Why don't more U.S. cities have metro systems like New York?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- The subway was my favorite part of living New York. The New York subway has more stations than any other metro system in the world (472), meaning I could just pop up just about anywhere in the city and live there entirely without a car. It was great. When I moved away, I couldn’t help but wonder - why do so few U.S. cities have subways?
Resources on this topic:
How Much Does Rail Transit Cost to Build and Operate:
www.thoughtco....
Urban Densities and Transit: A Multi-dimensional Perspective:
www.its.berkele...
Loo, B. P. Y., & Cheng, A. H. T. (2010). Are there useful yardsticks of population size and income level for building metro systems? Some worldwide evidence. Cities, 27(5), 299-306.
Video sources:
- Videoblocks.com
- Archive.org, Prelinger Archives
Photo sources:
- Flickr user A Diamond Fell From the Sky
- Flickr user Atomic Taco
- Flickr user Canadian Pacific
- Flickr user Ian Fuller
- Flickr user Michael B
- Flickr user Michael Semensohn
- Flickr user Paul Sullivan
- Flickr user Susanne
- New York MTA
- Oregon Department of Transportation
- Trimet
- Virginia Department of Transportation
Filmed in sunny Sacramento, California.
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Oslo has a metro system and there are barely 5 million people in all of Norway. I think you underestimate the cultural impact.
verdiborsen Very well said.
True. if you look at the paper he cites, it's specifically connected to the idea of the benefit versus the cost, which is a much different calculus in nations like Norway than in America, since Norwegian taxes provide a greater per-capita return than in America.
Too many minorities
True, but most of Norway's population live within 25 miles of the coast, if I am remember correctly. The U.S has a lot of people everywhere, and it's simply not cost efficient.
@@solar3013 where they live according to coast dosent matter when you look at the norwegian map.....
but i get ur point
Americans = having a car is freedom.
Europeans = not having to have a car is freedom.
That's the problem right there.
Germans: Having a car is freedom, not needing it is freedom, too. Still take the car because going fast is fun and we have no speed limit on a good chunk of our highway network xD
Both are true.
I wish people would realize driving is so far from freedom. you have to sit for hours, acutely aware of your surroundings and risking your life nearly every other ride
I lived in Europe for about a year and wished I had a car. I loved the transit of Prague, but there were times when a car would have been useful too.
America having a car that's stuck in traffic is not freedom.
Man, I really love metros. And I do not know why.
So do I
You should visit Taipei, Taiwan.
Same here
So do i
Same here bro
also New York is one of the few transit systems that is truly 24 hours
@@earlaweese,
Cities transit systems optimized only for 9-5 work force force their citizens into that time window
Cities are having major problems as they grow., eventually at some point it will become impossible (or not economical) to have a system that can support the simultaneous commuting of a day time workforce.
But it is selected lines after dark.
@@flip1sba at lease you have something after dark
@@flip1sba like London
Not any more...
The limit of 5 million inhabitants is insane.
Stockholm has less then 1 million inhabitants (and only 1.5 million in the urban metropolitan area), yet operates a metro line with 100 stations over 7 lines, with new stations and a new line under construction. Not to mention cities like Oslo, Vienna, Milan and Munich that operate subway systems of a similar size (around 100 stations) on population significantly smaller than 5 million.
Clearly, what matters is population density, not total population.
Kristian Jörgensen .Is it underground?
48 of the 100 stations are underground
It's even more insane if you picture that there are just 4 Cities of that size or above in Europe (London, Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Istambul) but there are lots of systems. (Germany 4, Italy 6, France 6 ...)
Martin Neumann paris has 2.4 million inhabitants on 50 square miles and a metro area population of 12.5 millions.
5.23 million riders in the metro everyday.
And the metro has 16 lines, not 6.
4 more are planned.
There is also the regional train and many light rail systems.
Europe is different than North America though. These numbers play out perfectly in Canada as well where the only cities with a Metro are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. All about 5 million people and the largest cities in Canada. Cities with 1 million people like Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton etc. have light rail systems. Another major factor is there is very infrequent passenger rail transit between cities as most people fly or drive on the highways or take a coach bus. Many city light rail lines don't even go to the airport so a bus is needed. The distance between major cities can be very large as well and the outlying communities on the edge of cities or communities outside city limits often have very limited public transit. Rail in Canada and the US is used far more for freight than for passengers.
Well, Bilbao (Europe) has 350.000 inhabitants and a metropolitan area of less than a Million; and it has 3 metro lines and moves 92million rides per year! I think America loves cars too much to put a 5million limit
@Alquan Its a city in Spain.
@Alquan Ofcourse I knew you looked it up. But it will be easier for someone else whose looking through these replies.
Bilbao Spain! I have family from there!
Ekain Munduate how dense is Bilbao?
@@flip1sba according to Wikipedia Bilbaos density is 8300/km2 (22000/sqmi)
After living in Japan experiencing public trains and railways, I cannot stop thinking about why the U.S. doesn't have them. IT'S SO MUCH MORE CONVIENIENT.
Here's the thing, buildings, shops, and houses are built a lot closer together because there's no wasted space on gigantic parking lots. It's all close enough to walk to. And you would build everything around a train station or transportation hub.
I hate cars. I hate all these roads we're building and wasting space on. It's expensive to own and maintain a car. We could build so much more residential areas and parks. Then housing prices wouldn’t be so ridiculously expensive as they are now. >:(
Metros are good for urban areas but seen as the US is mostly suburbs and farms we need the freedom to go directly where we need to whenever we need too. Also people like their privacy when traveling. Public transportation tends to be quite filthy as well
The only Metro areas in Japan with True Metros are the Kanto MMA, Keihanshin, Chukyo, Fukuoka-Kitakushu, Sendai, and Sapporo. of those, only Sendai and Sapporo are below what city Beautiful says is required for a Metro.
What matters even more is walkability, even towns in Japan that have limited or no rail connection are still walkable. Especially on alot of the smaller islands
@@krypticunlimited6925 it’s filthy because there’s no funding for it. If we funded and supported more of it it wouldn’t be filthy and faster and better that’s facts.
cause ppl are not open to new things and want to sit in their cars
Charge 75 percent more for riding The metro. Use some of the money to clean the Metros. Plus expand the systems. People driving pay a bunch in gas taxes. Plus a lot of city’s have a wheel tax. Not to mention the amount of money city’s get from parking tickets. Also the amount of sales tax you pay buying a car.
Washington DC got its metro system when local activists opposed the building freeways into and around its urban core. The funds appropriated for those freeways were transferred to build the metro.
glad that happened...I hate to think how much worse DC traffic would be if there were more highways going into DC.
Yet the management of DC's metro system is considered poor by most measures. They're still trying to complete the Silver Line out to DC's major international airport Dulles almost 60 years after the airport opened. The real issue is location of work. Where did Amazon choose to build their offices in the DC area? Right across the river from DC rather than in the outer suburbs or a smaller city further out that would give one of those smaller (lower cost of living) communities a chance to grow and have traffic move away from the city instead of towards it every day.
@@jimzecca3961 Dulles airport opened in 1962. The first 4.5 mile segment of the Metro opened in 1976. The last segment of the originally planed 103 system opened 2001. The extension to Dulles airport was shown as future on the 1968 planning map and was not added to that planning map as part of the system until 2002.
@@SandBoxJohn Thanks for the additional info.
I'm so glad DC rejected urban highways.
Stockholm:
City with 1 million people, not very dense at all
We got a metro with 7 lines, tram, a hecc of a lot of busses, commuter trains, and more.
I think it relies way more on cultural significance.
It is a capital. I live in Novosibirsk, 2 million, very dense, we have metro with 2 lines.
No it's 2 million inhabitants. 1 million metro rides per day.
@@grumpiesttitan7930 I want to promote russian channel on Urbanism, I see you all do the same. Varlamov He travels across the world and speaks what is good and what is wrong, you can switch english subtitles.
Stokholm is dense. It's very small.
@@valeriucore4613 that's probably why Russian cities are so polluted...I live in Hamburg, close to 2 million inhabitants, also densely populated, 13 lines, many many stations and 3 more lines that are currently planned or under construction. And Hamburg is not(!) a capital city...but Germanys 2nd city and one of the leading cities worldwide concerning trade (im-/export) and shipping. Still, I think @TheCatzFranzNeko is right. It's also a massive cultural thing since central and north europeans use the metro much more than Americans or Russians, as far as I have seen it.
Having lived in Moscow and Athens, trust me when I tell you that you want a metro.
Ag3nt0fCha0s Doesn’t this means Moscow and Athens have great metros or hardly any?
Moscow has a good metro - in my opinion, one of the best. 15 lines, 220 stations, line layout is nice, only about 3 minute train waiting time during day, quite fast.
If you want to go somewhere you take metro to nearest station and then figure out how to go from there - in fact, Moscow addresses typically start with a metro station name.
There are also hundreds of bus, trolleybus and tram routes to take you from metro station to any place in the city, although those are much less reliable.
Cars are generally viewed as luxury - and liability/annoyance since they constantly need to navigate ever-present traffic jams and parking spots are always full. A taxi is expensive and mostly used as an emergency - or not at all.
Considering all of the above it really hard for people who live there to imagine that a Dallas-sized city can not only have NO metro at all, but also that a car is basically required to live there.
The last bit in particular seems the most unbelievable. It's like a horror story for me. Russia is large, but even small faraway villages often have at least some kind of bus route (although maybe only once a day or even week).
I don't know anything about Athens transport.
@@jwhite5008 Athens metro is affordable its connceting airport to the city and the coast to; so it catches the region of at least 3m population.
@@mirkovukoslavovic2636 I live in Athens and I can talk about the metro. The first line was built in the 1900 and connected Peiraeus, the largest port of the country to Central Athens.
2 new lines were built in the 2000 that connected the airport and a bunch of suburbs to the center. Currently, an extension is being made that will connect Peiraeus to the Airport directly, so tourists will be able to go straight from their planes to their Cruise ships without line changes. A fourth line is planned to be completed before the 2030s that will connect some of the poorer neighbourhoods of the city to the campuses of a bunch of universities.
Another interesting Metro project in Greece is the Thessaloniki metro. When completed, in practice, it will be a single line which isn't that much, but thessaloniki is a city with a population of less than a million people. In fact, when it is completed, Greece will be the smallest country (population wise) to have 2 separate metro systems since it only has 10 million people.
@@michaelpapadopoulos6054 dude I love Athens. I can talk. I was there and I ll go there at least once more. I just wrote what I saw and experience. It's fine and affordable. Amazing yet to discover Solun (Tessaloniki). Some people like it more than Athens. I was in Olympus area after the red line you know it. I liked the beaches there, I heard they will revive that area in 2020 it had an airport too. Such a big and bright city.
Best of luck and merry xmas !
The reason why so many cities built metro systems in the 1960's and 70's is that under the Johnson Administration, Congress passed the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 (UMTA), which provided an 80/20 split for mass transit systems, meaning that cities and municipalities could build mass transit systems and only pay 20% of what they actually cost to build.
Under Nixon in 1970 this was pared back to a 50/50 split, and under Reagan it was cut even further by switching it from a percentage of funds matching to a block grant system.
I think another important factor was the oil crisis in the 70s.
Elizabeth: Translation- the GOP are cheap bastards. They oppose public transportation but sucker up to the automobile corporations
@@vulcanraven9701 and sucker up to the BIG PHARMA. SUCKERS.!!
Reagan, the man who ruined this country
Except there was a spike in building metro systems under Reagan.
America: 5 million people is a good number to start considering a metro
Glasgow, pop 600,000: cowabunga it is (glasgow subway is also on of the oldest in the world)
Its also worth pointing out though that it only has 1 line which has not been expanded in over a century.
@@invertXtrogdor you don't need more than 1 line in a city of 600,000 so really that is pretty normal.
No wonder why Harvard was arguing that an all-bus system was sufficient for Singapore in the early 1980s 😏 (when it's population would've been ~2m+)
even oslo has just around 600k people.
Boston literally has one lmao
The US was hit by the oil embargo in the 1970s. That is likely why city officials bagan investing in alternative methods of transportation.
That's what I was thinking when the late 1970's/80's cluster was mentioned. Outrageous gas prices (over $1.00 a gallon, mind you) or even shortages in places like California got people to thinking about alternatives. Then it took a while to actually plan and build them.
In Chicago, the oil embargo possibly caused the city (and the state of Illinois) to enact the Regional Transportation Authority or RTA as a way for people to start moving out of their cars and onto public transit. This also possibly got the IDOT to start rebuilding its highways and tollways while the amount of car transit dropped as a result of the oil embargo.
There were significant federal grants during the 70's which were intended to come up with a more modern public transit system based on the concept of PRT but of course the LRT and metro lobbyists fought hard for the money and took every opportunity to frustrate PRT whenever possible. As it stands, only the Morganville PRT project survived the onslaught from the LRT and metro lobbyists and only by significant project creep from the initial 3 passenger car plans to the current 24 passenger car version, basically a GRT rather than a PRT. Another almost made it PRT from that era was the Raytheon 2000, the rail lobbyists insisted the government required the contractor to use proven rail components resulting in 4 passenger vehicles using wheels, undercarriages and rails designed for 20 ton plus cars. If you look at the photos of the system Raytheon developed, the guideways had a larger cross section than the cars. You should do a video on why PRT never took off beyond small campuses like Heathrow airport.
Since the planning and construction of metros takes many, many years I really don't think the oil crisis had a big impact here.
the oil embargo no doubt fanned the flams but the primary funding mechanism for post war metro construction was money set aside when the Urban Mass Transit Administration was created in 1965 or 1966.
Why just Cities with over 5 Million inhabitants? Cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Brussels, Helsinki , Marseille, Athens, Rome, Vienna or Lisbon are much smaller than 5 Mio people and still have good working metro systems...
+Felix W. The paper I cited mentioned that Europe has the lowest average population for cities with metros. Europeans are also more likely to embrace mass transit than their North American counterparts. And the paper wasn’t trying to explain existing metros, just suggesting a rule of thumb for cities think about building a new system.
A key difference is that in general Europeans haven't embrace as Americans the concept of cars. So European (Asian and Latin American also) cities are more compact, don't have large suburbs and they use mass transit in many or all forms.
Eduardo Escarez Indeed. Europe had WWI and WWII and Eastern Europe had communism as well. If these things didn't happen, Europe would have embraced the car just as much as the Americans. However, Europe's public transit isn't here forever if it isn't careful. High-speed trains are outcompeted by airplanes, buses networks are prone for the leveraged die-out and "the last bus dilemma" (The last bus is always empty. The last bus is constantly removed untill there's no bus line left) and trains are having a hard time too. Lightrail trains and intercity buses can easily outperform them.
Koninkrijk der Nederlanden so first of all this is not the way it is bevause of WW1 or 2. It's because of medival city layouts that just weren't meant for cars.
Then most distances in (central) Europe are too small for planes so if there is an high-speed railline it will survive.
Light rail will never outperform normal trains because normal regional trains are covering distances that are far too big for light rail. Also I have never seen the last bus dilemma. Either the last bus is totally crowded because there is a need for a later bus, or it is completely empty because no one takes this line at any time....
I think there are two reasons:
-European countries tend to be over all denser than the US. Which makes it possible to have well developed national railway systems, because they can service much more people per Km of rail. Which then can be connected to regional railways and then to Metro systems.
-European Cities where build before the invention of the automobile. So their streets are usually to narrow for cars to be convenient. Europeans can simply walk or take a Bike to short destinations (and get in shape while doing it) and the train for longer distances.
I live in a City in Germany with only 400.000 people, and It has a Metro, light rail and Bus.
Darf man fragen wo?
@@tabbi5328 in bonn.
Yeah 400.000 people in the middle of the Cologne Düsseldorf conurbation 😅 Wuppertal also has a nice metro system 😁
It's good to recognize though that Bonn is in a large conurbation - it's not a fair comparison to the standard American city.
Bryce Than try Nuremberg 500k inhabits and it has a metro, bus and light rail system as well.
3:32 Interesting, in Europe, so many cities are less than 5m but have excellent subway systems. Though, most cities here are dense. My hometown-Budapest, Hungary-is just shy of 2 million, but the subway is so essential. Even with it, there is a high-enough traffic congestion, and without it the city would grind to a halt with full gridlock on the surface.
@Craig F. Thompson You should be awarded for showing this insane level of stupidity and ignorance.
@Craig F. Thompson Oh I never saw that comment; yes, the two parts were unified in 1870-ish.
And shame on the other guy. I don't believe our small, 10-million 'strong' country is of any global significance for everyone to automatically know this. Especially when some confuse it with Bukarest :p
fun fact: only London has more than 5 Mio inhabitants... and none above 4 Million in the EU
@@TheKnaeckebrot Interesting, I wouldn't have thought that! That changes my comment completely ^^
A less interesting fact (only is to us, I guess) is that Hungary is the #1 country in the world in terms of difference in population between the 1st and 2nd biggest cities: ~2m vs 200k. Our country is way too capital-centric. Hence, metro is only in Budapest, nowhere else here.
@@tarcal87 wow thats a big difference ... yeah often seen in smaller countries but thats extreme :D
One major problem the US has had with any form of rail transport is that auto and oil companies in the 1940"s and 50's actually bought up a large number of rail lines and dismantled them. This is a large part of the plot of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and it's surprisingly true. Also, when suburbs were just beginning to be a thing the auto and oil companies lobbied hard for highways over train lines, and they were very successful, with most rural train lines in the US now being used only for freight.
if the metro train and other trains were profitable they would not have been dismantled, right now they rebuit some of the trains system because the demand for them went up, companies wanted to start to use them, so now we have a train go through quite a few times, especially at night, and they rebuilt the lights and train gates too. by the way I like trains I think they are cool.
@@rosesmith6208 the question isn't whether trains are cool, it's whether they are practical
probably why Amtrak doesn't go everywhere. Thoroughly enjoyed traveling on Amtrak when I lived in Boston and went to NYC. US is way behind the rest of the world when it comes to rail and public transport. Too bad...
@Craig F. Thompson I agree. I can't recall what I was thinking when I wrote that comment 7 months ago 😅
Also, a lot of the old rail lines that were torn up in smaller towns in the suburbs have been sold off and either replaced with housing or the old rail path has been converted into bike/jogging trails. Those trails tend to be popular so good luck ever getting them back to use that space for rail again.
Well, here in Italy, there are no cities with more than 5.000.000 inhabitants, but 7 cities have metro systems, with 3 having more than one line.
Heck, the smallest city to have a metro line, Brescia, has 200.000 inhabitants!
to be fair, I wouldn't take Rome's metro system as an example of a good metro
Well, Leicester, a population of around 340,000 people, doesn't have a metro system because it's too small
@@daredevil3744 but Newcastle has and it isn't that big either.
India has satisfactory metro coverage, but the problem is that only one line with few stops is usually prevalent.
Milan has more or less 5 million people if you include the nearby towns
Short answer: automotive industry
Subways are gay
@@sharkboi6164 and you're a socially stunted 14 year old.
T H Nope, you’re just a citiot
Government being unwiling and unable to put corperations in their place.
I heard about public transport, it is of no interest to the government and to the business in US. That's what happens to convenience, when in your country everything is measured by profit and money.
You kind of missed the great conspiracy of the 50s and 60s, where a consortium of road, oil, tyre and car companies bought up tram systems all over the US, and dismantled them. They got prosecuted anf fined $5000 or so.
This lead to cities becoming lower density, car based systems. Which makes mass transit unattractive to users. Which leads to more sprawl and more roads.
You have it the wrong way round. High density suburbs develop around mass transit systems. You don't get high density suburbs, then link them with a mass transit system.
You know what your talking about
I agree and what I also say is. When. You look at all the Asian countries and some European countries. Where do majority of the population live? All right in the capitol or another major city. Even suburbs aren't the same as US
@@flint9889 This is my observation as well. Since "white flight" didn't happen in other cities, there is much less spread and therefore sparse suburbs isn't an issue. However, once a metro line reaches a planned suburb area, it (sometimes) begins to densify.
@@flint9889 Because no one fucking wants to live in some rancid urban favela.
Much rather live in an white people suburb than a city.
@@MengLinWu yeah it was entirely by design. Black soldiers returning from the war were denied the GI bill due to Jim Crow, and thus were unable to buy cheap suburban homes like their white counterparts. Even black people that were well to do were still unable to buy these houses due to racial covenants that forbid black people from living in neighborhoods, many of which were outside of cities. Redlining killed property values in black neighborhoods, peedominantly in cities, and thus these cities were never able to generate tax revenue to support a subway system. Add to all of this the fact that there was coordinated push to get cars in the hands of consumers and the highway boom all at the same time, there was no political motivation to see it happen, with white suburbanites and the people they voted for strangling any hope of a US mass transit system
In soviet union, there's been the rule, that a city get a metro system when it reaches 1 mio. inhabitants. As they usually built new suburban areas with apartment blocks, the high density for such systems was given from the beginning. The soviet metro systems can operate a train down to every 90 seconds with 8 wagon train sets like in Moscow.
It's typical for the soviet systems to have at least (planned) three lines that match in triangle around the city center. But in some cities, till nowadays, only one line was built or even that failed like in Omks (western siberia). While Moscow's system is growing by several stations each year, other cities' metro systems grow much slower, but at Moscow, it's said to be real estate interest driven.
An interesting system is the one at Volgograd: as the city still has about 600,000 inhabitants, they officially weren't allowed to built a real metro, so they built a streetcar tunnel in the city center that is operated "metro like" and continues as normal tramways in the suburbs. The two lines using the tunnel are called "fast tramways". They use tunnel overflies at the end of the tunnels to serve central platforms within the tunnel and outside platforms on the rest of the network.
Translating for Americans: Tramway=Light Rail. 8 wagon train = 8 car train. Also, mistypes: 1 mio = 1 million. Omks = Omsk. No clue what "street car tunnel" means. It's just an ordinary subway line, but with light rail trains running inside.
In Rīga a metro was never built as the people did not want the immigrants that would come with it.
But we have enough trams, trolyebuses and buses here.
@@kob4you Americans are strange. They have to be diferent in everytihng even if it makes no sense. Like I can understnad why you would say horny instead of randy, but why in oblivion would you use miles instead of meters.
I remember that one in Volgograd, the station feels like it is a metro station. The tram had only 2 wagons. In Russia, metro is only in Ekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Omsk (only 1 station), Kazan. Moscow is a megacity, with a huge budget, they literally pee into golden toilet bowls. I think Moscow metro has the biggest budget in the world! Don't look at Moscow, it is a dying city.
Alex K Are you trolling? Not every rail network that runs underground is a metro system. Metros are specific type of train that runs through the city, usually powered by a third rail, however it is becoming increasingly popular to use overhead wires like you see on a normal trains. You have many tram systems that run in the tunnels like Belgiums pre metro. Metros are a lot of the located underground in city core (because of historic building and traffic) however it’s not rare to see metro train running at grade or on some sort of viaduct especially in suburbs. Some metro systems don’t even go underground. Also tramways and light rail is not the same thing. All differ because of the type of train and nit where they operate.
As a San Francisco native, I loved my high school commute. I walked for about ten minutes to my nearest BART station and took it for about twenty minutes, got off, and walked to my school and sometimes I even had the time to grab a coffee. The rates were great too for a student card, only two bucks to go from the East Bay into downtown San Francisco. Good times...
@@davidnissim589 Do they still have people with needles in their arms passed out in the BART stations? That was an experience to say the least. I didn't feel like I was in one of the richest cities in the world. You guys are hardcore but in a bad way.
Short answer, before watching the video, is density. I live near LA and I’ve visited my sister in NYC several times and the difference in density is huge. NY everything is close and up and down while LA is spaced-out and your apartment isn’t on top of an Irish pub
La urban area is more dense than NYC urban area
@@seanthe100 🤭LA more dense than NYC? You shouldn't do shrooms while posting comments to youtube. 🥴
@@Boxhead42 a city is more than just the city limits in NYC's case only 8 million live in the city by 20 million live in the NYC area the same thing with LA. When you look at the ENTIRE urban areas of both cities there's no comparison. The suburbs of NYC have very low density whilst in LA suburbs are just as dense and often times more dense than the city itself. Los Angeles has the most densely populated urban area in the US. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_urban_areas
@@seanthe100 Well I guess if you include the entire metro area.
William Nuno: Yes. And that gap in density is due to NYC being created Before cars began dominating the US. Old cities were designed for walking instead of cars. Mostly compact streets hence why they have good Metro systems. Unfortunately newer us cities were designed by idiots and traffic is a pain in the butt
5 million is way too high of a bound for a metro system. In europe you have subway in Vienna, Brussels, Sofia, Prague, Helsinki, Lyon, Marseille, Toulouse, Munich, Naples and many more.
Public transportation in the US isn't quite viewed as a top priority, so it's only being given to cities that are deemed as the most economical and significant cities.
Amsterdam doesn't even have 1 million inhabitants and has an awesome metro system
The math in the video makes sense for the US where gas prices are $3/gallon...in European countries where gas prices are $7 to $8 a gallon, there is more motivation to use public transportation.
@@jekentmenietje Amsterdam has an awesome everything when it comes to getting around the city.
@@byoung1520 The main factor making people chose public transport isn't price - it's convenience. If your public transport system does not cover large parts of the city, is well maintained and about as fast as car travel, nobody will use it.
Why would you need a city of over 5 million people to support a metro system? The cities of Yokohama, Fukuoka, Sapporo, and Sendai in Japan all have Subway lines with lower populations. This is the primary mode of transportation for commuters across Japan and is highly utilitised.
Tom Kelly Low density.
Chicago has an extensive Metro train system and we have 2,700,000 people. DC, Miami, and Boston both have only 700,000 and 600,000 and they both have Metro systems
Japanese stations are also clean, dont smell horrible, on time down to the second(i timed it), and have better interior layouts.
@@erictylki5315 All of this stuff is based on the more relevant metro populations.
@@frankmagana1408 Before the pandemic, the entirety of Tokyo metro, Toei Subway and Tokyo monorail accounted for a cumulative delay of 6 seconds for the whole year. Japan's public transit is by far the most efficient and effective.
I live in Chicago, and I rely heavily on the "L" trains and the CTA buses because I don't drive. It is interesting to find out why more cities don't have a rail or bus system like we have.
@@jailencobb5631 Chicago is just as great. I'm tired of you New Yorkers acting like y'all the only city with amenities. Chicago is very parallel to you all. You come here and you'll be mind blown.
JJ C Chicago's public transit better
I've been to Chicago multiple times and NYC is just on another level. the Mecca of the world @@Mr102185
It’s funny, I am from Chicago too. When I tell people I want to go visit New York most people say, “It’s not that great.” I think Chicago is such a great place to live it kind of spoils you.
@Craig F. Thompson Not true.
3 minutes between trains.
Me (who lives in London): bruh that's too long
Yeah, it should be at least 2 mins between or even less.
When I travelled to Moscow I also got amazed by the fact that in some lines they average just a little bit more than 1 minute between trains, I'd really wished that here in Mexico metro could be that fast
I love London’s tube system 😃😔
@@lanzsibelius heh, here in Kyiv we have less than a minute in the morning and evening peak hours)
That's okay. Shanghai's wait time is 2-5 mins. But also has more stations, more land to cover, more lines, and less incidents than the London Underground.
City Beautiful:" Density in American cities is a problem, 7 households in an acre can support a bus line....."
Me sitting in Delhi: 😱My 'sub-city' housing complex has 6000 people in one acre...😒😂✌️
HK: Hold my Kowloon Walled City
@@lzh4950 lmao
looking at Delhi density, no wonder the metro system is efficient. More lines are being added too.
One minor objection from a Miami resident: Technically we have a metro system (above ground, a subway would be prohibitively expensive with our ground conditions) but it's frankly pathetic. Despite a population of just over 6 million in the metropolitan area, our metro only has 23 stations and a daily ridership of less than 80,000. Most of the county's public transportation is handled by bus, and you really need a car to get around most of the metropolitan area.
The metrorail is operating at 10% the efficiency it could be. Major corridors are missing like west Miami to FIU (50,000 plus students there), north Miami, a Beach-link to Miami Beach (major corridor), South Miami, etc. Very little of Miami is actually serviced by the Metrorail and guaranteed there would be a good portion of people that would choose to take it compared to the "blow your brains out" agony that is the palmetto, the dolphin, or 95. Also, the stations that do exist, have created walkable cities-within-a-city type areas such as Dadeland, Merrick park, South Miami, etc. where as the interstates lower land values around it and create blight. I wish they would expand the rail especially since Miami is more then dense enough to support it.
@@geoman798 miami would be so much better with a better metro
General Motors buying up all the tram, commuter rail and metro systems in the 50s onwards, and converting the land into developments. to ensure the supremacy of the car.
LA had a grand central with at least 12 lines running through it.
The Denver Metro Area may only have a population of 3 million, but in 2013, voters approved what is called the RTD Fastracks program. It added two additional light rail lines (R and W), light rail extensions, and 4 commuter rail lines (A, B, G, N). All the rail lines are open and the final extensions are being built now.
Minneapolis actually almost built a metro in the 1920s, right now its one of the highest density metropolitan areas not to have a metro behind Seattle.
My city started to build one but stopped. It's technically illegal to go down there but people still find ways. I feel like they should at least utilize the space that they built somehow but I am not in charge lol
@@user-tq9vs6fc9u yea they could create a museum or something down there
Minneapolis does have a limited train system and it's a great way to get killed as anyone who lives there knows. Hope they're having fun with that. It's a pretty terrible place.
The way he uses the term metro is nonstandard and I don't think even a word. He means a subway. It's also misleading because Seattle has more than one light rail system that are independent of each other. We built 3 independent systems, 2 street cars and one that's above, below and on the ground in various places. Trying to bury a line completely in a city wth huge hills would require some stations to be several hundred feet below ground.
@@RedSiegfried i wished I woulved read this 2 weeks ago. T metro was a nice train, but with the craziness of NY wackos running all over the train. And I felt like I needed to bathe after riding the train.
In europe we have metros on citys with les than 1mill. people
Μαρινος Ντασης Congrats. We would prefer to take all of our stuff with us in our vehicle. and i live in a very cold part,of the country and its snows so much that mass transit wouldnt work
Yeah because it’s the density of those less than 1 mil. That makes it work here, more people in a smaller area, more people closer to stops. To match the population density of the most densely populated city in the US, NYC, you would have to go all the way down to Lyon, France to match the population density of NYC.
Μαρινος Ντασης but European cities have higher density. In America people live far from the city center and use cars and highways
Uncle Chuckles.... My country, Sweden, gets between 0,2 and 1,5 meters if snow each year, and temps of under -30, and Sweden has some of the best PT in the world.
Titanius Anglesmith
Du har helt rätt. Det finns mycket att förbättra innom den svenska kollektivtraffiken men överlag är jag nöjd som inte kan få råd till ett körkort :)
Being a Chicagoan, I love our "L" system. It is fairly clean, has excellent signage, a fantastic in train announcement system, and connections to both major airports (O'Hare and Midway). Frequency is quite good, and we have two lines which run 24/7, the Blue Line and the Red Line. We have a flat fare system which allows for weekly and monthly unlimited ride passes. We also have those wonderful heaters which you can stand under on the outdoor platforms while waiting during the dead of winter.
David Berlant yeah but then comes the piss soaked seats, occasional red line robbery and infamous CTA delays because some jumped on the track.
@@justintrella9820 I haven't experienced any of that in the past year. They're extremely rare. So I don't know why you try to make it seem like a common occurrence.
You must not ride the Blue line after 8pm. Also should I find the link from last week of the two having sex on the red line platform?
the red line is absolutely disgusting. try riding it at night, or smelling the chicago station. the CTA in general is nothing to write home about. you need to get out more. and NOT to NY, which has the shittiest public transit operations in the country. even mexico city makes chicago look bad.
I wouldn't go that far, at least its more useable than other places in the States. I moved from Chicago to San Antonio ( virtually no public transit).
In India, Kochi of 602,000 has a metro with 1 line currently and work on second line going on.
There are 7000 people per sq km in Kochi. Cuz of the density, lines will increase furthermore I believe.
Wth so lucky lol. My city Bhubaneswar has a million people, but proposals for metro were rejected because of "low population"
I’ve used some great metros in Europe and commute in Phoenix often. Traffic is incredibly bad in Phoenix and it blows my mind that there is no metro there.
Phoenix really didn’t become a big city until the 70s. In 1970, it only had just under 600k. Far cry from the 1.7 million now. So them not having a giant train system in a nation that stopped embracing public transit isn’t surprising.
Metro Phoenix has 28 miles of light rail with a new line and trolley being built.
Why even like in Phoenix?
@@Cyrus992 good question, but some of us grew up, have family here.
@@Cyrus992 can't begin to understand why people keep moving here though.
I welcome you to Rennes, capital of Britanny: smallest city to have a metro in France. Soon opening its 2nd line !
With a bit more than 400,000 people in the metropolitan area, 0.4 million.
Plus: end of line stations have parking lots for suburbanites to park and continue their journey with metro.
Nuremberg(Germany) has 3 Metro lines 2 of them drive without a driver and Nuremberg has a Tram network
Tbh, The NY Metro is already pretty behind when compared to more modern counterparts like the London Metro or the Hong Kong Metro. They really need to modernize. their whole network.
Very true! It's still better than the transportation options in most U.S. cities, though.
Not to mention that the MTA's cost does not reflect the quality of the infrastructure.
And by the way, NYC doesn't have the longest subway system in the world anymore. It's Shanghai in China that surpassed NYC. And they keep digging. Here, too much government involvement. They need to let private companies build and charge the fare. After let's say 25 years, give it back to the city. This way the taxpayer gets a subway system and pays zero to build it.
Metros in China are build by the government. The NYC subway was built by private companies that were transferred to the government.
Sag Ichnicht The second Ave Subway added new stations too, though beforehand we still had the most before the expansion
Los Angeles opened the Metro Red Line subway in 1993 because Los Angeles had increasing population density in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. After several construction mishaps with explosions and a sink hole, new subway construction in Los Angeles was banned for several decades. But the increasing population density and increase traffic jam did not go away so they had to overturn the ban. That lead to the expansion project of the Metro D-line (purple) line to the westside and the downtown regional connector (subway for 2 light rails).
I feel like the development of a metro line in low density high sprawl cities would make a lot of sense. The metro would be much cheaper to install because the urban area is mostly parking lots and warehouses, you wouldn't have to pay businesses for closing down their streets, and then because there would be a metro line there, and the land is mostly parking lots, the area will be filled in with new high density housing.
Because we prefer to be in massive traffic jams and have the pleasure cursing and getting into a fist-fight with other drivers instead of socializing with each other on a metro rail transit.
Evan Hizon I prefer my nearest neighbor not be closer than 1 mile, currently my nearest neighbor is 3.5 miles and I don’t see that changing as neither of us are planning to sell our land. I don’t have a metro but I do have a decently log underground tunnel leading to the stock house, primarily for winter use.
I don't know where you're from but there isnt much socializing in the train stations here in the NY Metro area. Most people are wearing headphones or glued to their phones and the ones that aren't usually don't look for any kind of social interaction unless they're begging for money.
@@johnjacob688 Same thing in the Athens metro.
Too many minorities take mass transit
what? while I went several times through raleign duram nc they had four or five lanes even at its busiest the traffic flowed smoothly did not see any one pulling over for a fist fight, also if I am slowed down due to traffic I am sitting, talking with hubby, listening to my music and looking around at the scenery until the traffic picks up. I am safer, harder to rob me rape me kill me, I can take all my stuff my dogs my bikes other things and not worry about it being stolen if I have to leave it for a few minutes to use the restroom stuff like that.
US is a car culture that;s one of the reasons why
milz man the USA remains stubborn and stupid in regards to this.
The U.S. is a large country, Robert. We have thousands of small cities and towns, where public transit is practically useless because everything is so spread out. Fact is, in the majority of the continental US, owning a car will always be more convenient than relying on public transit. Nothing will change that fact.
No, the US uses its railways as mass freight corridors, the most economically profitable, efficient, and largest system in the world. China salivates at the freight rail system of the US.
Darth Nihilus Even in big cities, where I live there, wouldn’t be any point. It’s quite a big city, but as there aren’t any grocery stores, malls, or even many schools directly in downtown (everything is spread out), it really is much more productive for the government to just fix/add a highway if traffic has a problem. In a lot of large US cities, most people travel INTO the city to get to work. No subway system could actually spread out to fit everything like New York’s does. We’re not stubborn, we just are literally set up differently. The only city that is having problems with this is Atlanta.
milz man Car culture full of fat people!
If really 5 millions inhabitants would be a minimum requirement for a metro system, nearly every metro system in Europe would not exist...
Google image Seoul’s metro map. It is glorious.
Or terrifying.
@@jonathanbaker3307 You know what's more terrifying?
Tokyo train map
i've seen worse
@@kornkernel2232 The initial confusion too when one is waiting for a train in a _Toei_ subway station platform but a _Keio_ commuter rail train shows up instead
Hard to read almost
The answer is much more simple. Money. Our government decides to spend 700 billion more per year on BIGGER MILITARY, but cut Amtrak funding further. Most Americans don't travel and are stupid enough to not care. We invested in massive freeways resulting in sprawled out, inefficient cities with traffic congestion and high reliance on oil. Chinese are investing in subways because they facilitate dense vibrant neighborhoods, efficiency and no reliance on fossil fuels. Thinking ahead while we fall behind.
Jordan A
You are so fucking stupid like Jesus Christ.
HeyDude We’re making a new armed forces branch in space 👌 we’re gonna get control of space rocks and space oil that’ll boost our economy, and orbital superiority to live up to the Global in Global Police 😎
+HeyDude
We spend over $600 billion on education--the most of any country by far; we're fourth in how much we spend per student, behind just Norway, Switzerland, and Austria. In most instances of economic spending, it's not a matter of how much we're spending, but rather where the money is going. The US' military spending is a tricky thing to analyze; our space program is still categorized in with the military (considering that the US Space Command is a subset of the Air Force), and I don't think it's any secret that any space-based project is going to cost billions upon billions of dollars to fund. Moreover, we spend a shit ton in attempting to produce new and improved tech, much of which ends up in failure (because that's how innovation is like--you fail a lot to get to a successful result).
"[We] refuse to invest in clean energy," We don't really need to; the private industries revolving around alternative forms of energy have done absolute wonders in progressing the state of such technologies; solar is on the brink of becoming just as efficient as petroleum.
When it comes to infrastructure.... that's honestly just a mess and there's absolutely no easy answer to solving the state of the US' infrastructure simply because of the sheer cost that it would take to even make a meaningful improvement on the state of our infrastructure. It's a very complex matter that I don't want to get into because this is TH-cam
CAN PEOPLE PLEASE STOP SAYING CHINA IS FORWARD THINKING
Ryder Ragone Their cities run far more efficiently than our cities do. They definitely think with future generations in mind, unlike the U.S. that is always in the NOW, never thinking about the future.
Metros are not that expensive in Asia or Europe. Hyderabad built entire 72 kms (40+ miles) of metro for 2.5 billion dollars. I dont expect US to built at same price but 2 billion for 2 to 5 miles? Seriously??
I know, right? Infrastructure costs are a whole other video topic I want to get to someday.
Don't forget that was a line in New York where the underground is undermined just everywhere, ocean is close, and they were building a few stations for millions of passengers a day.
Hyderabad built an elevated system, which is inherently cheaper than a subway.
The Second Ave line involved hard rock tunneling through Manhattan Schist, which is basically one of the hardest rocks to cut through. It's extremely strong so, that unlike most tunnels, tunnels through Manhattan Schist are self supportive, not needing the metal ring linings, but cutting through it is slow. If you can measure your progress in yards instead of feet, you're having a good day.
City Beautiful they have been found to be the best way to tackle poverty though
BART was proposing a $1B plan to extend their track to Livermore. It’s ridiculous.
You missed one of the most crucial factors: geology. The London Underground is almost entirely north of the Thames because it was dug through soft London clay. South of the river there's hardly any lines because it's limestone. The geography of a region is important in determining whether underground construction is economically viable or not.
The subway was my favorite part about living in NY - this guy
Not mentioned at all: Cheap fuel.
Like cheap carbs, cheap gas warps priorities. People drive because it's cheap -- consider the cost of fuel in the EU and it's no wonder why mass transit is possible.
In 2009 when gas prices in the US were high (over $5/gal) rail ridership overflowed capacity in SF. It suddenly was cheaper to use the train.
Until we get our addiction to fuel under control, we'll not make the investment choices to join the 21st century.
Craig F. Thompson i always find it strange that fuel is taxed and subsidized at the same time. i mean your giving them money and then you take it away. goes to show how incompetent our government has become.
Earla Weese it isn’t but there are no incentives for them to give up their car in favor of efficient public transit. For instance, in Houston, it’s cheap as hell to park your car and it’s east to find a spot. This has led to the suburbanization of our cities.
Public transport tends to be cheaper than owning and using a car, even with cheap fuel. People don't take into account the down payment, emi, taxes, insurance, maintenance, tolls, parking, etc. when calculating the cost of going from A to B in a car when compared to public transport.
@@Banzybanz It's also all about time.
I lived in San Francisco for 20+ years and public transport is a joke. It would take 2h15m MINIMUM one-way by rail and 45m to drive to work.
@@lohphat Convenience is a big factor which is why all civilised countries invest heavily to ensure that buses, trains, metros, etc. are as practically useful as possible for the maximum number of people. The interesting thing is that once you put a good transport system in place, the entire city grows or rebuilds itself around the transport system.
Density is the key. In most of Europe and Asia density is high and culturally people like to be closer together and not in suburbs. In America car ownership was quite high quite early on and suburbs took off in as big way, accelerating in the post war era and resulting in very spread out urban areas. The planning system favoured clearing inner areas and having large parking lots in city centres and having an extensive freeway construction through urban areas. This resulted in cities which couldn't justify metro systems as their overall populations grew. New York is a huge metro area - straddling 3 states and with a very dense core - unlike any other American City but even it ended up sprawling to Newhaven and Princeton and criss-crossed with freeways.
For U.S. cities to get metros you have to have some sort of green belt planning. The UK, Australia and Canada share the US's love of suburbia and early car ownership yet sprawl is not as much of a problem. London got constrained by green belt starting before the war, stopping at 10-15 miles out from the centre and losing density in the inner areas. NIMBY's stopped the urban freeway network from getting off the ground and new towns and expanded villages dot the south east of England. The density averages about the same as for New York if you go 50 miles out but its concentrated in much smaller areas and the urban area proper is smaller if you include the ultra-low density suburbs of NY in the comparison, but much bigger if you don't (London doesn't really have ultra-low density suburbs anymore). London has a huge commuter rail network and a more spread out metro system and can justify some expansion and improvement. But the houses are a lot smaller. Other large UK cities have lower density than London or NY but higher than most large US cities but they also struggle to have metro systems. glasgow's is small and very old. Newcastle's is based largely on old lines in the built up area. One solution for the US might be to encourage greater urban density, gentrification etc and halt sprawl with green belt policies but I think it might be too late. And the UK doesn't have many metro systems without the same problems of car domination and political impasse the US has. I think only Bristol is contemplating a metro system currently (the metro area is well under a million and the commuter area a long long way from 5 million).
The biggest Australian cities - Sydney and Melbourne have kept a reasonably high level of density and protected the countryside from sprawl. The urban areas are one continuous blob. The densities are still generally a bit too low for genuine metro but they've been increasing and metro is being rolled out. In Perth there's some clever density planning of suburbs around new rail lines and a great feeder network of buses. It seems to work and I think might be the best case study of how to do it in a metro like DFW or Seattle.
quarkwrok well many U.S. Cities have small inner city populations too but huge metro areas like where I live in Atlanta there are only 400,000 people but the metro area is almost 6 million people so they can't run trains through all the suburbs and also we don't want trains we have the widest freeways in the country
Lucas Fernandez well it is time to rip out those wide land gobbling freeways and start building high speed rail lines which would free up more land for both greenspace and development. It will also improve the filthy poisoned air over the Atlanta Metropolitan Area.
Getting around Switzerland was such a joy. Wherever I wanted to go, a train or a tram (or a combination of the two) could get me to within at most four or five blocks from my destination … and then a bus could generally get me to within a half-block of the front door. Not just in Zurich - in all of Switzerland!
Many people are unaware that light rail has half the calories of regular rail.
In London the Victoria line runs every 90 seconds
Mason Joseph
According to TfL, the Victoria line, between 8:30 and 9:30 am, runs 36 TPH (trains per hour), which is equivalent to a train every 100 seconds. Every 90 seconds would be exactly 40 TPH (a couple Moscow Metro lines run this frequently during rush hour). Paris runs 42 TPH (every 85 seconds) on its Line 1, but that's because the trains are shorter, and that concrete-guideway and rubber tires are used, instead of conventional steel-wheel-on-rail technology.
HostilePancakes, The Milennial Warrior in a video by the "geoff marshall" they counted for an hour and the average time was like 91 seconds or something i cant remeber exactly but i was between 88 and low 90s.
I just checked 24 out of 33, yes 33 trains that ran in the hour were 90 seconds average so yeah pretty much wat i was saying
The Shanghai Metro in Shanghai, China during peak hour runs trains every 0-90 seconds on Line 2. Yes, 0 seconds is a thing. It happens because there’s a junction and the timetable just squeezes trains.
Geoff's videos are excellent.
To be fair about Dallas and Houston, those cities and their metropolitan areas are insanely spread out. I'm sure there are tons of other reasons they don't have them as well.
One possible reason I thought the Atari Era metro systems have come about when they did was because of the 70s energy crisis, in which many were worried that we were rapidly depleting our supply of fossil fuels. This crisis served as a catalyst to developing solar energy and other forms of alternative energy. So maybe the push for more mass transit during this time was motivated by the crisis
That was my first thought as well.
4:16 So did Rochester, New York! Its metro was built in the bed of the Erie Canal that ran through the downtown part of the city and the nearby northwest and southeast area.
At the time that it was built, Rochester had a mere fraction of the population value that the other cities currently operating a metro system do. However, it _was_ dense, which was mentioned as a contributing factor. The city only operated the system for a few decades at most, so it has not existed for nearly 100 years as of the writing of this comment. However, most of the tunnel system/canal bed (the downtown part) is still there. You can even walk through it!
Cincinnati had a similar tunnelling project for - in its case - an aborted metro system.
No idea if it would have anything to do with it. But that second cluster is right after the 1970s oil crisis..
That's true, though many of those systems were planned out in the 1950s. The oil crisis may have freed up federal funds to finally pay for them, though.
In Hartford, Connecticut during the 1970's, there was a proposed "people mover," being planned for Bradley International Airport that was chastised by the NAACP, the Sierra Club and others, who falsely accused those pushing the project of being racist and trying to destroy the environment. But there were never any "Whites Only" signs planned for this, and this was supposed to be better than getting people to rely on their cars. When you examine the issue carefully, you'd realize the only REAL reason they opposed it was because it was built by a division of Ford Motor Company.
Often the racist issue called out with rail lines (or any new urban transportation construction) is not that ridership is exclusive for white people, but that the building of the rails disrupts historically black neighborhoods. When houses have to be knocked down to build new roads and rails, it is never the rich white areas that see the demolition crews. Cities have in the past used this tactic to force poorer black families out of their homes, via use of eminent domain, and into city controlled housing projects.
vancouver with 2.5 million has a stong metro system and montreal with 4 million has an exelent metro system
Michael Schipper How About Toronto
Jessica Hapitan toronto has more than 5 million people
Michael Schipper Don't name the Canadian cities. Even both of them are terrible. But at least Vancouver is better than Montreal, since the city council in Montreal still hasn't stepped up in waterproofing, digging up vents and installing air conditioning into the current system. And they still haven't chose to build overground segments for the proposed extensions
Ekaterina well in europe, public transit is like a standard, unlike north america, where there are freeways all over the place. so don't just come out and compare a subway network in europe to another in north america
Ekaterina and what’s the population density of Copenhagen? The US is very suburbanized and people live far apart, even in major cities.
I went to Tokyo recently and got to experience their incredible metro system. Don't think I'll ever be able to live comfortably in the US again. This place is just awful with public transport. Cars being so required by city design is part of the problem, but really it seems like it's just cities not doing their damn jobs, imo. I'm lucky I live on a major college campus with a very good bus system, but in the larger city I'm from, we didn't even have that in any major capacity. It was simply impossible to get around without a car.
One of the reasons is it's not possible in some cities to build underground as the water table is far too high, or the ground isn't conducive to digging very far down. In cities like New Orleans Louisiana and Miami Florida, there's a great risk of flooding if you build underground, as the water table in these places is too high and the elevation too low.
elevated metro rail works just as well in this case.
That’s not a big problem, actually. Valencia (Spain) built a nice metro grid with the same problem.
The 1960s/1970s boom was kicked off by the Urban Mass Transportation Act, which established the modern FTA (under the name UMTA) and, as seen in Seattle/Atlanta, offered huge federal subsidies for new metro systems.
Thanks for the information! Love having such smart viewers!
City Beautiful I would guess that the 1970s oil crisis would've played a part in pushing more cities to construct metros.
City Beautiful oil crisis
I didn't know Atlanta got our money for their train system.
The old racist Seattle Mfers were nervous about blacks in the inner city traveling to their white neighborhoods to the north and east.
Yeah, now we are paying 54 Billion for a system with only 5B coming from the Feds to pay for it. It's alarming how much we got shafted on this deal, but I know it's necessary.
Philadelphia has a very diverse system. We have two Metro lines, eight trolley (streetcar) lines, an "interurban rapid transit" line, a large commuter rail system, and ALL the buses. My favorite part has to be when five of the streetcars plunge underground and line up with the Metro (the other three lines are separate. There's a branch of one, a branch of two, and a branch of five).
There's also the PATCO line which looks like a metro line, but it's a separate thing from the rest. A different operator.
That's it? Chicago has way more than that....
Too many minorities
Patco is a metro line it just serves New Jersey and is not part of septa.
With Philly population I wish they had a third line. They built a tunnel going into Roosevelt Blvd. but not enough funding. So they stopped. Crazy.
In Germany, in Bonn which is a city of nearly a 300 thousands has a big metro System , and there are even smaller cities which has metro Systems.
In the US, only "heavy rail" is called metro. Bonn's "light rail" wouldn't count there.
Just a fun fact... Cincinnati, OH has an underground subway system network that was built but never used. The tunnels are currently still there, just sealed up.
Jeremy P. Lol.
They need to double up the metro lines in LA quick!
@Craig F. Thompson You really love metro (subway).
Right now LA has 6 lines, and plan to open a new line in 2021, as well as a few conversions. Most are light rail but in the end 3 or 4 heavy rail routes along with light rail could exist.
Hii! Rotterdam has almost 1 million citizens, but a metro system with 5 lines!
Greetings from Rotterdam
As clearly stated, the chief architect against mass transit in the USA is auto companies. An expansion to mass transit seems to run parallel with lesser demand for personal automobiles. What I don’t understand is, why can’t the auto companies invest in mass transit as it’s a way of moving people around. The future is limitless and people can’t live in the dark for long. Eventually, voters in any region will feel the traffic congestion and seek alternative forms of transport and thus demand more from their public officials. It’s safe for car companies to think futuristic and invest in all forms of transportation like they currently doing with ride share companies. More people are willing to ride share or carpool these days than get stuck in traffic and many more will desire an efficient faster reliable rail system.
delpieru A Chinese auto company named BYD made their own monorail.
As someone that still lives in new york. I just feel like people like to have their own car rather than ride the metro or subway. I might be wrong. But this is one thing that i like in new york having a subway that can go anywhere in the state
Yes, some people/families still like to have a car for driving on weekends, for road trips, etc including myself. And there are plenty of NYers that don't primarily take the subway.
Chicago's subway system is way better. Its far less confusing, all the stations are well lit, its cheaper, and unless you're on the red line, it wont smell like urine. And it can get you anywhere in the city.
And the reason why many cities west of the east coast don't have metros, is because they were designed around the car. They have no need for a metro. NYC needs a metro because going anywhere by car is a nightmare.
Craig F. Thompson the purple line is an express line, and the orange line is used as an express line on the brown line track during the morning rush hour. Also most of the lines will have trains that run express every hour or so.
Craig F. Thompson trains in Chicago don't need to run express generally because the system is designed to get people to the downtown area as quickly as possible. It's deliberate. And fast. The NYC subway is a cluster fuck of randomly drawn lines that date back to before the lines were bought by the city and made into the MTA. There is little ryme or reason. For example the last time I was in NY, it tool me over an hour and 15 minutes to get from central brooklyn to Columbus circle on the C train. A similar distance (maybe 10ish miles) like ohare airport to the loop in chicago, takes maybe half an hour to 45 minutes. If that.
Also the system makes no sense to people who aren't familiar with the city. Chicago's system is beautifully simple. Anyone can immediately figure it out. But all of the MTA is as previously stated, is seemingly random.
tahimig1 the C train makes local stops, the A train which run express would be a better bet
tahimig1 the yellow line which used to only be two stops (rip Oakton Skokie) is essentially an Express train.
Won’t smell like urine? You must not ride the blue line after 9PM.
2:35 London Underground has trains every 90 seconds
MrRandomname1011 yes, on the Victoria line
Prague underground (shown in the video at 2:35) also has trains every 115 (sometimes even less) seconds.
Moscow also has trains every 90 seconds. I bet automatic metro can get this even lower.
erejnion It can't because passengers need some time to get ob abd off. In Prague, we have tested 105 seconds intetval but we had to revert back to 115 because passengers were unable to get on and off on time.
Yes, I have already posted it yesterday.
"City should have atleast 5 million residents to build metro" *Laughs in Europe.
I think for Houston Texas light rail is better in the inner city and commuter rail for the suburbs. The bad thing is the suburbs are pretty much forgotten in Houston.
For Dallas their light rail seems to be like a light rail that acts like a metro or idk, it’s doing somewhat well, the main problems are that in downtown 4 lines run on the same tracks, and bus routes are not frequent.
in the hague we have a light rail that goes underground too.. so does in rotterdam it runs underground but after a few stops it goes above ground
heres a real fact mumbai local trains a mass rapid transit system carries 11 million people every day not year a day
PowerTrain Mumbai Metro and Monorail as well. Usko bhi add karo
Mumbai is another monstrous overpopulated city and people absolutely don;t want to live that way.
Sure they do. And most of those passengers are riding on the roof or hanging off the sides of the trains.
Dave Casey, you can't ride the Bombay trains that way, they're electrified.
Blazdur the Ridiculously Named that is absolutely shocking
In Europe there are cities like Brescia, Palma, Catania or Rennes that have subway lines with less than 400,000 abitants. 5mln people seems a way too big limit
+tano tano The paper I cited mentioned that Europe has the lowest average population for cities with metros. Europeans are also more likely to embrace mass transit than their North American counterparts. And the paper wasn’t trying to explain existing metros, just suggesting a rule of thumb for cities think about building a new system.
These lines are actually more like light rail systems. They're similar to the light rail transit or streetcar/tram systems in US cities. Besides, the lines between streetcars/trams and light rail transit is increasingly becoming blurred. Modern streetcars/trams are as heavy & long as their light rail counterparts.
Well, for example we in Helsinki have a full-sized metro system, even though it's just one line. We have 600,000 inhabitants in the city proper and a little under 1.5 million in the metro area. The same goes with Stockholm, they have 1 million inhabitants, 2 million in the metro area, and they have a full-sized metro system with 100 stations and 3 to 7 lines depending on how you count them. I agree that the line between metros, light rail and trams is a bit confusing, but in Europe there are many examples of actual metro systems in cities with much less than 5 million people :)
tano tano its not about the population. but smaller cities are not willing to spend the money and we want the vehicles for work and the winter
@@jonathantan2469 the examples I have mentioned (at least some) are real metro lines
Density isn’t the main factor. It’s layout of buildings, land use and traffic flow
Copenhagen with 2mill people in its metropolitan area is finishing the completion of 2 new metro lines which will total the number of lines to 4 with 45 stations. It also has an extensive network of ‘s-train’ which is like an overground metro network with 85 stations. The city ring metro line is at a cost of 4billion USD and it is 10 miles long and has 17 stations. The city has another 4 lines on the drawing board - one that even crosses over to Malmø in Sweden and the aim is to have a total of around 100 metro stations plus the 85 for the overground.
As population increasing across the globe, we should focus on Mass transit rather than just highways. Very informative video. Thanks
Devendra Aparadh Actually we dont like mass transit in the us. and i belive that we as people should spread out a little more
Craig F. Thompson Im not commenting on your hitler joke. And no we americans in the midwest do not want mass transit. And many places that have recently gotten mass transit have to get it subsidised because its a complete money loser
Devendra Aparadh
Agreed. Parking lots & individual cars are becoming "incompatible " in this overpopulated planet.
I'm not opposing highways, however in dense cities mass transit provides better solution. Public transport systems should complement each other rather than compete. Connected Highways, Bus, Light Rails, Trams etc will definitely help cities.
Uncle Chuckles get your head out of your ass. You probably live in Nowhere, Indiana. In Chicago we got a great transit system. CTA (for city residents) , PACE (serves all cook county suburbs) , and Metra (serves city and suburbs). It makes a metropolitan area economy way faster. The PACE suburban buses even have Wi-Fi 😊
As beneficial as it was for Atlanta when Seattle turned down the funding, the Atlanta system is heavily outdated. The wait can be anywhere from 10-25 minutes and there are only 38 stations in a very concentrated area along downtown and the interstates. If federal funding becomes available, Atlanta would be a prime city for a metro revamp.
It’s a catch 22, cities can’t support dense housing due to everyone needing to have a car, but they can’t support a metro due to no dense housing.
I say we build the metro and allow the dense properties to develop around the stations, it may take a while but it would be good long term.
In Japan, some metro system are built by companies. They built new lines of metro together with supermarkets and nice tall housing. This way they attract people to live in those new sub urban areas. People can still commute to big city for work while living in cheaper area. And, the company makes money from people's daily commute, retail, and real estate.
In Stockholm, Sweden. A city with about 1 million inhabitants. We have 7 different lines. How is this even possible?
The study said that European cities have a lower average than the global average.
> Holy shit, that's impressive. A good example for all cities.
How's it a good example? Just because you think it's impressive doesn't make it a "good example."
Boston has 650k people...8 subway lines and 13 light rail lines
He's using metro area population. Boston has a metro area in excess of 5 million.
Boston has almost 700k now and almost 5 million in the msa, with over 8 million csa. There are 3 heavy rail subway lines, 1 light rail line with 4 branches, and a high speed/grade separated trolley line, not to mention commuter rail.
You did not mention anything about the NIMBY-ISM (Not in My Back Yard) mentality that is common in the US. For example in Boston metro area they have tried expanding the commuter rail and T to other towns but those communities fight back since they don't want to be connected to Boston. They feel it will negatively change their community and bring in lots of low income people. That is just one example. I know in New Hampshire some people in the larger cities want to be connected to the MBTA commuter rail so they can easily commute to Boston instead of having to drive. Yet the people in the more rural towns that won't be served by it, don't want to pay for the expansion and have successfully persuaded their state legislators not to vote for it. So the large southern NH cities, that would most benefit from a connection to Boston, won't have any public transit.
Good point! When I was a transportation planning intern in Portland we had residents of suburban communities who did not want light rail extended to them. They didn't want to be "Portlandified."
Same thing happened here in Tucson. About 12 years ago there was a proposal to build a light-rail system throughout a couple of streets in the city but the voters turned it down due to the high cost. We only have a very limited streetcar system now.
Crime is also a big issue the US that keeps people from using metro. There is a major concern that subways aren't safe. Factor in the costs and the powerful automobile lobby and it is no wonder America is car heaven.
Charles Schutz THANK YOU. Your comment was gospel. Somebody ought to tell this transit spokeskid that its okay to draw his perfect Metro system on a map of his city, since thats the closest he'll ever get to having one there!
Charles Shultz, the NIMBY mentality prevails in my area as well. I live just outside the perimeter of Atlanta. When I moved here 3 years ago, I thought I would not have to drive my vehicle. I was disappointed to find out that the counties surrounding Atlanta consistently vote against expanding the MARTA subway system, while the rate of car insurance increases every 6 months, and the rate of fatal accidents increases every year. We need a better system to connect the surrounding areas to the city.
This is very specific, but having metros in Northern climates is also helpful because we don't have to endure waiting outside in the bitter cold and it can still run during a snowstorm that can cripple other types of transit.
As a person living in Wichita Kansas, this video made me cry.
Love your videos. Metros seem expensive compared to cars, but car costs are mostly externalized. Highways, parking lots, and carbon emissions aren't free.
Definitely. Urban transportation would be much more sensible if everyone was aware of the true costs for each mode.
Justin Lee Miller ya nobody ever fucking expects highways to be profitable but trains are expected to be so
Gas and insurance and the cost of the car itself isn't cheap either!
Craig F. Thompson well there's a little more expectation for airlines but airports tend to be subsidized and there are subsidized routes
The metro system shouldn't be ran for profit, it should be free to use and paid for out of the city's taxes (the same people end up paying for it anyways). There are incredibly horrific consequences when the city planners profit from one system. Namely they will raise prices on existing alternative systems to push people to use the new metro they just built. They will convert car spaces into bicycle stands that never reach capacity, and they will raise the price of parking. The list goes on. Build a metro and then undermine the city to milk them for profit.
Carbon emissions are free FYI.
American cities are so far-sprawled out that the urban design of entire regions - almost every region in America - would not significantly benefit from metro systems.
Not everywhere. NYC and Chicago metro areas are densely populated and larger than most in EU, have transit systems used regularly. Is the newer cities which are more like big suburbs spread out, especially in the south and west US.
Absolute fucking bullshit. I'm from a sprawling city with a population under 5 million (almost 5mil but our metro was built back when we were say smaller) called Melbourne Australia and we have a decent metro system
@@megaloblabber2948 Technically our metro system here in Melbourne is classified as commuter rail (longer distances, lower frequencies, not all grade separated) although we are supposed to be in the process of converting it into a true metro system.
But otherwise youre right. Sprawling cities in the US can use a commuter rail system (I think LA has one)
tampere I’m pretty sure us cities are still less dense that Melbourne. Atlanta where i live and Melbourne metro areas have about the same population and Atlanta’s is 20000 square kilometers while Melbourne is 9900
2:32 Prague Metro - Smichovske nadrazi (Smichov Rail station)
A city with only about 1.5 million inhabitants.
@@Glutexokun metro was built in 70s and the minimum size to build a metro was 1 million inhabitants. That's why capital of Slovakia - Bratislava never had one, as it was rejected as it was 750k only.
I was just in New York and I got to ride the subway all over the city! I loved it! I wish metro Detroit had a subway because I really hate having to drive 30 minutes everywhere and dealing with constant traffic. Plus finding parking is a pain in the butt!
Also in Houston there's the issue of flooding because of the frequent hurricanes and tropical storms. Basements are already a rarity because of them, so an underground transit system would be made even more difficult
and your highways seem to cope really well when it floods dont they
That's no excuse. Stations and tunnels can be built to mitigate flooding.
Houston has 3 light rail lines with 2 more planned as well as a BRT line under construction - the Houston metro red line carries more riders per mile than any system in the country. The issue is that most cities have moved to light rail or BRT as they are modern, versatile, and cheaper with the ability to build larger systems that serve more areas of a city in both local and express service forms than a metro-heavy rail could ever provide. Anyone who takes the blue line from downtown to Chicago to O’Hare knows the hell that is stopping at every station and a train ride of 50 minutes while the Transmileneo system in Bogota can take you from the plaza bolivar to El Dorado faster, with less stops, and the ability to select an express BRT line
The metro systems there is on the streets and not underground
@@routemaster3877 You should check out photos from the Houston Chronicle after various floods. People literally take their sailboats out on I-10.
Sucks because I love trains :(. One of my favorite systems is the London Underground. It’s a unique blend of old and modern. Wish more US cities can have metro systems like those too. Though the US government is investing in public transit and infrastructure in general a lot more in recent years.
My favorite system is the NYC subway, mainly cause I grew up riding it and I STILL AM
in London its only the DLR that has front and back windows. its fun to wach out the front
come to NY then
Plenty of trains in America but they are mainly freight.
@@Mr9Guns Pretty cool right?
The CTA in Chicago is a a great system and 24/7. The Metra rail is fantastic and comfortable also. It takes you to all the surrounding states, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
I made it 3 minutes into this before scrolling down to comment, only to see others have beat me to it. European cities have trains that service cities with way less density than you mentioned in your video. I think the numbers you're quoting are through a very American lens. And the longer I live in America, the more I want to get out. Fheed Pexx put it best with their comment "Americans = having a car is freedom. Europeans = not having to have a car is freedom." It's why I've started saying the American view of freedom is freedumb (the freedom to be as dumb as they wish).
A swiss mayor once said "A wealthy country isnt somewhere where everyone drives a car, is a country where the rich take public transport"
It's not even so much about not needing the car, as much as it is about allowing alternatives to the car.
BART in San Francisco is buying new trains and their system is expanding southward to Silicon Valley.
So California is ketching up to the rest of the world?
Probably just San Francisco Bay Area because their trains are over 40 years old and the city of San Jose is the largest city in the region not served by BART.
Santa Clara County was not part of the original BART plan.
I hate to say THIS but I really hate new railcars and I plan to own every rapid transit system (most notably the ones with subways) In the country if not the world I will try to get new rolling stock and give older ones a technical tune up any old subway car now won't be going anywhere as long as I'm around.
Good to hear!
I was a bit surprised that the NY subway doesn't link to Newark or New Jersey to feed in to Manhattan and financial areas.
The PATH rail system is considered a metro, just separate from MTA subways.
...and that connects Manhattan to New Jersey.
Al H
Like City Beautiful said, Newark has PATH. But the biggest barrier: the Subway would have to cross into New Jersey, and doing that would bring a windfall of jurisdictional and bureaucratic problems that would stop the project from moving forward.
Al H Newark is a shit hole no one would want to take the subway there. But New Jersey transit goes there from the the city and also to Newark airport. And light rail goes to jersey city and the surrounding area from Hoboken.
HostilePancakes, The Milennial Warrior But Newark is a shit hole. No one would want to take the subway there. And how was New Jersey transit able to go from New Jersey to New York City without bureaucratic issues?
The problem is going from suburbs to suburbs is used more than suburbs to the center of the city which sadly some cities don’t understand
Yeah still not useful considering public transit isn’t useful to the average American suburbs considering their low density and just how spread out everything really is.
@@blackhole9961 not an excuse for lacking transit
@@CreatorPolar ok why don’t you try building transit an an area with such low density it quite literally can’t be supported
Atlanta’s MARTA was crucial in earning it the summer olympics
I would suggest another factor, the environment. Some cities can't go underground while others may not want an elevated system. Otherwise, a good video.
Thanks for the comment! I consider underground and elevated systems as "metros." Most large systems, like New York, are a hybrid of both.
That's a stupid reason. You can always build elevated lines
Only Miami's system is at grade or elevated because of both the high water table and poor soil conditions (ironically, Amsterdam, with similar water and soil issues has an underground system, but also had massive debate over the building of an underground system). But a city like Houston, which has massive flooding issues, would be a bad choice for an underground system. The problem with elevated systems is sightline. Of the cities in the US that have full metro systems, only Chicago has an elevated line in the city centre (even as New York, Boston, and Philadelphia have elevated segments, but those are in farther-out sections of their cities). Miami's approach, though, was to integrate as much of that infrastructure as possible to hide it. But American transit planning will almost always commit to at grade or underground for aesthetics.
I live in an area with a full metro system (DC) and in building the extensions to the Silver Line, they had to build aerially because it was far cheaper than underground. But, that debate was rancorous and lasted for years.
City Beautiful what would you consider the new rapid transit electronic rail system to be built in Montreal, Canada? Some call it a light rail while I and a few others call it a metro system. It will run underground and elevated and is isolated from traffic. It will have dedicated indoor stations and 3 min interval between trains. People still call it lite rail...I don't get why. Curious about your opinion. The new system is called REM, and it's separate from the existing underground system that is called MÉTRO.
Corey, I lived in Tysons for 3 years and I watched them build that monstrosity along route 7! My opinion it looks ridiculous and ruined the landscape! However, I will admit living in Reston now it's great being able to take the Metro into DC. Plus not having to sit in traffic for 2 hours every morning and pay tolls is awesome.
The difference between commuter rail and metros is really blurred. All of Australia's major cities have rail systems which are a blend of metro and commuter rail. But the main parts of these systems were constructed in the 19th or early 20th centuries. Now Sydney's rail system is getting major new underground lines. In Australia the transport is a State government responsibility, so it is far easier to get the money for urban transportation.
Probably a reason for Cleveland as well as certain other (generally larger) US cities having at least one metro line - alongside light rail lines and now also bus rapid transit lines in the same system - is because early in the 20th century it was securely among the top 10 US cities in population, and it often ranked as high as 5th or 6th. It was larger than nearby Detroit until the automotive-industry-motivated boom in the latter in the 1910s or so, and it's always been larger than nearby Pittsburgh. While chronologically its rapid transit system is the first one in the US after WWII, planning-wise (with its roots in the 1920s) it's the last of the pre-WWII American systems.
Should also look into all the large automobile companies, particularly GM, that bought up all the local city street cars/lines and electrified mass transit systems and replaced them with inefficient, fuel hungry, maintenance heavy busses. Lots of "lobbying" and new "laws" in the post war years of the 50's to strip our cities of street cars and various other public transportation methods. So much more info about this is you sleuth around a bit. My city(St. Louis) had a vast network of electric street cars that not only ran downtown, but also to the 'street car suburbs' that were new planned communities that moved people away from highly industrialized areas and into new homes with parks and amenities. The remnants of that system are still visible all around the city to this day. There are a million things that factor into suburbanization, a key one being the demolition of city wide electric street cars in our small and medium cities and their replacement with inconvenient/inefficient buses.