US metro systems in cities such as Washington DC, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles share an interesting design feature. All of these systems have major segments where different routes share the same track. For example, Washington DC’s metro has three individual lines that share tracks from Rosslyn station to Stadium-Armory station. Meanwhile, Chicago’s rail system can have up to five different lines (including one special rush-hour service) share the same tracks along the city’s iconic elevated “loop”. This phenomenon where multiple train routes share the same tracks is called interlining and can be found in metros all around the world. However, most metro systems in other countries only interline some of their routes. US metros, on the other hand, interline nearly all of their routes. Furthermore, these interlined routes take center-stage in these metros, passing through their respective urban centers before fanning out into the surrounding suburbs. The main advantage of this design is that it allows commuters to directly travel in and out of a city’s downtown area without having to transfer between trains, something known as a one-seat ride . For example, in San Francisco’s BART, every single station (with the exception of its eBART light
Generation Z, the Zoomers , or whatever term may be used to describe the generation born between the late 1990s and early 2010s once the chaos of contemporary terminology settles upon the riverbed of history, may become the most important generation of the 21st century. Being far more than the first generation to be raised in a fully digitized world, a detail regularly lauded by social commentators whenever the topic of Gen Z is mentioned, Gen Z is fundamentally reshaping the social, cultural, and political landscape due to a range of important factors. Among the most significant events of recent times where Generation Z displayed their potential for long-term change was the 2020 United States Presidential Election, the first Election where enough Gen Z were old enough to carry a noticeable electoral influence. The data is nothing less than astounding, showing a vast generational divide. A simple observation of exit polling data for that year shows that while every other age bracket was split between Joe Biden and Donald Trump with single-digit margins, the margin among the youngest age bracket was a staggering 24 percent (1). The generational gap was so wide that if only young people voted in