I've lived my whole life in the US and proud to say I've never owned a car. From the money I saved, I was able to buy a house in 2015. I live in a city where I can walk, bike, or take public transportation to everything I need, including healthcare. At this point my living expenses are so low I'm semi-retired in my mid-40's. Although it's doable, it takes an exceptional resolve to live the lifestyle I have in a sea of blind consumerism, and unfortunately can't recommend it to everyone because there is certainly an intense alienation that comes with it.
thank you for your perspective. im thinking of quitting my job and becoming a bus driver or rail conductor in chicago. i think i would find more fulfillment in moving people around my city
The reason people focus more on the cities is because there is less hope for change in American suburbs. I grew up in those suburbs outside of D.C. I've seen a lot of ugliness come from those residents when it comes to changing anything, especially if it involves touching their precious cars that they are always stuck in. Those people won't change and the area won't change until they are replaced, which could take generations. But there are millions of different people and interests in cities and sometimes they find each other and create something wonderful. To find someone who shares your values is a blessing so I can see why city people dwellers look for others like them in similar places.
Good point on "owning a car" and "using a car". Yes, Europeans also own a lot of cars (mostly one per household), but they don't use them all the time. If you drive to the bakery on a Sunday, people will laugh at you - this is seen as "stupid car-brain". Americans are expected to drive to a metro station - this is ridiculous for Europeans. Driving to a major station and then take a long distance train happens; but not this nonsense.
Growing up in England I just accepted that anywhere you go you can find a metro or train station, to go anywhere you want. And if you can't get there by train or metro then a bus will be along in a minute. I now live outside London, but is it really outside? I takes me an hour to get into the centre of London. Like many people I don't have a car because we never did anything with our car except take it out for a drive on Sunday to keep the battery charged up. Our town is a 15 minute town, or where we live a 5 minute town. I takes me 5 minutes to walk to the shops, or small medical practice/library/theatre/movies/swimming pool/gym/concert hall. Going to America it was amazing that the public transport was so run down and low class, or in some cases non-existent. A recurrent theme in YT videos of North Americans visiting or moving to Europe is how easy it is to get around by public transport.
I will add that in Warsaw you showed only one railway line (WKD), which is a separate system. In addition, there is also the SKM (Fast Urban Railway) running on regular railway tracks, transporting people from the suburbs to the city. And many city bus lines.
Living in Warsaw, I'd say it is really a Bus and Tram city more than anything. In terms of ridership in 2023, buses are almost half of all public transit in the city and they connect all of the suburbs and outskirts comprehensively. Second in ridership is the tram network at around 25% - it's more compact and limited to city proper with few lines going a bit further out to nearby dense suburbs. Metro only comes in third, but its ridership is pretty high for the size of the system. Various local trains (WKD you mention, SKM network and local parts of regional lines of Masovian Railways) constitute mere 6% or so of ridership, but they are quite important as they serve places which are halfway between far-flung suburbs and outright separate cities.
Even tho US suburban land use is abysmal, they typically consist of housing, a mall, grocery, and the tiny walkable hipster downtown that floods with cars on weekends. Just connect those 4 things in the burbs with transit and I think there's potential
Any interesting and thoughtful clip. Really enjoyed it. I'd like to add another dimension to it by comparing some history of transit and the structure of cities in Europe, the USA and Australia. My upbringing was mainly in Sydney and Brisbane, with lots of familiarity with Melbourne, and to a lesser extent with Adelaide and Perth. They are all substantial cities between about 1+ million to 5+ million people each. They are all comparatively low density, with suburbs extending widely. I live about 30 Km from the traditional centre of 'harbour' Sydney, and in my case the suburbs extend another 20--25 km past that point. Sydney is comparable in area to Greater London or New York, though with far less people, but in many ways they are culturally closer to American cities than those in Europe. I've visited Europe multiple times, notably Germany, and their cities immediately struck me as being 'different'. They ranged in sizes, but were often denser, and the line between the edge of those cities and true countryside was often very abrupt. In major cities, the rail systems had three distinct levels - a metro system serving the centre, a commuter system serving the suburbs and longer distance services connecting to their cities. The rail stations in many cities were also much larger than seemed necessary for the demand. Why was that? My Masters is in History and so I gravitated to history for possible reasons. - Very quickly I noticed that this pattern seems to have evolved from a. long history of having to defend communities. City and town boundaries were often defined by defensive features (like rivers) and defensive structures (like walls). The denser cities were often a product of that history. - Things like the Paris Metro, the German U-bahns and similar in other countries seem to reflect 'transport within the walls'. - The reason for the large stations (particularly in Germany) seems to be because of their historical vulnerability to attack from several directions. An attack from the east, followed by an opportunistic attack from the west, meant railways were partially designed to enable large numbers of troops and supplies to defend one side of the country, then quickly move them to defend the other side if needed. The big stations and comparatively fast tracks were designed to be able to load, move and offload divisions of troops in short order. - When many of those cities ultimately expanded beyond the 'wall's' a different rail system was needed. Hence things like the RER, S-bahns and the like; often (at least initially), using the same corridors as the inter-city lines. - All of that is very broad brush, but I hope I've captured the typical scene. There is little equivalent to that in Australia and the USA. Our cities and towns have not been under fairly constant threat of imminent attack over centuries. That doesn't mean there are not 'military' reasons for some of their structure. The US Interstate Highway system is famously designed for military use in emergencies (and based on the purpose and design of Germany's autobahns). The N-S transcontinental railway from Adelaide to Darwin was at least partially designed to enable reinforcement and supply of the military in the more vulnerable north of Australia. A high proportion of airports in Australia were constructed in WW2 (specifically in 1942) to provide Australian and US bases during the Pacific War; with many later being developed into city and regional airports. In Australia, rail systems were developed mainly to transport rural produce to local and export markets. These corridors extended out through areas around Sydney, sometimes not far (within 100 km) into surrounding farmland (fruit, veggies, milk, etc.), and sometimes across mount ranges deep into the countryside (sheep, cattle, wheat, timber, minerals, etc.). The train lines were comparatively slow and curvy, and infrastructure was modest; but it could easily compete with 19th century bullock drays on rough unsealed roads. When roads improved, cars and trucks took over, leaving country train services as fairly basic and slow. But that didn't happen in the cities. Until the 1960s, the traditional centre of 'Harbour' Sydney was virtually the only place for serious business, shopping and services. As the city grew in population, it followed the existing rail lines described, connecting nearby towns and villages that were soon electrified to become the basis for suburban expansion and commuting. - You can still see strong traces of that, even in the attitude that 'everything has to connect to the traditional centre' that often persists despite the development of substantial suburban centres, capable of providing the old 'inner city services'. Western suburban Sydney (far from the harbour) now has a greater population than the rest of the city 'back East'. - There is an argument that Sydney and Melbourne were probably the first cities in the world to develop true 'commuting', with S-Bahn-like lines converging into an inner city area, sharing inner tracks to form metro-like frequencies in the central business district, with ticketing designed for people to easily get to and from work, and take recreational trips on weekends. - The system was inspired by the London Tube and the New York subway, but is a hybrid system not like them in character at all. (Trivia: Two underground stations in Sydney, 'St James' and 'Museum' are even styled to look like their NY subway and London tube inspirations respectively, in deference to that.) - The other big shaping force in Australian transport is that each state has one big capital city with the majority of that state's population, with comparatively few people in other towns and rural areas. The state governments therefore played a much bigger role in governing city transport than in, say, most American cities. And those states actively competed with each other to make themselves look like the real leader, in almost anything. - As cars became more common, development started to occur beyond suburban rail reach, but it still dominated, and lines were expanded, duplicated and built up to carry more passengers as demand grew. Public transport was, at least in part, seen as a way of moderating the demand for more and more road infrastructure. It would certainly play 'second fiddle' to roads but it was never closed down, in the manner of say, in Los Angeles. - However, Sydney and Melbourne differ strongly in one way. Melbourne kept its (world's largest) tram (street car) system, whereas Sydney got rid of theirs (at times larger than Melbourne's). One of the reasons is curious; Melbourne has better roads. It is a comparatively flat city with a mostly grid structure, often wide European-like boulevards, and with parallel service roads to main routes, in which trams and cars could co-exist fairly well. - Sydney is totally different. It is often hilly, its street are random, its main roads are narrower, and it's divided by a huge harbour with its of inlets creating complex systems of ridges and gullies. Trams competed with road traffic on narrow and winding streets to the increasing annoyance of drivers. Trams were 'old fashioned', and cars were seen as the future. However, Sydney now has 3 new light rail lines, with another close to completion - but that's a whole other story. Your clip indicates you've done a lot of keen observing and thinking about transit and how it's done in various places. If you are familiar with RM Transit's clips, I'd agree with him that Australia is probably a more relevant model for ideas for urban transit in North America (and I'd certainly be looking at Canadian and Central/South American systems as well). Not that they are exactly like the US situation, but they are probably closer to US needs and solutions than European or Asian systems that evolved in often quite different environments. The above is not to claim Australian transit is superior, but just that it might whet your appetite for another interesting source of relevant options.
Thanks for the insight. As someone from North America, I have trouble imagining a suburb that isn't super car-dependent. While we sometimes have heavy-rail commuter train stations in the suburb and the occasional metro station, these transit project were more or less added long after the initial suburban sprawl. Seeing how transit can serve more suburban areas is interesting as everyone (yes even suburbanites) should have access to transit.
When talking about Warsaw you can't forget to mention the trams. The network reaches most of the city and is pretty much entirely separated from the traffic making it a good alternatielve for the metro.
Yep, having a dense tram and bus network running above ground is pretty cheap and effective in moving people pretty much wherever they need to go. You do not need expensive and lengthy tunnel works to achieve that. If you're something like 5 mins away from the nearest bus stop (or tram stop for that matter) you pretty much achieve that last mile with public transit as well.
People will say it's because the US is more spread out, but we have a lot of areas in the US that are NOT spread out, especially northeast. This is what most of the east coast, and some parts of the midwest and west coast should look like
That WKD train has seen steady rise in ridership . It has risen to the point that it reached a limit of passengers it could serve. There was the final part of the line that was one track only and it has recently finished building second track so more trains could be run.
hey, you have some gaps in finding information about public transport in Warsaw and the agglomeration. Warsaw has 5 large railway stations from where you can reach the whole of Poland. many people also use these stations to commute to the city. Warsaw also has 40 suburban railway stations that go outside the agglomerations. you forgot to mention the 2 most important means of transport. the first are city and suburban buses, with a total of 265 lines and 41 night buses that serve the most passengers. the most important thing in Warsaw is a very large tram network, which covers 356 km (information from Wikipedia) and has 26 lines. I hope I helped.
Europe has discouraged the use of cars for several decades. I lived in Europe over 30 years ago and, even back then, gas was close to 400% of what you would pay in the US at the time. Also, with perhaps very little exceptions, public transportation in Europe, like high speed train, is subsidized. So if the tax gasoline, they tax cars, and subsidize public transportation using VAT rates above 20% while closing many cities to automobile traffic, what can you expect?
@@UniquelyUnseen Many of the metro area suburbs in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Philly, DC, have good transit and decent to good walkability. Not perfect but much better than the other cities in the USA. Semi-European you could say.
Still Americans on average spend more on fuel than in Europe. First they drive 50% more kms in a year (22k km) and they drive light trucks which use a lot more fuel . Al in al they spend a bit more on fuel... The vehicles themselves are cheaper ( value tax , roD tax etc ..)
May i suggest to have a second look at the images you use, as well as some of the assertions you make: the city of Ghent, ancient capital of Flanders, is located in Belgium, not the Netherlands, and is certainly not part of what is colloquially known as Randstad. The lovely photo of a pedestrian crossing clearly shows an advertisement in French, and is obviously not in Rotterdam or the Rotterdam area, but in Wallonia, Belgium. For people who actually live in these places, the difference are very relevant indeed, as essential part of their heritage and identity
literally postage stamp-sized Île-Bizard -station- halt (ever unstaffed, i.e.) smack in the middle of the River des Prairies in a far-flung corner of greater Montreal's Laval shall be a rapid transit access point to watch 👀 meanwhile, teaming Isle of Montreal 'hoods abandoned in their transit deserts (e.g., sprawling Montreal North) while Isle Bizard itself quaintly toney and ever sparsely populated, making me wonder whether the islet itself to soon be rezoned for restaurants & bars by overlording & corporately-entrepreneurial Laval....... 👀
the presumed N. American custom of office worker expected to be owners of cars more likely for industrial workers, because clusters of offices more likely to be served by transit than light or heavy industry sectors are, you see
The economics of transportation should be included, both for personal needs & infrastructure expenses. How does it make sense for someone with a car to pay high insurance rates & high fees & still take transit? Fuel premiums, parking issues, etc?
What flag is that at 5:32? Looks like a cross between Poland and Switzerland. 🙃 @10:43 that looks like somewhere an awful lot closer to Lancaster England than (fake) Lancaster PA. 🤣
@@UniquelyUnseen You're right! :-) Very similar to Switserland. I did find a few photo's that weren't consistent with the Dutch aspect of the video. That threw me off. I would like to point out that Belgium / Antwerp is not the Netherlands. Flemish is similar to Dutch though.
It doesn't have anything to do with today's options and green politics. European cities are older and in the early 20th century to make them car friendly would be to expensive because you would have to tare down entire neighbourhoods to build wider roads and it also has to do with the administrative division. Lisbon metropolitan area has 3 million inhabitants but Lisbon itself only 500 000 , because Lisbon metropolitan area is formed by completely independent towns with their own administration they all had to use the tax payers to build schools , hospitals , sports facilities and transport systems. The train line from Lisbon to Sintra today is a very busy commuters line but when it opened in 1887 it was not for commuters but for goods , for the trade between Lisbon and Sintra. I bet that the train lines and subway in Warsaw run through different towns and were built by the towns with their own Mayors and central government to connect them and not to connect suburban areas like in the USA that do not exist in Europe. What you call the suburbs of Warsaw are probably a towns with their own Mayor and administration that were founded before Colombo sailed to the Americas and couldn't grow more than 5 km without touching someone else's territory. Some of today's German commuters lines might have been built as an international endeavour to connect two different kingdoms. The administrative areas in Europe are smaller and voters want their own town to have hospitals , schools , roads , trains , shops and everything else in the USA a town could just grow and they were growing really fast when car were invented. When the first cars started to run London probably no longer had where to grow to because it was already reached it's territorial limits. Some cities in Europe saw their medieval centres tared down and became more horse carriage friendly like Lisbon due to 1775 earthquake or Paris because Napoleon decided to tare down medieval Paris and build a more horse carriage friendly capital city but if in Lisbon , Paris or Warsaw they had the money and the space to build car friendly cities like in the USA they would have done it. Napoleon III because he had stolen wealth robbed from Portugal to Russia built an 8 lines street for horse carriages in the beautiful gardens of the Champs Elysees in 1855.
You kindly get this backwards a bit... Europeans in the suburbs in general have a much lower standard of living than Anericans. They have much smaller living spaces, much less privacy, much less fancy cars (if they can own car at all). American infrastructure is built to serve Americans who like to have gigantic single family homes, big yards, big cars, trees and lawns. Now... Is it absolutely necessary for Americans to live like that? No, it breaks down social connections and wastes huge amount of resources, but you need to convince them that European dreams are better than American dreams.
Thank you for providing your feedback. I really appreciate it. Maybe I could do a whole video on transit and social mobility, I think you’re right, but people in suburban European towns have less opportunity than their urban center peers, but from my perspective, their ability to move up a social matter due to transit is still possible. There are 100% other factors involved in doing that, but transit is present and the path of development in that area has not excluded from.
@@UniquelyUnseen Can I point out that a significant number of Americans no longer commute into urban areas anymore? Suburb to suburb or exurban center is far more common nowadays, which makes mass transit planning a nightmare because mass transit is intended to serve cities and their outlying areas, not the other way around.
I had much more social connection with my suburban neighbors than my city apartment ones. I don't know a single one of them now, but I knew most of my block out in the suburbs.
I've lived my whole life in the US and proud to say I've never owned a car.
From the money I saved, I was able to buy a house in 2015.
I live in a city where I can walk, bike, or take public transportation to everything I need, including healthcare.
At this point my living expenses are so low I'm semi-retired in my mid-40's.
Although it's doable, it takes an exceptional resolve to live the lifestyle I have in a sea of blind consumerism, and unfortunately can't recommend it to everyone because there is certainly an intense alienation that comes with it.
thank you for your perspective. im thinking of quitting my job and becoming a bus driver or rail conductor in chicago. i think i would find more fulfillment in moving people around my city
The reason people focus more on the cities is because there is less hope for change in American suburbs. I grew up in those suburbs outside of D.C. I've seen a lot of ugliness come from those residents when it comes to changing anything, especially if it involves touching their precious cars that they are always stuck in. Those people won't change and the area won't change until they are replaced, which could take generations. But there are millions of different people and interests in cities and sometimes they find each other and create something wonderful. To find someone who shares your values is a blessing so I can see why city people dwellers look for others like them in similar places.
Good point on "owning a car" and "using a car". Yes, Europeans also own a lot of cars (mostly one per household), but they don't use them all the time. If you drive to the bakery on a Sunday, people will laugh at you - this is seen as "stupid car-brain". Americans are expected to drive to a metro station - this is ridiculous for Europeans. Driving to a major station and then take a long distance train happens; but not this nonsense.
As for Warsaw,.you should mention the amazing tram network, which is even more accessible than the metro.
Growing up in England I just accepted that anywhere you go you can find a metro or train station, to go anywhere you want. And if you can't get there by train or metro then a bus will be along in a minute.
I now live outside London, but is it really outside? I takes me an hour to get into the centre of London.
Like many people I don't have a car because we never did anything with our car except take it out for a drive on Sunday to keep the battery charged up. Our town is a 15 minute town, or where we live a 5 minute town. I takes me 5 minutes to walk to the shops, or small medical practice/library/theatre/movies/swimming pool/gym/concert hall.
Going to America it was amazing that the public transport was so run down and low class, or in some cases non-existent.
A recurrent theme in YT videos of North Americans visiting or moving to Europe is how easy it is to get around by public transport.
I will add that in Warsaw you showed only one railway line (WKD), which is a separate system. In addition, there is also the SKM (Fast Urban Railway) running on regular railway tracks, transporting people from the suburbs to the city. And many city bus lines.
Living in Warsaw, I'd say it is really a Bus and Tram city more than anything. In terms of ridership in 2023, buses are almost half of all public transit in the city and they connect all of the suburbs and outskirts comprehensively. Second in ridership is the tram network at around 25% - it's more compact and limited to city proper with few lines going a bit further out to nearby dense suburbs. Metro only comes in third, but its ridership is pretty high for the size of the system. Various local trains (WKD you mention, SKM network and local parts of regional lines of Masovian Railways) constitute mere 6% or so of ridership, but they are quite important as they serve places which are halfway between far-flung suburbs and outright separate cities.
Thank you for sharing all this information. I really appreciate it.
Even tho US suburban land use is abysmal, they typically consist of housing, a mall, grocery, and the tiny walkable hipster downtown that floods with cars on weekends. Just connect those 4 things in the burbs with transit and I think there's potential
Any interesting and thoughtful clip. Really enjoyed it. I'd like to add another dimension to it by comparing some history of transit and the structure of cities in Europe, the USA and Australia.
My upbringing was mainly in Sydney and Brisbane, with lots of familiarity with Melbourne, and to a lesser extent with Adelaide and Perth. They are all substantial cities between about 1+ million to 5+ million people each. They are all comparatively low density, with suburbs extending widely. I live about 30 Km from the traditional centre of 'harbour' Sydney, and in my case the suburbs extend another 20--25 km past that point. Sydney is comparable in area to Greater London or New York, though with far less people, but in many ways they are culturally closer to American cities than those in Europe.
I've visited Europe multiple times, notably Germany, and their cities immediately struck me as being 'different'. They ranged in sizes, but were often denser, and the line between the edge of those cities and true countryside was often very abrupt. In major cities, the rail systems had three distinct levels - a metro system serving the centre, a commuter system serving the suburbs and longer distance services connecting to their cities. The rail stations in many cities were also much larger than seemed necessary for the demand. Why was that? My Masters is in History and so I gravitated to history for possible reasons.
- Very quickly I noticed that this pattern seems to have evolved from a. long history of having to defend communities. City and town boundaries were often defined by defensive features (like rivers) and defensive structures (like walls). The denser cities were often a product of that history.
- Things like the Paris Metro, the German U-bahns and similar in other countries seem to reflect 'transport within the walls'.
- The reason for the large stations (particularly in Germany) seems to be because of their historical vulnerability to attack from several directions. An attack from the east, followed by an opportunistic attack from the west, meant railways were partially designed to enable large numbers of troops and supplies to defend one side of the country, then quickly move them to defend the other side if needed. The big stations and comparatively fast tracks were designed to be able to load, move and offload divisions of troops in short order.
- When many of those cities ultimately expanded beyond the 'wall's' a different rail system was needed. Hence things like the RER, S-bahns and the like; often (at least initially), using the same corridors as the inter-city lines.
- All of that is very broad brush, but I hope I've captured the typical scene.
There is little equivalent to that in Australia and the USA. Our cities and towns have not been under fairly constant threat of imminent attack over centuries. That doesn't mean there are not 'military' reasons for some of their structure. The US Interstate Highway system is famously designed for military use in emergencies (and based on the purpose and design of Germany's autobahns). The N-S transcontinental railway from Adelaide to Darwin was at least partially designed to enable reinforcement and supply of the military in the more vulnerable north of Australia. A high proportion of airports in Australia were constructed in WW2 (specifically in 1942) to provide Australian and US bases during the Pacific War; with many later being developed into city and regional airports.
In Australia, rail systems were developed mainly to transport rural produce to local and export markets. These corridors extended out through areas around Sydney, sometimes not far (within 100 km) into surrounding farmland (fruit, veggies, milk, etc.), and sometimes across mount ranges deep into the countryside (sheep, cattle, wheat, timber, minerals, etc.). The train lines were comparatively slow and curvy, and infrastructure was modest; but it could easily compete with 19th century bullock drays on rough unsealed roads. When roads improved, cars and trucks took over, leaving country train services as fairly basic and slow. But that didn't happen in the cities.
Until the 1960s, the traditional centre of 'Harbour' Sydney was virtually the only place for serious business, shopping and services. As the city grew in population, it followed the existing rail lines described, connecting nearby towns and villages that were soon electrified to become the basis for suburban expansion and commuting.
- You can still see strong traces of that, even in the attitude that 'everything has to connect to the traditional centre' that often persists despite the development of substantial suburban centres, capable of providing the old 'inner city services'. Western suburban Sydney (far from the harbour) now has a greater population than the rest of the city 'back East'.
- There is an argument that Sydney and Melbourne were probably the first cities in the world to develop true 'commuting', with S-Bahn-like lines converging into an inner city area, sharing inner tracks to form metro-like frequencies in the central business district, with ticketing designed for people to easily get to and from work, and take recreational trips on weekends.
- The system was inspired by the London Tube and the New York subway, but is a hybrid system not like them in character at all. (Trivia: Two underground stations in Sydney, 'St James' and 'Museum' are even styled to look like their NY subway and London tube inspirations respectively, in deference to that.)
- The other big shaping force in Australian transport is that each state has one big capital city with the majority of that state's population, with comparatively few people in other towns and rural areas. The state governments therefore played a much bigger role in governing city transport than in, say, most American cities. And those states actively competed with each other to make themselves look like the real leader, in almost anything.
- As cars became more common, development started to occur beyond suburban rail reach, but it still dominated, and lines were expanded, duplicated and built up to carry more passengers as demand grew. Public transport was, at least in part, seen as a way of moderating the demand for more and more road infrastructure. It would certainly play 'second fiddle' to roads but it was never closed down, in the manner of say, in Los Angeles.
- However, Sydney and Melbourne differ strongly in one way. Melbourne kept its (world's largest) tram (street car) system, whereas Sydney got rid of theirs (at times larger than Melbourne's). One of the reasons is curious; Melbourne has better roads. It is a comparatively flat city with a mostly grid structure, often wide European-like boulevards, and with parallel service roads to main routes, in which trams and cars could co-exist fairly well.
- Sydney is totally different. It is often hilly, its street are random, its main roads are narrower, and it's divided by a huge harbour with its of inlets creating complex systems of ridges and gullies. Trams competed with road traffic on narrow and winding streets to the increasing annoyance of drivers. Trams were 'old fashioned', and cars were seen as the future. However, Sydney now has 3 new light rail lines, with another close to completion - but that's a whole other story.
Your clip indicates you've done a lot of keen observing and thinking about transit and how it's done in various places. If you are familiar with RM Transit's clips, I'd agree with him that Australia is probably a more relevant model for ideas for urban transit in North America (and I'd certainly be looking at Canadian and Central/South American systems as well). Not that they are exactly like the US situation, but they are probably closer to US needs and solutions than European or Asian systems that evolved in often quite different environments. The above is not to claim Australian transit is superior, but just that it might whet your appetite for another interesting source of relevant options.
Thanks for the insight. As someone from North America, I have trouble imagining a suburb that isn't super car-dependent. While we sometimes have heavy-rail commuter train stations in the suburb and the occasional metro station, these transit project were more or less added long after the initial suburban sprawl.
Seeing how transit can serve more suburban areas is interesting as everyone (yes even suburbanites) should have access to transit.
In France the suburbs have mostly bad or slow public transit, hence why we are a car centric country (80% of people go to work by car)
When talking about Warsaw you can't forget to mention the trams. The network reaches most of the city and is pretty much entirely separated from the traffic making it a good alternatielve for the metro.
Yep, having a dense tram and bus network running above ground is pretty cheap and effective in moving people pretty much wherever they need to go. You do not need expensive and lengthy tunnel works to achieve that. If you're something like 5 mins away from the nearest bus stop (or tram stop for that matter) you pretty much achieve that last mile with public transit as well.
People will say it's because the US is more spread out, but we have a lot of areas in the US that are NOT spread out, especially northeast. This is what most of the east coast, and some parts of the midwest and west coast should look like
The capability exists. They just haven’t done it.
That WKD train has seen steady rise in ridership . It has risen to the point that it reached a limit of passengers it could serve. There was the final part of the line that was one track only and it has recently finished building second track so more trains could be run.
hey, you have some gaps in finding information about public transport in Warsaw and the agglomeration.
Warsaw has 5 large railway stations from where you can reach the whole of Poland. many people also use these stations to commute to the city. Warsaw also has 40 suburban railway stations that go outside the agglomerations.
you forgot to mention the 2 most important means of transport.
the first are city and suburban buses, with a total of 265 lines and 41 night buses that serve the most passengers.
the most important thing in Warsaw is a very large tram network, which covers 356 km (information from Wikipedia) and has 26 lines. I hope I helped.
Europe has discouraged the use of cars for several decades. I lived in Europe over 30 years ago and, even back then, gas was close to 400% of what you would pay in the US at the time. Also, with perhaps very little exceptions, public transportation in Europe, like high speed train, is subsidized. So if the tax gasoline, they tax cars, and subsidize public transportation using VAT rates above 20% while closing many cities to automobile traffic, what can you expect?
Thank you so much for sharing your perspective.
@@UniquelyUnseen Many of the metro area suburbs in NYC, Chicago, Boston, Philly, DC, have good transit and decent to good walkability. Not perfect but much better than the other cities in the USA. Semi-European you could say.
Still Americans on average spend more on fuel than in Europe.
First they drive 50% more kms in a year (22k km) and they drive light trucks which use a lot more fuel . Al in al they spend a bit more on fuel...
The vehicles themselves are cheaper ( value tax , roD tax etc ..)
May i suggest to have a second look at the images you use, as well as some of the assertions you make: the city of Ghent, ancient capital of Flanders, is located in Belgium, not the Netherlands, and is certainly not part of what is colloquially known as Randstad.
The lovely photo of a pedestrian crossing clearly shows an advertisement in French, and is obviously not in Rotterdam or the Rotterdam area, but in Wallonia, Belgium.
For people who actually live in these places, the difference are very relevant indeed, as essential part of their heritage and identity
Please consider doing a video on radburn New Jersey
literally postage stamp-sized Île-Bizard -station- halt (ever unstaffed, i.e.) smack in the middle of the River des Prairies in a far-flung corner of greater Montreal's Laval shall be a rapid transit access point to watch 👀 meanwhile, teaming Isle of Montreal 'hoods abandoned in their transit deserts (e.g., sprawling Montreal North) while Isle Bizard itself quaintly toney and ever sparsely populated, making me wonder whether the islet itself to soon be rezoned for restaurants & bars by overlording & corporately-entrepreneurial Laval....... 👀
the presumed N. American custom of office worker expected to be owners of cars more likely for industrial workers, because clusters of offices more likely to be served by transit than light or heavy industry sectors are, you see
The economics of transportation should be included, both for personal needs & infrastructure expenses. How does it make sense for someone with a car to pay high insurance rates & high fees & still take transit? Fuel premiums, parking issues, etc?
What flag is that at 5:32? Looks like a cross between Poland and Switzerland. 🙃
@10:43 that looks like somewhere an awful lot closer to Lancaster England than (fake) Lancaster PA. 🤣
The flag is for one of the towns within the Randsrad- I believe Utrecht
@@UniquelyUnseen almost. it's the flag of the province utrecht
Laughing at the USA...from Australia 🇦🇺
What for?
@@starventure fun
@@radicallyrethinkingrailwaysina Laughing for fun? Ok, what else do you do in your bedroom alone?
@@starventure I think they're being tongue in cheek because Australia suffers from a lot of the same issues of car dependency
@@starventureyou are in 2024 you know why. You can’t be THIS dense
a metro is indeed no metro (subway, tube) if it not pass some actual countryside though 💡💡💡
Speaking about the Netherlands and Dutch people while displaying the Swiss red & white flag. Please edit! 😇
This is the flag for the account ofUtrecht
@@UniquelyUnseen You're right! :-) Very similar to Switserland. I did find a few photo's that weren't consistent with the Dutch aspect of the video. That threw me off. I would like to point out that Belgium / Antwerp is not the Netherlands. Flemish is similar to Dutch though.
Why this red white flag with the Netherlands ?
The flag is red white blue ...
It doesn't have anything to do with today's options and green politics.
European cities are older and in the early 20th century to make them car friendly would be to expensive because you would have to tare down entire neighbourhoods to build wider roads and it also has to do with the administrative division.
Lisbon metropolitan area has 3 million inhabitants but Lisbon itself only 500 000 , because Lisbon metropolitan area is formed by completely independent towns with their own administration they all had to use the tax payers to build schools , hospitals , sports facilities and transport systems. The train line from Lisbon to Sintra today is a very busy commuters line but when it opened in 1887 it was not for commuters but for goods , for the trade between Lisbon and Sintra.
I bet that the train lines and subway in Warsaw run through different towns and were built by the towns with their own Mayors and central government to connect them and not to connect suburban areas like in the USA that do not exist in Europe.
What you call the suburbs of Warsaw are probably a towns with their own Mayor and administration that were founded before Colombo sailed to the Americas and couldn't grow more than 5 km without touching someone else's territory.
Some of today's German commuters lines might have been built as an international endeavour to connect two different kingdoms. The administrative areas in Europe are smaller and voters want their own town to have hospitals , schools , roads , trains , shops and everything else in the USA a town could just grow and they were growing really fast when car were invented.
When the first cars started to run London probably no longer had where to grow to because it was already reached it's territorial limits.
Some cities in Europe saw their medieval centres tared down and became more horse carriage friendly like Lisbon due to 1775 earthquake or Paris because Napoleon decided to tare down medieval Paris and build a more horse carriage friendly capital city but if in Lisbon , Paris or Warsaw they had the money and the space to build car friendly cities like in the USA they would have done it.
Napoleon III because he had stolen wealth robbed from Portugal to Russia built an 8 lines street for horse carriages in the beautiful gardens of the Champs Elysees in 1855.
You kindly get this backwards a bit... Europeans in the suburbs in general have a much lower standard of living than Anericans. They have much smaller living spaces, much less privacy, much less fancy cars (if they can own car at all). American infrastructure is built to serve Americans who like to have gigantic single family homes, big yards, big cars, trees and lawns.
Now... Is it absolutely necessary for Americans to live like that? No, it breaks down social connections and wastes huge amount of resources, but you need to convince them that European dreams are better than American dreams.
Thank you for providing your feedback. I really appreciate it. Maybe I could do a whole video on transit and social mobility, I think you’re right, but people in suburban European towns have less opportunity than their urban center peers, but from my perspective, their ability to move up a social matter due to transit is still possible. There are 100% other factors involved in doing that, but transit is present and the path of development in that area has not excluded from.
@@UniquelyUnseen Can I point out that a significant number of Americans no longer commute into urban areas anymore? Suburb to suburb or exurban center is far more common nowadays, which makes mass transit planning a nightmare because mass transit is intended to serve cities and their outlying areas, not the other way around.
I had much more social connection with my suburban neighbors than my city apartment ones. I don't know a single one of them now, but I knew most of my block out in the suburbs.
FALSE stop spreading misinformation you can read right?
@@txquartz BRT Is great for suburbs