Fixing Los Angeles Transit in Subway Builder

What would it take to turn Los Angeles into a true transit city? In this video, I use Subway Builder to completely redesign the Los Angeles transit network — building a regional rail system, expanding the Metro, adding new cross-regional connections, and creating a network designed around the polycentric geography of LA. The goal was simple: could I get millions of people to choose transit instead of driving? The final simulation reached more than 2.1 million transit riders, representing about 35% of all journeys in the region. But the network came with a price: approximately $109 billion in simulated construction costs. This isn't intended to be a literal proposal for Los Angeles. It's an experiment exploring what happens when we build a comprehensive regional transit network and see where the demand, capacity constraints, and opportunities emerge. A huge amount of the inspiration for this project came from Nandert's work on Los Angeles transit and urbanism. If you're interested in LA transportation, his channel is absolutely worth checking out. Nandert: ‪@nandert‬ Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this format, let me know what city I should build next. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Los Angeles: Can We Fix the Transit Network? 00:15 The Existing LA Transit Network 02:17 Nandert's Vision for Regional Rail 04:32 Building the Regional Rail Core 07:06 Fixing Union Station 07:48 Regional Rail to LAX 08:40 Regional Rail to Long Beach 09:25 The New Regional Rail System 12:12 Riding the Regional Rail System 13:12 Regional Rail Data Analysis 14:35 Planning the Metro Extensions 17:08 Building the Metro Extensions 24:24 Final Network Reveal & Analysis 31:37 The $109 Billion Price Tag 32:17 Conclusions