As the recently appointed cup of transportation, I'd like to provide an update on my current plans and solicit feedback from people living in MtA about those plans.

General Plans

In general, I would like to focus my efforts on digging new tunnels or improving exsiting ones, and on installing usable rails. Station design and aesthetics are taking a backseat for now, although I would like to provide space to respect the station schematic that Icypenguin, the previous cup of transportation, had planned at least for Midtown station.

• Phase 1 - I would like to first prioritize domestic routes that are currently in demand, such as the AN and local metro routes.
  
• Phase 2 - After that, the next priority is to connect to international rail lines and tunnels.
• Phase 3 - Finally, I would like expand to provide rails to more remote areas of MtA to promote settlement and development there, and work on completing the interiors of larger transfer stations and improving the aesthetics of the rail network.

Technical Details

For a couple of technical details, my current thoughts are as follows, but I am open to suggestions.

• Using stone-reinforced rails on stone-reinforced-stone for all rails in stone tunnels above bedrock, or use existing obsidian or bedrock below rails if available for lower rails.
• Install local metro routes higher up, somewhere in y=6-15 as permitted by other construction.
• Prefer to use two sets of rail, one for each direction, with traffic keeping right. Use detector/powered rail combos to enforce the correct direction of traffic.
• Use jukelever and NL group routing where appropriate, especially for international routes, since RailSwitch is not available on realms.
• Fall back on "checkpoints" which stop the cart and ask for a button press to proceed. These should be able to be bypassed using nl routing as mentioned above.
• Install "checkpoint stations" which are little more than a gold block elevator in some areas, to promote accessibility to areas not close to a proper rail station.

Current Status

Phase 1 has already begun. First of all, an express rail from Midtown station to near the Wycliffe AN has been constructed. A gold block elevator is available in front of the ATC. I still have not obtained bastion perms to connect the rails directly to the AN portal area, so the rails currently stop about 70 blocks away, but this will be completed and connected as soon as I can obtain perms.

Note that other than some generous donations that Jecowa has provided, I am currently funding all tunneling and rail development out of my own pocket. If cost becomes an impediment to progress, I will let the community know and solicit more funding.

Next Steps, Make Your Voice Heard!

In order to proceed with the next part of Phase 1, I would input from the community as to where local metro stations should be installed after midtown, which has already been dug and started construction by Icy.

Here is an imgur album showing a numbered list of my proposed metro stations, as well as the original metro line plans developed by Xkevio and Icy. The existing midtown station is the green circle with a cross (proposed stations is the second image because imgur):

https://imgur.com/a/etk8sY2

(Please forgive my ugly JourneyMap, I've since switched to VoxelMap).

Please check this out, and then vote in this strawpoll to indicate where stations should be built:

https://www.strawpoll.me/20700200

The circles indicated are approximate. After your feedback, I will also need to reach out to local community leaders (e.g. Fig for uptown, Jeffrey for groundtown, Scramble for downtown) to find exact places to install stations, if they are wanted.

As well, please comment below if you have thoughts on any part of this plan, or to suggest alternative station locations from those I've provided.

Thank you for your feedback!