Commuters in Saudi Arabia are taking to public transport: On Aug. 26, the Riyadh Metro welcomed its 100 millionth passenger since the transit system launched in the kingdom’s capital last December, per the country’s official Saudi Press Agency.

More mass transit is inbound. A Saudi official confirmed this month that construction will begin later in 2025 on a new monorail in Riyadh’s financial district designed to carry 3,500 passengers an hour. 

The rail transportation boom isn’t limited to Saudi Arabia. On Aug. 2, Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum rode a test train on a new high-speed link between Dubai and Fujairah. The line, scheduled to open commercially in 2026, will connect 11 cities in the United Arab Emirates with a capacity of over 36 million passengers annually by 2030.

These projects follow a familiar pattern in the Gulf's transportation story. Despite decades of rhetoric about cross-border rail, most projects remain national in scope — meant to ease traffic and connect domestic hubs, rather than integrate the Gulf Cooperation Council’s six economies. Visions of a regional rail corridor, however, have existed for decades.