10 Busiest Streets in North America: Streets in the US, Canada and Mexico That Carry the Most People
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 พ.ย. 2021
- In previous video's we've looked at the busiest bridges and the biggest interchanges -- this week's time to look at the busiest streets in the US, Canada, and Mexico. And by busy we don't mean the most vehicular traffic. No, we want to know which streets have the most people-moving capacity, whether it's by subway, bus, bike, or car.
It turns out the busiest streets in North America are mostly the ones that are home to some of the busiest subways in the world. We'll look at some of the most crowded subways in the US and Mexico, some of the most frequent buses in the world (BRTs with dedicated lanes), and we'll see some great multimodal streets with protected bike lanes, too.
Streets we hit along the way include New York's Broadway, Queens Boulevard, Lexington Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Eighth Avenue, Chicago's Loop, Toronto's Younge Street, San Francisco's Market Street, and Mexico City's Insurgentes, Chapultepec, Zaragoza, and San Antonio Abad.
Come along for the journey and find out which street moves the most people!
Other CityNerd vides referenced in this video:
- Ginormous Interchanges: • Top 10 GINORMOUS Freew...
- Freeway-Light Cities: • The Most Freeway-Light...
- Busiest Bridges and Tunnels: • Busiest Bridges and Tu...
- Urban Aqueducts: • Top 10 Urban Aqueducts...
The Transportation Research Board's Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual: www.trb.org/Main/Blurbs/16943...
MTA's schedule for the 6 train: new.mta.info/document/9456
Links to articles:
"The Boring Company proposes tunnels in Austin and San Antonio," by Maria Merano for Teslarati: www.teslarati.com/elon-musk-t...
Photo Credits:
New title roll: Video by IRVING AGUILAR from Pixabay
Taxis: Image by Richard van Liessum from Pixabay
Mexico City Metro map: By Fluence - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Mexico City Metro line symbols: By Sofree and Andreuvv - Own work, CC BY 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
NYC Subway Image by By Metropolitan Transportation Authority - MTA Timetable, extracted with FontForge on 10 June 2019., Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Metrobus logo By Gobierno de la Ciudad de México - Metrobús, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
PATH logo - By Dream out loud - Extracted from www.panynj.gov/CommutingTravel..., Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
Thumbnail New York image: Image by nathany from Pixabay
Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (TH-cam music library)
Twitter: @nerd4cities
Contact: nerd4cities@gmail.com - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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!
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!
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!
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.
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 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.
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. ^^
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
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 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 chilled out energy you bring, do more North America stuff!
Yes I’m interested in learning more about Mexico (City). You’ve increased my knowledge and respect for that place a lot.
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.
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!
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.
Five days later, you're at 8k subscribers! As an urban design nerd, seeing you talk about Mexican cities is really refreshing 🙏
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!
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).
The way you speak in your videos feels so genuine, just found your channel tonight but im already a fan!
Love these transportation nerd channels. Glad yours is growing exponentially! Keep it up!
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.
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.🤣
"you don't build a 17 lane freeway" - Toronto be like, we did!
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)
Glad to say I was here before 1k subscribers, can’t wait to see you reach 10 billion next year!
I would love to see a dedicated Mexico City video!
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
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?
Congratulations on 10,000,000,000 subscribers!
I just found your channel and it is awesome, you should make a video about BRT in North America
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 your channel, greetings from México
Love you, City Nerd, and love yet more evidence that my home town, NYC, is still amazing!
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!
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)
I'm eagerly awaiting your top 10 lists for the other continents
Yes I would love to see more Mexico City content
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!
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.
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.
great video
Great video. I have become a huge fan of your channel. Keep the awesome content coming.
I was thinking maybe you could talk about the cities that took advantage of the empty streets during Covid to renovate and expand the cycling infrastructure. For instance, in Mexico City bicycle lanes popped out of nowhere throughout the city.
Preemptive congrats on 10 billion subscribers!
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.
Please do a video on Mexico City! 😁🇲🇽🙏🏻 Cheers from a Mexican viewer, and I wish you the best!
Mexico City video sounds awesome! Do it!
Congratulations on 10 billion subscribers!
Great channel. 100k subs prediction by mid next year
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!
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)
Nice video!
Thanks!
Yup!
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.
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.
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!
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 happened upon your channel and I love it. I live in the Chicago metro area and I'm definitely a city need as well.
I'm shocked that you had just over 4k subscribers around 1 year ago. Congratulations on your progress.
I love that 72nd st station. It reminds of of going to The Beacon.
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
fascinating...
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.)
Yes, more Mexico City, please.
i love this videos!!! keep talking about cdmx
Yes to more Mexico City content.
Please do more CDMX videos! It is criminally ignored by US Urbanists. We can probably learn more from them than Paris or Copenhagen
Loving the NY DF cage matches
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.
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.
Would be interested in a part 2 of this video which only looked at the surface. Epic BRT vs LRT battle!
Insurgentes Sur by a mile! (I think.) Broadway in Vancouver up there.
I'd vote more more CDMX content, yes please.
Intresting.
Nice!
Question: do you have any guideline/handbook/manual about on street transit corridors creation/build?
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 I am interested in more Mexico city insight.
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!
Please moooooore México city content, I lovd your perspective
I want more Mexico City content!
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
Indios verdes is actually the correct translation per google btw. El caminero is the walker. Or walkway.
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)
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.
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
As much Mexico City content as you can stand please!
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.
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
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.
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.
Nice frame the one showing on the wall. From Mexico, I guess?
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!
maybe you could do a video on the best or your favorite examples of transit oriented developments
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!
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.
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