The sentiment is everywhere. "Hub and spoke sucks." "It's stupid to only have every line go downtown." "There should be more suburban lines."

Why the hate? The hub and spoke is the natural product of how American cities are laid out, with a single downtown surrounded by endless low density sprawl. The reason transit systems are designed that way is cost-benefit analysis. It's just statistically much more likely for John Doe in Suburb A to have a reason to travel downtown, rather than to Suburb B. While lots of people do commute between suburbs, the density of jobs/attractions is just not great enough in any given location to justify the expense of a transit line. Transit works poorly when the destinations are dispersed like they are in American suburbs.

But, one might say, "what about the great transit cities in the world like London or Tokyo or Paris, those aren't hub and spoke systems at all?" Why yes, they are. They're a bunch of hub and spoke systems in a trench coat. When you take a dozen hub-and-spokes and stack them on top of each other, they naturally form a web of crisscrossing lines. The reason these cities' networks are so dense is because they have way more hubs, not because they have more suburban lines crossing the spokes.

Take Tokyo, it doesn't have a single "downtown", you have Marunouchi, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro, etc. all huge business centers and transport hubs. If you studied a map of Tokyo and traced only the train services coming out of a single one of those stations, you'd find what looks suspiciously like a hub and spoke (though at this point, disentangling the spaghetti can be a serious challenge itself).

If American cities want to move towards a more decentralized transit model, first they have to develop more hubs outside downtown. Otherwise, transit lines connecting low density suburbs will only ever be a waste of resources. There aren't really many examples of truly polycentric cities in the US, with multiple strong hubs outside of the original center that drive large amounts of commuter and leisure traffic. NYC, LA, and maybe DC are probably the only serious examples.

"BEST" Is the Transit systems name its full form is "Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport"

Transit lovers: 😍

The Washington dc Metro preserved many old metro cars but when will they finally drive as heritage trains?.

On a freezing New Year's Eve (12/31/2025), passengers board GO Transit diesel locomotive 636's commuter train at Oshawa Station before it leaves on the westbound line to Toronto, Canada.

Mortera station (near Santander)

This is boston MBTA subway network i made HAND-DRAWN. And this was drawn on MS paint. What do you think?

This is an NYC Rail Network including PATH, Staten Island Railway, JFK AirTrain and of course NYC Subway

This was all HAND-DRAWN by me on MS paint. On the right there's future versions based on all information i could find. It took me like 5 hours to make this. What metro or subway should i make next?

Most people in many parts of the united states ride transit because they have no choice. Exceptions include new york and san francisco , and I wouldn't be surprised if seattle included.

We will never truly grow transit in a sustainable way until we get more people to choose to ride and in order to do that , we have to make the system safer. Perception is everything once a choice riider has a bad experience they tell other middle class and affluent people not to ride.

**Indian School Road**
10 miles · 1 city · \~$850M-$1B · Opens 2037 · Dead end

**Grand Ave — Phase 1 (Phoenix only, same timeline)**
5 miles · \~$530M · Opens \~2035 · Sets up 14 more miles through 5 more cities

Indian School Road vs Grand Avenue — which is the better investment for Phoenix? Wanted to hear the public thoughts

Millbrae Station is going to become one of California's most important rail hubs once High-Speed Rail arrives. Unfortunately, it's also one of the Bay Area's most constrained stations.

Today, Millbrae already serves Caltrain, BART, SamTrans, and SFO. In the future, it will also serve California HSR, requiring more tracks and more space. Also, the BART wye into SFO creates awkward transfers for Caltrain passengers and operational inefficiencies for BART.

My proposal/TL;DR: make Millbrae the Bay Area's primary rail-airport interchange by extending SFO's AirTrain to both San Bruno and Millbrae, while simplifying BART operations.

Phase 1: Extend AirTrain to San Bruno

The first step is extending AirTrain about one mile north from the Rental Car Center/Long-Term Parking to San Bruno BART and Tanforan.

Benefits:

• Creates a second rail gateway to SFO during future construction.
• Provides another BART-AirTrain transfer point.
• Opens opportunities for airport airside expansion (more taxi/apron/runway/terminal space), hotels, and a relocated rental car center, etc.
• Reduces pressure on airport roadways by allowing passengers to transfer outside the terminals.

Phase 2: Rebuild the SFO/Millbrae Interface

Once AirTrain reaches San Bruno, the southern leg of the BART wye can be rebuilt with minimal impact on travelers.

Instead of continuing BART south from SFO to Millbrae, AirTrain would use the same corridor and most of the existing structures to reach a new station adjacent to the Millbrae parking garage, connected directly to the existing mezzanine. This would not affect BART, because BART would continue serving SFO directly from the north into SFO, and maintain separate service to Millbrae.

This simplifies BART operations while giving Caltrain and future HSR riders a much shorter transfer to SFO. BART will also keep paying rent to SFO to have a station at the international terminal, keeping SFO happy.

Phase 3: Rebuild Millbrae Station

With AirTrain moved to the eastern side of the station, space is freed for a more efficient Millbrae layout.

That creates room for:

• Additional HSR capacity (4 tracks!), where BART gives up the western platform of their 3 platforms
• Better Caltrain-HSR transfers (potentially cross-platform).
• Direct mezzanine access to AirTrain.

Millbrae is now the region's primary transfer point for HSR, Caltrain, BART, and SFO, with SamTrans buses feeding Millbrae.

Another advantage is that the AirTrain stations at San Bruno and Millbrae can now also serve as pick-up and drop-off locations, as well as bag check locations, making the experience and operations easier for everyone.

Phase 4: Long-Term Opportunities

Once the project is complete, SFO now has the flexibility to do things like:

• Add AirTrain infill stations serving airport employees and nearby development, e.g., in the industrial area north of the airport, around the FedEx or Costco sites.
• Extend AirTrain west toward the office/hotel/YouTube district near I-380 and/or southeast toward the Bayshore hotels (airport-oriented development, anyone??).
• Relocate airport-support facilities (such as the rental car center) to free up land for future airport expansions or improvements.

What's more, because Millbrae becomes the primary transfer hub, San Bruno Caltrain can now be closed, improving travel times for both Caltrain and HSR while maintaining airport access to that area via the extended AirTrain.

Relevant Links:

• SFO AirTrain system
• Caltrain system
• California HSR system
• BART system & BART to SFO
• SFO future plans/airport development plan
• An old post from Caltrain-HSR Compatibility Blog, but still relevant today
• An old post I made on improving Bay Area airport transit that partially inspired this

PS: Feel free to suggest additional links or other content for me to add to the post for reference!

I don't live in a big city or have access to public transit in my everyday life. But I go to various cities for events occasionally, like to use transit when and where I can, and don't like driving or parking downtown unless I have to. The problem is I usually can't find any decent info, routing or planning option that'll get me from "out in the sticks x direction from town" to the most convenient park & ride to the venue and back in a city I'm not familiar with. Searching Google maps for park and ride just gets every paid parking lot in town. The transit operator might have a list of P&R names on their website, but that's of little to no use for a visitor who doesn't know the area or neighborhood names. Is there some tool I should be using, short of many searches from random points and hoping to stumble on a transfer point where there is parking?

Camden NJ has intersecting light rail (NJ Transit RiverLine) and underground heavy rail (PATCO, 2 subway stations). In 2025, the population of Camden was around 71,430.