Me gusta que realmente se haga visibilidad a los 3 países de América del Norte y no solamente hablar de Estados Unidos o Canada porque son países en que se habla inglés. El urbanismo de México es realmente interesante!
Como estadounidense concuerdo, es mejor que nos veamos como una región unida que comparte este continente, además de los videos se ve muy claro que el transporte público en EEUU tiene mucho que aprender de eficiencia en CDMX Un saludo
Found your channel a couple of weeks ago and I am glad you make these comparisons including the three North American countries, because you can see the similarities and the aspects unique to each country. It's refreshing to see my country standing next to the big North American nations, and not just as curios or for cheap "dangerous tourism" videos
C.U.M. zone is the best and greatest. Lots of love for our brothers to the south I really believe the Mexican people have some of the greatest values and embody a North American spirit. If they can sort out the crime and corruption there’s no limit to the ambition and work ethic of the Mexican people.
@@zinedinezethro9157 what do you mean bro I’m pretty sure C.U.M. Zone is the official UN designation. Hopefully one day we can replace NAFTA with the C.U.M. Zone alliance.
I would love to see a top 10 north american universities by train accessibility. Something similar to the stadiums video where you look at commutes to downtown and back. Also, congrats on all the new subscribers!!
I would love that! I know Concordia University in Montreal would rank pretty high as the metro station is literally under the building and you can just get off the train and be inside and at your class in no time… quite an incredible location that first attracted me to want to study there even if I didn’t end up going there…
NYC would be well represented in that list. NYU, Columbia, etc. Would also think Boston would be up there with the T and all the colleges. Philadelphia perhaps (Penn, Temple, Drexel, etc.
Columbia, George Washington, Harvard, Boston College, NYU, UW, UChicago, Penn, and Drexel all have really good rail connections, and that’s just the US. I’d be surprised if Canada and Mexico didn’t have their own large lists, and even more surprised if I missed some US universities that are super well-connected
The Mexico City iconography was created because until very recent times, a huge amount of the population was not able to read or write, therefore they could locate the stations by their drawing. Nowadays that is not necessary anymore but is now like a tradition so we decided to keep it. Great video as always!
Mexico City's transit scene is vibrant and innovative. The city just inaugurated a program of aerial trams linking the city's mountainous neighborhoods to the subway system. They are building a new interurban system connecting Toluca with Mexico City and one in operation to the northern suburbs. A new one will connect the new airport to the city. It's amazing to see so many modes of transit on one street all given their own dedicated right of way. That's what "complete streets" are supposed to look like, something not very well executed in the US except on short segments of a few blocks here and there. The city has "CETRAMs" which are Intermodal Transit Centers around the city where multiple modes come together for fast and easy transfers, including regional and national bus lines. Mexico's national bus lines are the preferred mode of national travel and the first class lines are exceptionally modern and luxurious with full services.
I took an ETN bus in from the north to Autobus Terminal Norte. We don't have buses like that in the US, we don't have bus stations like that in the US, and we don't have subways that connect to bus stations the way Line 5 does. (Well, maybe the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan.) Incredible stuff.
I was very much pleased to find this channel. It’s good to know there are others out there that like the nerdy urban planning stuff I am into. Keep up the good work. I’d love to see a video about Mexico City.
Thank you CityNerd, great channel! I'm now subscribed. Very glad to see Mexico included! Fun facts: [14:57] The iconography from Mexico City's metro serve an actual purpose, back in the 60's there were still analphabet population so the pictures help them to locate the right station. The usage was preserved and now you can find icons in all the Metro stations in the country. [9:39] "Indios Verdes" , or "Green Indians" station is named after two old bronze (greenish) statues of Aztec Emperors that were located nearby the station
Just went on a vacation to Mexico City and I can confirm there is nothing that even comes close to how busy those streets get. It’s amazing how good you have to be at driving there
Light rail is definitely interesting as it’s popping up in many places bug is at the same time not a cheap option. So it would be interesting to see maybe some candidate cities!
Thank you for your videos! They are really interesting and I love the straight analysis. I laughed about your comment on really wide freeways. We have the 401 in Toronto, which is the busiest highway in North America. It’s 18 lanes at its widest point, but it’s not functional, because it’s still a parking lot during rush hour.
I was really holding out for a last minute switch up with Houston as number one /s. That being said, a video about Mexico City transportation insights sounds awesome.
I LOVE CDMX Metrobus! And Insurgentes is one of the greatest roads in the world. The glorieta at Insurgentes and Av Chapultepec and the spaces surrounding it, are some of the most vibrant urban spaces I have ever encountered.
I'm with you. It's one of those places where you feel like you're at the center of the world momentarily. I feel that way at Union Square in NY, too...but maybe that's just me.
I have whiplash now. Thanks for the great video on NYC/Mexico City people moving dominance If only we could have more express tracks elsewhere in North America - one can dream!
Love the creative video ideas, and that you include Canada and Mexico! One suggestion that I think would be cool... Maybe add a thumbnail photo of the city that you're about to talk about instead of the photos of Paris. If not, then maybe something a bit more generic. Awesome videos though!
I'd love to hear more about CDMX! I feel like as an american, I know surprisingly little about it, and I'm always surprised to hear new things about it and refreshed to hear things about it other than that it's a crime infested slum, Mexico City deserves more love from transit nerds like us
I don't want to sugar-coat it, but I took the metro and BRT, and walked, to lots of different parts of the city, not just the "nice" ones (Roma Norte, Condesa, etc), and I never felt unsafe. It's a bit like NY in that there are just people everywhere all the time. Your mileage may vary, but I think it's a very affordable and mind-expanding place for a US-based city lover to visit.
Yeah. CDMX has done a rather poor job of advertising itself to the huge tourist market north of the border. (Especially when compared to Cancun, etc.) I went for the first time in 2019 and the place just blew me away. Easily outdoes NYC in so many aspects, and I've lived in NYC for over a decade! I especially loved all the history--way more history down there than up here in the U.S. There's the indigenous history, of course, and all the ruins that come with it. But there's also colonial history--city authorities have done an awesome job conserving the huge colonial center, with the aristocratic palaces and the Old World European architecture. It sometimes felt like I was in some Southern European city. CDMX was a most pleasant surprise. I would go back in a heartbeat.
You might want to explore the second city which is Guadalajara. Everything you know about Mexico, like the sombrero, mariachi, tequila, charreria and stuff, 90% of it is actually from Guadalajara. It also has a relatively solid transit system that people like to complain about, but definitely beats the one from most US cities.
Suggestion: Top candidate cities for major transportation infrastructure projects. Considerations could include population growth, area for grow, geographic location (probably not somewhere that will be flooded with climate change), existing infrastructure, etc
First street that came to mind: Lexington Avenue. Didn't disappoint. That subway line carries more people than the _entire_ Washington Metro. I've had to let trains pass because I, and others, couldn't even get inside.
Yo idk about you guys but seeing the LexAve. Subway on no.1 released so much joy inside of me that it made all these weekday afternoons of people standing on top of me and screaming in my face worth while. 😌 Thanks CityNerd for spycing up my commute!
Interesting video! I just found your channel and I'm glad to see another urban nerd. Minor criticism: Your wording is a bit confusing/wrong as what you call a double track subway in NYC or a single track one in CDMX is actually a quad and double track respectively. A single track railway only has a single track for both directions and I was hella confused until I figured out what was going on.
I agree! I was a bit confused at first. I feel like a true single track metro would be like the sections of lines 10 and 7bis in Paris that loop, so you have stations that are only one direction. Most metros are double track, New York with quad is the exception (I think hong Kong and possibly London? also have quad track sections but not on most of their routes)
I can think of 3 subway systems that have train lines that run down the middle of an expressway. CTA, BART, and the Metro in the DMV have rapid transit that use the median. That should add some efficiency and increase capacity.
Great video but definitely worth mentioning your #1 pick, Lexington between 42nd and 125th should definitely include all the Metro North trains that run below it with stops at both the mentioned streets.
Flatbush Ave is a big miss here. It should be #1. Exactly 1 mile between Atlantic Terminal and the Brooklyn Central Library and you have the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, Q subways and lots of busses (official and unofficial)
Yay, no stroads made the list! Urban roads like number 10 are great with good pedestrian crossings+parallels and public transit (I'm used to these not accomodating bikes)
Although I don’t have a topic off the top of my head I would however love to have more in depth analyses of smaller cities and their quirks i guess… maybe their potential or planned infrastructure projects would be interesting! And have definitely loved learning about cities across Canada, the US and Mexico!
I love the Market Street shoutout! Two levels of subway and light rail with rail and two bus only lanes and a rabid bike commuting crowd! What capacity did you end up calculating?
Possible video idea: suburbs that are well connected with transit currently and have plans for further expansion. I can think of many in Canada such as the Toronto suburbs of Mississauga (BRT and LRT on the way to neighbouring Brampton which also has a BRT) and Vaughan (with BRT and subway connection); Laval and Longueuil outside Montréal; the suburbs of Vancouver such as Langley, Surrey, Delta, North Vancouver etc. Perhaps Gatineau for Ottawa which will also be connected with LRT shortly.
I just found your channel. Have you done a video on the busiest bicycle routes in North America? That might need to be measured in peak season because many in Canada slow right down in winter volume. Keep up the good work!
When I was a teen I commuted from Forest Hills to high school in the Upper East Side. I never realized that I was taking the 1st and 3rd busiest streets in North America to get there!
Hey, thanks for making these videos! They're interesting and offer great insight as to what makes cities more liveable. Topic suggestion: cities ranked by bicycle infrastructure (and maybe some quick constructive criticism of the dishonourable mentions).
Thanks for showing us that urban-related content creators can be successful at all ages - I was planning on stopping youtubing at 35, looks like I'm able to go longer than that
I just found your channel, and I love the topics of these videos. Infrastructure nerd and a bus driver from Norway is now subscribing this channel! I would love to see this channel hit 10B.🤣
I'm not sure if it fits your interests, but it would be really cool to see a video about transit in North America's influence on gentrification :) great video as always!
That would be cool and complicated to make. I dunno how exactly it happens in the US, but in Mexico it's a slow process. Property owners slowly build up their buildings, so that poorer neighborhoods 20 years ago look get nicer with rich facades and large houses. It happens in larger streets and avenues, driving up the rent and value. It slowly spreads from the center and pushes newcomers farther away. This is why the east outskirts of MXC are bare bones and cheap.
I love your channel and your personality. The videos are focused and entertaining. I am excited to see what you post next! Btw I like how you include Mexican cities. I would consider myself above average with regards to my geography/city knowledge compared to the average US citizen but have very little knowledge of Mexican metro areas. Keep up the great work!
You should definitely make a Mexico City video. I would watch the crap out of that. After visiting three years ago, it's become one of my favorite cities over Paris and Amsterdam.
The 4 and 5 trains are on the express line and the 6 is the local. I think Lexington Avenue, which runs straight through with no junctions (unlike 6 Av, Broadway, and 8 Av), can handle 2.5-3 minute headways on each track.
Loving the channel! More! Interested to hear more about Mexico City, city planning theories and cost intensive car culture. Thanks and hoping everyone stays on the up!
One small note: the ‘single-track’ subways you were referring to are typically called double track and the ones you called double track are actually Quad-track.
I would love to see a video on the top 10 most wheelchair and ADA accessible cities in North America. this would benefit many people in dire needs of the amenities different cities offer. Maybe even do a top 10 least accessible cities. there are many horror stories of what some cities offer as accessibility. longtime watcher Please consider
I think I know one of the top 3 corridors--it's the 4,5,6 subway line between 14th Street and 59th Street in NYC. That's under Park Avenue South and then Lexington Avenue on the east side of Manhattan. Those trains are PACKED between 6:30 am and 7 am, during my normal commute. I can't imagine that the packed state of these trains lessens by the time 8 am rolls around. It probably increases tremendously. And then the traffic above on Park Avenue South and Lexington Avenue--it's crammed to the gills. Let me see if I'm right about this. :D
Yay, I was right! Though I didn't expect the packed nature of these trains to continue all the way up to 125th Street in Harlem. That's where I get off! LOL (I get on at 14th Street, usually on the 4 or 5. But sometimes on the 6 if I have the time to spare for a short 20-minute nap.)
@@CityNerd there are sites from all three countries where you can find some visitor numbers for the most well known urban parks. It might be an incomplete indicator though, so maybe judge them by the population they generally service
Before you said you were going to stack subway service, I immediately thought of Queens Blvd. Then with subway service added it was a no- brainer. Quick note: all buses in NYC will have one or a few letters before the route number. The letters designate the borough(s) and possibly service (express). The numbers themselves can duplicate across the boroughs. Jersey Transit doesn’t use letters, but the series of numbers have meaning. For a rough NYC subway count, you did fine. You could zero it in a little with IRT train cars being smaller, and IND/BMT lines may have shorter trains, but have larger cars. So the 1000/train really isn’t a bad estimate to keep the math simple.
Yeah, to really do it right you need to account for the specific rolling stock...but this video was already going long, and I wanted to keep it simple and intuitive.
@@CityNerd If you really want 10000000000 subscribers, you should make it mandatory for every baby born in this world between now and the end of the century be given an automatic CityNerd subscription or the doctor will slap the baby and make it cry. Actually, doctors already do this, the light slap, not the subscription, to get the baby to breathe on its own.
Enjoying the channel. Would love to see a video comparing some of the newly built rolling stock on N. America's heavy rail subways - some candidates are NYC's R211, Chicago's 7000, Bart's D/E, Montreal's MPM-10, Boston's new Red/Orange cars, and more. Mostly just to be want to be validated in my disappointment of Chicago's 7000 series haha.
Would be great to see a video on cities with the most underutilized infrastructure for building better mass transit. I’m thinking things like the triboro line in Brooklyn-Queens. Or other places with abandoned rail lines that could potentially help cities grow and prosper even more
The creation/design of subway maps is kinda interesting. Think the first one that resembles what we use now was created for the London Tube. Minimalist in that it strips basically all non-subway related info out.
In Guadalajara we have the López Mateos avenue, which is absolutely packed with traffic because 1.- it crosses the rich west side of the city that houses the most amount of people with a car, and 2.- it also brings those who live in the southern suburbs into the city. It also carries a lot of bus transit because it crosses the Macroperiferico BRT and the major bus hubs of Plaza del Sol and the Minerva roundabout, and it leads into downtown Zapopan where lots of people go to mass at the Basilica. I've been to most of these amazingly crowded streets of Mexico City in the video, but I still think López Martirios carries more people than all of them.
Indy is pretty bad. About 2 hours west of Indianapolis is a metro area in Illinois 1/10th the size of Indy called Champaign-Urbana. Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (the bus system for that metro) has roughly 1.5 times the ridership. 1.5 times the ridership for 1/10th the population.
Actually the line 1 of metrobús in Mexico City was originally planned to be a metro line, but since it was never built and the transit in insurgentes avenue was a mess the government decided to implement the BRT line. In peak hour the buses are extremely overcrowded but at least is functional to commute from north to south and backwards. Great video, I love to see the foreign point of view of our transit systems in cdmx
Love the videos, but I'd recommend trying to edit your intro's to be much shorter - while its nice to know how you came up methodology, it goes on so long that I sometimes switch out - just a quick bullet point run down of what you used is good enough, maybe mention any thoughts on your methodology at the end of the video (or sprinkle in the thoughts during the list)
Can you do a video on most bike friendly US cities. Most lists are extremely lacking especially in factoring in safe/comfortable bike infrastructure. Also most lists are extremely reliant on trails and not useful bike lanes(other for then being a nice trail.)
Also those lists are often just small ish college towns that have huge car- free populations, but their actual bike infrastructure is terrible. Davis CA, for example, is always selling itself as the bike Capitol or whatever but its bike infrastructure is hardly better than anywhere in the US
I haven't done much bike content yet, but I'm big on biking. The problem I have with trying to do this is it's pretty subjective and I feel like I'd need to actually visit a bunch of cities and bike them to know. Guess it's time to fire up a Patreon account!
I'm wondering how the champs Elysées would fare on that one. The trains are very small, but they run at less than 90 second intervals, and there are bus, bike, and multiple car lanes on top
@@CityNerd Yeah it wouldnt be practical to do a worldwide top 10 of this. The line 1 extension to La Défense was interestingly built to relieve congestion on the RERA, which itself had been built to relieve congestion on line 1, 20 years before
Always interesting and I commend you on your devoted hard work. ⭐️ I’d put an honorable mention Montreal. 🇨🇦. If you count parallel Ste-Catherine St (the shops) with René-Lévesque blvd (100m to the south, the cars and buses) and De Maisonneuve blvd (100m north, reserved bike route and green line metro) working as one corridor. But it’s admittedly nothing compared to Mexico City or New York.
It's only 0.6 miles long and so isn't eligible, but living in Chicago I had to know what Wabash Avenue in Chicago's Loop would be and I got: 13, 8 car Brown Line trains; 800*13=10400 16, 6 car Green line trains; 600*16=9600 7, 4 car Pink line trains; 400*7=2800 7, 8 car Orange line trains; 800*7=5600 5, 6 car Purple line trains; 600*5=3000 Plus 2 lanes of traffic ; 2000 Total is 33400
I’m curious about State Street in the Chicago loop. 1.5 miles long, only 1 train line, but it’s the city’s busiest, and the buses, oh the buses. Several locals and almost every express bus coming from the north or south sides hits this stretch in rush hour.
Great video, however I would be just as interested in seeing a top 10 that excludes subway capacity and just shows surface capacity. It would be interesting to see the most efficient uses of that limited surface space. Also, I may have missed it, but how did you get to you 500 figure for bike lanes? I could be reading it wrong but it looks like you're saying car lanes have more capacity than bike lanes? I've seen figures in the UK that say bike lanes are 5x more efficient at moving people than car lanes for a given width and figures for a 3.5m wide bike lane as high as 14000 people per hour. Your 500 seems rediculously low.
Yeah, I've had the idea of doing surface-only come up in a couple comments, so I've added it to the list. As far as bike lane capacity, I thought about getting into more discussion in the video, because it's probably warranted. It's true that the literal capacity of a bike lane is quite a bit higher than what I gave credit for (I've seen numbers similar to what you quoted), but in reality there likely isn't a single bike lane anywhere in North America that approaches even 10% of that level of utilization. My guess is, the busiest bike facility in North America is the Williamsburg Bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and it carries about 8,000 bikes -- a day. So my 500 number is just based on experience looking at data and thinking about what a likely realistic ceiling is (for the purposes of this video -- trust me, I'd love to see 5-10 thousand bikes an hour in the US in my lifetime!). Contrast this with motor vehicle lanes, where capacity is reached at peak hour regularly in basically every city in North America. You leave great comments -- always look forward to hearing from you!
Topic suggestion: Streetcars. Do with it as you wish… Streetcars vs cars New and old Scrapping of streetcars back in the day but should they come back… I guess this is similar to LRTs (also different yes) but interesting nonetheless and could they once again replace busses or should we go back to wired electric busses, or just electric battery busses but batteries are wasteful but anyways I’m rambling
Your videos are the niche content I've been looking for and lack the focus to research myself! Video idea: most vs least effective rail systems. Dallas has relatively low ridership relative to the high number of light rail miles. Seattle has a relatively high ridership relative to the low number of light rail miles. How do other systems fare?
It's a tiny little, excuse for a city in Western New York but have you seen how Rochester had a really handy yet comparatively small highway circling the city called the interloop but they recently filled it almost all in
Me gusta que realmente se haga visibilidad a los 3 países de América del Norte y no solamente hablar de Estados Unidos o Canada porque son países en que se habla inglés. El urbanismo de México es realmente interesante!
Como estadounidense concuerdo, es mejor que nos veamos como una región unida que comparte este continente, además de los videos se ve muy claro que el transporte público en EEUU tiene mucho que aprender de eficiencia en CDMX
Un saludo
El urbanismo de países latinoamericanos es interesante en general. Buenos Aires y Bogotá tienen sistemas de transportación pública muy diversos.
Found your channel a couple of weeks ago and I am glad you make these comparisons including the three North American countries, because you can see the similarities and the aspects unique to each country. It's refreshing to see my country standing next to the big North American nations, and not just as curios or for cheap "dangerous tourism" videos
fam, Mexico is also big man! 127 million, $1.07T, and 1.9M square KM! It's HUGE!
C.U.M. zone is the best and greatest. Lots of love for our brothers to the south I really believe the Mexican people have some of the greatest values and embody a North American spirit. If they can sort out the crime and corruption there’s no limit to the ambition and work ethic of the Mexican people.
@@markrogers1786 that is weirdly wrong and correct in the same time lmao
Mexico city is the biggest metropolis in the hemisphere, it would be silly not to include!
@@zinedinezethro9157 what do you mean bro I’m pretty sure C.U.M. Zone is the official UN designation. Hopefully one day we can replace NAFTA with the C.U.M. Zone alliance.
I would love to see a top 10 north american universities by train accessibility. Something similar to the stadiums video where you look at commutes to downtown and back. Also, congrats on all the new subscribers!!
I would love that! I know Concordia University in Montreal would rank pretty high as the metro station is literally under the building and you can just get off the train and be inside and at your class in no time… quite an incredible location that first attracted me to want to study there even if I didn’t end up going there…
@@jettbridger2358 I’d love that too! Same with NJIT in Newark, NJ. Subway station is right on campus and 5 minutes to downtown stop
I feel like college towns will be great too. Since they are kinda an unique category and they generally will need regional rail
NYC would be well represented in that list. NYU, Columbia, etc. Would also think Boston would be up there with the T and all the colleges. Philadelphia perhaps (Penn, Temple, Drexel, etc.
Columbia, George Washington, Harvard, Boston College, NYU, UW, UChicago, Penn, and Drexel all have really good rail connections, and that’s just the US. I’d be surprised if Canada and Mexico didn’t have their own large lists, and even more surprised if I missed some US universities that are super well-connected
The Mexico City iconography was created because until very recent times, a huge amount of the population was not able to read or write, therefore they could locate the stations by their drawing. Nowadays that is not necessary anymore but is now like a tradition so we decided to keep it. Great video as always!
Mexico City's transit scene is vibrant and innovative. The city just inaugurated a program of aerial trams linking the city's mountainous neighborhoods to the subway system. They are building a new interurban system connecting Toluca with Mexico City and one in operation to the northern suburbs. A new one will connect the new airport to the city. It's amazing to see so many modes of transit on one street all given their own dedicated right of way. That's what "complete streets" are supposed to look like, something not very well executed in the US except on short segments of a few blocks here and there. The city has "CETRAMs" which are Intermodal Transit Centers around the city where multiple modes come together for fast and easy transfers, including regional and national bus lines. Mexico's national bus lines are the preferred mode of national travel and the first class lines are exceptionally modern and luxurious with full services.
I took an ETN bus in from the north to Autobus Terminal Norte. We don't have buses like that in the US, we don't have bus stations like that in the US, and we don't have subways that connect to bus stations the way Line 5 does. (Well, maybe the Port Authority terminal in Manhattan.) Incredible stuff.
Here's a suggustion: The Top 10 North American/US cities that desperately need a transit upgrade (or transit system in general).
Yes! Like a "Cities with slam-dunk transit potential". That would be a good one!
That's pretty much every city.
@@goldenretriever6261 top 50 cities!
I was very much pleased to find this channel. It’s good to know there are others out there that like the nerdy urban planning stuff I am into. Keep up the good work. I’d love to see a video about Mexico City.
Thank you CityNerd, great channel! I'm now subscribed. Very glad to see Mexico included!
Fun facts:
[14:57] The iconography from Mexico City's metro serve an actual purpose, back in the 60's there were still analphabet population so the pictures help them to locate the right station. The usage was preserved and now you can find icons in all the Metro stations in the country.
[9:39] "Indios Verdes" , or "Green Indians" station is named after two old bronze (greenish) statues of Aztec Emperors that were located nearby the station
I was vaguely aware of the history of the iconography. Didn't know about the Indios Verdes though! Thanks!
Just went on a vacation to Mexico City and I can confirm there is nothing that even comes close to how busy those streets get. It’s amazing how good you have to be at driving there
More Mexico City content would be great! And maybe a video on light rail in North America?
Light rail is definitely interesting as it’s popping up in many places bug is at the same time not a cheap option. So it would be interesting to see maybe some candidate cities!
I'll give it some thought!
Thank you for your videos! They are really interesting and I love the straight analysis. I laughed about your comment on really wide freeways. We have the 401 in Toronto, which is the busiest highway in North America. It’s 18 lanes at its widest point, but it’s not functional, because it’s still a parking lot during rush hour.
I was really holding out for a last minute switch up with Houston as number one /s. That being said, a video about Mexico City transportation insights sounds awesome.
I LOVE CDMX Metrobus! And Insurgentes is one of the greatest roads in the world. The glorieta at Insurgentes and Av Chapultepec and the spaces surrounding it, are some of the most vibrant urban spaces I have ever encountered.
I'm with you. It's one of those places where you feel like you're at the center of the world momentarily. I feel that way at Union Square in NY, too...but maybe that's just me.
I have whiplash now. Thanks for the great video on NYC/Mexico City people moving dominance
If only we could have more express tracks elsewhere in North America - one can dream!
Love the creative video ideas, and that you include Canada and Mexico! One suggestion that I think would be cool... Maybe add a thumbnail photo of the city that you're about to talk about instead of the photos of Paris. If not, then maybe something a bit more generic. Awesome videos though!
Yeah, I'm going to rethink how I do the numbering a bit. Thanks for the feedback.
I'd love to hear more about CDMX! I feel like as an american, I know surprisingly little about it, and I'm always surprised to hear new things about it and refreshed to hear things about it other than that it's a crime infested slum, Mexico City deserves more love from transit nerds like us
I don't want to sugar-coat it, but I took the metro and BRT, and walked, to lots of different parts of the city, not just the "nice" ones (Roma Norte, Condesa, etc), and I never felt unsafe. It's a bit like NY in that there are just people everywhere all the time. Your mileage may vary, but I think it's a very affordable and mind-expanding place for a US-based city lover to visit.
Yeah. CDMX has done a rather poor job of advertising itself to the huge tourist market north of the border. (Especially when compared to Cancun, etc.) I went for the first time in 2019 and the place just blew me away. Easily outdoes NYC in so many aspects, and I've lived in NYC for over a decade! I especially loved all the history--way more history down there than up here in the U.S. There's the indigenous history, of course, and all the ruins that come with it. But there's also colonial history--city authorities have done an awesome job conserving the huge colonial center, with the aristocratic palaces and the Old World European architecture. It sometimes felt like I was in some Southern European city. CDMX was a most pleasant surprise. I would go back in a heartbeat.
You might want to explore the second city which is Guadalajara. Everything you know about Mexico, like the sombrero, mariachi, tequila, charreria and stuff, 90% of it is actually from Guadalajara. It also has a relatively solid transit system that people like to complain about, but definitely beats the one from most US cities.
@@iloveanimemidriff spainiards basically. Very european state
@@iseytheteethsnake6290 completely incorrect take. ^^
Yes I’m interested in learning more about Mexico (City). You’ve increased my knowledge and respect for that place a lot.
Congratulations on 10,000,000,000 subscribers!
Suggestion: Top candidate cities for major transportation infrastructure projects. Considerations could include population growth, area for grow, geographic location (probably not somewhere that will be flooded with climate change), existing infrastructure, etc
Five days later, you're at 8k subscribers! As an urban design nerd, seeing you talk about Mexican cities is really refreshing 🙏
First street that came to mind: Lexington Avenue. Didn't disappoint.
That subway line carries more people than the _entire_ Washington Metro. I've had to let trains pass because I, and others, couldn't even get inside.
Yo idk about you guys but seeing the LexAve. Subway on no.1 released so much joy inside of me that it made all these weekday afternoons of people standing on top of me and screaming in my face worth while. 😌
Thanks CityNerd for spycing up my commute!
Interesting video! I just found your channel and I'm glad to see another urban nerd.
Minor criticism: Your wording is a bit confusing/wrong as what you call a double track subway in NYC or a single track one in CDMX is actually a quad and double track respectively. A single track railway only has a single track for both directions and I was hella confused until I figured out what was going on.
I agree! I was a bit confused at first. I feel like a true single track metro would be like the sections of lines 10 and 7bis in Paris that loop, so you have stations that are only one direction. Most metros are double track, New York with quad is the exception (I think hong Kong and possibly London? also have quad track sections but not on most of their routes)
I would love more Mexico City content. Honestly not a place I had thought about much but this and your last video have really made it stick out to me.
I would love to see a dedicated Mexico City video!
Yes, more Mexico City, please.
Love the chilled out energy you bring, do more North America stuff!
I can think of 3 subway systems that have train lines that run down the middle of an expressway. CTA, BART, and the Metro in the DMV have rapid transit that use the median. That should add some efficiency and increase capacity.
Great video but definitely worth mentioning your #1 pick, Lexington between 42nd and 125th should definitely include all the Metro North trains that run below it with stops at both the mentioned streets.
Doesn't Metro North run under Park?
Flatbush Ave is a big miss here. It should be #1. Exactly 1 mile between Atlantic Terminal and the Brooklyn Central Library and you have the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, Q subways and lots of busses (official and unofficial)
Yay, no stroads made the list! Urban roads like number 10 are great with good pedestrian crossings+parallels and public transit (I'm used to these not accomodating bikes)
Although I don’t have a topic off the top of my head I would however love to have more in depth analyses of smaller cities and their quirks i guess… maybe their potential or planned infrastructure projects would be interesting! And have definitely loved learning about cities across Canada, the US and Mexico!
I love the Market Street shoutout! Two levels of subway and light rail with rail and two bus only lanes and a rabid bike commuting crowd! What capacity did you end up calculating?
I got 18,800 total. I do think it's the highest outside NY/CDMX.
Possible video idea: suburbs that are well connected with transit currently and have plans for further expansion. I can think of many in Canada such as the Toronto suburbs of Mississauga (BRT and LRT on the way to neighbouring Brampton which also has a BRT) and Vaughan (with BRT and subway connection); Laval and Longueuil outside Montréal; the suburbs of Vancouver such as Langley, Surrey, Delta, North Vancouver etc. Perhaps Gatineau for Ottawa which will also be connected with LRT shortly.
Yes I would love to see more Mexico City content
I just found your channel and it is awesome, you should make a video about BRT in North America
I just found your channel. Have you done a video on the busiest bicycle routes in North America? That might need to be measured in peak season because many in Canada slow right down in winter volume. Keep up the good work!
When I was a teen I commuted from Forest Hills to high school in the Upper East Side. I never realized that I was taking the 1st and 3rd busiest streets in North America to get there!
I'm eagerly awaiting your top 10 lists for the other continents
Hey, thanks for making these videos! They're interesting and offer great insight as to what makes cities more liveable.
Topic suggestion: cities ranked by bicycle infrastructure (and maybe some quick constructive criticism of the dishonourable mentions).
Thanks for showing us that urban-related content creators can be successful at all ages - I was planning on stopping youtubing at 35, looks like I'm able to go longer than that
I just found your channel, and I love the topics of these videos. Infrastructure nerd and a bus driver from Norway is now subscribing this channel! I would love to see this channel hit 10B.🤣
I'm not sure if it fits your interests, but it would be really cool to see a video about transit in North America's influence on gentrification :) great video as always!
That would be cool and complicated to make. I dunno how exactly it happens in the US, but in Mexico it's a slow process. Property owners slowly build up their buildings, so that poorer neighborhoods 20 years ago look get nicer with rich facades and large houses. It happens in larger streets and avenues, driving up the rent and value. It slowly spreads from the center and pushes newcomers farther away. This is why the east outskirts of MXC are bare bones and cheap.
Love you, City Nerd, and love yet more evidence that my home town, NYC, is still amazing!
Please do a video on Mexico City! 😁🇲🇽🙏🏻 Cheers from a Mexican viewer, and I wish you the best!
Please do more CDMX videos! It is criminally ignored by US Urbanists. We can probably learn more from them than Paris or Copenhagen
Glad to say I was here before 1k subscribers, can’t wait to see you reach 10 billion next year!
I love your channel and your personality. The videos are focused and entertaining. I am excited to see what you post next!
Btw I like how you include Mexican cities. I would consider myself above average with regards to my geography/city knowledge compared to the average US citizen but have very little knowledge of Mexican metro areas.
Keep up the great work!
The way you speak in your videos feels so genuine, just found your channel tonight but im already a fan!
You should definitely make a Mexico City video. I would watch the crap out of that. After visiting three years ago, it's become one of my favorite cities over Paris and Amsterdam.
The 4 and 5 trains are on the express line and the 6 is the local. I think Lexington Avenue, which runs straight through with no junctions (unlike 6 Av, Broadway, and 8 Av), can handle 2.5-3 minute headways on each track.
Lexington being that busy is why they built a whole other line two blocks away, which took them decades. And it's still this busy!
"you don't build a 17 lane freeway" - Toronto be like, we did!
More like a 17 lane park-way.
Loving the channel! More! Interested to hear more about Mexico City, city planning theories and cost intensive car culture. Thanks and hoping everyone stays on the up!
One small note: the ‘single-track’ subways you were referring to are typically called double track and the ones you called double track are actually Quad-track.
I hear you -- sometimes I'm just trying to figure out what's going to be the least confusing to the average viewer!
NYC generally has 10 cars on lettered lines and 8 on numbered lines (with the exception of the G and Shuttles which have less)
Not true. 1-6 has 10 cars, the 7 has 11 cars
@@tarickivey1578 true, 7 is the exception with 11 cars.
I would love to see a video on the top 10 most wheelchair and ADA accessible cities in North America. this would benefit many people in dire needs of the amenities different cities offer. Maybe even do a top 10 least accessible cities. there are many horror stories of what some cities offer as accessibility. longtime watcher Please consider
I love your channel, greetings from México
Mexico City video sounds awesome! Do it!
I think I know one of the top 3 corridors--it's the 4,5,6 subway line between 14th Street and 59th Street in NYC. That's under Park Avenue South and then Lexington Avenue on the east side of Manhattan. Those trains are PACKED between 6:30 am and 7 am, during my normal commute. I can't imagine that the packed state of these trains lessens by the time 8 am rolls around. It probably increases tremendously. And then the traffic above on Park Avenue South and Lexington Avenue--it's crammed to the gills. Let me see if I'm right about this. :D
Preemptive congrats on 10 billion subscribers!
Yay, I was right! Though I didn't expect the packed nature of these trains to continue all the way up to 125th Street in Harlem. That's where I get off! LOL (I get on at 14th Street, usually on the 4 or 5. But sometimes on the 6 if I have the time to spare for a short 20-minute nap.)
Making a top 10 urban parks would be very interesting. Judging by accessibility, integration, usage, etc. (It’s not all about size)
Love the idea, but where do I get usage data?
@@CityNerd there are sites from all three countries where you can find some visitor numbers for the most well known urban parks. It might be an incomplete indicator though, so maybe judge them by the population they generally service
More Mexico City content. How is the cycling? Cost of living? Can I live there? Because I might
Before you said you were going to stack subway service, I immediately thought of Queens Blvd. Then with subway service added it was a no- brainer.
Quick note: all buses in NYC will have one or a few letters before the route number. The letters designate the borough(s) and possibly service (express). The numbers themselves can duplicate across the boroughs. Jersey Transit doesn’t use letters, but the series of numbers have meaning.
For a rough NYC subway count, you did fine. You could zero it in a little with IRT train cars being smaller, and IND/BMT lines may have shorter trains, but have larger cars. So the 1000/train really isn’t a bad estimate to keep the math simple.
Yeah, to really do it right you need to account for the specific rolling stock...but this video was already going long, and I wanted to keep it simple and intuitive.
Love these transportation nerd channels. Glad yours is growing exponentially! Keep it up!
Cracking up that you talked about 10 billion subscribers with a straight face.
Lol ikr that was so good
It took 12 takes though
@citynerd I’m watching this at 259k; you’re 0.00259% of the way there!
@@CityNerd If you really want 10000000000 subscribers, you should make it mandatory for every baby born in this world between now and the end of the century be given an automatic CityNerd subscription or the doctor will slap the baby and make it cry.
Actually, doctors already do this, the light slap, not the subscription, to get the baby to breathe on its own.
Enjoying the channel. Would love to see a video comparing some of the newly built rolling stock on N. America's heavy rail subways - some candidates are NYC's R211, Chicago's 7000, Bart's D/E, Montreal's MPM-10, Boston's new Red/Orange cars, and more. Mostly just to be want to be validated in my disappointment of Chicago's 7000 series haha.
Congratulations on 10 billion subscribers!
Indios verdes is actually the correct translation per google btw. El caminero is the walker. Or walkway.
Would be great to see a video on cities with the most underutilized infrastructure for building better mass transit. I’m thinking things like the triboro line in Brooklyn-Queens. Or other places with abandoned rail lines that could potentially help cities grow and prosper even more
I like the concept!
I'm shocked that you had just over 4k subscribers around 1 year ago. Congratulations on your progress.
The creation/design of subway maps is kinda interesting. Think the first one that resembles what we use now was created for the London Tube. Minimalist in that it strips basically all non-subway related info out.
I love that 72nd st station. It reminds of of going to The Beacon.
In Guadalajara we have the López Mateos avenue, which is absolutely packed with traffic because 1.- it crosses the rich west side of the city that houses the most amount of people with a car, and 2.- it also brings those who live in the southern suburbs into the city. It also carries a lot of bus transit because it crosses the Macroperiferico BRT and the major bus hubs of Plaza del Sol and the Minerva roundabout, and it leads into downtown Zapopan where lots of people go to mass at the Basilica. I've been to most of these amazingly crowded streets of Mexico City in the video, but I still think López Martirios carries more people than all of them.
I would love a subreddit/forum/group about this channel to discuss nerdy stuff about our North American cities.
A discord chat room perhaps? It’s pretty straightforward
@@jettbridger2358 could be, with a video recommendation channel, and specific chats in french & spanish, and discussions
@@fidelruiz7859 that would be pretty awesome! I would really enjoy talking to other likeminded people!
Can we get a top 10 worst transit systems of 2mln+ MSA? Would love to see how terribly Indianapolis places.
Indy is pretty bad. About 2 hours west of Indianapolis is a metro area in Illinois 1/10th the size of Indy called Champaign-Urbana.
Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (the bus system for that metro) has roughly 1.5 times the ridership.
1.5 times the ridership for 1/10th the population.
The yellow line really worked for me when it was on Broadway, but once it was laid over 8th Ave it was very jarring for it to not be blue.
Actually the line 1 of metrobús in Mexico City was originally planned to be a metro line, but since it was never built and the transit in insurgentes avenue was a mess the government decided to implement the BRT line. In peak hour the buses are extremely overcrowded but at least is functional to commute from north to south and backwards. Great video, I love to see the foreign point of view of our transit systems in cdmx
Nice video, how about a video like this again but this time using Europe as a concept ? 10 Busiest Streets in Europe
Love the videos, but I'd recommend trying to edit your intro's to be much shorter - while its nice to know how you came up methodology, it goes on so long that I sometimes switch out - just a quick bullet point run down of what you used is good enough, maybe mention any thoughts on your methodology at the end of the video (or sprinkle in the thoughts during the list)
Can you do a video on most bike friendly US cities. Most lists are extremely lacking especially in factoring in safe/comfortable bike infrastructure. Also most lists are extremely reliant on trails and not useful bike lanes(other for then being a nice trail.)
Also those lists are often just small ish college towns that have huge car- free populations, but their actual bike infrastructure is terrible. Davis CA, for example, is always selling itself as the bike Capitol or whatever but its bike infrastructure is hardly better than anywhere in the US
I haven't done much bike content yet, but I'm big on biking. The problem I have with trying to do this is it's pretty subjective and I feel like I'd need to actually visit a bunch of cities and bike them to know. Guess it's time to fire up a Patreon account!
Great channel. 100k subs prediction by mid next year
I'm wondering how the champs Elysées would fare on that one. The trains are very small, but they run at less than 90 second intervals, and there are bus, bike, and multiple car lanes on top
It was tough just doing a North American version of this. That 1 line to La Defense is crazy busy though.
@@CityNerd Yeah it wouldnt be practical to do a worldwide top 10 of this. The line 1 extension to La Défense was interestingly built to relieve congestion on the RERA, which itself had been built to relieve congestion on line 1, 20 years before
Always interesting and I commend you on your devoted hard work. ⭐️
I’d put an honorable mention Montreal. 🇨🇦. If you count parallel Ste-Catherine St (the shops) with René-Lévesque blvd (100m to the south, the cars and buses) and De Maisonneuve blvd (100m north, reserved bike route and green line metro) working as one corridor.
But it’s admittedly nothing compared to Mexico City or New York.
Yes to more Mexico City content.
Most wasteful city streets in terms of being overbuilt and/or underutilized.
Same thing but downtown freeways
Good idea, maybe a most efficient land use as well
I'd vote more more CDMX content, yes please.
As much Mexico City content as you can stand please!
Would you do a video of the influence of Jane Jacobs on New York?
It's only 0.6 miles long and so isn't eligible, but living in Chicago I had to know what Wabash Avenue in Chicago's Loop would be and I got:
13, 8 car Brown Line trains; 800*13=10400
16, 6 car Green line trains; 600*16=9600
7, 4 car Pink line trains; 400*7=2800
7, 8 car Orange line trains; 800*7=5600
5, 6 car Purple line trains; 600*5=3000
Plus 2 lanes of traffic ; 2000
Total is 33400
I was hoping someone would do that!
I’m curious about State Street in the Chicago loop. 1.5 miles long, only 1 train line, but it’s the city’s busiest, and the buses, oh the buses. Several locals and almost every express bus coming from the north or south sides hits this stretch in rush hour.
I really thought Reforma would be here, anyways, nice video man
is there a subway on Reforma ? Just busses and cars won't get you in the top 10.
@@ab-ky2rj damn you're right hahahha, there are some stations but no line goes parallel to it
I showed the double decker Metrobus 7! But yeah, no metro line.
Great video, however I would be just as interested in seeing a top 10 that excludes subway capacity and just shows surface capacity. It would be interesting to see the most efficient uses of that limited surface space. Also, I may have missed it, but how did you get to you 500 figure for bike lanes? I could be reading it wrong but it looks like you're saying car lanes have more capacity than bike lanes? I've seen figures in the UK that say bike lanes are 5x more efficient at moving people than car lanes for a given width and figures for a 3.5m wide bike lane as high as 14000 people per hour. Your 500 seems rediculously low.
Yeah, I've had the idea of doing surface-only come up in a couple comments, so I've added it to the list.
As far as bike lane capacity, I thought about getting into more discussion in the video, because it's probably warranted. It's true that the literal capacity of a bike lane is quite a bit higher than what I gave credit for (I've seen numbers similar to what you quoted), but in reality there likely isn't a single bike lane anywhere in North America that approaches even 10% of that level of utilization. My guess is, the busiest bike facility in North America is the Williamsburg Bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and it carries about 8,000 bikes -- a day. So my 500 number is just based on experience looking at data and thinking about what a likely realistic ceiling is (for the purposes of this video -- trust me, I'd love to see 5-10 thousand bikes an hour in the US in my lifetime!). Contrast this with motor vehicle lanes, where capacity is reached at peak hour regularly in basically every city in North America.
You leave great comments -- always look forward to hearing from you!
Loving the NY DF cage matches
Every time I watch a video on this channel there’s over 1000 more subscribers, and I only found this channel a couple weeks ago
Topic suggestion: Streetcars. Do with it as you wish…
Streetcars vs cars
New and old
Scrapping of streetcars back in the day but should they come back…
I guess this is similar to LRTs (also different yes) but interesting nonetheless and could they once again replace busses or should we go back to wired electric busses, or just electric battery busses but batteries are wasteful but anyways I’m rambling
Your videos are the niche content I've been looking for and lack the focus to research myself! Video idea: most vs least effective rail systems.
Dallas has relatively low ridership relative to the high number of light rail miles. Seattle has a relatively high ridership relative to the low number of light rail miles. How do other systems fare?
This idea is scoring very high in my rating system 🤓
I guess it's because Seattle is much denser than Dallas
It's a tiny little, excuse for a city in Western New York but have you seen how Rochester had a really handy yet comparatively small highway circling the city called the interloop but they recently filled it almost all in
maybe you could do a video on the best or your favorite examples of transit oriented developments
Every one planning on moving from NYC to Mexico City raise their hand.