This Should be the Standard for “Normal” Cities | Warsaw
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ต.ค. 2024
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Warsaw might be famous for its good trams, but with a solid metro, S-Trains, and even good active transport infrastructure, it should probably just be seen as a model good mobility city. Let's take a deeper look!
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
As a person living in Warsaw, I can confirm the public transit is great. Moreover, the metro itself is absolutely clean and safe, literally seeing a single rubbish would surprise me.
10 years ago it was extremely clean. Nowadays you see and smell homeless and some addicts here and there which was unseen a decade ago. Overall is decent but the metro used to be really clean and not smelly... not the case anymore. Mlociny and Kabaty (terminus stations on M1 line) during cold months get addicts and homeless people on the benches and the staff does not seem to be bothered - they were bothered about this around a decade ago.
The only thing I can agree with is that metro is rather safe and clean. But the public transport is mediocre at MOST, especially when compared to other big cities in Europe.
@@adammr7097 I have to disagree. I’ve been using the metro daily from 2011 to 2022 and I never noticed much of an increase (I barely ever go to Młociny though). I have always encountered homeless people and really drunk people from time to time, they were certainly there 10 years ago. There was never many of them, but I don’t feel like that changed. Maybe you just got unlucky lately (or I got lucky).
I live in Warsaw, but the single bottleneck connection between the Metro I line and Metro II is a joke. Worst design I can imagine. People from both halves of the city try to pass each other on single 2m wide stairs. You can imagine the result.
@@antekkwiatkowski1939 also młociny/kabaty is an end station so most tourists wont see it either
Having multiple train-car vendors is better because it avoids monopoly leverage and price gouging.
Hell yeah!
I'm not crazy about Buy America requirements. It just makes politicians look good in front of people who barely support transit anyway. Having better transit equipment thereby improving job access would do a lot more for job creation.
By the way, is it odd that you pop up on so many of the channels that I watch as well? With that said the other benefit that multiple vendors allows is parallel manufacturing. If I order lets say 50 units from a vendor and half way through I see the need for another 50 I do not have to wait for the last 25 to be built before the 50 additional I need. This means that I get the units that I need faster and since the way these contracts go I could then option for more later once I see the quality and reliability of both.
It's you!
CHOCOLATE RAINNN
One correction: While Warsaw has 'only' 1.8 million inhabitants, its surface is actually 2/3rd that of the land surface of New York City (not the urban area). It's bigger that Denver and more than twice the size of Seattle. The population density is just low, so it doesn't translate to the surface area.
Warsaw also has low crime and low migrants making it a safe city.
@@gj1234567899999Low diversity doesn't translate to safety at all, could even make cities less safe as people not exposed to other cultures more easily accept fascist propaganda
@@gj1234567899999 Clearly you haven't lived in Warsaw. Warsaw has a lot of migrants, and we all get along pretty well. No problem there.
Parks everywhere 🤩
@@gj1234567899999 Low crime, plenty of migrants. A safe city for everyone.
Eastern block countries are criminally underlooked when we talk about urbanism. I guess because those are countries that people don't wanna move to for other reasons, so we focus on places like Germany and Netherlands, but these cities like Prague or Budapest show you don't have to be ultrarich or populous to have functioning transit
it's surprising what socialism can achieve with limited resources
@@illiiilli24601 What they mainly achieved was not ripping out their pre-war tram network
@@katrinabrycewhich does make them better than many other cities. Though other cities in Europe also managed to do that
@@illiiilli24601yep the Soviet Union had many problems but public transit was it's strong suit the tramsiberian railway is not only the longest railway in the world but the entire thing is also Electrified
Prague isn't eastern Europe!
Hi what a great review!
However I think you haven’t mentioned a very important aspect:
The metro in Warsaw is above all super clean and safe, on every single station there are guards, cameras, free toilets which are cleaned all day long. All that, makes the Warsaw’s metro a very nice and comfortable place to travel.
Our transit in the US is in desperate need of public restrooms. Not sure why this is even allowed to be omitted from transit planning
I rode the entire system this year and can confirm, it was the cleanest metro I have ever seen!
@@creepermk *>> Just because, it is a whole TRUTH !!!!*
Moreover, each Metro (Subway) station in Warsaw looks different - just because it was created by the individual projectants/artists !! So, each station has its own arthistic climate and design. Damn .... truly, they are so CLEAN & SAFE !!!!
And in night ticket controlers have body guards
In the night subway stops.
Nice video. :) One thing I think you have missed and should have talked about to give a full picture of Warsaw's public transport system are buses. There is about 1400 of them and they go everywhere. There are lines that zig-zag through entire districts and "scoop" people to the metro stations, and there are lines that go though half a city connecting it. Together with trams and metro they make a cohesive system that connects the whole city and it's surrounding areas and most often there are multiple paths you can choose to go from any point A to B (which makes it highly redundant and prevents a single point of failure).
I'd also add that the night bus system makes it possible to get from one end of the city to the other, as each night bus (that I found) ends it's course on the central railway station. Additionally the buses leave the hub at the same time each half an hour. (This goes on from about 11 pm to 5 am each day)
@@sunilratnayake2025 By the way, does the night bus, given the amount of traffic when it runs, stop on demand? I have looked up how to use buses and trams and found that (other) buses stop on demand only in outer residential areas. Is it true that Warsaw's trams (given they don't have stop request buttons) don't serve those outer suburbs?
@@Myrtone I haven't really seen any trams in outer suburbs and there are no request buttons on the stops. You're supposed to request a stop by standing by the curb and giving a sign to the bus the driver (the same sign you would give to passing cars when trying to hitch hike). When you're in the bus and want to request a stop there are buttons inside though. Sometimes when the bus stop serves only one line you don't even have to give the sign, just stand in a position that the driver would see you.
@@sunilratnayake2025 I did not say there are request buttons at the stops. I have specifically read that the request stops for buses are usually located in outer residential areas. Is it true that trams in Warsaw don't serve these places?
7:46 you dont have to walk those 500 meters to reach either of the stations you mentioned, because upon leaving your train at the Central Station you can simply make your way to tram stops using the underground tunnels and take the tram for one stop in either direction, that way you'll hop off the tram right above the metro station and I'm saying this as a regular user of the Warsaw transit system :)
As a tourist, it was a sprint with bags to catch a train. Having about 10 minutes, waiting for tram to drive one stop was last think that'd come to my mind.
yeah its a 5 minute walk, you dont have to wait at the lights if you enter the tunnels and if you enter/leave your platform from the east side coming from the metro its even a bit closer. Saying that the walk through the small park beside the palace is quite nice.
I had to walk a couple of times from the nearest metro station to the Warsaw Central train station with luggage, which made me curse. It had to be a plan of a drunk transit planner.
trams are much less convenient than a direct transfer. In the same way LAs airport transit will fail because it requires you to take a short peoplemover to the LRT station, instead of putting said station into the airport.
@@1ramyus A może tam ich nie było
Wow, i did not expect a video about warsaw! Wow! Nice. On the map, you sould've add the SKM extention to Piaseczno and Zegrze Południowe, that were opened in march
I am a little behind the times, hope you enjoyed!
@@RMTransit of course i enjoyed (;
As a member of Warsaw's Association of Public Transport Fans I am really happy to see a video like this.
Greetings from the trail of S1 line!
As for Skoda's - for now they are pretty reliable I would say but there is one major problem, not really good ventilation system but Skoda will be working on fixing it, we had similiar problem with 2008 Metrovagonmash Series 81
Warsaw is, believe it or not, probably younger than many North American cities too. About 90% of the city was destroyed in WW2, so nearly all of it dates from the 50s onwards. For instance the castle at 0:08 was finished in 1988 (though some parts were finished in the 70s).
Yeah imagine having a 20th century castle that would be cool I guess
@@goatgamer001I mean it's a reconstruction of the original, and they used as much of the original material as possible... so, I suppose it's a 20th century castle with very old blueprints. They tried to make it (and the rest of the old city) as close to how it was before its destruction as possible. However, there are actually a few castles under construction right now, the most notable being Guédelon Castle in France.
@@brick6347 there are also palaces that are being reconstructed in warsaw like the bruhl palace , ...
@@vexingcave1304 have they begun? I was last in Warsaw a year ago and they hadn't. They were doing the excavations when I was student there... God ages ago!
@@brick6347 they have now found some artifacts dating back to pre war periods so it might take a while but i have heard that they might begin works begin 2024
Old soviet metro trains are now being sent to Kiev and replaced by new Skoda trains and when all Skoda trains will arrive in Warsaw, almost every russian train (the oldest one train stays at Warsaw for future generations) will leave the Warsaw and sent to Kiev
Do you know how they're being transferred? I live in Przemysl, so it'd be quite surreal to see a metro train! (But I suspect because of the bridge situation they're going a different way)
Interesting to know!
@@brick6347 I believe they remove the carriages (they're the wrong gauge anyway) and transport them by trucks
@@RMTransit they also recently sent 2 train sets to Kharkiv which is currently expanding by building 2 new stations towards an airport
@@brick6347 idk but first ones are now in Kiev (but idk if they are transporing people) so somehow they had to transport them
As a Varsovian I've been waiting for a video about Warsaw for a while. So happy it finally happened!
My favourite metro station being on the thumbnail makes it even better
i'm the person who provided that clip and the thumbnail, and it's also my favorite metro station
@@pafawag5b6b5b you have good taste :P
I love the Neon!
@@RMTransit this station is not the only one with neons, all stations from płocka to bemowo have them
@@RMTransit What pafawag said; as you mentioned, the stations get built a few at a time and those that are built during the same phase tend to have similar style. There are 2 more stations with neons but Młynów is the prettiest one
7:25 They were really unreliable when they were first entering service and broke constantly, but they figured it out after a while. It was the same story as with Siemens Inspiro trains a couple years prior and they've also been running smoothly ever since.
7:55 While I agree that it's inconvenient, it's not that bad (speaking from experience). And there are trams to take if you don't mind an extra transfer. Not great, not terrible.
I mean a shorter walk is always better, that's all I'm saying!
@@RMTransit It's a very short walk to the tram stop 😉
There's also a bus stop/terminal right by the station with lpads of lines foing all over terminating there.
@@RMTransitThis is due to complicated historical issues. Basicly Warsaw may hold a record for the longest time between starting Metro construction and actually getting the fteains running, as construction first started in 1938, but than the War happend. Second try was in 1950s, and even a short tunnel was built, but due to various political circumstances related to changes to eastern bloc after death of Stalin was stopped again. The current construction started in 1980s, but the central parts of both lines more or less aproxinate original 1930's plan. Meanwhile the central railwey station was moved from it's original location, which would connect perfectly to the metro one block west, due to even more comunist policies.
@@RMTransit i suffered from this long walk many times and even missed my train a couple of times. I was always in favour of building an underground travellator there, like a moving walkway, like they have at several airports (Frankfurt, CDG)
@@RMTransit it's worth underlining that all of the trains stopping at Warsaw Central train station, go as well through Warsaw East (3rd subway line planned there, trams already next to it) and Warsaw West (underground tram stop being constructed, big bus station next to it). That's why, the recently presented city plan for subway expansion till year 2050 does not include Warsaw Central.
A part of Poland that is also worth mentioning is the Upper Silesia. Even Poles coming from different parts of our country are surprised at how connected the cities are. So much so that if you don't pay attention to the signs/(bus, tram, train) stops, it's hard to notice where one city ends and the next one stops. They are all connected by public transport and as of this year metropolitan bus lines, which have long routes connecting three or more cities.
Its city conglomeration, it happens, most know example is tokyo, paris (actual cities are only small portion in the center) or closer example germany you got ruhn region which is conglomarated for same reason as cities around katowice, mining and smelting industry. It slowly happens to warsaw and surounding regions too
Yet the Lower Silesia will always reign superior.
I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS VIDEO FOR SO LONG!!!
Thank you for reviewing my home city!
About Skoda trains, they are very comfortable. Extremely quiet and the seats are very comfy. Only problem is that on the walls instead of screens with the route and time to the next station Skoda decided to put screens with their logo.
Yikes Skoda, you make a nice train but you don't need to slap logos everywhere!
To be fair the route is still visible, just in less places.
those "screens" are placeholders, they're actually just paper and they're going to be replaced with screens for ads (covered by the ad provider)
@@norbnik I know they are paper but why couldn't they put screens in already? All means of transport in Warsaw have screens with ads, cool facts etc. and it wouldn't have been a problem to implement the same exact ads and stuff on new trains.
@@rotkiw8031 it is but when you are standing with many people around you, you sometimes cant see. Especially if you have poor eyesight.
w końcu się doczekałem. Warszawa w końcu u RM'a :DDD
teraz tylko poczekać na Kraków i zobaczyć jakiś pocisk o KST gdzie do niedawna w tunelu tramwaje jeździły 30 km/h XD
Nie ma to jak zobaczyć odcinek o Warszawie u zagranicznego Niskopodłogowca, teraz Niskopodłogowiec na swój powrót (który raczej nie nastąpi) powinien pojechać do Vancouver
The most important thing about Warsaw public transport system is that it uses mostly vehicles made by polish manufacturers such as Pesa, Newag or Solaris
Here's a cool thing you missed:
20 minute ticket
What's cool about it? Aside from being cheap, it also speaks to the frequency of trams.
wow, i always took the metro and trams for granted here in warsaw, thanks for the video, can educate me even though i have been living here my whole life. also tram 26 for life
Well for us europeans Warszawa is actually quite a big city xd. If you would want a example of good normal city for us Brno in the Czech Republic would be a better example. 400k inhabitants, 72 km of tram tracks, 11 lines most of them going every 5 minutes in peak hours. You should check it out for yourself 😉
I would say its just straight up big city 2 milion is quite a lot of pepole .
The exceptions here are megacities like Tokyo with its enourmous populations.
So in that case, what is it like to cycle around Berno?
@@Myrtone actually not great, there are a few dedicated cycle tracks but not nearly enough
@@petrnovak1832 There lies a problem, having good transit but cycling not being great leads to transit dependency. Better cycling infrastructure and making cycling more attractive displaces a lot of local transit trips. Transit can then be optimised for the trips that cycling does not displace, depending on fewer fixed routes and more of them having limited stops.
I think there's a lot more to cover about Warsaw if You would like to come back here in the future.
For e.g. use of E-ink displays for tram schedules, the "Nowe centrum Warszawy" project, plans for narrowing streets in city center and clean transport zone, planned cross-platform transfers at some of future Metro stations, the overall level of cleanliness and maintenance of the public transport system, cheap and simple fare system, city experimenting with not using the fare gates at main (and only for now) subway transfer station - Świętokrzyska, extending the Metro's reach by using high-frequency busses connecting it with residential estates located further than walking range, very affordable bikeshare system with e-bikes and its abandonment of the docking station system in favor of returning the bike at any location, City's attempts to deal with problem of badly parked electric scooters and so on...
Thisssssss
And stopping on demand only in outer residential areas apparently.
I find it annoying that the good quality of public transport in Warsaw stops me from buying a car. Because I -- generally -- like driving. But when living in Warsaw there's no point to keep a car. I only rent a car like twice a year to go to the lakes or mountains.
Warsaw facts: The Warsaw tram network is 125.3-km (or 77.9 miles) long and is the second-largest system in the country after the Silesian trams. The history of tram transport in Warsaw dates back to 1866 when a 6-kilometre (3.7 miles) long horse tram line was built to transport goods and passengers between the Vienna Railway Station and the Petersburg and Terespol railway stations across the Vistula. This was in order to circumvent the Russian authorities, which prevented the construction of a railway bridge for strategic reasons. In 1880, a second line was constructed with the help of Belgian capital, this time intended as public transit within the city. Now there are nearly 30 lines.
The flag of Warsaw is yellow at the top, red at the bottom. The flag is derived from the city's coat of arms, which features a syrenka (or "little mermaid") in a red field. The mermaid has a sword and shield because the legend of the Mermaid of Warsaw legend states that the mermaid decided to stay after stopping on a riverbank near the Old Town. Fishermen noticed something was creating waves, tangling nets, and releasing their fish. They planned to trap the animal, then heard her singing and fell in love. A rich merchant trapped and imprisoned the mermaid. Hearing her cries, the fishermen rescued her. Ever since, the mermaid, armed with a sword and a shield, has been ready to help protect the city and its residents
The Pyongyang Metro is an engineering marvel, Supreme Leader! The stations, and even trains, are far superior to those in America.
Thank you dear Supreme Leader for always blessing us with fascinating facts and your impressive knowledge, in pretty much every single video I watch too.
@@face_thereality Yeah !! Sure !!
Thank you Kim for this funfacts.
Where was the mermaid in 1944, oh supreme leader?!
I've never even wished for video about Warsaw(thought the city wouldn't be interesting for you at all). But now that you did it you can't imagine how happy I am!
Škoda is a well experienced manufacturer of all kinds of motor vehicles as well as electromechanical parts. Their trams are quite reliable and are used all over Europe, predominantly in the east for historical reasons (Slovakia, Czechia, Poland, ...), but also in Helsinki and soon also in multiple German cities.
btw. you might even have been unknowingly using Škoda equipment in Toronto: they built the wheel-hub motors for the first batches of Bombardier Cityrunner/Flexity trams.
Also, it's worth to mention that the Tram Skoda (which also did trolleybuses and trucks in the past) is a completely different company to the car Skoda :-)
@@orys in one moment in history it was one company. It was before WWII. Original name for car producer was Laurin&Klement. Then in 20s became part of Škoda's group. That's why the same name.
@@orysskoda still does trolleybuses to this day
Pesa trams are better. Made in Bydgoszcz, Poland
One things I wish would be the same in Montreal after living for few years in Warsaw is ZTM providing transport far from Warsaw border. I remember going to Czersk castle that is around 40 km from Kabaty(end of M1 not far from edge of city) by Warsaw public transport.
Have lived in Warsaw for ten years and didn't appriecete the public transit much. Your video makes me think how we should appirciete what we have and not be angry about what we dont. In Poland there is a kind of inferiority complex, Polish compare themselves to the west and feeling worse but they dont have to. They are equally good in some arees and even better in some areas :)
Warsaw's transit really is very good, and has improved greatly in ten years.
Prawda w większych miastach robimy
Warsaw public transportation is absolutely f’n great. Lived there for 5 years and could get to any point with hardly ever more than one transfer and that’s if I had to get from one edge of the city to the other. Warsaw is not a particularly small place but the efficiency of the transportation services makes it seem like a medium sized town and it really contributes to the high quality of living.
Nie zapomnij o korkach
@@realdragon to jest wideo o transporcie publicznym, metro ani tramwaje nie cierpią na korki
Love all your videos! Small tip: The diacritic above the S in Škoda (called a haček) changes the sound into an "sh". Also, weirdly, the czech word škoda in common use means something like "what a shame!" or "too bad!"
In Poland nobody actually pronounces it with Š, even in official commercials, despite we know what does haček do
@@thedoczekpl Oh interesting! I wonder how Austrians and Germans pronounce it.
@@thedoczekpl Most people in Poland don't actually know what hacek does. But it's true that even those that do know, pronounce Škoda with the regular S. The Polish word "szkoda" (sz being more or less equivalent to š) also means "what a shame!", "too bad!", but also "damage".
@@vedahlubinka-cook3152well, how it's written of course - Skoda. That is, with an S.
Only a few insiders say it correctly.
In Polish it means the same so we pronounce it as "skoda" because it's less funny for us 😂
The Warsaw metro is freaking incredible; its clean, its safe and there are even free CLEAN BATHROOMS, they have really nice connections. In general all of Warsaws transport is really good. The only problem are places outside of Warsaw, if you live in a village and want to travel often your only viable option is the car
i believe that the new škoda metro I saw in february in Hulín, Czechia being transported via train to the north so either it was on transport to Warsaw or to their factory in Šumperk. However it's great looking train. Škoda is also present in the US with their trams in Portland I believe.
I think it's also worth pointing out that we have a winter themed metro that is used during the Christmas season! I believe it's only one car, so it's always a joy to stumble upon it. I've also seen people specifically wait for it to take pictures. It's a small thing really, but cute and amazing nonetheless.
Skoda's vehicles are really reliable, look at the trams we have in Helsinki and Tampere running at -20 to -30 degrees in the harsh winter conditions with no problem 😁
Yes, also I believe part of their newer development is done in Finland..... So maybe that´s why....
I want some for Toronto!
I ❤️ Skoda Trams!
Yes, but they are actually made by Škoda Transtech which specializes in harsh winter conditions so maybe they aren't fully comparable to other Škoda trams.
Wait til you hear about Pesa trams
Also very worth noting is the fact that apart from the oldest trams and some rail stations not directly managed by the city, Warsaw's transport is very accessible, every metro station is step free directly from street level onto the platform, often with multiple lifts also from the fare gate level
I love Warsaw’s transit! Also, as an Edmontonian it was interesting to learn our west end LRT will have Korean rolling stock. Canada Line vehicles are made by the same company too. 🇵🇱
I have absolutely NOTHING against the Ceska SKODA vehicles !!!!
Wow Warsaw is beautiful! Also those Skoda trains look super gorgeous.
Great video! Here's the things I like and dislike about warsaw that you didn't touch on too much:
I like how a lot of the stations are well connected with each other but in some places warsaw lacks crucial connections that can make the whole system feel sluggish (for example, choosing not to connect the M2 line with the Warszawa Toruńska train station, which would only require one more station and make commuting on the SKM trains even better), or as you mentioned, no subway going directly to the central station.
I think the bike infrastructere is quite good, there is bike lanes on a lot of the bigger streets but they are often disconnected from each other or cut off at certain points, you have to learn and adjust your routes every time if you want to avoid cars, though they are constantly making more bike lanes and this issue is being worked on.
Warsaw is generally a good city for pedestrians but it also feels very much consumed by cars, there is very few pedestrian only roads outside of old town and we have a HORRIBLE culture of cars parking partially on the sidewalk that can block people on wheelchairs or with strollers, It also could do with some traffic light priority, making 10 people wait at a stop light so 5 cars can pass always makes me a litty angry on the inside.
I love the rentable bikes, they are incredibly cheap, scatterred all throughout the city and very reliable, only complaint is that they aren't availible all 12 seasons of the year.
On another note, I really love the old tram and subway models and i think they should keep operating them until they start becoming unreliable. They have an incredible character to them and the seats on the old soviet era subways are the most comfortable seats in any public transport vehicle I've been in. Don't fix it if it ain't broke.
It's nice to hear such praise. I don't live in Warsaw, but I work there and I commute to work by public transport and by bike... both of these systems are well-built.
I really appreciate the kind words about skoda my friend actually designs its trams And its nice to see a recognition from the world. I really love the new skoda varsovia trains too. Nevertheless why wont u cover more europien cities for example my hometown Prague. Because the public system is really great with a lot of new important projects comming up. I live here And i can go from one side of the city to another under 45 minutes the tram And metro network is extensive with new metro line being build right now And new subueban park And ride oriented train Infrastructure. I might provide some first person experience from here
One thing I can say about those Skoda metro trains is that they’re incredibly quiet. Especially compared to these old, loud soviet trams that are still in use - inside them you can’t even hold a conversation with a friend while in transit 🥲🥲🥲🥲 also one more thing you should include are the “park and drive” carparks! I use them quite often as I live in the suburbs and parking in the city center is expensive and rather stressful. They’re not perfect and we definitely need more of them, but it’s still a nice addition to our system.
Anyway this video was very interesting to me, living in Warsaw all my life I thought these things are a standard and took them for granted 😅
the distance to the metro station from the central rail station isnt that big of a deal since you can just hop on the tram for 1 stop
Worth noting is that although having great metro, tram and S-train system, almost half of transit ridership comes from the busses! As stated on official WTP website, they count up to 48%! That means that big numbers not always come with single high-capacity corridor, but with an extensive network.
Also, Warsaw has a very specific urban layout having an orthogonal street grid in the city centre and long straight roads throughout most of the left-bank part. In Poland, only Łódź have a similarly extensive grid, while other cities have more random-organic layout.
wroclaw is definitly radial it even had cilcular tram line for long time (recently the cancel it）
Miło posłuchać jak za granicą tak dobrze mówią o Polsce :)
*o Warszawie :)
@@Nitfluad ta nwm co bez wawy i katowic bysmy mieli za zdanie :)
@@Ragekander666 A Wrocław?
Tylko czemu o Warszawie skoro Wawa jest do dupy is są tam duże korki
@@realdragonW porównaniu do amerykańskich miast gdzie ich wybitni architekci robią plan miasta w kratkę to warszawa to dla nich cud nad Wisłą
Love your videos, Reece. Looking forward to you covering trams in Budapest, Prague, Amsterdam because I am a little biased towards trams 🙂
Glad you love that their airport is named after Chopin as much as I do! It's quite fitting for Poland to name their main airport after their greatest gift to the music world! My favorite Frédéric Chopin fact is how he published his first piece at just seven years old! By the time he was eight, Chopin had performed in public for the first time at a charity event. Before his public debut, he had played at private parties by invitation. A few years after his initial public appearance, Chopin played for Alexander I, the Russian tsar. His work was also noticed by the Russian grand duke, Constantine. The composition Chopin wrote at age seven, Polonaise in G Minor, was adapted for Constantine’s military band to play in a parade.
Poles are definitely people that have been through so much. But through it all, they remain proud people, proud of their achievements and cultural spirit, and keep moving forward. And this can be seen with Warsaw's transit. That despite the obstacles, Warsaw still got a Metro system! In the Polish national anthem, Poland Is Not Yet Lost written in 1797, it is expressed that the idea of a Polish nation had not disappeared as long as the Poles endured and fought in its name. When Chopin was on his death bed, he asked his caretaker Delfina to sing the Polish national anthem. Well, when it comes to pushing for transit projects, the idea of a new revolutionary transit project is not yet lost as long as the urbanists still fight in its name!
Wow, your comment is quite a love song to Poland - so nice to see someone from abroad being so knowledgeable and positive about lesser-known aspects of Poland!
@@AW-uv3cb Trans line is ok
Great video but I do feel like calling Warsaw, the largest city in Poland and the 6th largest in the EU, a medium City is stretching it a bit.
At least personally I’d rank them like this (based on my own local area)
*Middle of nowhere(Below a hundred):* Doesn’t really exist in my area outside of Aroostook County in Maine
*Village(couple hundred people):* Most settlements in the Green, White, & Adirondack Mountains
*Small Town(High Hundreds-A Few Thousand):* Lyme, Canterbury, Chaplin
*Mid Size Town(High Thousands):* Old Lyme, Hebron, Westbrook
*Large Town(10,000s range):* East Lyme, New Milford, Norwich
*On the border between town and city(Upper Mid 10,000s):* New London, Middletown, Burlington VT
*Small City(High 10,000s-A Few 100,000):* Portland ME, New Haven, Manchester NH
*Mid Size City (Mid 100,000s):* Providence, Pittsburgh, Buffalo
*Large City(High 100,000s-A Few Million):* Boston, Montreal , Philadelphia
*Mega City(Mid-High Millions or more):* New York, London, Paris
There are lots of cities which are significantly larger than NY London and Paris
@@RMTransit except that barring a few exceptions such as São Paulo and Cairo (none of which being much larger than New York with each having 8-11 million in the city proper and 18-20 million in the metropolitan area) are in India and East Asia, areas with extremely abnormal population density especially when compared to any other continent. And even when compared to East Asia, New York and it’s metropolitan area are not at all far behind as not only is New York the 11th largest city in the entire world by metropolitan population, but the vast majority of cities larger than it aren’t by very much fitting within the same previously mentioned 18-20 million range as New York with only Shanghai, Delhi and Tokyo going far beyond that.
Tram loops are by far the norm across Poland, except Olsztyn, which is a completely new system. Most cities do have a small fleet of bidirectional units that can be used on a line that is partially closed for maintenance.
True, but it depends on many factors and it used to be different in many places. 200m from my home (I live in Gliwice, Silesia) there used to be a "dead-end" terminus, dating back to before the II WW. Trams were bidirectional and this was not the only tram line in my city that looked like this. Sadly, our city council hated trams and got rid of them about 15 years ago, so we only have buses now. Funny enough, two years ago they started introducing electric buses with charging ports at the terminals.
Wroclaw have 2 lines with bidirectional tram to reduce cost of building loop in 2 places
@@ShadowriverUBWhich ones?
Tram loops are preferred, but because everything everywhere is being expanded and modernized at the same time, the system must be flexible and always be able to operate in a situation when some lines do not have access to the loop. And that's mainly why.
Bidirectional trams are great, even if you only have a few of them.
Łódź currently has a lot of tram lines that are shortened / redirected / suspended due to construction works.
Right before the construction site there is usually a temporary connection track placed, that allows the bidirectional trams to still operate on the shortened route
Nice video! About the metro line not being closer to the Warszawa Centralna is because Warszawa Centralna is mostly underground. Itd be tougher to build a metro station there since it would have to be twice as deep as the other ones :)
I must say, growing up in Warsaw made me really allergic to poor transit when traveling.
Thank you for a very concise and informative video about a city I have not yet visited. However you omit one crucial fact. As one local commentator points out 'about 90% of the city was destroyed in WW2, so nearly all of it dates from the 50s onwards'. That fact no doubt explains the large number of wide dual carriageway roads with segregated tram tracks down the middle. That reminds me of central Rotterdam, but with the difference that the Dutch added segregated bike tracks down the sides of the dual carriageways when they rebuilt the Rotterdam city centre.
Yes it is quite similar to Rotterdam in that way!
2:00 - the map is missing a WKD line, which itself is a funny marriage between train and team. Really good to check out.
6:00 - it is worth mentioning that this started in the 1990. The first part of the network was in construction for twelve years from 1983 to 1995, which means the pace was under a kilometer a year. The pictures from 6:50 and following clip is from the oldest part.
7:50 - there are trams on both the parts you showed, if you want to ride instead of walking. In the workday they are super frequent. Also, the local trains are stoping more east on a separate stop, which means the walk to Centrum is even shorter. Yes, there are two train stations with different names a two-three minute walk apart.
OMG I'm so happy that you finally covered my city :3
As a person who is interested in the development of transport in Warsaw, I have a few interesting facts. It is impossible to talk about Warsaw without mentioning that it was the most destroyed city in Europe after World War II. We are often compared to Prague and Budapest, but Warsaw had to be built from the very beginning. There were many more important things to build than subways. It was only in the 1990s (after independence from Russia) that we began to seriously think about building a metro. This is very important because it shows how quickly transport in Warsaw is developing - within 30 years it has been possible to build two metro lines and develop the city rail network. There is still a lot to do, over the next 30 years it is planned to build 3 new metro lines (construction of one of them will start next year). It is also planned to build a new urban railway tunnel on the north-south axis. The planned route is to cross the central station, creating a new network of connections and ensuring good access to the station. I'm very glad that you created a video about my city, thanks to it I found out about your channel. Good job
"It was only in the 1990s (after independence from Russia) that we began to seriously think about building a metro." to nie jest prawda. już chwilę po odzyskaniu niepodległości w 1918 i 1919 były dosyć poważne plany o budowie metra, a w 1939 (kilka miesięcy przed 1 września) na podstawie nowych planów z 1938 zaczęto kopać pierwsze tunele. za czasów stalinizmu też były faktyczne plany budowy metra (są nawet do dzisiaj dostepne PKFy na ten temat), oczywiście kalki niemalże jeden do jednego metra moskiewskiego, ale jednak zamiast metra Józio chciał coś większego aka Pałac Kultury i Nauki
Plany budowy metra w dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym to jedynie ówczesna polityczna propaganda. Prościej jest wymienić czego wówczas nie planowano w Warszawie niż wymienić wszystkie przedstawione projekty na jej rozwój. Mają one jedną wspólną cechę, szansę na ich realizacje były marne. Po wojnie natomiast o budowie PKiN zamiast metra zadecydował sam Bierut, nie Stalin.
Always appreciate the Edmonton shout outs! Valley Line Southeast is set to open in the coming couple of months 🤞🤞
wait did he sayid "central eurpe", good call. Also poland suffers form "capital has all the good toys" krakow, wraclaw, and tri city all deserve better trasport system but mayby in the future more will be build. I'm just a little bit sad that you did't metined anything about whole new hsr project that would made warsaw ( or city near warsaw ) basicly poland main trian station.
Funny that you said "default city" right near the start of the video as this is how some of us call Warsaw in Poland 😸
500 meters is long? 💀 I mean, sure, its not the closest but its honestly not that far away. 5 minutes walk even with a bag
Oh, didn't expect to see my city in here!
You can @ me for this, but like why are US train and metro designs look like large rectangles of aluminium sheets? Why can’t they have nice colours and livery like idk, the rest of the world???
Budd
I agree, a little color goes a long way!
I kinda dig their industrial and utilitarian aesthetic. That's probably why Europe's and America's metro trains differ so much - America likes utilitarianism, a metro system has one purpose: to move people. Everything else is irrelevant. Here in Europe we like to take things slower and consider things like design instead of focusing only on getting the job done. It's a mindset thing :)
I don't think livery is the problem. I would love a grey NYC subway train with more integrated, larger windows and outward-hanging doors as well as interior design upgrades.
Thanks for representing our part of the world:) Greeting from Poland - LODZ :) We also have lot of trams :D
and what is more interesting currently an underground trainlines are being build - Tunel średnicowy.
Nice pun, Warsaw in Poland is sometimes callled a "default city", because meany companies have their HQ there, and many events take place only there. So when no city is included in the adress you can assume it's Warsaw.
As a Varsovian I think I can add a few things: While it's true that the metro is (at this moment) a bit underdeveloped for a city this size, I agree that public transport as a whole is really good with an extensive tram network, an even bigger bus service (including routes to many satelilte towns and night buses), s-train and regonal train operating under a single ticket system (there are two zones - first is for Warsaw itself and a couple of adjacent towns). I can confirm that the bike network is quite good - though there are some holes in the network but for a couple of years now it is mandatory to design some form of bike infrastructure with every major street redesign in the city. The bike sharing system is quite good too, though I mostly use my own bicycle.
In terms of new public transport infrastructure, at the moment the last few stations of the second metro line are being built (with the western terminus) as well as a new, major tram line to Wilanów district in the south of the city.
The "just stairs" metro entrances are only on the oldest part of the system. The newer ones are actually quite more extensive overground as well as underground (many think that they're actually overdesigned and more expensive than they should be)
i tak jest u nas naprawde dobrze w kwestii metra, mieszkalam 2 lata w Toronto o ktorym mowa w filmie i wcale nie maja duzo bardziej rozbudowanych linii metra od nas (tez maja tylko 2), a mieszka tam prawie 2x wiecej ludzi. Dodatkowo ich metro jest strasznie zasyfione, pociagi jezdzace tam sa starsze od naszych najstarszych, w ogole nie ma zasiegu i jest ogromny problem z przestepczoscia. Dodatkowo dojazd do stacji z na podobnym dystansie co w Warszawie zajmował o wiele, wiele dłużej
The "just stairs" design is actually a big accessibility problem, making many nexus tram stops stairs-only by effect. The new one is a little over the top, but it's got elevators and escalators, since the 2nd line goes a little deeper in the middle.
Another thing to add that I found from looking up how to use buses and trams in Warsaw is that stopping on demand is only done in outer residential areas.
Fun fact: on daily basis there are more than 400 trams on our tracks between 4:00 AM to 1:00 AM next day.
In Warsaw there are around 1500 tram drivers I believe who work in four depots: R-1 Wola, R-2 Praga, R-3 Mokotów and R-4 Żoliborz.
Subjectively, those new Škoda metro cars feel even smoother to ride than the German-made Siemens. On the contrary, new Hyundai trams have tiny seats and a nasty smell inside (like a cheap dye). You might also mention the role in transit of the regional KM-trains and WKD (Warszawska Kolej Dojazdowa) - kinda a small S-bahn.
i even have a soft spot for the old Russian cars. besides feeling old, there is nothing wrong with them.
I'm really happy to see Warsaw's transit system get some appreciation! Because it is a really good system and it always seems like other cities with bigger metros like Prague or Budapest are always taking the spotlight.
What I would add is that tram system is not only really expansive, but it's constantly growing as well with two really large routes under construction right with new being announced to be built all the time.
hello reece. i think you should look on public transport in brno (czech republic). brno is not a big city (2nd largest in czech republic) with its 400 000 inhabitants but it has over 70km of tracks and 11 tram lines that strech over the whole city. the tram system is made to connect all city parts to the city centre where there are the main transit transfer stations. also trams in brno are going every 4-6 minutes in peak periods.😉
I studied in Brno for some weeks a decade ago. With a tram stop on one side of my student's hostel and trolleybus stop on the other side, I was using the public transport extensively, also to explore the city.
Brno, on par with Helsinki, has the best public system of all of the cities I ever lived or at least spent a considerable amount of time.
wow! i am so happy that you like our public transport! and exactly what you sad, public transport coverage in brno is awesome.
I find it really funny that you consider Warsaw to be a mid-sized city with extraordinary public transport. For American standards that might be true. But if you compare it to Germany, only two cities are larger than Warsaw: Hamburg and Berlin. Yet, most cities that have 500 000 or more inhabitants have great public transport with subway/LRT hybrids, S-Bahn and busses.
Hamburg not anymore. So only Berlin.
@@kacpersuski4459 Source? All sources I've found still list a slightly higher population for Hamburg, but it is close. I guess Warsaw might win out if you count all the Ukrainian refugees that are currently there.
We are having Škoda trams for many years now (like around 10 years at least) in Prague and they are treating us really well
As a Varsovian visiting Rome i was shocked that the metro was only once per 15 minutes in the rush hours and only till 11pm. Its unthinkable after living in Warsaw with metro every 2mins
2:44 Trams per capita or public transit seats per capita should be one of many transit oriented measures of a city’s quality.
Also transport frequency, time difference when compared to travelling by car/bike/scooter/foot, convenience and number of transfers, integration of different modes of transport...
@@nejmsornejm2973 Yes, there are many additional attributes that can be added. Good transit systems also need good urban and regional planning, good travel connections to outside the greater metropolitan area too.
Being in Toronto you will know how the TTC are making the citizens of St Clair Avenue West suffer for an entire year without the streetcars. The buses are a very frustrating substitute because they are too small and get caught in traffic! I had a frustrating day 😢 Even the Sheppard line closing down at peak period today caused turmoil that buses cannot make up for.
Yay first view on this wonderful video!
Thanks for watching early!
@@RMTransit no problem I love your videos and I wached some around 30 times already. There just so great!
the major new tram line is being constructed close to my home, it hurts to commute now because if it, but it will get better next year, when the trams finally will operate here
As a Warsaw resident, I can say that this is all accurate. :D
Wonderful video, keep it up.
7:13 i absolutely LOVE the 1980s design of alstom metropolis
7:24 there were problems with skoda trains at first, but as far as i know they're pretty reliable right now
Really interesting video. I actually visited Warsaw earlier this year (and really liked it).
And while as a "transit professional," I observed various detail things of its transit while using it. As a 'European urbanist', it didn't register much. Of course, Warsaw has a functional transit system. It's a city of 2-3M and its nations capital.
You literally get no "urbanism points" for that. It's simply a requirement. If you don't have that as a reasonably sized city, it's basically cause for being disqualified.
I mean, even smaller cities here like Gorzów Wielkopolski or Opole have very decent public transport, but when it comes to regional or even commuter transport in more rural areas (in eastern Poland in particular) it's, to put it lightly, not good. unless you don't live by a fairly busy rail line or in a bigger city, you're usually out of options except for the car
Warsaw is a great city, and easy to get around. Amazing considering its destruction 80 years ago.
love this!! as a polish person I LOVE trams:) theyre the best, very comfortable, on time, can hold many people. traveling through warsaw was a pretty chill experience so i can agree with your video fully.
Visited Warsaw month ago for a few days. Our country transit is developing fast and catching up western europe. I went there by what we consider fast train here (200 kph) with direct connection from 120k people city 300 km from Warsaw. Rail will be upgraded to 250 kph soon. Transit in Warsaw is really good, as I was staying in city center, did not need to use metro even once, but trams and buses were great. That is good, because you don't need to use stairs. From the other side, city is very car centric. Sidewalks are narrow and cars are allowed to park on them. Parking spots painted everywhere besides Old Town. Bike infrastructure is not so good comparing to even other cities in our country, but I understand that americans can find it fine. About metro plans: there is line 3 planned that is commonly known that it should be tram line, not metro as ridership will be small, but for some reason authorities insist on metro solution. Transfers will not be so great at lots of stations in currently planned solution, because it was not taken into account when designing existing lines. Warsaw is known to have good transit, but also current president failed to meet his premisses of lowering car traffic in the city. Cars are everywhere, on every sidewalk, and there are a lot of, what we considere here, wide highways across the city. Best example of not meeting his premises is Puławska Street. It is "modernized" road, that has 3 car lanes in every direction, no bike infrastructure, cars parked on sidewalks, taking space from pedestrians. There are things that work good and bad in the city, however it was fun to visit it.
Agreed. Visited it a week ago, and I don't understand how car centrism of this city wasn't mentioned. Poland is a very conservative country, and you can see that in how uneven the city design is. Almost like it's a fight between car owners and transit riders.
Perhaps what could help is increasing bicycle traffic, which would not only displace a lot of car trips but also a lot of local transit trips.
There's something to be said about how Eastern Bloc countries built wide streets and squares, which can accommodate a number of different modes of transport construction, including light rail and underground heavy rail.
For sure, though they are also quite imposing as a pedestrian!
Altough in Poland, Warsaw is a very specific city. Rebuilt from the rubbles after the WW2, a huge part of it was redesigned into a modernistic and social-realism way. In other cities, that weren't that heavily destroyed, there's much more space scarcity (Kraków especially).
@@kbieniu7 but in the meantime Kraków has a really great tram network and doesn't have those ugly "stroads" or "urban highways" in the middle of the city. There are plenty, but not in the historic center. So, you can build a good and reliable transit network even if you don't have those wide soviet-style streets
Definitely hyper modern for the 50s and 60s..!
@@SnarkOrelBut there are also downsides: traffic jams in Kraków are really massive, much worse than in Warsaw.
Make about Prague transportion
3:50 We had a simmilar issue here in Stockholm when our A35 and A36 trams had a serious brake related issue, which made some traffic become either fully closed down or having to rely on older trams, or even being forced to reuse some older heritage trams in commercial service ,to keep some traffic rolling.
Im not saying that we should only use older rolling stock as the only rolling stock, i rather see that we keep some units as backup for when more modern trams for example, break down in a simmilar way and still holding up the traffic and not having to rely fully on packed to the brim replacement buses
(which are sadly the standard way of dealing with similar issues here)
Seems to be that newly introduced rolling stock regularly has teething issues that have to be resolved before it becomes good (or is determined to actually rate as the manufacturer failing their obligations and gets replaced entirely, as I belive does sometimes happen), so even if all the old trams are to be replaced at the same time bya new, single design across the whole network, it seems like the old ones should be kept in the depot/some sort of storage yard for a couple of years as backups against such problems, and only got rid of once it is well established that the new ones are doing the job well and have no significant issues. And even after that you might want to keep a Few of the old ones around as a 'just in case' backup for edge case issues (though one would hope that the people in charge of such things would have thought ahead enough to have several more of the new model than they 'need' so that service can be maintained as various units are pulled for refitting or the like... but with everything coming up for refitting at once, well...).
@@laurencefraser yeah
Northern Europe has been adopting a lot of the practices leading to transit troubles in the Anglosphere, as frequently covered by Alon Levy!
Pretty good for a city LITERALLY flattened by Germans in the 40s. Everything had to be rebuilt.
Greetings from Tricity in Poland
In my city we also have a mix of 81-717 and Siemens Inspiro trains. And we recently ordered 8 new metro trains from Skoda, too!
Sofia?
Is your city Sofia by any chance?
@@BorIlovar Yep!
@@mewosh_ Yes, exactly!
@@nickzach Amazing system!
Every time I see pictures of Sofia metro it seems like a negative of Warsaw metro because of the colors lmao
Here in Poznań we still have a lot of old trams and whenever I see that I have to ride one Im sad cause its all rusty and dirty inside, once the brakes even overheated so much they were smoking which kinda looked like the tram was on fire and we had to get out of it and wait for the next one.
But cannot blame the city cause there is like 18 routes plus lots of bus routes.
"The city isn't all that big, with around two million residents..."
That's still almost four times the population of the entire *country* that I live in. 🙂
Poland is an interesting country. They elect questionable politicians (at least, those people who bother to go and vote), but the growth of its economy, combined with the defence spending (not entirely surprising, given the circumstances), means that the balance of power in Europe is shifting east, towards Warsaw. They have some interesting trains as well, and they're doing a better job than the Germans - although arguably, that's not putting the bar particularly high.
The iron curtain came down over 30 years ago, yet there's still so little footage about central and eastern Europe, so this video is more than welcome.
It’s impressive having in mind that in 40s Germans systematically destroyed 90% of the City
Good to see some video about transport in middle european city. Make also video about Prague and Budapest please 😊.
Very interesting, Reece! Thank you
You should also talk about the transit in KL. It's not the best but it's pretty good
Video coming soon!
I like comparisons and made one particular myself and would beg you to do one professionally:
How it is that Prague, CZ (central Europe) has similar city area as Philadephia, USA and even similar number of inhabitants, yet "Philly" is a car centric hell with really bad public infrastructure and Prague was voted the 2nd best public transit system in the world last year.
I thing it has to do something with amount of rolling stock in streets, number of lines, intervals, speed, fare prices and reliability of the system, but would really love to see your take on the matter.
Please? :)
Can you make a video about public transit serving a national park or having park access in general? I wish I do not have to drive to a park to get away from the city.
I talked a bit about rail access to parks in this video!
th-cam.com/video/DzX6Ga9asxQ/w-d-xo.htmlsi=YOvpeYkf384BHSv_
Streetcar companies in the US used to sometimes build parks in order to promote off-peak travel on their lines. Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, WA is an example. The pagoda building there was originally a streetcar station, and the circular driveway in front of it was originally a balloon loop for turning the streetcars around at the end of the line.
Variety in tram and bus types also has the benefit of being able to pick appropriate vehicles for certain lines. For long and very crowded lines double length busses can be used, and for short or rarely used lines single-carriage trams or those little busses are employed.
Lovely to finally see my city on your channel :D Our transit system, considering our GDP and population is actually really good! I personally don't own a car and commute only with public transport and bike (ocasionally uber). This is a case with quite a big % of population here, especially in younger and retirement age demographic. Still, there are some places that need to be improved, but steadily system is getting better.
One thing that I would add to your video is that Warsaw also has massive bus system which is actually a backbone of the entire system, most buses are articulated 18 meters long ones and 162 buses are fully electric. We have two ticket zones - zone 1 for whole city and zone 2 for neighboring towns.
Another aspect is prices - Warsaw has very cheap tickets, the cheapest of all big polish cities. Full price 75 minutes ticket costs just around 1$ and monthly ticket costs around 25$ which makes public transit so much cheaper than driving with your own car.
7:47 With heavy bags you can go by tram to the metro station. It is just one stop and a lot of people choose this way.
Nice to see a video on Warsaw. I guess it is also impressive to see the speed at which the public transport modernized the feet and the network. New tram tracks abe built and it will add like 12 km on new routes. The metro is under construction on the M2 and another line will see begining of the construction in coming year or two. The regional rail network is also something that supports the city as I know people who depend on it and it allows them to live like 10-15 km out of the city and live comfortably thanks to on time performance and frequent timeschedule.
as a somewhat frequent user of the regional / urban rail in warsaw, i can tell you that "on-time performance and frequent schedule" are the worst words to describe our suburban trains, they ride sometimes just once every 30 minutes, and they get majorly delayed like every day
@@pafawag5b6b5b My friends use WKD so maybe that's why. KM has its own problems recently due to the West Station Construction.
@@qmam ah wkd, that's a completely separate thing as it does not use the mainline network anywhere so it can be independent from the other regional train lines
I visited Warsaw last year and I don't know polish or anything about the country and taking transit there was very easy and cheap
There are videos of about every tram line in Warsaw, and I admire the system. Although it may be a trifle dated, it all looks exceptionally clean, and everything, including the signals, seem to work well. Most lines have an exclusive right of way and don't have to mix with cars except at intersections.