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For many people, making our public transport system beautiful is considered a waste of money.
Research into the benefits of making public transport systems visually appealing is limited, but the available evidence suggests significant advantages.
Quantitative benefits include:
Increased patronage through enhanced user experience and destination appeal
Higher property values in surrounding areas
Increased tourism revenue
Reduced maintenance costs through quality design and community pride
Qualitative benefits include:
Enhanced community pride and sense of place
Cultural education and heritage preservation
Improved mental health through exposure to art and beauty
Social cohesion through shared cultural experiences
Urban vitality through activated public spaces
Enhanced support for public transport.
Improved equity
The best way to secure beautiful public transport is to legislate for a proportion of public transport projects' budgets to be allocated to it.
We should not forget the importance of beautiful bus infrastructure.
What Next?
Do you have a policy for providing beautiful public transport?
Introduction
"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." - Pablo Picasso
Step off the train at Stockholm's T-Centralen station and you're not just entering a transport hub, you're walking into an underground cathedral carved from bedrock, its blue and white cave-like walls transforming a mundane commute into something approaching wonder. Exit at Naples' Toledo station and you're immersed in an underwater dreamscape of mosaics and LED constellations that has earned it recognition as one of Europe's most beautiful metro stations.
Stockholm's T-Centralen station
Naples' Toledo station
Now contrast this with the typical public transport experience: fluorescent-lit concrete boxes, peeling paint, and the persistent smell of industrial disinfectant. Spaces designed purely for function, where the message to users is clear: get in, get out, don't linger.
This stark difference isn't just about aesthetics. It's about a fundamental choice that every public transport system makes: whether to treat public transport as mere utility infrastructure or as vital public space that shapes how people experience their city.
This was not my original view of the importance of beautiful public transport. It all began nearly a decade ago.
βWhy am I having a meeting with artists? What has this got to do with transport?β I thought to myself.
I was the policy director for the Minister for Transport and Infrastructure in New South Wales. We had a huge agenda, including new metros, light rail systems, fare and taxi reforms, and a whole lot more. I didn't have enough hours in the day, but here I was, having a meeting with a couple of artists.
At this point, I should admit that I was never much of an art person. It was not a subject I enjoyed at school or at home; my original degree was in biochemistry. I had only taken the meeting because a member of our office was an art lover and had asked me to give the artists a hearing.
At the meeting, the artist's blunt assessment that Sydney's transport infrastructure was "hideous" stung because it was largely true. Despite our harbour views and iconic Opera House, much of our everyday transport experience was dominated by brutalist concrete and utilitarian thinking.
That conversation led us to rethink beauty in public transport.
Fast forward nearly a decade to 2024, and the city section of the Sydney Metro opened to critical acclaim. The new stations are beautiful, and public art has been incorporated into all of them. The public loves the Metro, its stations, and the public art, and awards are pouring in. The new Metro stations have added to what already makes Sydney great.
Now, when I say 'beauty,' I mean several aspects: design, services, comfort, and hospitality. In short, transport infrastructure should be a place where itβs a pleasure to spend time.
But as budget pressures mount and governments question every expenditure, I'm watching the commitment to beautiful public transport come under attack. Things have reached the point where a couple of the most significant advocacy groups in Sydney felt the need to release a paper last week, advocating to continue the inclusion of beauty in the next generation of metro stations.
This isn't just Sydney's problem. Across the globe, many transport agencies treat beauty as a luxury rather than a necessity, failing to recognise that the most successful public transport systems, from London's distinctive tube stations to Singapore's garden-adorned bus stops, understand that how people feel in these spaces directly impacts how they choose to travel.
As cities grow and climate concerns intensify, we need people to choose public transport over private cars. But who chooses to spend time in spaces that feel like afterthoughts? The evidence suggests that beautiful public transport doesn't just improve user experience; it drives patronage, increases property values, boosts tourism, and builds the kind of community pride that sustains political support for public transport investment.
What Does The Research Show?
The frustrating reality is that the research on beautiful public transport is thin, and I suspect this reflects the engineering mindset that has dominated transport planning; if it moves people from A to B, the job is done.
This research gap matters because it allows sceptics to dismiss beautiful public transport as frivolous spending. Without robust data, every budget discussion becomes a debate about "nice-to-haves" versus "necessities."
But the evidence that does exist tells a compelling story.
The most telling evidence may be behavioural. Watch people in beautiful public transport spaces versus ugly ones. In beautiful stations, people linger, take photos, meet friends. They use the space as more than just a transportation node; they treat it as part of their city's public realm. In ugly stations, people hurry through, avoiding eye contact and minimising their time in the space.
What's frustrating is how much of this evidence is observational rather than rigorously quantified. We need transport researchers to take aesthetics seriously and funding bodies to support research into the relationship between design quality and system performance. Until then, we're left making the case for beautiful public transport based on compelling but incomplete evidence, which may explain why it's so easy for budget-conscious officials to cut these investments when money gets tight.
Quantitative Benefits
While transport agencies often view beautiful public transport as a cost, the economic case reveals it's an investment with multiple revenue streams. The challenge isn't proving these benefits exist; it's quantifying them precisely enough to satisfy budget committees.
Increased Patronage and Revenue
The patronage premium for beautiful public transport is the most direct financial benefit. Naples' Line 1 sees 15-20% higher patronage per capita in its catchment area compared to Line 2, despite serving similar demographics. While multiple factors influence patronage, passenger surveys consistently cite the "experience" as a key factor in choosing the art metro over alternatives.
In London, the Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) reported ridership figures 10% higher than conservative projections within its first year. While the line's speed and connectivity drove much of this success, passenger feedback repeatedly mentioned the station design quality as influencing their decision to use the service over alternatives.
The Elizabeth Line in London
The revenue impact compounds over time. If beautiful design increases annual ridership by even 5-10%, that translates to millions in additional fare revenue over a system's 50-100 year lifespan, often exceeding the initial investment by several multiples.
Property Value Uplift
Transport infrastructure already generates significant property value increases through improved accessibility, but beautiful infrastructure amplifies this effect. Standard transport-oriented development results in property values rising 10-25% within 500 meters of stations. Beautiful stations can push this premium higher.
Melbourne's art-integrated tram stops have been linked to property value increases 2-3 percentage points above the network average. In a property market where small percentage differences translate to tens of thousands of dollars per property, this represents millions in additional value creation across a station's catchment area.
Melbourne Tram Stop
The challenge for transport agencies is that they rarely capture this value directly. However, cities with value capture mechanisms can directly fund beautiful infrastructure through the property value increases it creates.
Tourism Revenue
Beautiful public transport transforms cities into destinations. Stockholm's metro system generates millions of euros annually in direct tourism spending from people who visit specifically to see the stations.
Even smaller investments can yield tourism returns. The fruit-shaped bus stops in Nagasaki, Japan, cost relatively little but have become Instagram-famous attractions that draw visitors to the region.
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Nagasaki, Japan
Reduced Maintenance and Vandalism Costs
Transport agencies spend enormous sums combating vandalism and maintaining infrastructure. Beautiful stations suffer significantly less vandalism, translating to direct cost savings.
The mechanism is straightforward: when people take pride in a space, they protect it. Beautiful infrastructure fosters community ownership, reducing the need for constant reactive maintenance.
Commercial Revenue Opportunities
Beautiful public transport can command premium rents from commercial tenants. Well-designed stations with integrated art become destinations where retailers pay higher rents for the increased foot traffic and positive brand association.
Beautiful stations also create opportunities for partnerships with cultural institutions, corporate sponsors, filming and event organisers, revenue streams that utilitarian infrastructure simply cannot access.
Fare Increase Potential
Research from multiple cities shows that passengers accept fare increases more readily when they perceive improvements in service quality, and station aesthetics significantly influences these perceptions. While this doesn't automatically justify higher fares, it creates political space for fare structures that better reflect the true value of high-quality public transport.
Qualitative Benefits
Beyond the financial returns, beautiful public transport infrastructure generates profound social and cultural benefits that are harder to quantify but equally important. These impacts shape how people experience their place and their relationship with public space, effects that compound over generations.
Building Community Pride and Identity
Beautiful public transport becomes a symbol of civic achievement that residents genuinely take pride in. When the Sydney Metro opened, social media filled with photos of locals showing off "their" new stations to visiting friends and family. People began identifying with the infrastructure.
Creating Cultural Education Opportunities
Public transport reaches audiences that traditional cultural institutions struggle to access. Millions of people pass through these spaces daily, many of whom might never visit an art gallery or museum. Well-designed public transport art programs become the most democratic form of cultural education.
Improving Mental Health and Daily Experience
The psychological impact of beautiful versus ugly environments is well-documented. People forced to spend time in poorly designed spaces experience measurably higher stress levels. Given that millions of people spend hours weekly in public transport environments, the cumulative mental health impact is significant.
Fostering Social Cohesion
Beautiful public transport becomes meeting places and social anchors in ways that utilitarian infrastructure cannot. People arrange to meet at distinctive stations, use them as reference points, and develop emotional connections to specific locations. This transforms public transport from a purely functional experience into part of the social fabric of the city.
Activating Public Space and Urban Vitality
Beautiful public transport infrastructure doesn't just move people, it attracts them to spend time in public space. Well-designed stations become destinations where people linger, creating the foot traffic that supports local businesses and makes neighbourhoods feel alive.
The contrast is stark: utilitarian transit stations are places people hurry through, creating dead zones around entrances. Beautiful stations become focal points that activate surrounding streets. The spillover effect extends well beyond the station footprint, influencing how entire neighbourhoods develop and function.
Building Long-term Public Transport Advocacy
Perhaps most importantly, beautiful public transport creates constituencies for public transport that extend far beyond traditional advocates. When people are proud of their public transport, they become defenders of public transport investment against political attacks.
Advancing Equity and Inclusion
Research consistently shows that women feel less safe in poorly maintained, ugly environments. Beautiful, well-maintained public transport with good sight lines and thoughtful design can significantly improve women's comfort and safety perceptions, making public transport more accessible to half the population.
The Democratic Imperative
Ultimately, the case for beautiful public transport rests on a simple principle: transport should reflect the values and aspirations of the public that pays for it. When we build ugly, purely functional transit, we signal that efficiency is our only value, that the daily experience of millions of residents doesn't matter as long as the system moves people from point A to point B.
Beautiful public transport represents a different set of values, one that recognises that how people experience their city matters, that public space should be dignified and inspiring, and that infrastructure investments are opportunities to build the kind of society we want to live in.
How Should the Beautification of Public Transport Be Decided?
The benefits of beautiful public transport are clear, but good intentions aren't enough. Without the right institutional framework, aesthetic investments become the first casualties of budget cuts, political changes, and competing priorities.
The challenge is institutional. Beautiful public transport requires sustained commitment across project lifecycles that often span decades and multiple political cycles. Most critically, it needs protection from the short-term thinking that dominates government budgeting.
Option 1: Transport Agency Discretion
The default approach, leaving aesthetic decisions to transport agencies, sounds logical but will likely fail in practice. Transport agencies are optimised for engineering excellence and operational efficiency, not cultural programming or urban design. Their performance metrics focus on on-time services, reliability, and patronage numbers, creating institutional incentives that work against aesthetic investment.
Even well-intentioned transport leaders face structural constraints. When projects run over budget or timelines slip, aesthetic elements become easy targets because they don't affect core transport functionality. The Sydney Metro succeeded partly because political leadership protected the art budget from these pressures, but such protection is rare and politically fragile.
Most fundamentally, transport agencies don't capture most of the benefits that beautiful infrastructure creates. Tourism revenue flows to local businesses, property value increases benefit landowners, and community pride builds political capital for politicians. The agency pays the costs but can't claim the returns, creating a classic economic mismatch that biases decisions against aesthetic investment.
Option 2: Arts and Culture Department Leadership
Arts departments understand the value of beautiful public space far better than transport agencies, making them natural champions for public transport aesthetics. They have existing relationships with artists, experience managing cultural programming, and institutional commitment to public art that transport agencies lack.
However, arts departments face their own limitations. Most operate with tiny budgets compared to major infrastructure projects.
Arts departments also prioritise differently. Their focus on galleries and museums may not leave much for public transport.
Option 3: Legislative Requirements
The most successful approach treats beautiful public transport as an infrastructure requirement rather than an optional enhancement. Legislative mandates remove aesthetic decisions from short-term political pressures by establishing consistent and predictable funding streams that endure budget cycles and political transitions.
New York's MTA allocates 1% of capital project budgets to arts programming, creating one of the world's most extensive public transport art programs, managed by its arts department. California's Art in Public Places program requires 1% of state construction budgets for public art. These programs succeed because they're institutionalised rather than discretionary.
The percentage approach has several advantages. It scales automatically with infrastructure investment, ensuring that aesthetic budgets grow alongside transportation spending. It creates predictable funding streams that allow for long-term planning and relationship building with cultural communities. Most importantly, it removes aesthetic decisions from project-by-project political battles.
Legislative approaches also enable professional program management. Rather than each project reinventing art processes, dedicated programs develop expertise, standardised procedures, and institutional memory. They can establish quality standards, manage artist relationships, and coordinate across projects to create coherent aesthetic strategies.
Where to Next?
The beautiful public transport conversation extends far beyond prestigious rail projects. While metro systems capture headlines and tourism attention, the daily reality for most public transport users involves buses, trams, and the humble infrastructure that connects them. If we're serious about transforming the public transport experience, we need to think beyond flagship stations to the entire ecosystem of public transport.
The Bus Stop Revolution
Globally, buses carry more passengers than all rail systems combined, yet bus infrastructure receives a fraction of the aesthetic attention. The typical bus stop represents a massive missed opportunity for improving the public transport experience and urban beauty.
The exceptions prove the potential. Nagasaki's fruit-shaped bus stops have become international design icons, transforming utilitarian infrastructure into beloved community landmarks that attract tourists and generate civic pride. BogotΓ‘'s bus stop libraries combine transportation infrastructure with community services, creating cultural programming that serves neighbourhoods beyond just transport users.
β
Bus Stop Libraries
Singapore's approach is particularly sophisticated. Their bus stops feature rooftop gardens that manage stormwater while creating micro-parks throughout the city. Some include swings and social spaces that transform waiting time from dead time into community interaction. USB charging ports and Wi-Fi connectivity make these spaces genuinely useful for modern travellers.
Bus Stop in Singapore
These innovations require imagination and commitment to seeing bus infrastructure as public space rather than merely functional objects. The cumulative impact could be enormous. Cities typically have hundreds or thousands of bus stops compared to dozens of rail stations. Even modest aesthetic improvements across this network could transform the daily experience for millions of users.
Conclusion
Stand in Stockholm's T-Centralen station or Naples' Toledo metro stop, and you witness something remarkable: infrastructure that transcends its basic function to become a source of civic pride, cultural expression, and daily joy. These spaces prove that the choice between beautiful and functional infrastructure is a false one; the best infrastructure is both.
The evidence assembled here dismantles the persistent myth that beautiful transit is a luxury. The financial returns alone, through increased patronage, property values, tourism revenue, and reduced maintenance costs, often justify the investment. But the true case for beautiful public transport extends far beyond dollars and cents to fundamental questions about the kind of cities we're building and the daily experiences we're creating for millions of people.
Every day, millions of people spend significant portions of their lives in public transport. These environments shape moods, influence travel choices, and communicate powerful messages about civic values. When we build ugly, purely functional infrastructure, we signal that efficiency is our only concern, that the daily experience of public transport users doesn't matter as long as people can get from point A to point B.
Beautiful public transport represents a different set of values. It recognises that public space should be dignified and inspiring, that infrastructure investments are opportunities to build cultural identity, and that everyone, regardless of income, deserves access to beauty in their daily lives.
Without the right institutional frameworks, beautiful public transport remains vulnerable to budget cuts, political changes, and short-term thinking. The cities that succeed will be those that treat aesthetic investment as an infrastructure requirement rather than cultural enhancement, embedding beauty into the DNA of their transport systems through legislative requirements, professional program management, and sustained political commitment.
The infrastructure we build today will shape urban life for the next 50-100 years. We can choose to create transport systems that people merely endure, or we can build infrastructure that enhances daily life, strengthens communities, and creates the kind of public realm that makes cities genuinely livable.
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