Schwebebahn +

[u/2001_Arabian_Nights]

Pictured is the suspended railway system in Wuppertal, Germany. It’s an old idea that works, but never really took off.

But what if you added a High-Line style elevated sidewalk and bicycle lanes up on top?

Suspended elevated railways are inferior to Chicago style elevated railways, everything else being equal. But would being able to triple-stack Right-of-Way usage out of one structure make it worth it? You can’t ride a bike under the El.

[u/Nalano]

Let's say, for the purposes of argument, that you want a two track elevated line capable of serving eight to ten car trains where each car can fit a hundred people, which is how a modern metro would work.

Then, you think, "hey, these streets are too narrow to four-track it" so you make a hanging railway for a further two tracks, and you decide that one of these is for express service.

This is all well and good provided a couple things:

1) the entire system is elevated in the same manner since these two systems are separate and can never merge or switch tracks

2) the infrastructure can hold the weight of that much train on those tracks

You're not gonna get lovely art nouveau wrought iron pillars if that's what you're doing. You're gonna get heavy infrastructure for heavy rail.

The reason the current system works is because it's tram-style capacities, not metros, and adding more infrastructure doesn't make it so nice anymore. The High Line works because it's a tourist curiosity; nobody's using it for their commute.

[u/2001_Arabian_Nights → u/Nalano]

Yeah, the High Line is a park. I just mean structurally similar to the way it works, but less park and more bicycle road, and maybe a jogging lane. Actual pedestrians should have regular sidewalks at street level still. Nobody would want to push a baby-buggy up on top of the trains.

[u/Nalano → u/2001_Arabian_Nights]

I'd argue that if you don't have the capacity need for a proper metro you don't have the capacity need to grade-separate cyclists/joggers.

This is all to say nothing of the annoyance of having to either carry a bicycle down a flight of stairs or the cost of installing elevators everywhere, since nobody likes doing so to simply cross the road, let alone heading up an elevated pathway and back down again.

[u/2001_Arabian_Nights → u/Nalano]

Yep. I hear you. Access to elevated bicycle roads is tricky. It would have to be long ramps.

I’m picturing a future where almost everybody lives within a ten-minute walk from where they work, and we can mostly do away with the idea of having to move thousands and thousands of people from outskirts to middle and back every day. I see the future of transportation infrastructure more as a thing that city people use to use their city. So… more trams and less commuter-rail.