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How to build an Underground Metro in Cities: Skylines

How to build an Underground Metro in Cities: Skylines

Much like cities in the real world, transport is essential in Cities: Skylines. And one of the most efficient and productive methods of transport, both in real life and in Cities: Skylines, is Underground Metros. In this guide, we’ll go over how you can build an underground Metro in the game.

You can build an Underground Metro in Cities: Skylines by first reaching the Big Town Milestone. It can cost 15,000 cells to construct your Metro, and 240 to upkeep. Simply create Metro Stations around vital points of your city and connect them through underground tunnels.

Cities: Skylines provides all the tools you might need to create the city of your dreams. Its various transport methods are fun to play around with. But most importantly, they can be critical in managing your growing population of people. To find out more details, keep reading this article!

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How to Build an Underground Metro in Cities: Skylines?

Building an Underground Metro - Cities: Skylines
Building an Underground Metro – Cities: Skylines

Many of you might already be familiar with the Metro service. In large cities, it is perhaps one of the most utilized forms of public transportation. The metro service in Cities: Skylines is no different. It is a type of underground transportation that is highly beneficial for your city to construct.

The underground Metro is particularly helpful in managing the transportation needs of a dense population or an especially congested town. If you’re hoping to build an underground metro for yourself, then there are several prerequisites that you will have to meet.

The most important fact that you need to know is that you require two important build options to begin constructing your Metro. The first of these is the ability to construct a Metro Station. The second important build option is the Metro Tunnels. These two will connect to create your entire structure.

In this guide, we’ll assess how you can unlock these two different build options. After that, we will then move further to discuss how to precisely build an underground metro.

Metro Stations and Metro Tunnels

Planning an Underground Metro - Cities: Skylines
Planning an Underground Metro – Cities: Skylines

To unlock the Metro Station itself, there are certain in-game requirements that you need to meet. The most important of which is that you need to obtain the Big Town Milestone in the game. This milestone is obtained when you raise the population of your city to at least 7,000 citizens.

7,000 citizens is not a small amount at all and show the length and breadth of the work that you need to do to obtain the ability to construct Metros. After you’ve reached the Big Town Milestone, you now need to spend around 15,000 Cells to construct the first Metro Station.

It will take you 240 cells per week to maintain the metro station that you have constructed. Any further stations will require you to invest a greater amount to sustain them. Finally, the upkeep will require the consumption of a 160-meter cube of water every week as well.

The last thing you need to consider before you construct your underground metro is Metro Tunnels. When you gain access to building a Metro Station, you will gain access to Metro Tunnels. These Metro Tunnels are incredibly cheap.

However, you will require quite a few Metro Tunnels to complete your underground metro. Metro Tunnels can be built with 100 Cells. And require 0.64 Cells every week for upkeep purposes. No noise pollution will be generated through them, and regular pollution will not be created either.

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Building an Underground Metro System

Being able to construct the Metro Station and the Metro Tunnels is the first part of constructing your Underground Metro. Collect the necessary amount of Cells and reach the Big Town Milestone to move on to the next step within this guide. Which will revolve around laying out a plan for what your metro looks like.

Here is how you can do this:

1) Build Metro Stations Around Your City

Constructing Metro Stations - Cities: Skylines
Constructing Metro Stations – Cities: Skylines

To construct a good layout, you need to know what your points of interest are within your city. You have essentially the freedom to construct your Metro Stations wherever you want. However, there are only certain locations that will be vital to you and your population.

It can be a good idea to create stations both for the industrial sectors of your city and for the population-dense, housing sectors. Both of these locations will see the greatest amount of human trafficking, so it may be a good idea to build Metro Stations in these areas.

Simply construct the Metro Stations as previously mentioned, and be prepared to keep them updated and maintained. This will require a weekly allowance of Cells, so it’s important to know that you can meet that quota before you enter the construction phase.

2) Adjust the Height of the Metro Tunnels


Construct and Adjust Metro Tunnels - Cities: Skylines
Construct and Adjust Metro Tunnels – Cities: Skylines

In the next step, you need to start laying out your Metro Tunnels. The tunnels will be the main connectors between different Metro Stations. And will act as the “tracks” that your underground train will utilize to traverse from one part of the city to the other.

However, before you can begin setting up the tunnels of your Metro. You need to fix their elevation first. The Metro Tunnels will start building above ground if you do not adjust the height of the tunnels themselves. It can thus be important to adjust them when the prompt for where you wish to place them shows up.

To adjust the height of the metro tunnels, you can press page up (pg up) or page down (pg dn). With these commands, you can ensure that your tunnels are beneath the ground of your cities, and you have essentially complete freedom in how you want to set up your tunnels.

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3) Connect Metro Stations to Underground Metro Tunnels

Connecting Metro Tunnels - Cities: Skylines
Connecting Metro Tunnels – Cities: Skylines

The final step that players need to carry out is connecting their Metro Stations with their Metro Tunnel. You will need to create several Metro Tunnels that each connect to the other and lead from one Metro Station to the next. This will allow them to seamlessly transport your population from where they are to where they want to be.

I suggest taking your time and repeating this process for as long as it takes. Make sure that you connect all the Stations that you have set up, and attempt to construct a well thought system for your Underground Metro. Once you’re done simply finalize the construction. That should allow you to create your Underground Metro, as you wished it was, within your city.

4) Prior Underground Metro Bugs and Glitches

It is important to note that in previous versions of Cities: Skylines, there were several game-breaking bugs and glitches. The most notable ones were the bugs that affected the underground Metro tunnels, and in 2020, you would have found yourself unable to construct an underground metro.

However, since then, several mods, patches, and updates have been released. You can rest assured that in the latest game, Cities: Skylines, you will not face this problem. Especially if you are not running the game with any third-party modding software. If you are, however, you can still run into some issues. So double-check everything before you start building.


If your city is congested, then you can run into several problems within Cities: Skylines. Simply put, they will not be effective and will not be fun to manage.

A well-thought-out underground metro can be an immensely necessary solution to all your problems. With a well-connected city, your industries and citizens will thank you.

Underground Metros are extremely versatile and can provide numerous benefits without causing significant pollution or harming your city’s environment. I hope this guide was helpful to you. And gave you all the tools you need to build your very own underground Metro System. Till next time! Ciao.