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Kia Boya (often abbreviated K.B. or Kia) is the capital of Sednyana and its fourth-largest city with a population of 2,377,000. It is located on two islands (Boya and Oloma) in the Toka River Estuary between the states of East Kaya and Boyada. It is coterminous with the Sednyanese Capital District, which acts functionally as a seventeenth state of Sednyana but is nominally external to any state. It is the center of Sednyana's third-largest metropolitan area, which it shares with its twin city to the north, Kia Mandala; the Boya-Mandala Metropolitan Area has a population of 6,200,000. It is additionally considered one of the three main centers of the Sednyanese coastal urban corridor, along with Cethen and Monopodia.
Kia Boya was founded as a small fishing village around 1300, and steadily grew into a regional center by the end of the fifteenth century. In the 1503 constitution, George Ross declared that Kia Boya would replace Sednyanopolis as the renewed nation's capital, due to its strategic position at the mouth of the Toka River by the sea and its lack of state allegiance; though it was technically part of Boyada at the time, its location on an island between two states made it ideal as a neutral location. Since then, Kia Boya has grown and flourished and become one of Sednyana's most prominent cities.
Kia Boya is a major center of culture and politics in Sednyana. It is the location of all three major branches of Sednyanese government, and has a highly political climate. It is considered a hub for high culture, with a profusion of highly rated restaurants, bars and art galleries as well as a vibrant music scene. It is often considered to have one of the greatest public transportation systems in the world, with a highly integrated and efficient above- and below-ground metro system as well as buses, trains and the Capitol Boulevard tram. Kia Boya has over fifty museums, including the Sednyanese National Museum, the National Art Gallery, and the Sednyanese Museum of Natural History.
Demographically, Kia Boya has a very high population of young adults, which results in an active music and nightlife scene. This is largely because of its universities, which include the Sednyanese National University, the largest university in the nation and the fourth-largest in the world, McCalvin University, considered one of the best universities in Sednyana, and Price University, another top-20 university.
Cityscape[]
Geographically, the political heart of Kia Boya is located on Federal Hill to the east of the city. The Sednyanese Capitol Building is located on the southern face of Capitol Square, a broad popular pedestrianized square dating back to the sixteenth century and known for its events and demonstrations. The opposite side of the capital faces the Capitol Promenade (the "Prom"), a series of terraced parks and fountains that descend the steep southeastern face of Federal Hill to the shoreline. Several of the city's major museums line the Prom, most dramatically the two mid-eighteenth century white palaces that symmetrically frame the top of the gardens and house the National Gallery of Fine Arts and the Museum of Sednyanese History. Running northeast from the Square, the Marbled Way connects the Capitol to the gardens surrounding the Sednyanese executive residence, Marblegate. Many executive branch agencies and embassies line the Marbled Way, sometimes giving this area the name "Embassy City;" it is the highest-elevation area of the city.
Due north from the capitol, a pedestrianized way bears straight down the hill, with numerous interludes of steps. Unlike the relatively staid Marbled Way, the Capitol Way is lined with shops and restaurants and often has a vibrant street life. Running directly west from Capitol Square, Avenue P (nominally Avenue of the People) stretches all of the way across the island. With the newly renovated Avenue P Subway, the Avenue forms a core backbone of the city, with extensive new development along its entire length. While initial plans for the digging of the
The flat area to the west of the old city is known as "The Plain," and features notable midrise eighteenth and nineteenth century residential buildings as well as the lively eating and nightlife district along Avenue O, which runs parallel to the wider Avenue P. South of the Plain is Mid-City along Avenue P and Rassangay, an Incean-majority neighborhood.
Transportation[]
Unlike many of Kia Boya's peer cities, it did not develop a major subway system in the early twentieth century, instead relying primarily on above-ground streetcars. By the mid-20th century, the city had an intricate network of streetcars supplemented by a bus network and a high rate of automobile ownership compared to Monopodia, Cethen, Ross City or Niavara. Beginning in the 1960s, the city began overhauling its streetcar system, with long-term plans to transform many of the streetcar lines effectively into underground high-throughput subway lines. The first line to be planned, the Avenue P Subway, was the last of five to be completed in 2009 due to extensive planning issues. The centerpiece of the Millenium Transit Plan, today four lines run through the Avenue P Subway with headways of under five minutes 24 hours a day.
Kia Boya is well-known for its integrated transit network under control of the broadly powerful Capitol Transit Authority (CTA), through which rides can be performed on all modes of transit using a CTA "Green Card." The city nominally has five major "modes" of transit: the Metro, which refers to the city's seven fully grade-separated heavy rail lines that are characterized by large train sizes and very short headways; the Tram, the region's primarily at-grade light rail network with seventeen lines; the Bus, featuring over a hundred lines, many with short headways, dedicated lanes and other bus rapid transit features; nine ferry lines, which extend into Boyada and East Kaya; and four lines designated Commuter Rail, extending as far as Boda. Kia Boya is also a major hub for regional and superregional rail, and Kia Boya's Union Station is the second-busiest in Sednyana and a major stop along the Coastal Express bullet train.
The large discretionary budget and significant power of Capitol Transit developed over the past five decades has engendered both praise and criticism. One major point is the city's largest station, Republic Station, which is a four-story underground hub for four of the city's five major networks buried below Republic Square. By some measures the world's most expensive metro station, it was constructed over more than fifteen years as a major and contentious point in the city's Millennium Transit Plan. The station is especially deep partly due to the fact that Republic Square sits atop Capitol Hill, and as such the Avenue P Subway reaches its deepest point beneath the surface. It is also unusual for connecting with the street level underground, as Avenue P was rerouted underneath Republic Square to entirely pedestrianize the square. Ten bus lines depart from the station on this second story.