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Tag: transportation (Page 1 of 6)

Villa de Guadalupe with Mexico City skyline in the distance.

Riding the Mexico City Metro

Mexico City got its first subway line in 1969, shortly before Washington, DC and San Francisco opened their metros but long after Boston and New York City had gotten theirs. Over the past year and a half, I have visited Mexico City a couple of times and used the metro to get around each time. Here are some things I have noticed about the Metro CDMX system and the experience of riding it.

Dedication plaque in the Zócalo station.

Dedication plaque for Line 2 in the Zócalo station.

The most unique feature of Metro CDMX is that is is a decentralized network. Most metro systems start in the city center and radiate out into the suburbs, but Metro CDMX’s route map looks more like a net laid over the city. A decentralized network is more usable to more people, but it also means that you have to change trains to get almost anywhere.

Route map of the Washington Metro.

Route map of the Washington Metro. This is a centralized network, which makes it easy to go from the periphery to the center, or vice versa; but if you want to go from one part of the periphery to another, you will probably have to go through the center. (Source: https://www.wmata.com/schedules/maps/)

Route map of Metro CDMX.

Route map of Metro CDMX. Since this is a decentralized network, you might not have to go all the way to the center if you want to go from one part of the periphery to another. (Source: https://www.metro.cdmx.gob.mx/la-red/mapa-de-la-red)

The rolling stock has rubber tires like buses, which run on metal tracks in the tunnels and stations. (There are also steel wheels running on conventional rails, but they are hidden behind the rubber tires.) The same technology is used in the Montreal metro, as well as at a smaller scale in various airport people-movers in the United States. I have heard it asserted that this type of metro is quieter than steel-wheeled trains, but I am dubious about that, because Metro CDMX trains do not seem any quieter than other metros I have ridden.

Rubber-tired train of Metro CDMX.

Rubber-tired train of Metro CDMX.

Metro CDMX trains love their Keith Haring.

Metro CDMX trains love their Keith Haring.

To ride on Metro CDMX, you can buy a paper ticket, or use an RF-ID smartcard with stored value. Either way, the price is the same: M$5 for a ride anywhere in the system. At 25¢ in US currency, this is amazingly cheap, probably the best value for public transport anywhere in the world.

Every metro station has a unique symbol associated with its name or the neighborhood it serves. The symbols appear on signage in stations and on the trains. Many of the stations are named after national heroes.

Signage in Zapata station, named after agrarian revolutionary Emiliano Zapata.

Signage in Zapata station, named after agrarian revolutionary Emiliano Zapata.

There is plenty of artwork in the stations, including murals, replica archeological artifacts, and displays of caricatures. The Zócalo station has dioramas of that part of the city over time.

Diorama of the prehispanic incarnation of the Zócalo, in the concourse of the metro station.

Diorama of the prehispanic incarnation of the Zócalo, in the concourse of the metro station.

When Pino Suarez station was under construction, this Aztec temple to Ehecatl, the wind god, was unearthed. It was restored and incorporated into the design of the station.

When Pino Suarez station was under construction, this Aztec temple to Ehecatl, the wind god, was unearthed. It was restored and incorporated into the design of the station.

Metro trains in Mexico City tend not to get nearly as crowded as their counterparts in Delhi, even though Mexico City is the bigger city. The only time I got bodily pushed from behind into a crowded train car (a common occurrence in Delhi), that turned out just to have been a distraction created by pickpocketers. Ordinarily, when a train car is over-crowded, passengers just don’t get on the train. They line up on the platform and wait for the next train to come.

Some lines have vendors that sell things from train car to train car: snacks, books, CDs of folk music, anything that can be sold for M$10.

Metro CDMX farecards can be used on other systems as well, including buses and a single lightrail line connecting the metro to the canals at Xochimilco. The buses, like the metro, seemed to work well, but Tren Ligero (the lightrail) was overcrowded and slow when I rode on it.

Metrobus picking up passengers at a station on Avenida de los Insurgentes.

Metrobus picking up passengers at a station on Avenida de los Insurgentes. (This is the same technology as the TransJakarta Busway.)

Traffic on Pasar Senen, Jakarta.

Jakarta’s bus-metro

Before visiting Jakarta three years ago, I read someplace that the Indonesian capital may be the largest city in the world without a metro railway. A couple of other cities could contest that claim, but Jakarta is certainly one of the biggest metro-less cities.

Instead of a metro railway, Jakarta has the Transjakarta Busway, a hybrid transportation technology that is effectively a bus metro. The buses run in their own lanes and stop at stations that can only be entered with a smartcard. The bus doors are high off the ground to meet the station platforms, so it is only possible to board the buses through the stations. There can still be quite a gap between bus and platform, more than on any metro I’ve ridden.

Buses at a Transjakarta station.

Buses at a Transjakarta station.

A dedicated busway lane on Jalan Gunung Sahari.

A dedicated busway lane on Jalan Gunung Sahari.

A busway station

A busway station

Interior of another busway station.

Interior of another busway station.

At its best, the Transjakarta Busway is faster and more efficient than regular buses, which are at the mercy of all the other traffic in a city. It was also much cheaper to build than a metro railway, because the buses run on existing roadways rather than purpose-built tunnels. At its worst, the busway may not offer much advantage over regular buses, because traffic doesn’t always stay out of the designated bus lanes.

Jakarta was the first place I saw a busway, but then when I went to Yogyakarta in south-central Java, I found a small busway system in that city as well. When I moved to Jaipur later that year, I saw what appeared to be the ruins of a rapid-transit bus system. On one of the roads on the western side of the city, buses ran in their own dedicated lanes, but the lanes were not always open, and at other times non-bus traffic infiltrated the lanes.

To return to Jakarta: there is a metro railway under construction in Jakarta, but it has yet to open. When it does, the Transjakarta Busway will probably continue to operate alongside it.

Metro construction on one of the boulevards of Jakarta, 2015.

Metro construction on one of the boulevards of Jakarta, 2015.

Indonesia has two other public transportation technologies that are worth mentioning: ojeks and becaks. Ojeks are motorcycle taxis. The passenger sits on the back of the motorcycle behind the driver. Thanks to their narrow profile, ojeks can weave through traffic. I understand that motorcycle taxis are common elsewhere in southeast Asia. It seems that they could be popular in India as well, but they have not caught on there for some reason—possibly because they would not be practical for women traveling alone.

The other distinctively Indonesian mode of public transit is the becak, a three-wheeled cycle-taxi. (The c in “becak” is said like ch in “change.”) Unlike the cycle-rickshaws of India or the trishaws of Malaysia, becaks have a passenger seat in the front, and the driver sits in the back. The use of becaks has fallen off considerably in recent decades, but they are still around, especially in touristy areas.

A becak in Yogyakarta.

A becak in Yogyakarta.

The turtle-taxis of Tabasco

I have written quite a lot on this blog about autorickshaws, the remarkable three-wheeled taxis derived from motor scooters that are used extensively in India. In this post, I explained the surprising origins of a common name for the vehicle, and in this one, I described them as a creole technology. This term, introduced by David Edgerton in his fascinating book The Shock of the Old, describes a technology that originated in one part of the world but took on new and different uses in another part. In the case of autorickshaws, scooter technology came from Europe, but this technology transformed into a ubiquitous urban and rural mode of transportation in India and elsewhere in South and Southeast Asia.

A Bajaj autorickshaw at Firoz Shah Kotla, Delhi.

Bajaj autorickshaws at Firoz Shah Kotla, Delhi.

When I wrote those posts five years ago, I had no idea that there was an entire dimension to this creole technology that I had completely missed. It turns out that autorickshaws are not just used in southern Asia. They are also used extensively in Latin America.

On a recent visit to the state of Tabasco in southern Mexico, I got to go on a couple of rides in a pochimóvil, as autorickshaws are called there (apparently because the vehicle’s hard fiberglass shell is reminiscent of the Tabasco mud turtle or pochitoque).

A pochimovíl in a suburb of Villahermosa, Tabasco, southern Mexico.

A pochimóvil in a suburb of Villahermosa, Tabasco, southern Mexico.

The pochimóviles I saw were very similar in design to those I am familiar with from India, and in fact they were manufactured in India by the industrial conglomerate Bajaj. One of them even had a little sticker behind the handlebar that said (in English) “MADE IN INDIA.”

Interior of a pochimovíl.

Interior of a pochimóvil.

The only significant differences I could identify between Indian and Mexican rickshaws were accessories, like the fiberglass shell (most autorickshaws in India have fabric tops) and proper doors for the passengers. Since the driver sits in the middle of the front, an autorickshaw can just as easily drive on the right side of the road (in Mexico) as the left (in India).

Mexico and India are very different from each other, but as I observed in an earlier post, both countries share certain similarities in terms of economics and (at least in tropical Tabasco) climate, so technologies like autorickshaws/pochimóviles work well in both places.

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