Transportation Infrastructure: Moving Through the Sprawl
In 2184, movement is power. Corporate citizens glide through climate-controlled transit tubes while Dregs residents climb maintenance shafts. Cargo rises on the Orbital Elevator while contraband flows through smuggler tunnels older than the Cascade. Who moves freely, who pays, who never leaves their district—this is the geography of inequality made literal.
Surface Transit
The Transit Grid
The primary public transportation system within corporate-controlled districts. Neural-linked routing optimizes your path across automated vehicles, transit tubes, and moving walkways.
200+ km/h
Private vehicles, VIP tubes. Subscription + premium fees. For executives and emergencies.
150 km/h
Dedicated high-speed routes. ¢50-200 per trip. Professionals and commuters.
60-100 km/h
Regular automated transit. ¢10-50 per trip. Citizens and workers.
5-20 km/h
Walking corridors, moving platforms. Free-¢5. Everyone else.
The Ironclad Highway Network
Eight major automated highways connect Sprawl cores across continents. Ironclad built them, maintains them, and collects tolls.
- North Atlantic Connector: Former US East Coast to European Nexus
- Pacific Rim Loop: Asian megacities linked along the coast
- Equatorial Express: Around the planet at the tropics
Vertical Transit
The Challenge
The Sprawl builds up as much as out. Districts like The Stacks reach kilometers into the sky. Moving people vertically is as important as moving them horizontally.
Corporate Tower
50-200 capacity, 20 m/s. Centralized control. Corporate HQs, wealthy districts.
District Express
100-500 capacity, 15 m/s. Mixed control. Mid-tier districts.
Residential Banks
20-50 capacity, 8 m/s. Local control. Housing blocks.
Jury-Rigged
Variable. Local control. The Dregs, informal settlements. Reliability not guaranteed.
The Elevator Lords
In The Stacks, elevator banks are controlled by local powers who charge access. Want to go up twenty levels? Pay the toll. Can't pay? Climb—if there are stairs.
Climbing Culture
Where elevators are unreliable, overcrowded, or toll-gated, residents climb. Maintenance ladders, external structural features, improvised stairwells, rope and pulley systems. The Climbers' Network shares routes through word of mouth. Getting lost in the vertical maze can be fatal.
The Orbital Elevator
Ironclad's Elevator is the only economical way to move significant mass between Earth and orbit. Everything else is 100x more expensive.
The Chokepoint
Control the Elevator, control space access. Ironclad uses this leverage constantly. Nexus is building a competing elevator—the corporate cold war's outcome may depend on whether it finishes.
Underground Transit
The Metro Systems
Pre-Cascade subway systems still function in parts of the Sprawl. Some corporate-maintained, others informal. The Under, The Labyrinth, The Deep Lines—massive networks from the old world, partially operational, partially abandoned and home to communities that prefer to stay hidden.
Tunnel Networks
Beneath the Sprawl: maintenance corridors, utility runs, drainage systems, collapsed structures. Together they form alternative routes for those who know them.
The Sewer Runners: Guides who know the underground. They'll lead you through for a fee—where the tunnels go, which are flooded, which are claimed, which connect to places you shouldn't find.
Forbidden Zones
Rad Zones
Radioactive contamination from Cascade-era incidents. 17 documented zones over 100 sq km.
Biohazard Zones
Areas contaminated by biological agents. Variable boundaries, shifting dangers.
Blackout Zones
No corporate infrastructure. Transit by walking, improvised vehicles, or luck.
The Mountain
Has no roads. Maps don't show routes. GPS fails nearby. The path reveals itself to those who are ready—or so the stories say.
Smuggling Routes
What Moves Illegally
Contraband, people, information, ORACLE fragments. The unofficial economy has its own infrastructure.
Modified vehicles, courier networks, blending with cargo, bribed checkpoints.
Tunnel routes, abandoned metro, maintenance corridors, sewer systems.
Low-altitude drone drops, corrupted flight schedules, unauthorized pilots.
Hidden cargo, bribed inspectors, independent launches from Waste territories.
The Zero Syndicate
The most reliable smuggling infrastructure. Expensive but guaranteed. Person transit ¢50K-500K. Cargo by percentage plus flat fee. Forty years of reputation. Cross them and you'll never use their services again—if you survive.
The Wastes
Crossing Ungoverned Territory
Between corporate territories lie the Wastes. Crossing them requires convoy travel, Waste Lord permission, and guide services.
Transit and Security
What's Tracked
Every official transit use generates data: identity verification, location tracking, biometric confirmation, pattern analysis. In Nexus territory, it feeds directly into network analysis.
The Immobile
Who can't move:
- Those without identity registration (no system access)
- Those too poor for any transit fee
- Those in debt to corporations (movement restricted)
- Those under surveillance (tracked and potentially intercepted)
Limited mobility means limited opportunity. The Dregs resident who can't afford transit to reach a better job stays in the Dregs. The geography of poverty is enforced by the economics of movement.
"They tell you the Transit Grid connects everyone. What they mean is: everyone they want connected. The rest of us walk, climb, crawl, and find our own way.
The Sprawl's got a billion routes—the ones on the map are maybe a tenth of them. The other nine-tenths? That's where the real city lives." — Sewer Runner, explaining transit to a Dregs newcomer