Mexico City has a large, cheap and generally good public transport system, and one safety rule that matters more than any of the detail.
The rule
Do not hail a taxi on the street.
Express kidnapping — being driven to cash machines and forced to withdraw money — has been a genuine problem with unlicensed street taxis for decades. It is much less common than it was, and it has not disappeared.
Use Uber, DiDi or Cabify, all of which are cheap and work well, or a sitio taxi ordered by phone or from an official rank. Airport taxis are bought as a prepaid ticket inside the terminal.
This is the single most repeated piece of advice about Mexico City and it is repeated because it is right.
The Metro
Twelve lines, around 195 stations, and one of the cheapest metros in the world — a flat fare of a few pesos regardless of distance.
Each station has a pictogram as well as a name: a grasshopper for Chapultepec, an aqueduct for Chapultepec’s neighbour, a cannon for San Antonio Abad. They were designed by Lance Wyman in 1969 so that a population with significant illiteracy could navigate, and they are now part of the city’s visual identity.
The first carriages are reserved for women and children at all times, marked by pink signs and often a physical barrier on the platform. This is enforced.
Rush hour is genuinely crushing. Avoid 7–9am and 6–8pm if you can.
Pay with the Movilidad Integrada card, sold at station machines, which also works on the Metrobús, the Tren Ligero, the cablecars and the buses.
Metrobús
Bus rapid transit in dedicated lanes, with stations in the middle of the road. Line 1 along Insurgentes is the most useful for visitors — it runs the length of the city past Roma, Condesa and south towards Coyoacán.
Card only; no cash. Front sections are reserved for women.
Cablebús
Two cable-car lines built to serve the hillside districts of Iztapalapa and Gustavo A. Madero, opened 2021 and 2022. They are ordinary public transport for the people who live there and they have spectacular views. Line 2 is the longest cable car system in the world.
Same card, same low fare.
Ecobici
The bike-share scheme, with docking stations across the central districts. Roma, Condesa, Reforma and the Centro have decent segregated lanes; elsewhere is mixed traffic and Mexico City traffic is not forgiving.
Paseo de la Reforma closes to cars on Sunday mornings for cycling and running, and tens of thousands of people use it.
Driving
Do not. Traffic is severe, and Hoy No Circula restricts vehicles on given days by number plate, including hire cars and including out-of-state and foreign plates during pollution episodes.
Walking
Realistic within districts — the Centro, Roma, Condesa, Coyoacán — and not between them. Pavements are uneven, and the altitude makes any incline harder than it looks.
The Metro in practice
Buy a Movilidad Integrada card at any station machine and load it with a few hundred pesos. It works on the Metro, Metrobús, Tren Ligero, Cablebús and the RTP buses.
Stations are announced and signed clearly, and the pictograms make navigation possible without reading Spanish.
Line 1 was closed in sections for a long rebuild and reopened in stages; Line 12 partially collapsed in 2021, killing 26 people, and was rebuilt and reopened in 2023. Check current service if you are relying on a specific line.
Large luggage is not permitted on the Metro, which is why the Metrobús is the airport route.
Peseros
The green and white minibuses that cover routes the Metro does not. Destinations are handwritten on the windscreen, you flag them down and pay the driver in cash, and you shout ¡bajan! to get off.
They are cheap, they are how a very large part of the city moves, and they are difficult for a visitor without Spanish. Not dangerous, just opaque.
Sunday on Reforma
Paseo de la Reforma closes to traffic on Sunday mornings, from about eight until two, along with connecting streets — the Muévete en Bici programme. Tens of thousands of people cycle, run and skate it.
Free bike hire is available at points along the route. It is one of the best things the city does.
Addresses
Mexican addresses run street, number, colonia — the colonia being the neighbourhood, and it is essential, because street names repeat across the city. There are several dozen streets called Morelos.
Give a driver the colonia as well as the street, or the pin.
Alcaldía is the borough, of which there are sixteen; Cuauhtémoc holds the Centro, Roma and Condesa.