Rapid transit

Rapid transit is the means of moving masses of people quickly, efficiently, and at low cost (if not comfortably) in and around metropolitan areas. Electrified rail tracks embedded in underground tunnels (subways, undergrounds), elevated above city streets (El trains), or powered by overhead electric lines (street cars, light rails, and cable cars) became the most common rapid-transit systems supplemented by fleets of buses.

Mass rapid transit depends on major government investment supplemented by individual fares and some private corporate investment. The public opts for rapid-transit systems for sustainable mobility that conserves gas and oil, reduces congestion and pollution, and saves travelers’ time and money.

Time and technology have traffic engineers imagining futuristic high-speed air-bound pod cars, high-speed monorails, and bullet trains (which are in use in some countries, such as Japan). High-speed jet airplanes (the Concorde), drones, and helicopters will be transporting more people across cities and continents through space on rocket-propelled transport vehicles. The future of rapid transport unfolds each new day.

Brief History and Background

Rapid transit became synonymous with "the train" in 1863 when the London Underground—originally called the Metropolitan Railway—opened. Intra-city trains were steam powered and the smoke made travelers ill. The concept of rapid transit spread to New York, Athens, Istanbul, Berlin, and Paris by 1904. By then, the rails were electrified with new sobriquets: the tube, subway, and El-train. Politicians, architects, and designers elaborately decorated the underground stations.

In 1935, under Joseph Stalin’s rule, work on Russia’s Moscow metro began. Stations were ornately designed in art-deco style and decorated in realist art with socialist patriotic themes. The metro inspired nationalistic attachment to the socialist state. According to Andrew Jenks in his 2000 "A Metro on the Mount: The Underground as a Church of Soviet Civilization," the stations were as beautiful as underground palaces and emotionally inspiring. The deep-tunnels were also constructed with the purpose of serving as bomb shelters in times of war.

The term rapid transit morphed from adjective to noun to verb from transformations spurred by human ingenuity, developments in government infrastructures, and technologies. Rapid transit grew from intra-city transportation to intercity. New York’s Long island Railroad, for example, is a commuter system representative of systems where cities extend out tens or hundreds of miles into metropolises. It runs twenty-four hours, seven days a week on seven hundred miles of track stretching from Manhattan to the farthest tip of Long Island.

More inclusively, rapid transit is a term relative to the times in which it is used. For instance, in the 1800s, a six-horses-drawn stagecoach rapidly transporting people from one city to another over the Plains states was considered rapid transit. The Pony Express delivered mail over long distances when mail went by wagon. In ancient Egypt and Rome, chariots quickly (for the times) traversed great expanses moving armies and supplies, while, in contrast, soldiers walked to battle deployments.

Bus rapid transit (BRT) moves large numbers of people with flexibility and lower costs, although buses have to contend with street traffic. Some cities have roads with designated bus-only lanes, no car-parking loading stops except for buses, and the ability for bus drivers to change corner interchange traffic signals upon approach to reduce start/stop times. Cities like Tel Aviv are converting combustion engine buses to battery-powered electric buses ensconced with LED lighting, making them environmentally friendly.

Trains and monorail people movers are currently equipped with central command operators to ensure safety and efficiency. Sixty-five million passengers travel daily on Tokyo’s rapid transit system. Along with Tokyo, the New York City subway, Shanghai, Seoul, Moscow, and Beijing metros have the largest annual riderships.

Impact

Rapid transit is changing in every generation with advances in engineering, new technologies, and human imagination. The concept generated stagecoach people movers traversing open plains, trains and underground transports, hi-speed trains and air-travel; the future of rapid transit is still exciting and stimulating. Companies are testing commercial airliners that will transport eight hundred passengers in a giant wing from Los Angeles to Tokyo across the Pacific in four hours. A smaller load of three hundred passengers might soon travel twice the speed of sound at 1,500 miles per hour for a cost of not much more than airline ticket prices. A new supersonic flight is in its testing phase and could be available for passengers by 2029. New technologies in the digital age are making these idea possibilities with the potential of generating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

BRTs, as opposed to rapid-transit rail expansion, operate in 191 cities around the world, moving thirty million passengers. High quality urban bus corridors are less expensive to build than rail transportation, cause less damage to city infrastructure, are far less stressful to the environment (engineers do not have to cut through mountains, block roads, and interrupt traffic patterns), and more easily maintained. South American countries are making a huge financial commitment to BRTs, leading the way in design, application, transportation architectures, and political initiative. Bogotá, Colombia, Rio de Janeiro, and others are demonstrating what can be done to even get the rich to use public rapid transit.

The largest benefits to rapid-transit users include time-travel savings in congested urban areas, low cost per ride—especially important for the poor and low-income earners—and people working in central cities where parking is a premium. Urban expansion or megacities mean longer time travels to outlying places of employment and airports, so rapid-transit systems cut the time spent on congested highways and open new opportunities for employment. Universities are expanding their courses of study and specialties to include rapid-transit systems because of the growing demand.

For governments, the benefits of rapid-transit systems include road safety and the attending costs of accidents, environmental impacts, capital and maintenance costs, and physical space and land use maximization considerations.

There is a social benefit too. Rapid transit systems attract multi-racial travelers, rich and poor. They act as a great equalizer between people of different socioeconomic standing. An economic-impact study of Atlanta’s MARTA rapid transit concludes that additional benefits include population and employment density near rail systems, which generate income and an improved tax base for inner cities and expand opportunities for employment of those dependent on the transit system.

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