Learn from Mexico City: Multi-modal network

While Mexico City's population keeps growing (currently at 23 million), it has become the city with the worst traffic and one of the most polluted cities in the world. To address these challenges, the city has invested in a mostly carbon-free multi-modal transit system consisting of the Metro subway, MetroBus BRT, trolley and regular bus lines, regional rail and light rail, a bike share system, and one of the largest urban gondola systems (CableBus) on the world. Outside of the city boundaries it also connects to the state's bus and gondola lines. To serve riders from all income levels, it is also very affordable (7 pesos, about 40 cents, less for students/seniors). A single payment system makes it easier to use any of the different modes. This article explains the changes during the last decade and potential learnings for Seattle.

Mexico City Metro MapMetro

Mexico City's metro network was originally envisioned during the 1968 Olympics. Some parts of the network run underground while most of the network is above ground, either elevated or in the median of highways or boulevards. While the initial lines use the same rubber-tired trains as the Paris Metro, more recent lines use regular steel wheel technology. With over a billion trips per year, only New York City provides more trips in North America. While some new lines and extensions had been proposed, the city decided in 2021 to modernize its busy lines with Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) to increase capacity and speed them up. With new CRRC (China Railway Rolling Stock Corp) trains and Siemens Mobility CBTC travel time on Line 1 was reduced in 2025 from 40 to 30 minutes (Pantitlan-Observatorio). After the World Cup, the city plans to upgrade Line 3 to increase capacity by 30%.

STE Trolleybus https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98773620MetroBus and Trolleybuses

Just like other North America cities like Seattle, Mexico City used to have many tram lines. Over time, those were mostly replaced by trolleybuses, cable cars, and a light rail line - all emissions-free. But over time the buses and wires did not get much attention; only 8 of the 30 lines survived. Some lines were replaced by metro lines, but most by diesel buses.

In 2015 the Tram Workers Alliance of Mexico (ATM) union started the Save the Trolleybus" campaign. They surveyed riders who favored emission-free trolleybuses over diesel buses. STE (Servicio de Transportes Electricos), the local transit authority, proposed replacing the trolleybuses with battery electric buses (BEB). But the public pushed back as BEBs would be far more expensive and require new infrastructure while Mexico City already had great trolleybuses expertise. When Claudia Sheinbaum ran for city office, one of her proposals was to keep the trolleybuses and focus on green transit. Once she took office, she improved the trolleybus network. When she became president in 2024, the city had upgraded and extended its buses with 500 new trolleybuses with batteries for extra flexibility. The city not just upgraded buses but added new trolleybus BRT lines such as the Line 11 which operates in the freeway median, some of which is elevated, at speeds up to 45mph.

CableBus station Vasco de Quiroga By Cocu15 CableBus

More affordable housing usually means living in the more dense and hilly suburbs. Often those do not have good road infrastructure. They are challenging to serve with rail or even buses. Mexico City learned from South American cities such as Medellin, Colombia, and La Paz, Bolivia by building gondola lines. Sheinbaum inaugurated the first CableBus line in 2021 with the goal to connect their Metro and MetroBus lines into those neighborhoods. Now the fifth CableBus line is under construction. It will become world's longest urban gondola line. 3 more are under consideration. Beyond the city limits the state is planning to extend its MexiCable network with a fourth line. While South American gondola systems typically have a daily ridership of 15,000 to 40,000, modern CableBus lines carry 80,000 riders rivaling some subway lines. Unlike commute focused buses mostly used by the working-class men, the lines provide high-frequency service throughout the day (until 11pm) to woman, children, disabled, and seniors to get their errands done. The area around many of the stations have become social hubs providing community centers, libraries and sports facilities.

Multi-Modal Network

Mexico City realized that an expansive and affordable transit system is extremely important to meet its social equity and emission-reduction goals. Instead of focusing on high visibility metro network expansions, it focused its limited financial resources on improving the efficiency of its existing network and expanding its network into underserved neighborhoods. This meant a new signaling systems for its Metro network, doubling down and extending its trolleybus network along its road network, and building gondola lines to dense neighborhoods lacking sufficient road corridors.

Puget Sound Network

Now that ST2 is finished and ST3 projects requiring far higher investments than planned, the Puget Sound region may want to look at how Mexico City made these tradeoffs to serve as many people as possible while staying within its fiscal abilities. For example, Sound Transit is already considering upgrading the signaling system in the downtown tunnel rather than building a parallel tunnel.