009)

almost all American cities!


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## WeimieLvr (May 26, 2008)

Penfold said:


> Isn't that MARTA number including busses, while the others you stated (BART and Metro) exclude busses? Having spent plenty of time on all three systems, it's hard to believe that MARTA is busier than BART and comparable to Metro.


Yes, that daily number was wrong...my bad. MARTA is one of the busiest heavy rail systems in the U.S....294,400 riders/day ranks MARTA 6th in the nation.


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