Mexico City is served by the Sistema de Transporte Colectivo Metro, a 207 km metro system, which is the largest in Latin America. The first portions were opened in 1969 and it has expanded to 11 lines with 175 stations. A suburban rail system, known as the Tren Suburbano, similar to the Parisian RER started operations in 2008 connecting the city downtown to the Northern suburbs. A twelfth (gold color) metro line is currently in construction, and will add an additional 25 km to the network. The metro is one of the busiest in the world transporting approximately 4.5 million people every day, surpassed only by subway lines in Moscow (7.5 million), Tokyo (5.9 million), and New York City (5.1 million). It is heavily subsidized, and has the lowest fares in the world, each trip costing 3.00Mex$ and taking each passenger to almost any place in this enormous city from 05:00 am to midnight. Several stations display pre-Columbian artifacts and architecture that were discovered during the metro's construction. However, the Metro does not extend outside the limits of the Federal District and, therefore, an extensive network of bus routes has been implemented. These are mostly managed by private companies which are allowed to operate buses as long as they adhere to certain minimal service quality standards.
The city government also operates a network of large buses, in contrast with the privately operated microbuses (peseros), with fares barely exceeding that of the metro. Electric transport other than the metro also exists, in the form of several trolleybusroutes and the Xochimilco Light Rail line, both of which are operated by Servicio de Transportes Eléctricos. The central area's last streetcar line (tramway, or tranvía) closed in 1979, but the reintroduction of streetcars to the historic city center is planned. The city's first bus rapid transit line, the Metrobús, began operation in June 2005, along Avenida Insurgentes. A second line was constructed along Eje 4 Sur, opening in December 2008, and a third line is projected to open in February 2011, serving Eje 1 Poniente between Tenayuca and Metro Etiopía. As the microbuses were removed from its route, it was hoped that the Metrobús could reduce pollution and decrease transit time for passengers. Also, since late 2002, the white and green taxis have been joined by red and white ones as part of a program to replace older vehicles with new ones.
Mexico City is served by Mexico City International Airport (IATA Airport Code: MEX). This airport is Latin America's busiest and largest in traffic, with daily flights to North America, mainland Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, South America, Europe and Asia. Aeroméxico (Skyteam) and Mexicana (Oneworld) are based at this airport, and provide codeshare agreements with non-Mexican airlines that span the entire globe. It is used by over 26 million passengers per year. This traffic exceeds the current capacity of the airport, which has historically centralized the majority of air traffic in the country. An alternate option is Lic. Adolfo López Mateos International Airport (IATA Airport Code: TLC) located in the nearby Toluca, State of Mexico with about 4.5 million passengers transported last year. In 2008, about 31 million people went through the city's airports. The government engaged in an extensive restructuring program that includes the new second adjacent terminal, which began operations in 2007, and the enlargement of four other airports (at the nearby cities of Toluca, Querétaro, Puebla and Cuernavaca) that, along with Mexico City's airport, comprise the Grupo Aeroportuario del Valle de México, distributing traffic to different regions in Mexico. The city of Pachuca will also provide additional expansion to central Mexico's airport network. Mexico City's airport is the main hub for 11 of the 21 national airline companies.
The city has four major bus stations (North, South, Observatorio, TAPO), which comprise one of the world's largest transportation agglomerations, with bus service to many cities across the country and international connections. The city has one train station, used for commercial and industrial purposes (interstate passenger trains are now virtually non-existent in Mexico). A suburban rail system, the Tren Suburbano serves the metropolitan area, beyond the city limits of the metro, to municipalities such as Tlalnepantla and Cuautitlán Izcalli, with future extensions to Chalco and La Paz.
In the late 70's many arterial roads were redesigned as ejes viales; high-volume one-way roads that cross, in theory, Mexico City proper from side to side. The eje vialnetwork is based on a quasi-Cartesian grid, with the ejes themselves being called Eje 1 Poniente, Eje Central, and Eje 1 Oriente, for example, for the north-south roads, and Eje 2 Sur and Eje 3 Norte, for example, for east-west roads. Two freeway ring-roads serve to connect points within the city and the metropolitan area: Circuito Interior (the inner ring) and Periférico, which connect to one straight freeway: the Viaducto (Viaduct) (connecting west with east, from Observatorio to the Airport). Traffic in this system is so dense that an elevated highway that runs on top and parallel to a part of the Periférico, had to be constructed and finished in 2003. This elevated highway is colloquially called segundo piso ("second level") of the Periférico.
There is an environmental program, called Hoy No Circula ("Not To Run Today", or "One Day without a Car"), whereby only vehicles with certain ending numbers on their license plates are allowed to circulate on certain days, in an attempt to cut down on pollution and traffic congestion.
Due to the typical traffic congestion, the local government has created a bicycle lending program in the Centro Historico, by just filling a form and showing a valid Id citizens and tourist can get a bicycle for 3 hours, the so-called Cicloestaciones are located primarily by the Paseo de la Reforma. There is also a service called Ecobici, in which registered residents can get bicycles for 45 minutes with a pre-paid subscription of 300 pesos a year,there are a total of 90 stations scattered along the Roma-Condesa, Centro, Juarez neighbors within 300 meters from each other and are fully automatic only serving a bicycle per person using a transponder based card. Both bicycle service users have access to several permanent bike paths in the city, the most important runs 59 kilometers from Polanco to Fierro del Toro.
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