The DC area needs lots of transit improvements, but lacks funding for all of them. To prioritize projects, let’s learn from the World Cup champions.

Fans arrive by tram to a soccer match in Lyon, France
(photo courtesy of Olympique Lyonnais)

Washington, DC’s Metro – like a number of U.S. rapid transit systems – aims to serve both a dense urban core and outlying, low-density suburbs. While transit-oriented neighborhoods surround stations located in the District and adjacent portions of Virginia and Maryland, much of the system consists of freeway median-situated rail lines with stations that offer only limited bus connections and are surrounded by park-and-ride facilities. Predictably, WMATA faces challenges attracting riders who, in many cases, cannot easily access Metro stations unless they own a car.

Sinking tens of thousands of dollars into auto ownership severely distorts one’s financial perspective on transportation. Thus, unless suburban leaders are willing to embrace dense, mixed use development projects near stations and replace their park-and-ride facilities with multimodal improvements to first and last mile connectivity, investment in transit service may yield greater economic returns if focused on underserved urban areas. Metro’s proposed downtown loop, the extension of the H Street streetcar to Georgetown and Minnesota Avenue, and other proposed expansions to core capacity would do this.  

  

Yet the area’s two largest ongoing transit expansions – the Silver Line extension to Dulles and the Maryland Purple Line – cater primarily to suburban residents.  Though these projects are badly needed and required decades of advocacy to turn into reality, a number of neighborhoods that desperately need transit improvements (including low-income areas east of the river as well as traffic-clogged Georgetown) remain without solutions for the near future.

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The Metro system in Lyon, France, where I had the privilege of staying for two weeks earlier this year, offers a glimpse of what DC could be like had transit planners taken a different approach, ensuring substantial service is readily available in the areas that are built for it. The metro system itself consists of four distinct lines (in contrast to DC, none of the lines share the same tracks at any point), but only around 20 miles of track – around one-sixth of what DC has built. Three of the four lines run on rubber tires – an alternative design for heavy rail also used on subway lines in Paris, Mexico City, Montreal, and Sapporo, Japan, among other systems. 

  

Yet despite the system’s limited extent, trainsets consisting of only 2-3 cars (much shorter than DC’s 6-8 car sets), and the relatively small population of the Lyon area compared to DC (around 500,000 people live in the city proper, with approximately 2.2 million in the metropolitan area), daily boarding numbers on Lyon’s metro are comparable to that of DC’s overall and are almost five times as numerous per track mile. Though I did have to stand on the majority of my rides, due to very frequent service (trains consistently arrived every 2-4 minutes at peak times and even at off hours headways were never more than 10 minutes) and railcars constructed with longitudinal seating facilitating ample space for standees, trains never seemed as crowded as DC’s Metro typically is during rush hour.

Lyon’s Metro is supplemented by excellent local bus and tram service and an extensive regional rail and bus network. For example, DC-area American football fans stuck in FedEx Field traffic long for a stadium-dedicated rail service like the one connecting Lyon’s city center to outlying Parc Olympique Lyonnais, where the U.S. national team held the champions-to-be to a 1-1 draw on the eve of the World Cup.

Lyon transit riders also benefit from some interesting first and last mile solutions. One trunk metro line ascends a steep slope using infrastructure from an old funicular (incline) railway, while two other, stand-alone funicular lines connect the Vieux Lyon station (situated in the city’s cultural center) to neighborhoods atop the hills overlooking the city. The city also has a large dock-based bike sharing system (similar to Washington’s Capital Bikeshare) and wide, comfortable sidewalks. 

Given that DC is a larger, more sprawling, and more heavily populated region than Lyon, substantial suburban transit is clearly necessary here. But Lyon’s high-intensity transit utilization has me wondering whether DC would have been better off constructing a more thorough urban system, with numerous lines and closely spaced stations, to serve the District and dense inner suburbs, and considered other transit modes, like commuter rail, buses, and even fixed-route slug lines for the currently auto-oriented outer suburbs. As the region works to improve its transit service using limited funds, it’s something to keep in mind as we prioritize future projects.