As a European, seeing someone worry over how they'd get to the train station is kinda funny. My logical response is "just take the bus/tram/troley?" cause at least my area is very well connected, and the idea of not having any form of public transit within walking distance just does not compute!
Wyoming is 3% bigger than the UK and has a population that is 116 times smaller than the UK. What kind of public transportation do you think that place should have? The entire Midwest is pretty much like that. big city's defiantly need public transportation, but the rest of the country is way too big for it. The population of Wyoming is 578,000 population of the uk is 67 million
Like you said , if you have no Car then you still have a combined Bus and Metro System . People also cycle .you can even take your Bicycle on to public transport .though some times of the day cycles are not allowed on public transport at peaktimes .also bicycles can be taken on regional trains and some inter City trains .basically you do not need a car in most central European countries.
@John Spooner you got to remember that Europe is just as big as the USA, but not the population density is 143 people per square mile while America is 34 people per square mile. Rember about the same size, just almost 5x population density. They need it more than we do not that we don't the big city's really do need it
@@yodafloats9090 An interconnected rail network joining the towns and cities, with buses joining smaller ? You don't _all_ need to travel from one end of Wyoming to the other daily - surely? 48% of all USA car journeys are less than 3 miles; 20% are under *_one_* mile! I mean, do you people not have legs or something?! 🤣
@Vatican Cameos I'm not walking 3 miles to somewhere in -20 degrees whether let alone in spring or fall. But most of town in the us are more rural/ urban areas we git huge areas to cross with few Busses. It whould never be profitable for companies to do buss rutes there just in the big city's. Would it be nice ya but but not supper practical. Look up the cannon ball rum it's from NY to Los Angeles. The record is like 24 hours Long with Average speed to 110 mph that's a high speed train speed and the fact it would take 24 hours Is something, I would rather just fly that distance in like 6- 7 hours instead.
Yeah, finding someplace to put your bike is so much easier than finding somewhere to park your car. Just use a good bike lock and you’re good, at least where I live
Every central train station in The Netherlands has a parking garage for bikes, with Utrecht central station being the largest, having room for 12500 bikes. None of them have a parking garage for cars though
In some countries, like in Romania, it is a concern that people would steal your bike or some parts of it. Romania doesn't really have a good bicycle culture yet, although there is some progress.
And you can always take your bike on the train. It is not only useful to get from your home to the station, but also from the station at the destination to wherever you'll want to go.
la population européenne ne vit pas que dans des villes. j'habite en France, en campagne. la gare la plus proche est à 15-20km donc la question ce pose.
@@preventiondechets1767 oui mais en France c'est tout a fait possible de conduire sa voiture vers la gare et se garer. Ou utiliser son vélo, qui est mieux. Donc, oui, ce sont des questions un peut drôles
@@preventiondechets1767 mais ca normal que si tu vis loin de la gare tu va conduire la avant se montrer sur train, c'est plus ecologique que conduire pour la toute route, par example a Varsovie si t'as un billet pour le metro tu peux parker pres de la station du metro gratuit et puis tu jusque prendre le metro
Busses drive you to the train stations in Europe, so you don't have to run a train track through a village or city. We have busses in the smallest towns so people can still get around. And yes, you can also drive your bike to the train station. There are special stalls where you can safely put your bike.
In our town we have 3 bus stops not even 3 minutes (bus drive) apart from each other, I could walk to the next stop within 5 minutes. Being on the opposite end of town from the train station (10 minute walk) it's nice to have the bus in order to get there to get to school, even if I could get there within a reasonable time by foot! I'm very happy with our train/bus system in Europe (specifically germany) even if there's a small delay every now and then
@shar4803 exactly, in my miniature town, we also have like 5 or 6 bus stops with 5 minute walks apart. The bus that goes through the town passes 2 or 3 other towns and goes directly to a train station. From that train station you can go through the whole Netherlands, with 2 trains you can go from South to North
@@dennis_nl7587 Yeah like from ours it's a half an hour drive to the next one, connecting us to the rest of Germany and we could even drive (directly) to Paris. American train systems genuenly baffel me
What are you talking about? Most major European cities I've been to have subways or trams that take you to the train stations. Or both! But I guess You could take a bus too. If you wanna be miserable and get there SLOWLY!
I'm from Germany and it is so interesting to see things from another perspective. It really helps to remind myself that we all live in our small bubbles. thank you :) Oh and - one reason why our transportation system is not perfect: The trains are alway AND I MEAN ALWAYS late ;-;
an Austrian student who came to study in my french school said the biggest obstacle on his travel was the DeutschBahn... But yall prices for the same trains are better than french ones, so I still prefer Deutschbahn to go to Germany X)
" Most people in Europe own a car , though ..." - I actually got rid of my car six months ago - and I am surprised at how "relaxed" I am when I get home from work after an hour on the train compared to 90 minutes in heavy car traffic.
And don’t forget you can read, listen to Musik, do homework (done that so often as a student) etc while getting transported. Not possible whilst driving a car
I bought myself a car when I started a new job, cus by train it was 60+ minutes and by car 20 minutes, and I live and work in a major city in Germany. But individual anecdotes don't tell much, studies does. A study say that car is much faster most times, even with traffic included. But that's why you have both in Europe, car and public traffic.
@@Delibro Depends. I refuse to own a car, because I live in a centre of a big city in Europe and know from experience how much time it takes to move from one street to another by car (most often it is faster to just walk which is absurd in itself). And it's not anegdotal, it's as obvious to everyone as the sun rising on the East. So, every time my family visits me, I had to include them being late at least half an hour, despite knowing it would take less without a car. The most efficient and fast transportation you can get to commute in a big city is a combination of tram/train/metro and electric kickscooter. That's a jackpot combination. Only when you need to move long distances form village to village the car would be much more efficient.
Driving to the train station is an actual thing by the way. It’s called Park and Ride and is usually done outside of cities so that you don’t have to find parking in city itself but rather just outside where there is more space for parking
@@brandondavis7777 Wao... Did not expect this for sure. They don't make me a slave. If I can park my car at the city border and use public transportation to move around, without sitting in the traffic jam for hours. I will park my car, because I can use my legs and there is a good alternative. Yet, I fail to see the slavery in this and many more millions who would love to have alternative for a car.
I live in Warsaw. Within 10min walk I have: a huge shopping center, another two grocery stores, gas station, pool, metro station, two bus stations, church, vet, dentist and probably millions other places you usually don’t visit often. I’m not kidding. To get to work I simply walk to the bus stop that is 100m away from my apartment. And the drive time is exactly 12minutes. I have been to US twice. I love this country, awesome people, beautiful nature, great memories. But the transportation system SUCKS, there is so many things wrong with it that I don’t know where to start. Just let me tell one thing. I lived in some kind of residential area where nearest shop was 15minutes away BY CAR.
yeah, every metropolitan city has that mate, nothing new. Ever been to NYC? you have everything within 5-minute walk as well... But the roads freaking suck in EU. So 5 minute walk is like 20 minute drive there. US if its 5 minute walk its 3 minute drive XD.
@@lecoureurdesbois86 I live in a low density area, I have everything I need in my village. And even a train station, with trains which go to the main lines every hour. So yeah, I do expect at least shops tbh, even if they're small
@@yushkovyaroslavThe thing is European infrastructure is based around pedestrians, whereas the US is mainly focused on car infrastructure, which is why the US has massive roads and wider cars, whereas Europe has smaller roads and therefore cars
@@thecursedgalleon7096 nope. it's not focused on anything it was build when there were no cars and mainly build "as the horses went" and horses go randomly. They had no design and clue what they were doing. (Only Germany changed that design during 1900s because they were desperately trying to get ahead of all of Europe, and it worked. for all the wrong reasons) Having straight roads is best for cars and pedestrians, as its 100 times easier to navigate. You can go anywhere in the city without a gps in US and in EU you can only do it if you lived there for years since the roads designs make absolutely no sense. The reason it even matters is not only that its more comfortable and less of a pain, but also that it is a logistic nightmare to do large scale operations anywhere in EU if it's not Germany. If any EU country had even 25% of US logistics it would collapse on itself because of its road infrastructure that is littered with unnecessary things, roadblocks, over complicated turns, illogical pathing, extra milage roads that go around instead of through an area, illogical spacing, and most importantly no logical design whatsoever. (Talking about in cities, the highways are actually really well designed in most areas) There is nothing good about it in the modern world. If people like the infrastructure and design of EU cities that is one thing, but the roads is a vital organ of a country's logistics and anyone who is worth anything understands that its very unfortunate that EU ended up like this due to its early historic success. Similar to US adapting the imperial system and is unable to change it now even though it makes absolutely no sense. But as time goes by and economies continue to grow this has too and will be changed, but current generation will not live to see it, most likely.
Trains and subways are different trust me they are definitely different for example you can travel to different countries with trains, trains have way better seets and not plastic clairs +the way a train function is also different then a Subway. Subway is for travelling in a city wile trains are for travelling to different city
I can understand this situation better than others. I live in Europe, but in a poor region (Sicily, southern Italy). Here, a car is a must. Public transport are still not a very attractive option. But. I went to work to northern Italy for five months. I went there with my car, thinking I would need it sometime. No. I didn't. I had to go to my car and turn it on weekly just to not make the battery die. Because the public transports were so well designed and cost-effective that actually driving the car was a loss of time and money. Now there are big investments to enhance public transports in my city, and I like the design that was announced. I am looking forward to use them in the future. Maybe I won't need to own a car at all.
Però onestamente avere la macchina è meglio. Puoi andare dove vuoi all'ora che vuoi, e non ti devi sorbire tutti gli zozzi e i ladri che trovi sui mezzi pubblici. Già in Toscana, parlando dell'area urbana di Firenze, Prato e Pistoia, dopo il tramonto sei a piedi. Fuori dai centri urbani poi non c'è alternativa. E non conviene neanche averla, per l'uso che se ne farebbe costerebbe troppo e non sarebbe versatile. È più semplice avere mezzi propri. Certo, forse in alcuni grandi centri urbani magari conviene potenziare i mezzi pubblici e conviene dare il più possibile la possibilità a chi viene da fuori città di poter lasciare l'auto fuori dalle mura e di spostarsi coi mezzi pubblici. Non a caso a Roma ci sono gli autobus notturni, avendo un turismo e una vita notturna importanti se lo possono permettere.
+antoniodario... In the south of Italy public transport a catastrophy. The time tables are completely arbitrary. From Cosenza to Lecce you need a whole day although it's only 150 km - that's the distance I did (once) on rollerskates! So I'm as fast on Rollerskates than an Italian train in the south.
@@svenlima Salerno-Reggio Calabria has improved drastically in recent years. Let's hope we will be able to see the rest becoming at least "decent" in the next years.
I live in Basel, Switzerland. There are actual studies here that show, that the fastest way to get from any point in the city to another is actually by bike. Followed by public transport of course. Cars aren't even allowed to drive in the large parts of the inner city.
Yeah, public transit is kinda meh in the European countryside (even in Germany, which damn well should have the money for good public transport). It usually gets you to the biggest city in the region in acceptable time (and from there to other large cities), but if you want to go anywhere else, you're SoL. And long distance train tickets are still often twice as expensive as taking the car, even with the high taxes on gasoline. Our railway system used to be good up to the 90s, but nowadays it's rapidly approaching American levels.
6:58 its the perfect example for what goes wrong with north america’s car centric society. When thinking about how to get somewhere you immediately think about going there by car, its the default option - no questions asked. But when thinking about taking the bike you wonder were to put your BIKE… I think its hilarious considering the differences in effort to creating car parking spaces compared to cycle stands…
Wyoming is 3% bigger than the UK and has a population that is 116 times smaller than the UK. What kind of public transportation do you think that place should have? The entire Midwest is pretty much like that. big city's defiantly need public transportation, but the rest of the country is way too big for it.
@@yodafloats9090 that doesn‘t excuse the “limited” perspective about the topic at hand in the population. One should still consider cycling if it’s a viable option.
@@peterw.8434 well American cities are so spread out that biking just isn’t an option for most trips Americans go on. It’s too late to save America at this point. It won’t be profitable anymore to put public transit in the Midwest because Americans don’t go out of their town or state often and most Americans drive as their first thought
The difference is just that European cities were built long before cars were invented. Some cities are 2000 years old, but most at least a 1000 years or so. In South East France, at the Italian border, where I live, the landscape is rather steep towards an amazing coastline, and villages were built with steps leading further up. There are steps everywhere. These were built hundreds of years ago. Now a fancy city like Monaco has ajusted to this by building lifts next to the steps. So you do not need a car at all.
Well but tbf American cities also weren’t build around cars. There are good photos on the internet where you can see many cities 80 years ago. They were TRANSFORMED to be car cities. Like the video mentioned in America many homes were destroyed to build highways. Even to day they do this. Same for the Netherlands. When you go back 80 years you will see that the cities arnt build around bikes. It was as car centric as any another European city but they transformed it to be one. Boston is a great example where they didn’t destroy the whole city just for highways and parking lots.
@@fabiansaerve When there weren't many cars, Europe was also more car focused. It was more difficult do do (also because of the history - you won't destroy a church that has 1000 years in order to build a road). Nowadays the EU promotes alternatives to cars.
@@fabiansaerve well America did this because at the time, cars seemed so modern and these highways were meant to help with transportation between cities. Most European cities were still focused on rebuilding after WW2 and also wanted to preserve their cities
@@incaseofimportantnegotiations i'd like a chariot ride to work and back and crap at them peasants i have to work with (that's a joke lads, don't take this seriously!)
I live in Strasbourg and an INCREDIBLE thing that started going over my head is that I just bike from France to Germany to pickup my amazon packages! The EU really is amazing.
@@Faith_To_Fate maybe you are just an idiot. Or you just settled for an average lifestyle working for others making enough money just to eat everyday. Have you ever been to the maldives? Bora bora? I guess not
I live in Madrid and you'd genuinely be surprised by how easy it is to travel through the whole city without a car only with the Metro (subway) and any bus. And this is only 8€ for as many uses as you want for a whole MONTH for people under 26yo I think. Also I think it'd interesting for an American citizen to see how interrail works in Europe, I did one with my friends this year and it seemed unimaginable to travel so much distance (8 countries) without the possibility to take some kind of public transportation since we just couldn't have a car
Pues ven a Extremadura en tren, verás que birria de transporte público tenemos. Y todo porque no hay dinero público debido a que ya fue gastado en construir ese transporte maravilloso de Madrid que describes. En España todos no somos iguales, eso en una falacia de la Constitución.
@@jadr3123 En CyL muchos pueblos casi no tienen transporte público, sólo un bus que va los findes de semana para llevar a la gente a la ciudad más cercana (te hablo sobre todo de pueblos en la Sierra de Gredos. La zona de León y tal se me escapa cómo será) y aunque es bastante mediocre el transporte, están cada vez creando más bonos para poder viajar. Por ejemplo ahora existen los bonos de tren de media y larga distancia que conecta dos paradas, las que tú quieras y por ejemplo, para el de media distancia, pagando 20 euros trimestrales puedes realizar todos los viajes que quieras (pero nunca faltes tres veces, porque te quitan el bono). Si sabes cómo comunicarte hasta la estación más cercana está bastante bien. Prueba a cotillear en la página de Renfe, o ve a alguna taquilla. Espero que esto te sirva de ayuda :)
I am 33 years old, grew up in Sweden and now living in Hungary, traveled to Finland, Denmark, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Greece and Spain to name a few. I dont have a drivers license and only used public transportation. Okay, I have cheated a few times and taken a cab but Its less than 10 times.
@@tomasbriceno2319 its not really public tho since you are a private customer and there are no strangers inside the cab besides the driver who you are paying
@@Jay-tv2lz It's public since the user does not own the car and each car is used by many people. Also cabs (at least in Europe) are regulated by either the gobernment or the municiplaty, even if they are not owned by public agencies. We can argue abut carsharing services where you drive a hired car or about private unregulated services like Uber and Cabify, since these are a bit outside those rules. However, taxi services, at least in Spain (my country) and most European contries I've been to are considered public transportation.
I only ever take a cab in the night when there is no train service in my home town. Last train arrives around 1 in the night and first one is around 5:30. Had to do that maybe twice in my life. Usually its easier to just sleep over at a friends place if I go out in a city. Also dont have a drivers license in my 30s. My girlfriend thinks its a bit weird but I just cant be bothered to pay about 3000 euro just to get a piece of paper that says I can drive when I dont want or need to own a car. Would be useful for emergencies but then I can just call a cab and it saves a lot of money not owning a car. If my girlfriend comes over I usually call her a cab from the train station, it costs me 20-30 euro which is expensive but I can easily afford that out of the 500 euro a month I dont spend on car ownership.
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hi, dutchie here. we have a very dense railnetwork were in a lot of routes there are trains leaving about every fifteen minutes (to the same destination). virtually every trainstation is also a busstop, making it very easy to take the bus to the trainstation. and if you have ever seen the photo's of our bike-parking spaces, they are not photoshopped, and biking is indeed very popular here, so that is also a way to get there. some people take their car to the trainstation, simply because parking in some of the larger (and older) cities is not only difficult, ,but also more expensive than taking the train. it probably helps that the Netherlands are one of the most densely populated countries, everything is pretty close together.
I envy you dutchies for all your infrastructure. Roads, especially highway roads, bike lanes, bike parking stations, signal coverage. You got it all! Much respect from Germany for getting stuff done and done correctly, for the people. For us Germans it's pretty normal to have construction work done on the Autobahn for no freaking reason. I always thought it was a joke that a state, city, or the country itself just throws money away for construction work because they have too much money left for that year. Until I realized it is not a joke but a reality here.
It is worth mentioning that Germany is kind of different from rest of the Europe. They don't have that big cities, more like lots of medium sized cities with sourounding suburbs looking like small villages. Motorway system called AutoBahn is fantastic and THERE ARE NO SPEED LIMITS. When german person says that his job is 40 minutes away it actually may be 60 miles away because once on motorway it is pedal to the metal. Great fun for car driving.
Well, not all of the Autobahn is without speedlimit. Most of all there is one. And nowadays there is a discussion about having a general speedlimit, what is highly needed.
If you want to go to European cities then I advise you to take the parking lot in front of the city and take the rest of the way by bus or train. Finding a parking space in the city can be a big task.
And expensive. When I'm going with my RV I use a campsite and the get a day pass which often is less expensive then parking for 3 hours in the city. Working in the (my) inner city is nearly impossible by car. Most of the area is only 3h parking (for about 2€/h) if you don't live there. And you still need to find a free spot. Parking houses are even more expensive. Parking lots are very rare.
Which is by design. Parking lots create distance. However it is density that improves people's lives (having all nessesarry stores close). And also businesses (having plenty of customers).
@@iamcurious9541 And a lot of it is simple history and not killing everything of it. In the 60ies there were car centric changes but not to that extent as in the US. And of course not in the old parts of the cities if they survived the war. And there often is just no place for parking lots and ground is expensive. Apart from parking houses there is only one open parking lot in the center of my town which has only about 20-30 spots. And of course some at the side of the roads.
It's not necessary to leave it in front of the cities, in most cities you can find parking spots for days in residential areas. And from there there's usually like a 5-10 minute walk to the city center. And again it depends which city it is, if it's München or Bucharest at rush hour we're talking about then you might not find parking spots even on the edge of the city.
11:31 YES that‘s one of the best parts of European city centers. In Germany, these roads are called „Fußgängerzone“ (pedestrian zone) and can be pretty big, like several blocks.
@@Zure619 in the US, the only "pedestrian zones" that i can think of, are malls, where as in europe they dedicate entire parts of a city to be pedestrian zones.
@@georgwarhead2801 in Gent starting from the nineties, goed city goverment because there was a huge resistance! especially from shops ! in the end, shops did way better, EXCEPT those that selled really big things like electronics and such, those have been pushed away. you need a special licence if you really need to be there to be allowed in :). and it contains the biggest part of the historic mediaval city center, so busy that they started a few years ago to forbid cycling in 2 busy shopping street on saterday between the usually pretty busy hours ;).
In Europe, you take your car and go to the train station if you’re far from it (and you park your car in park places) or you take a bike, public transports, or walk if you’re in cities. And in cities we’ve some ‘’parking places’’ or underground parkings bcs all the place is occupated.
A lot of the parking spaces in the larger cities here in the Netherlands are actually underground or very well hidden (A lot of the other countries in Europe have this as well, but this is from my Dutch experience). When these cities were build, cars didn't exist yet so we couldn't 'keep them in mind' while planning. Has forced us to be creative that's for sure.
Actually, that is not how things went. 'Not just bikes' is a YT channel that has a lot of interesting videos about this subject. It comes down to making certain choices, which were made in the '90s.
@@carmenl163 Many (and i mean MANY) cities all over Europe were already well established (and their main roads too) before the 1800s... All that those '90s could do was to ask how they can FIT what is already there, without razing it all down and starting from scratch...
@@irrelevant_noob That's not what happened. During the sixties and seventies there were made many adjustments for cars. In the 90's those were undone. NJB shows this in his videos.
@@carmenl163 idk... when you say "adjustments" i can only think how a whole neighborhood was flattened in my city to make room for a grandiose palace. And even that didn't quite "fix" the roads. Not much point in having 6 lanes there if all the access routes will only be 2-wide.
The thing about public transport in Europe is that, as you said, it's near where people live. If I wanted to take the subway, I'd only have to get out of my house, walk for 4 minutes and I'm already at the subway, whereas in America it's all more far away.
its insanenly close lol, for examploe, to get to school i either take the train thats genuinely like right next door, or go to the buss top right outside the building. i even have a restaurant, grocery story, primary school and nursery in a 200m radius. not to mention the high school thats like 10 mins SLOW WALK away.
in germany those roades where people are just walking are called "fußgängerzone" and they are in the older parts of cities so the houses dont get dmgd etc
In Italy there is a saying "Every road leads to Rome". Literally you can pick any road from north Italy and by the time you get close Bologna you start to see signs for Rome. Even roads to the country side can lead you easily there without using highways (especially if you don't want to pay for the toll) but it will take more time to reach
Same in german, and tbh i saw various times roadconstruction that removed all to the cobblestone layer and i am actually living on a roman build street in cologne.Its still cobblestone.
that's because the earliest roads were built by Roman legions to be used by the Roman legions when conqu... ahem... I mean defending, yes, defending Rome
as a dutch person who uses the train daily: we bike to the station and theres bike parking lots (well racks, lots of em) at the station. and then we have another "station bike" (aka run down bike that we all buy 2nd hand for a few bucks, most likely stolen but we dont care) to bike further. but also loads of steps and skateboard users take theit mode of transport with them on the train.
Or, as many Dutch people nowadays do, rent a public transit bike at the destination station! :) For non-dutch people, YES! we have "public transit" bikes haha. They're basically just rental bikes, except we use our public transit passes to rent them and they get billed as part of public transit journeys, making renting those bikes much less of a hassle. I can walk into the bike rental at the station, take a bike, present my pass, and walk out with the bike all under a minute or so.
As a Flemish guy I really hope our incompetent government will incorperate those big 'stackable' bike parkings now that our leftist goverbnment wants to make everything more green thus taking away parking space for the greenery thus making you pay for the fewer parking spaces we'll have where before you could stand 2h for free with a blue parking disc.
@@dennisengelen2517 In Gent Dampoort we have stackable bike parkings, only downside is, that you can't secure your bicycle as well. Also better and more efficient parking structures would be nice with a good connection to public transport would improve it a lot. But I do agree that we need better, safer (, and more) parking spaces for bicycles. Instead of them cluttering sidewalks and thus making them less safe. Even though I am neutral on the political spectrum and am more left leaning in what I vote, I can understand your frustration, and think parking should be much better, easier and cheaper with cars. But in my opinion it should be done in such a way that we don't have to see the cars parked everywhere, instead proper underground parkings everywhere. I hate seeing plazas full of cars. Instead of being angry at each other, we should think about how we can compromise and find a solution for us both. I don't think it's as much the government being leftist, as it probably is that the EU is putting pressure on countries to do these things, and Belgium does not want to be left behind .
Yes. People from small villages drive to the nearby train station and take the train then, to avoid traffic jams, parking issues, etc. same with bikes. ( There are bike parkings, especially in the Netherlands).
i live in rural germany and i own a car. I rarely travel by train or bus. But when i do, the next bus stop i just 500 meters away and the bus drives to the train station. Bus schedules are pinned at the bus stop or available online. Bigger cities have a "park and ride" parkinglot in the outskirts of the city. Its safe to park your car there and travel to the city center by bus. Most cities are lacking parkingslots and/or are really expensive.
where i live, there are parking spots for bikes by the stations but you can also take it with you on the train. my dad goes by foldable bike and train to work almost every day and i study in the city and take the train back and forth each week
😁 Just last year (maybe the year before), they put a large, well-lit, covered bike parking lot next to the ministerium here in Vienna. It's pretty nice.
As a Swiss I often drive my car to the trainstation when skiing to prevent the traffic jam down the mountain at the end of the day. There is lots of „park + ride“ options close to big cities as well, as parking is a nightmare. The bike you just lock in the bike parking. 😅
I lived in Hamburg for about 20 years and most of them I didn't own a car, but then I increasingly felt a need to be in nature and by the seaside, so the last 4 years living in Hamburg I had a car, but only used it on the weekends to get out of the city. Now I live at the Baltic Sea in a very beautiful but remote spot. It would be impossible to live here without a car. What I really wanted to say is, even in Europe it depends pretty much on where you live...
Normally you take the bus from near your house to the next trainstation if it to far away to walk or ride a bike.... Most EU trainstations got something like a secured bike parking lot.
Yes, particulary in rural or suburban areas of europe commuters are using their cars to go the first miles to the train station. There they have large parking lots to leave the cars, and the people are using public transport to reach their offices/factories in town. We call it park & ride. The newest development is to build bycicle garages and electric car rentals at the suburbn train stations to give the people an alternative for the first/last miles.
idk in other countries, but in denmark, we usually get "parking complexes" where they just add layer upon layer of parking spots, and they usually sit in centralized locations so we have minimal walking time from parking to a wide range of stores
The guy from Not Just Bikes explaines it really well. Since road need major maintenance every 25 years it gives the city the option to redesign the road. City planners can make different choices to include bicycle lanes that are seperate from the roads. Add mixed zoning laws and you wouldn''t need to drive 10 miles to the grocery store. I live in a small town and i have four grocery stores within half a mile. Don't need a car just to buy food.
In Europe, there is trains where you can enter with your bike at a specific "wagon". Also there is sometimed a place to fix it "head up" or "wheel up". So that if the train 3 miles away from your job you can go easily. Or there is some "collective cage parc" to secure your bike at the train station.
I live at Nice in France and the place for people like at 10:28 there is a lot of this and you really can't go with your car in bc if police catch you doing this he can take your driving license, make you pay between 130-750euro and sometimes take your car
4:43 This is an mistake in the OG. When you see this graphic he says the EU isn't on that list, correct BUT Then says European countries are NOT on that list BUT Russia and Ukraine are part of Europe.
Thanks for the video!! I’m from Spain and I think that the main difference between Europe and the US is that European population is more highly packed in cities and towns of all sizes. Meaning that many small villages in my region (Navarre) may have a health center and a primary school and grocery stores, even small ones. In some villages even the doctor, the priest and even the baker truck will get to the village so elder people no need to move. My priest, for instance will spend most of Sunday morning driving from village to village. Thanks again 👍👍
My son studied in netherlands. He owned 2 bikes. With one he went from his house to the train station of his town. He used to park the bike at the station and take the train to amsterdam. At the amsterdam station he had the other bike he used to go to the university. After the lessons, the same thing. Rided bike to the amsterdam station, parked it there, took the train to his town and at the station he tooked his bike and rided to his house.
Im from austria, i live in Vienna. We own 1 Car for 2 people, but use it maybe once a month. We used to live in the Countryside too where we both needed a car on a daily basis, because there was only 1 train and 1 bus (the bus came only at 6am and in the evening, in 4 years living there i havent seen that bus even once) So yes.. you still need a car when you live in the countryside. but the nearer you are to the city the better the public transortation becomes.
I've lived in the countryside of Germany and never had a car. Well, my bus came once per hour, on weekends every other hour. Next supermarket was around 3 km away. And I managed it. There are very rare exceptions where one really can't live without cars. But usually people just say that they "need" a car because they are not willing to adjust themselves to a life without car.
It depends on where in Europe you live though. I come from a small town in southern Italy and driving a car is essential, as public transport, although it exists, is completely unreliable. I used to live very close to the city center, so I was lucky enough everything I needed was at walking distance, but my office was in the suburbs and man was it hell driving to and from, and finding a parking space was just a nightmare. Five years ago I moved to Munich, and my perspective completely changed. Public transport is very well developed, works efficiently and is reliable, you can easily reach any area of the city. It's expensive, I'll give you that, but nothing compared to the costs that owning a car entails. I only own a bike here, and even though I miss driving a car, I don't miss one at all. I just don't need it.
to get to the train station you can either: 1. take a bus 2. take the tram 3. take the metro 4. ride your bike there 5. walk (if you're close enough) 6. get a taxi, so many otpions and none require you to drive
Also huge amount of parking spaces are hidden bellow houses (this is the case mostly for cities) or near malls there are parkings with 2-3 stories, they take smaller space in city but hold a lot of parking spaces
I live in sweden and public transport is really well designed.... I have four bus stations near me that are closer than 100m to where I live, using them can get to the train station within 10 minutes, and it's the same ticket that works for trains, buses, subway and even some boats, so I can go from my home, with a bus to closest train station and then with train to closest subway to ride a subway to Stockholm on the same ticket!
The railway system is very good and still expanding. I love the fact that using the channel tunnel, you can be in Paris from London in 2hrs 20mins . So breakfast on the train . See an exhibition at the D' Orsay Museum and a late lunch at a nice restaurant . Shopping dinner on the train and home by 11pm
1. Yes, many people in Europe own a Car, but far less than the US. You can use your Car to drive to a Trainstation and park it there to continue with a Train, if there is a P&R (Park & Ride) area. 2. If you use a Bike to reach a Trainstation (and you have a ticket for the Bike), you can take it into the Train. There is often an area to place it. 3. Unless you life in Village, public transportation is more or less tightly woven. Busses, Trams, Trains, Subways. But even in the smallest Village, you will find atleast one Busstop. Their schedule isnt good (why sending a Bus to a small village every 30 min, if there arent enough people to use it that often?), maybe 3-4 times a day, but thats still better than having no public transportation. Its complicated. People who move to a village have a Car, partially because there is no good public transportation. But this means it doesn't pay off to schedule more Busses to that Village, since so many people have a Car. I tried to get a license^^ That was over 15 years ago. The times i would have really needed a car so far is not even 2 digits.
10:44 both on bikes and healthy people: The is a great channel that’s called not just bikes, which is a channel focused on the differences of street and general city design. It is run by someone who is originally from London Canada. You should really check him out.
Wow look how many views you’ve got ! Hope your subscribers soon reach that level. Your posts are very varied and your views on the videos are so interesting to me as an English guy. Thanks for posting !
In Belgium,in Gent and Antwerp specificly,there are zones(Low emission zones) in those cities where you Can't enter if your car produces too much damaging substances.
the train 7:06 is from switzerland (sbb = schweizer bundes bahn) and in my opinion the best train system in europe (im from switzerland and know really well how they look like). fun fact in switzerland travelling with train is faster than with a car cause of speed limit 120 km/h and the pretty good job of sbb
Every time I hover over a "fairly large city with skyscrapers" on Google Streetview in the US, I always end up surprised how much of the downtown area is occupied by plain old parking lots. Like, come on, if you want your parking lots, just hide them in the basement and use the rest of the space for housing or offices. No wonder it's so hard to get into the city center from a suburb if you don't have a car. Trams and subway lines are probably the best public transport ever to be fair.
"Where would you put your bike?" I know this video is a year old, but at least in Denmark, pretty much every train station has a bike shack, and a large portion of trains are built with the intention of you bringing the bike unto the train, so you can use it where you're going, too.
When my cousin first moved from England to florida, he couldn't believe that nobody walked anywhere. Literally nobody lol. Where he lives they even drive to their postboxes at the end on their road. They live a 5 minute walk from his stepsons school, but his mum still drives him there everyday 😒
I saw a great video about zoning on The Black forest family channel, Ashton who is an architect, compared the structure of an American city and a European one. It is mind blowing that one cannot open a shop/grocery/bakery or a restaurant in a residential area in the USA. Locating big shopping malls or supermarkets on the outskirts is ok for me, since they require a huge parking lots, but some small local shops and cafes are perfect for a community/housings estate.
Yes, but zoning laws also preserve aesthetics and beautiful suburbs. Not everyone wants to live in an urban environment with houses mixed with businesses. I guess it’s just what you prefer and are used to.
@@SWLinPHX Have you ever been to a European town with a suburban housing estate or a village? I live in Germany and there are beautiful local communities with small shops (grocery and a bakery or a butcher) and a cafe. Sometimes the estates are created with a central square. I am not taking about huge malls, but basic amenities within a walking distance, homes surrounded by greenery, with bike lanes and pavements. There is a great English tv show "Escape to the country", one can see how these communities work.
@@joannajaworska0000 Yes, I lived in Europe and am aware of that. I was talking about urban environments with shops on top of apartments. There are plenty of suburbs that may have large big box stores (which, for better or worse, are the monopolies and biggest draw in the U.S.) along the freeways or near suburbs, but not in them.
You can absolutely run a train track trough a city without it being annoying. The trains can be undeground or simply so quiet they don't bother anyone. There are footbridges or underpasses to go from one side to another. It's no problem at all :)
Its insane how good the transportation system is in europe. If live in Germany but go to school in austria so every day I go by train and by bus to go to school
You might enjoy the channel Not Just Bikes where you can learn a lot about the Dutch strategies of making bikes and public transportation insanely attractive, and how this raises the quality of life for everybody. In the Netherlands, there are huge huge bike parking lots everywhere, especially around train stations. Watching it just makes me want to jump on my bike. Germany is not on that level, far from it.
Well, German cities are much more extensive while Dutch are more condensed. Commuting through cities even with a decent public transport can sometimes take one hour, much more so with a bike, so no one is gonna bother cycling when everything is so far.
Over here we have train stations with bicycle storage for thousands of bikes at a time, surveilled, and also hundreds of (cheap) rental bikes you can rent with the swipe of your public transport card for an entire day. -Netherlands
Personally, I don't own a car (student) and usually just use busses or my bike, but I sometimes take my moms car, and using it to get to the train station is not uncommon, since I am from a small village, and if I return after 10PM, I have no alternative. There are often so called "park and ride" parking lots, also for bikes, exactly for this purpose.
I live in budapest, the main problem here is that its so hard to find parking place tho. Its close to impossible. That parking lot looked so promising to me lmao, because we always struggle to park, looking for parking space in the city for 20-30 minutes after arriving somewhere
"Where would you put your bike?" At least in Poland: on station or in train, as yea, there is at least one traincar which bosts bike hooks or however they would be called.
“where would you put your bike?” had me sitting in silence for a good couple of seconds. here in The Netherlands every big train station has literal parking garages for our bikes. (but you can also bring your bike along with you in the train) in New Zealand there’s more sheep than people, in The Netherlands there’s more bikes than people. 1.4 bikes per person. also, basically every road here is a bike lane, unless it’s a road strictly for cars, like a highway or provincial road. but then still, there’s probably a bike road right beside the big road somewhere in the fields.
6:55 you can leave the bike at the train station or you can take it along with you in most of the regional trains. They make some room near the doors for bikes to be stored.
That map at 0:35 only shows the long distance trains which is a tiny portion of the total train network. In the editor's defense, showing the entire network would mean just painting the entirety of europe yellow, with a few green spots here and there.
an inperfection in the netherlands with public transport is that if you travel with friends, gas for a car is cheaper then train/bus tickets for the group
I just want to add that the hunt for a parking spot in European cities is a major reason for leaving the car at home. When I lived in Munich (6km or 3.6 miles away from the city centre), we always went like: „Should we use car, bike or public transportation to the city centre?“ and it resulted in: „Where should we park the car (without paying expensive parking fees)? And public transportation is so expensive … bike it is.“ Right now we live right in the middle of an historic small town and we literally walk everywhere, because sometimes the closest free parking spot is a 10 minute walk away, while we can reach literally anything in a 20 to 30 minute walk.
I live in a soviet era flat. Our grocery store is litteraly inside our flat so i need just 1 minute to go down the elevator to buy food with no other expense ( except elevator taxes and stuff ). And even then in less then 1 kilometer they are already like 10-20 other stores for different things and even supermarket
Where I am from yes some people takes the car to the trainstation and have their car parked at "communters parking". Mostly happens in more rural areas where the public transportation has fewer departures and take much longer time then driving the car. However it also happens that people that live and work close to eachother pool up and use one car at the time and split the cost of gas.
Regarding 6:20 yes, we do drive to the train station! And even if we didn't, at least in Portugal buses take you from a place near the cities to the terminal, which is near a train station
here in spain for example, you can grab a bus ride that takes you to any location in the city just for 30 cents or 0,32$, thats with a special card that you get from the city hall, thats the case for the smaller cities, and in the big cities like barcelona or madrid you can get to the subway that is pretty much the same situation like NYC, but in the smaller cities the buses are super comfortable and affordable, taking you everywhere you want
To answer your question "How do people get to the train station? ": I live in what is considered to be a third-world country in Europe called Bulgaria. We have a very poor but really wide railway web. 1. You get more train stations with big cities 2. You can use all kinds of public transport to get to the station: A. Bus B. Traincar C. Subway 3. You can also rent a bike or e-bike (not so popular yet) 4. You can use your personal bike, there are lots of public bike parkings (ironic, but take a lot less space) 5. You can rent an e-scooter 6. There are really affordable e-cars that you can rent and pay something like $5-$10 for the first 15 minutes (depending on the model) and then you're charged by the minute 7. Of course you can walk to the station as well if it's within a walking distance As you can see there are lots of ways to get to the station and I'm probably missing something since it's currently 1:30AM.
On any Trip in Europe you have some slow transport system for a the short distance that brings you to some fast travel system and back to a slow system to bring you to your designated target. And most of the time all 3 transport systems working with each other so you dont loose time while changing. If my daily commute is faster on the car i will take my car! I normally need around 300-500 steps to reach to get from A-B. (With the car i need around 100steps if i find a close parkingslot.) Because we are lazy as well, and have bus stations every 200m everywhere where people live. If i'm late and want to skip the bus to train i can take the bicycle to the train. Bus takes me 8mins with my bike i reach the train station 2 km away in 5mins. It's like someone brings you on a horse to the highway, where you get picked up by a supercar. Efficency is the key. Most walking you will ever do in EUROPE on public transport systems are big airports & old huge central train stations.
I’m from Norway and where I live I can reach a train station, multiple bus stops, shopping center, 5 different grocery stores and more by just walking for 15 minutes
We in the UK have underground parking lots or 3 or 4 level parking garages. You get a ticket on the way in and pay for time used on the way out. Saves space! Now we are closing roads in towns and cities for cars and making them pedestrianised.
to answer your question about how to get to the train station, from a personal perspective, i live in a tiny village of around 200-250 people and we have two bus stations, that you can get to in like 5-8 minutes from the furthest houses. sure, because it's such a small village, the buses only run once every two hours on average and one of the lines only runs on weekdays, but it's still very easily workable around and to live here, unless you need to haul big and heavy things often, you do not need a car at all, even for an area that's considered quite remote. when i'm in the city for uni, there are buses, trams and metro that runs everywhere at all times of the day (of course there's not that many night lines, but those only operate from 1-5 am, any other time the regular transport runs very often) and even if you don't use public transport, biking is almost always a viable option, since everything is so close together
7:06 bike on public transport only outside of rush hours. That make the success of new scooter who can be packed. You park it at the station for the day, but we have a lot of steal issues so people choose to walk or take the bus (to the train or tramway)
I am Dutch. and i live an a family of 4. we own 6 bikes and we have one car that is mostly only used for distances greater then 10 kilometres. I can litterally go ANYWHERE in the netherlands by just following a bikepath. i live in a small village in the middle of nowhere and when i need to go to a grocerystore, i take my bike and drive 3 minutes to a busstop. the bus comes every 10 minutes to pick up people from other small villages around and then the bus drives to a larger village with all the shops and things like that. It works really good and in our case it is really cheap. the busride is like 4 kilometres and only costs 45 cents (That is only possible because of the high tax rate). Everywhere you go there are smaller train stations with a LOT of bicycle parking spaces. In Amsterdam there are parking spaces underground because there are so much bikes. a Dutch person owns 1.5 bikes on average btw.
A central train station only has value if it is connected to the rest of the city by good options for further transportation. The best options in European cities are typically underground trains (for the biggest cities), trams, buses, bicycles and taxis. A typical central train station has a huge bus/tram station next to it, as well as a large bicycle parking garage (oftentimes below the station square), a taxi station and a pick and ride for a car owner to drop you off / pick you up. This sounds like it takes up a lot of space. And while it sure does take up a fair bit of space in your city center, keep in mind that particularly in older European cities, you'll find station buildings being pretty monuments, and stepping out of the station onto a nice and good looking open space is a good first impression to give to tourists, who usually arrive to the city through the central station!
I'm European and I some times take the car if I'm late for the train and leave the car in the parking lots that are appositely made for who takes the train, but wen I was a kid or even now some times, I use to just walk or bike to the train and take. The bike. With. Me. You can leave it if you want in those places for parking bikes but I would not recommend given that some times they get stolen
In France, people in the cities usually don't own a car because it's expensive and less reliable than subway / tramway. Even if you need to move from one city to another, many just don't find pleasant to drive when you can just sit in the train and work on your computer. Of course that only is possible because we have a properly deployed internet connection network. In that case we take the bus/subway/tramway to go to the train station.
Answearing your question about driving to the train station. Yes, most Europeans have cars - even here in Poland. And yes we drive to train station to than leave a car in "Park and Ride" parking spot and move to the city center by train (or bus or whatever). Many bigger cities got places where you can leave your car and use public transportation. My home is 25 km from the city center. Most of the time i don't want to spend my time in jams, so I drive few km to the place I have best connection to my destination using public tranportation. My city is around 400k ppl. And i have seen some comments about towns in America that have 500k ppl, to be too small to have advance public transportation. In my town there are 80 bus lines, 14 tram lines and many trains. Most of them operate from 5 am to 11 pm every 10-15 minutes. From the outskirts of the city you have around 4 to 5 ways of getting to another part of the town. And it is not even an exemplary public tranportation in Europe. Around my city there are 5 smaller ones - every one of them is around 10k to 50k ppl. And all of them have busses and trains coming to the biggest city every 15 minutes. And thats also normal for us. When I travel to another country in Europe i am looking for a place that is near metro or bus station to use public transport and DO NOT use my car EVER during my whole stay. And most of my friends do the same.
Hey Ryan, yes, you go to the train station by bike, on foot or by public transport. Most train stations here have large areas where you can park your bike. You can also get on the train with your bike in certain cases. And there are also parking gararges in the cities for cars . They are usually a few floors high and you obviously have to pay by the hour for them . They can be close to the city centre, but usually a bit further away so you still need to walk a little. You see, you can't have a busy parking garage right next to a beautiful gothic cathedral. That's not nice. I also recommend you the TH-cam channel Notjustbikes. I like your sense of humor. Greetings from Antwerp, Belgium.
Yep, and they are usually inside a building and they have a few floors. They're not open parking lots, huge slabs of concrete that would take up many square meters of space, inside the city centre. Hope you enjoyed your trip to Antwerp. All the best😊
Fun Fact, London is an urban monster. The street system is so complex that a study was conducted on the brains of London taxi drivers and found significant differences.
As a European, seeing someone worry over how they'd get to the train station is kinda funny. My logical response is "just take the bus/tram/troley?" cause at least my area is very well connected, and the idea of not having any form of public transit within walking distance just does not compute!
Wyoming is 3% bigger than the UK and has a population that is 116 times smaller than the UK. What kind of public transportation do you think that place should have? The entire Midwest is pretty much like that. big city's defiantly need public transportation, but the rest of the country is way too big for it.
The population of Wyoming is 578,000 population of the uk is 67 million
Like you said , if you have no Car then you still have a combined Bus and Metro System . People also cycle .you can even take your Bicycle on to public transport .though some times of the day cycles are not allowed on public transport at peaktimes .also bicycles can be taken on regional trains and some inter City trains .basically you do not need a car in most central European countries.
@John Spooner you got to remember that Europe is just as big as the USA, but not the population density is 143 people per square mile while America is 34 people per square mile. Rember about the same size, just almost 5x population density. They need it more than we do not that we don't the big city's really do need it
@@yodafloats9090 An interconnected rail network joining the towns and cities, with buses joining smaller ? You don't _all_ need to travel from one end of Wyoming to the other daily - surely?
48% of all USA car journeys are less than 3 miles; 20% are under *_one_* mile!
I mean, do you people not have legs or something?! 🤣
@Vatican Cameos I'm not walking 3 miles to somewhere in -20 degrees whether let alone in spring or fall. But most of town in the us are more rural/ urban areas we git huge areas to cross with few Busses. It whould never be profitable for companies to do buss rutes there just in the big city's. Would it be nice ya but but not supper practical. Look up the cannon ball rum it's from NY to Los Angeles. The record is like 24 hours Long with Average speed to 110 mph that's a high speed train speed and the fact it would take 24 hours Is something, I would rather just fly that distance in like 6- 7 hours instead.
"Where would you put your bike" That was so American it was adorable xD
Made me laugh too :-)
Yeah, finding someplace to put your bike is so much easier than finding somewhere to park your car. Just use a good bike lock and you’re good, at least where I live
Every central train station in The Netherlands has a parking garage for bikes, with Utrecht central station being the largest, having room for 12500 bikes. None of them have a parking garage for cars though
In some countries, like in Romania, it is a concern that people would steal your bike or some parts of it. Romania doesn't really have a good bicycle culture yet, although there is some progress.
And you can always take your bike on the train. It is not only useful to get from your home to the station, but also from the station at the destination to wherever you'll want to go.
"where do you put your bike?"
"How do you get to the train station?"
I can't even describe how strange those questions sound to me (a European) lol
la population européenne ne vit pas que dans des villes. j'habite en France, en campagne. la gare la plus proche est à 15-20km donc la question ce pose.
In US you nearly cannot survive without a car in many cities... it's sad TBH.
@@preventiondechets1767 oui mais en France c'est tout a fait possible de conduire sa voiture vers la gare et se garer. Ou utiliser son vélo, qui est mieux. Donc, oui, ce sont des questions un peut drôles
@@preventiondechets1767 mais ca normal que si tu vis loin de la gare tu va conduire la avant se montrer sur train, c'est plus ecologique que conduire pour la toute route, par example a Varsovie si t'as un billet pour le metro tu peux parker pres de la station du metro gratuit et puis tu jusque prendre le metro
Same for me as a dutch person! We have giant (underground) places to park your bike.
Busses drive you to the train stations in Europe, so you don't have to run a train track through a village or city. We have busses in the smallest towns so people can still get around. And yes, you can also drive your bike to the train station. There are special stalls where you can safely put your bike.
In our town we have 3 bus stops not even 3 minutes (bus drive) apart from each other, I could walk to the next stop within 5 minutes. Being on the opposite end of town from the train station (10 minute walk) it's nice to have the bus in order to get there to get to school, even if I could get there within a reasonable time by foot! I'm very happy with our train/bus system in Europe (specifically germany) even if there's a small delay every now and then
@shar4803 exactly, in my miniature town, we also have like 5 or 6 bus stops with 5 minute walks apart. The bus that goes through the town passes 2 or 3 other towns and goes directly to a train station. From that train station you can go through the whole Netherlands, with 2 trains you can go from South to North
@@dennis_nl7587 Yeah like from ours it's a half an hour drive to the next one, connecting us to the rest of Germany and we could even drive (directly) to Paris. American train systems genuenly baffel me
Or you take your bike on the train. I know like a gazillion people who ride a foldable bike for that purpose.
What are you talking about?
Most major European cities I've been to have subways or trams that take you to the train stations.
Or both!
But I guess You could take a bus too. If you wanna be miserable and get there SLOWLY!
I'm from Germany and it is so interesting to see things from another perspective. It really helps to remind myself that we all live in our small bubbles. thank you :)
Oh and - one reason why our transportation system is not perfect:
The trains are alway AND I MEAN ALWAYS late ;-;
Wow! I lived in Germany 32 years ago and you could set your watch by the trains and buses. I guess times have changed.
Deutsche Bahn is a desaster 😅
So true german trains are a disaster
Or they get cancelled or drive off from another Plattform number (like every dann time I'm in berlin)
an Austrian student who came to study in my french school said the biggest obstacle on his travel was the DeutschBahn... But yall prices for the same trains are better than french ones, so I still prefer Deutschbahn to go to Germany X)
" Most people in Europe own a car , though ..." - I actually got rid of my car six months ago - and I am surprised at how "relaxed" I am when I get home from work after an hour on the train compared to 90 minutes in heavy car traffic.
I go home in 30 minutes by a tram and by a car I would spend 90 minutes! (because of car traffic) I love trams
And don’t forget you can read, listen to Musik, do homework (done that so often as a student) etc while getting transported. Not possible whilst driving a car
@@piau1798 Or sleep 😅
I bought myself a car when I started a new job, cus by train it was 60+ minutes and by car 20 minutes, and I live and work in a major city in Germany. But individual anecdotes don't tell much, studies does. A study say that car is much faster most times, even with traffic included. But that's why you have both in Europe, car and public traffic.
@@Delibro Depends. I refuse to own a car, because I live in a centre of a big city in Europe and know from experience how much time it takes to move from one street to another by car (most often it is faster to just walk which is absurd in itself). And it's not anegdotal, it's as obvious to everyone as the sun rising on the East. So, every time my family visits me, I had to include them being late at least half an hour, despite knowing it would take less without a car. The most efficient and fast transportation you can get to commute in a big city is a combination of tram/train/metro and electric kickscooter. That's a jackpot combination. Only when you need to move long distances form village to village the car would be much more efficient.
Driving to the train station is an actual thing by the way. It’s called Park and Ride and is usually done outside of cities so that you don’t have to find parking in city itself but rather just outside where there is more space for parking
P+R is a nice thing and it can work, because in Europe, we have public transport.
@@bzs187 Okay? You say that like relying on government to move around makes you "better"? It actually makes you a slave.
@@brandondavis7777 you're funny... Brainwashed, but funny.
@@brandondavis7777 Wao... Did not expect this for sure. They don't make me a slave. If I can park my car at the city border and use public transportation to move around, without sitting in the traffic jam for hours. I will park my car, because I can use my legs and there is a good alternative. Yet, I fail to see the slavery in this and many more millions who would love to have alternative for a car.
@@damionlee7658 That's some adorable projection. Typical of your kind, though
I live in Warsaw. Within 10min walk I have: a huge shopping center, another two grocery stores, gas station, pool, metro station, two bus stations, church, vet, dentist and probably millions other places you usually don’t visit often. I’m not kidding.
To get to work I simply walk to the bus stop that is 100m away from my apartment. And the drive time is exactly 12minutes.
I have been to US twice. I love this country, awesome people, beautiful nature, great memories. But the transportation system SUCKS, there is so many things wrong with it that I don’t know where to start.
Just let me tell one thing. I lived in some kind of residential area where nearest shop was 15minutes away BY CAR.
yeah, every metropolitan city has that mate, nothing new. Ever been to NYC? you have everything within 5-minute walk as well... But the roads freaking suck in EU. So 5 minute walk is like 20 minute drive there. US if its 5 minute walk its 3 minute drive XD.
So you were in a low density area and expected shops?
@@lecoureurdesbois86 I live in a low density area, I have everything I need in my village. And even a train station, with trains which go to the main lines every hour.
So yeah, I do expect at least shops tbh, even if they're small
@@yushkovyaroslavThe thing is European infrastructure is based around pedestrians, whereas the US is mainly focused on car infrastructure, which is why the US has massive roads and wider cars, whereas Europe has smaller roads and therefore cars
@@thecursedgalleon7096 nope. it's not focused on anything it was build when there were no cars and mainly build "as the horses went" and horses go randomly. They had no design and clue what they were doing. (Only Germany changed that design during 1900s because they were desperately trying to get ahead of all of Europe, and it worked. for all the wrong reasons) Having straight roads is best for cars and pedestrians, as its 100 times easier to navigate. You can go anywhere in the city without a gps in US and in EU you can only do it if you lived there for years since the roads designs make absolutely no sense.
The reason it even matters is not only that its more comfortable and less of a pain, but also that it is a logistic nightmare to do large scale operations anywhere in EU if it's not Germany. If any EU country had even 25% of US logistics it would collapse on itself because of its road infrastructure that is littered with unnecessary things, roadblocks, over complicated turns, illogical pathing, extra milage roads that go around instead of through an area, illogical spacing, and most importantly no logical design whatsoever. (Talking about in cities, the highways are actually really well designed in most areas) There is nothing good about it in the modern world. If people like the infrastructure and design of EU cities that is one thing, but the roads is a vital organ of a country's logistics and anyone who is worth anything understands that its very unfortunate that EU ended up like this due to its early historic success. Similar to US adapting the imperial system and is unable to change it now even though it makes absolutely no sense. But as time goes by and economies continue to grow this has too and will be changed, but current generation will not live to see it, most likely.
@6:58 "I guess you could ride your bike to the train, but where do you put it".
The Netherlands: Hold my beer.
"I've never even used a train, I used a subway" That is a train bro
dude what is himmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Theoretically, yes, but subways, like trams tend to work within cities, while trains take you _between_ cities.
Trains and subways are different trust me they are definitely different for example you can travel to different countries with trains, trains have way better seets and not plastic clairs +the way a train function is also different then a Subway. Subway is for travelling in a city wile trains are for travelling to different city
In my city in Rennes in France, the subways have tires, we call it "The VAL" for Light Automatic Vehicle.
no, trains use overhead electric cables or diesel locomotives, whilst subway variated locomotives use electrically powered rails
I can understand this situation better than others.
I live in Europe, but in a poor region (Sicily, southern Italy).
Here, a car is a must. Public transport are still not a very attractive option.
But.
I went to work to northern Italy for five months.
I went there with my car, thinking I would need it sometime.
No. I didn't.
I had to go to my car and turn it on weekly just to not make the battery die.
Because the public transports were so well designed and cost-effective that actually driving the car was a loss of time and money.
Now there are big investments to enhance public transports in my city, and I like the design that was announced. I am looking forward to use them in the future. Maybe I won't need to own a car at all.
Però onestamente avere la macchina è meglio.
Puoi andare dove vuoi all'ora che vuoi, e non ti devi sorbire tutti gli zozzi e i ladri che trovi sui mezzi pubblici.
Già in Toscana, parlando dell'area urbana di Firenze, Prato e Pistoia, dopo il tramonto sei a piedi.
Fuori dai centri urbani poi non c'è alternativa. E non conviene neanche averla, per l'uso che se ne farebbe costerebbe troppo e non sarebbe versatile. È più semplice avere mezzi propri.
Certo, forse in alcuni grandi centri urbani magari conviene potenziare i mezzi pubblici e conviene dare il più possibile la possibilità a chi viene da fuori città di poter lasciare l'auto fuori dalle mura e di spostarsi coi mezzi pubblici.
Non a caso a Roma ci sono gli autobus notturni, avendo un turismo e una vita notturna importanti se lo possono permettere.
+antoniodario... In the south of Italy public transport a catastrophy. The time tables are completely arbitrary. From Cosenza to Lecce you need a whole day although it's only 150 km - that's the distance I did (once) on rollerskates! So I'm as fast on Rollerskates than an Italian train in the south.
@@svenlima Salerno-Reggio Calabria has improved drastically in recent years.
Let's hope we will be able to see the rest becoming at least "decent" in the next years.
I live in Basel, Switzerland. There are actual studies here that show, that the fastest way to get from any point in the city to another is actually by bike. Followed by public transport of course. Cars aren't even allowed to drive in the large parts of the inner city.
Yeah, public transit is kinda meh in the European countryside (even in Germany, which damn well should have the money for good public transport). It usually gets you to the biggest city in the region in acceptable time (and from there to other large cities), but if you want to go anywhere else, you're SoL. And long distance train tickets are still often twice as expensive as taking the car, even with the high taxes on gasoline.
Our railway system used to be good up to the 90s, but nowadays it's rapidly approaching American levels.
6:58 its the perfect example for what goes wrong with north america’s car centric society. When thinking about how to get somewhere you immediately think about going there by car, its the default option - no questions asked. But when thinking about taking the bike you wonder were to put your BIKE… I think its hilarious considering the differences in effort to creating car parking spaces compared to cycle stands…
Wyoming is 3% bigger than the UK and has a population that is 116 times smaller than the UK. What kind of public transportation do you think that place should have? The entire Midwest is pretty much like that. big city's defiantly need public transportation, but the rest of the country is way too big for it.
@@yodafloats9090 that doesn‘t excuse the “limited” perspective about the topic at hand in the population. One should still consider cycling if it’s a viable option.
@Peter W. true
I mean it’s not profitable to connect a small town to another small town. Americans don’t go out of their town or city often
@@peterw.8434 well American cities are so spread out that biking just isn’t an option for most trips Americans go on. It’s too late to save America at this point. It won’t be profitable anymore to put public transit in the Midwest because Americans don’t go out of their town or state often and most Americans drive as their first thought
The difference is just that European cities were built long before cars were invented. Some cities are 2000 years old, but most at least a 1000 years or so. In South East France, at the Italian border, where I live, the landscape is rather steep towards an amazing coastline, and villages were built with steps leading further up. There are steps everywhere. These were built hundreds of years ago. Now a fancy city like Monaco has ajusted to this by building lifts next to the steps. So you do not need a car at all.
Well but tbf American cities also weren’t build around cars. There are good photos on the internet where you can see many cities 80 years ago. They were TRANSFORMED to be car cities. Like the video mentioned in America many homes were destroyed to build highways. Even to day they do this. Same for the Netherlands. When you go back 80 years you will see that the cities arnt build around bikes. It was as car centric as any another European city but they transformed it to be one. Boston is a great example where they didn’t destroy the whole city just for highways and parking lots.
@@fabiansaerve When there weren't many cars, Europe was also more car focused. It was more difficult do do (also because of the history - you won't destroy a church that has 1000 years in order to build a road). Nowadays the EU promotes alternatives to cars.
@@fabiansaerve well America did this because at the time, cars seemed so modern and these highways were meant to help with transportation between cities. Most European cities were still focused on rebuilding after WW2 and also wanted to preserve their cities
a chariot is bigger than a car and it craps everywhere
@@incaseofimportantnegotiations i'd like a chariot ride to work and back and crap at them peasants i have to work with (that's a joke lads, don't take this seriously!)
I live in Strasbourg and an INCREDIBLE thing that started going over my head is that I just bike from France to Germany to pickup my amazon packages! The EU really is amazing.
No way, I heard EU sux. Thats what every frustrated person on internet says nowadays. Cheers!
@@dreacul The EU is kind of a paradise... anyone who says otherwise is either venting or not an adult.
Yeah if it wasn't for socialism it would be actually good
@@JL-wf2wpwhat is socialism? Never heard that word in the English language, might be because English is my third language
@@Faith_To_Fate maybe you are just an idiot. Or you just settled for an average lifestyle working for others making enough money just to eat everyday. Have you ever been to the maldives? Bora bora? I guess not
I live in Madrid and you'd genuinely be surprised by how easy it is to travel through the whole city without a car only with the Metro (subway) and any bus. And this is only 8€ for as many uses as you want for a whole MONTH for people under 26yo I think. Also I think it'd interesting for an American citizen to see how interrail works in Europe, I did one with my friends this year and it seemed unimaginable to travel so much distance (8 countries) without the possibility to take some kind of public transportation since we just couldn't have a car
Madrid nuevo norte for the win 👍👍
Pues ven a Extremadura en tren, verás que birria de transporte público tenemos. Y todo porque no hay dinero público debido a que ya fue gastado en construir ese transporte maravilloso de Madrid que describes. En España todos no somos iguales, eso en una falacia de la Constitución.
@@jadr3123 En CyL muchos pueblos casi no tienen transporte público, sólo un bus que va los findes de semana para llevar a la gente a la ciudad más cercana (te hablo sobre todo de pueblos en la Sierra de Gredos. La zona de León y tal se me escapa cómo será) y aunque es bastante mediocre el transporte, están cada vez creando más bonos para poder viajar.
Por ejemplo ahora existen los bonos de tren de media y larga distancia que conecta dos paradas, las que tú quieras y por ejemplo, para el de media distancia, pagando 20 euros trimestrales puedes realizar todos los viajes que quieras (pero nunca faltes tres veces, porque te quitan el bono). Si sabes cómo comunicarte hasta la estación más cercana está bastante bien. Prueba a cotillear en la página de Renfe, o ve a alguna taquilla. Espero que esto te sirva de ayuda :)
I am 33 years old, grew up in Sweden and now living in Hungary, traveled to Finland, Denmark, Russia, Poland, Lithuania, Greece and Spain to name a few. I dont have a drivers license and only used public transportation. Okay, I have cheated a few times and taken a cab but Its less than 10 times.
The cab is still public transportation so I would not call it cheating.
@@tomasbriceno2319 its not really public tho since you are a private customer and there are no strangers inside the cab besides the driver who you are paying
@@Jay-tv2lz It's public since the user does not own the car and each car is used by many people. Also cabs (at least in Europe) are regulated by either the gobernment or the municiplaty, even if they are not owned by public agencies.
We can argue abut carsharing services where you drive a hired car or about private unregulated services like Uber and Cabify, since these are a bit outside those rules. However, taxi services, at least in Spain (my country) and most European contries I've been to are considered public transportation.
I only ever take a cab in the night when there is no train service in my home town. Last train arrives around 1 in the night and first one is around 5:30. Had to do that maybe twice in my life. Usually its easier to just sleep over at a friends place if I go out in a city.
Also dont have a drivers license in my 30s. My girlfriend thinks its a bit weird but I just cant be bothered to pay about 3000 euro just to get a piece of paper that says I can drive when I dont want or need to own a car. Would be useful for emergencies but then I can just call a cab and it saves a lot of money not owning a car.
If my girlfriend comes over I usually call her a cab from the train station, it costs me 20-30 euro which is expensive but I can easily afford that out of the 500 euro a month I dont spend on car ownership.
hi, dutchie here. we have a very dense railnetwork were in a lot of routes there are trains leaving about every fifteen minutes (to the same destination). virtually every trainstation is also a busstop, making it very easy to take the bus to the trainstation. and if you have ever seen the photo's of our bike-parking spaces, they are not photoshopped, and biking is indeed very popular here, so that is also a way to get there. some people take their car to the trainstation, simply because parking in some of the larger (and older) cities is not only difficult, ,but also more expensive than taking the train. it probably helps that the Netherlands are one of the most densely populated countries, everything is pretty close together.
Loved railroad on Netherland❤️ almost second time accurancy
I envy you dutchies for all your infrastructure. Roads, especially highway roads, bike lanes, bike parking stations, signal coverage. You got it all! Much respect from Germany for getting stuff done and done correctly, for the people. For us Germans it's pretty normal to have construction work done on the Autobahn for no freaking reason. I always thought it was a joke that a state, city, or the country itself just throws money away for construction work because they have too much money left for that year. Until I realized it is not a joke but a reality here.
It is worth mentioning that Germany is kind of different from rest of the Europe. They don't have that big cities, more like lots of medium sized cities with sourounding suburbs looking like small villages. Motorway system called AutoBahn is fantastic and THERE ARE NO SPEED LIMITS. When german person says that his job is 40 minutes away it actually may be 60 miles away because once on motorway it is pedal to the metal. Great fun for car driving.
Well, not all of the Autobahn is without speedlimit. Most of all there is one. And nowadays there is a discussion about having a general speedlimit, what is highly needed.
If you want to go to European cities then I advise you to take the parking lot in front of the city and take the rest of the way by bus or train. Finding a parking space in the city can be a big task.
And expensive. When I'm going with my RV I use a campsite and the get a day pass which often is less expensive then parking for 3 hours in the city.
Working in the (my) inner city is nearly impossible by car. Most of the area is only 3h parking (for about 2€/h) if you don't live there. And you still need to find a free spot. Parking houses are even more expensive. Parking lots are very rare.
Which is by design. Parking lots create distance. However it is density that improves people's lives (having all nessesarry stores close). And also businesses (having plenty of customers).
@@iamcurious9541 And a lot of it is simple history and not killing everything of it. In the 60ies there were car centric changes but not to that extent as in the US. And of course not in the old parts of the cities if they survived the war.
And there often is just no place for parking lots and ground is expensive. Apart from parking houses there is only one open parking lot in the center of my town which has only about 20-30 spots. And of course some at the side of the roads.
Depends on the city, just like in America, Asia, etc
It's not necessary to leave it in front of the cities, in most cities you can find parking spots for days in residential areas. And from there there's usually like a 5-10 minute walk to the city center.
And again it depends which city it is, if it's München or Bucharest at rush hour we're talking about then you might not find parking spots even on the edge of the city.
11:31 YES that‘s one of the best parts of European city centers. In Germany, these roads are called „Fußgängerzone“ (pedestrian zone) and can be pretty big, like several blocks.
Wait, pedestrian zones are not a thing in the US!?
@@Zure619 in the US, the only "pedestrian zones" that i can think of, are malls, where as in europe they dedicate entire parts of a city to be pedestrian zones.
i hate it, because it's usually a huuuge block of concrete without any plants, grass or anything.
@@Zure619 There's kinda no point when you physically won't get anywhere useful on foot most of the time...
@@georgwarhead2801 in Gent starting from the nineties, goed city goverment because there was a huge resistance! especially from shops !
in the end, shops did way better, EXCEPT those that selled really big things like electronics and such, those have been pushed away.
you need a special licence if you really need to be there to be allowed in :).
and it contains the biggest part of the historic mediaval city center, so busy that they started a few years ago to forbid cycling in 2 busy shopping street on saterday between the usually pretty busy hours ;).
In Europe, you take your car and go to the train station if you’re far from it (and you park your car in park places) or you take a bike, public transports, or walk if you’re in cities.
And in cities we’ve some ‘’parking places’’ or underground parkings bcs all the place is occupated.
A lot of the parking spaces in the larger cities here in the Netherlands are actually underground or very well hidden (A lot of the other countries in Europe have this as well, but this is from my Dutch experience). When these cities were build, cars didn't exist yet so we couldn't 'keep them in mind' while planning. Has forced us to be creative that's for sure.
Actually, that is not how things went. 'Not just bikes' is a YT channel that has a lot of interesting videos about this subject. It comes down to making certain choices, which were made in the '90s.
@@carmenl163 Many (and i mean MANY) cities all over Europe were already well established (and their main roads too) before the 1800s... All that those '90s could do was to ask how they can FIT what is already there, without razing it all down and starting from scratch...
@@irrelevant_noob That's not what happened. During the sixties and seventies there were made many adjustments for cars. In the 90's those were undone. NJB shows this in his videos.
@@carmenl163 idk... when you say "adjustments" i can only think how a whole neighborhood was flattened in my city to make room for a grandiose palace. And even that didn't quite "fix" the roads. Not much point in having 6 lanes there if all the access routes will only be 2-wide.
@@irrelevant_noob In Amsterdam they turned some canals (Elandsgracht, Rozengracht)into streets for cars. I mean those sort of adjustments.
The thing about public transport in Europe is that, as you said, it's near where people live. If I wanted to take the subway, I'd only have to get out of my house, walk for 4 minutes and I'm already at the subway, whereas in America it's all more far away.
its insanenly close lol, for examploe, to get to school i either take the train thats genuinely like right next door, or go to the buss top right outside the building. i even have a restaurant, grocery story, primary school and nursery in a 200m radius. not to mention the high school thats like 10 mins SLOW WALK away.
in germany those roades where people are just walking are called "fußgängerzone" and they are in the older parts of cities so the houses dont get dmgd etc
In Italy there is a saying "Every road leads to Rome". Literally you can pick any road from north Italy and by the time you get close Bologna you start to see signs for Rome. Even roads to the country side can lead you easily there without using highways (especially if you don't want to pay for the toll) but it will take more time to reach
Same in german, and tbh i saw various times roadconstruction that removed all to the cobblestone layer and i am actually living on a roman build street in cologne.Its still cobblestone.
that's because the earliest roads were built by Roman legions to be used by the Roman legions when conqu... ahem... I mean defending, yes, defending Rome
@@Infidi yes, indeed, it was for defence
We have the same saying in Poland. About Rome
Typical saying in Spain too
as a dutch person who uses the train daily: we bike to the station and theres bike parking lots (well racks, lots of em) at the station. and then we have another "station bike" (aka run down bike that we all buy 2nd hand for a few bucks, most likely stolen but we dont care) to bike further. but also loads of steps and skateboard users take theit mode of transport with them on the train.
Every duch person got five bikes. One in the canal. One stolen. One on his boat. One at home. And one he is searching for
@@co_lo4883 there is a quite similar phrase (without the boat thing) in the german city called Münster xD
Why you need a station bike when you drove to the station with your other bike and lock it there?
@@Delibro 2nd bike is at the station to ride to work /school
Or, as many Dutch people nowadays do, rent a public transit bike at the destination station! :)
For non-dutch people, YES! we have "public transit" bikes haha. They're basically just rental bikes, except we use our public transit passes to rent them and they get billed as part of public transit journeys, making renting those bikes much less of a hassle. I can walk into the bike rental at the station, take a bike, present my pass, and walk out with the bike all under a minute or so.
7:00 as a Dutchy I had to giggle. Tourists always freak put over how big our bike parking is by the train stations XD
Exactly it just shows how little they know
As a Flemish guy I really hope our incompetent government will incorperate those big 'stackable' bike parkings now that our leftist goverbnment wants to make everything more green thus taking away parking space for the greenery thus making you pay for the fewer parking spaces we'll have where before you could stand 2h for free with a blue parking disc.
@@dennisengelen2517 In Gent Dampoort we have stackable bike parkings, only downside is, that you can't secure your bicycle as well. Also better and more efficient parking structures would be nice with a good connection to public transport would improve it a lot.
But I do agree that we need better, safer (, and more) parking spaces for bicycles. Instead of them cluttering sidewalks and thus making them less safe.
Even though I am neutral on the political spectrum and am more left leaning in what I vote, I can understand your frustration, and think parking should be much better, easier and cheaper with cars.
But in my opinion it should be done in such a way that we don't have to see the cars parked everywhere, instead proper underground parkings everywhere. I hate seeing plazas full of cars.
Instead of being angry at each other, we should think about how we can compromise and find a solution for us both.
I don't think it's as much the government being leftist, as it probably is that the EU is putting pressure on countries to do these things, and Belgium does not want to be left behind .
You live on a bike! My daughter is moving to The Netherlands and the number of bikes always gets me.
Yes. People from small villages drive to the nearby train station and take the train then, to avoid traffic jams, parking issues, etc. same with bikes. ( There are bike parkings, especially in the Netherlands).
i live in rural germany and i own a car. I rarely travel by train or bus. But when i do, the next bus stop i just 500 meters away and the bus drives to the train station. Bus schedules are pinned at the bus stop or available online.
Bigger cities have a "park and ride" parkinglot in the outskirts of the city. Its safe to park your car there and travel to the city center by bus. Most cities are lacking parkingslots and/or are really expensive.
Well, the "other" Claudia from rural Germany said exactly what I wanted to say, so I just vote this up. :-)
"Rural Germany". Lmfao. It's adorable that Europeans think they have rural areas.
@@brandondavis7777 The only true rural areas are in Australia anyways, when the next neighbor is 4 hours by car away.
@@HappyBeezerStudios Australia ain't got shit on the USA in terms of rural areas.
Well maybe somebody That DB is amongst the worse train company in the Europe hahah 75% delays
where i live, there are parking spots for bikes by the stations but you can also take it with you on the train. my dad goes by foldable bike and train to work almost every day and i study in the city and take the train back and forth each week
😁 Just last year (maybe the year before), they put a large, well-lit, covered bike parking lot next to the ministerium here in Vienna. It's pretty nice.
As a Swiss I often drive my car to the trainstation when skiing to prevent the traffic jam down the mountain at the end of the day. There is lots of „park + ride“ options close to big cities as well, as parking is a nightmare. The bike you just lock in the bike parking. 😅
I lived in Hamburg for about 20 years and most of them I didn't own a car, but then I increasingly felt a need to be in nature and by the seaside, so the last 4 years living in Hamburg I had a car, but only used it on the weekends to get out of the city. Now I live at the Baltic Sea in a very beautiful but remote spot. It would be impossible to live here without a car. What I really wanted to say is, even in Europe it depends pretty much on where you live...
Normally you take the bus from near your house to the next trainstation if it to far away to walk or ride a bike....
Most EU trainstations got something like a secured bike parking lot.
Yes, particulary in rural or suburban areas of europe commuters are using their cars to go the first miles to the train station. There they have large parking lots to leave the cars, and the people are using public transport to reach their offices/factories in town. We call it park & ride. The newest development is to build bycicle garages and electric car rentals at the suburbn train stations to give the people an alternative for the first/last miles.
we can also bring the bikes on the train!! that's really useful (he was confused ab that lmao)
idk in other countries, but in denmark, we usually get "parking complexes" where they just add layer upon layer of parking spots, and they usually sit in centralized locations so we have minimal walking time from parking to a wide range of stores
As a Dutch i can confirm every road has a bike lane in 99% percent of The Netherlands and we have more bikes than people in here
You take piblic transports, like bus or tramway to the train station, it doesn't suck because it is also cheap and mostly efficient.
The guy from Not Just Bikes explaines it really well. Since road need major maintenance every 25 years it gives the city the option to redesign the road. City planners can make different choices to include bicycle lanes that are seperate from the roads. Add mixed zoning laws and you wouldn''t need to drive 10 miles to the grocery store. I live in a small town and i have four grocery stores within half a mile. Don't need a car just to buy food.
4:33 That map of Europe's roads is ridiculous.
Yes it’s wrong just just like that train map at the start. Totally simplified down to just the main lines and roads, as if they’re the only ones
In Europe, there is trains where you can enter with your bike at a specific "wagon". Also there is sometimed a place to fix it "head up" or "wheel up".
So that if the train 3 miles away from your job you can go easily.
Or there is some "collective cage parc" to secure your bike at the train station.
I live at Nice in France and the place for people like at 10:28 there is a lot of this and you really can't go with your car in bc if police catch you doing this he can take your driving license, make you pay between 130-750euro and sometimes take your car
4:43 This is an mistake in the OG. When you see this graphic he says the EU isn't on that list, correct BUT Then says European countries are NOT on that list BUT Russia and Ukraine are part of Europe.
Istanbul turkey too
Thanks for the video!! I’m from Spain and I think that the main difference between Europe and the US is that European population is more highly packed in cities and towns of all sizes. Meaning that many small villages in my region (Navarre) may have a health center and a primary school and grocery stores, even small ones. In some villages even the doctor, the priest and even the baker truck will get to the village so elder people no need to move.
My priest, for instance will spend most of Sunday morning driving from village to village.
Thanks again 👍👍
Navarra is one of the best regions in Spain in terms of quality of life too!
My son studied in netherlands. He owned 2 bikes. With one he went from his house to the train station of his town. He used to park the bike at the station and take the train to amsterdam. At the amsterdam station he had the other bike he used to go to the university. After the lessons, the same thing. Rided bike to the amsterdam station, parked it there, took the train to his town and at the station he tooked his bike and rided to his house.
You should consider doing streams, so that you can have people talk about or correct what is being said in the videos you react to!
That would be great!
I totally agree.
Im from austria, i live in Vienna. We own 1 Car for 2 people, but use it maybe once a month. We used to live in the Countryside too where we both needed a car on a daily basis, because there was only 1 train and 1 bus (the bus came only at 6am and in the evening, in 4 years living there i havent seen that bus even once) So yes.. you still need a car when you live in the countryside. but the nearer you are to the city the better the public transortation becomes.
I've lived in the countryside of Germany and never had a car. Well, my bus came once per hour, on weekends every other hour. Next supermarket was around 3 km away. And I managed it. There are very rare exceptions where one really can't live without cars. But usually people just say that they "need" a car because they are not willing to adjust themselves to a life without car.
It depends on where in Europe you live though.
I come from a small town in southern Italy and driving a car is essential, as public transport, although it exists, is completely unreliable. I used to live very close to the city center, so I was lucky enough everything I needed was at walking distance, but my office was in the suburbs and man was it hell driving to and from, and finding a parking space was just a nightmare.
Five years ago I moved to Munich, and my perspective completely changed. Public transport is very well developed, works efficiently and is reliable, you can easily reach any area of the city. It's expensive, I'll give you that, but nothing compared to the costs that owning a car entails. I only own a bike here, and even though I miss driving a car, I don't miss one at all. I just don't need it.
to get to the train station you can either:
1. take a bus
2. take the tram
3. take the metro
4. ride your bike there
5. walk (if you're close enough)
6. get a taxi,
so many otpions and none require you to drive
Also huge amount of parking spaces are hidden bellow houses (this is the case mostly for cities) or near malls there are parkings with 2-3 stories, they take smaller space in city but hold a lot of parking spaces
7:03 in Poland trains have one carriage where you can leave your bike next to the doors
americans probably never heard of a bike part in the train :D
I live in sweden and public transport is really well designed.... I have four bus stations near me that are closer than 100m to where I live, using them can get to the train station within 10 minutes, and it's the same ticket that works for trains, buses, subway and even some boats, so I can go from my home, with a bus to closest train station and then with train to closest subway to ride a subway to Stockholm on the same ticket!
The railway system is very good and still expanding. I love the fact that using the channel tunnel, you can be in Paris from London in 2hrs 20mins . So breakfast on the train . See an exhibition at the D' Orsay Museum and a late lunch at a nice restaurant . Shopping dinner on the train and home by 11pm
1. Yes, many people in Europe own a Car, but far less than the US. You can use your Car to drive to a Trainstation and park it there to continue with a Train, if there is a P&R (Park & Ride) area.
2. If you use a Bike to reach a Trainstation (and you have a ticket for the Bike), you can take it into the Train. There is often an area to place it.
3. Unless you life in Village, public transportation is more or less tightly woven. Busses, Trams, Trains, Subways. But even in the smallest Village, you will find atleast one Busstop. Their schedule isnt good (why sending a Bus to a small village every 30 min, if there arent enough people to use it that often?), maybe 3-4 times a day, but thats still better than having no public transportation. Its complicated. People who move to a village have a Car, partially because there is no good public transportation. But this means it doesn't pay off to schedule more Busses to that Village, since so many people have a Car.
I tried to get a license^^ That was over 15 years ago. The times i would have really needed a car so far is not even 2 digits.
10:44 both on bikes and healthy people:
The is a great channel that’s called not just bikes, which is a channel focused on the differences of street and general city design. It is run by someone who is originally from London Canada. You should really check him out.
London, Canada. aka fake London :D
Wow look how many views you’ve got ! Hope your subscribers soon reach that level. Your posts are very varied and your views on the videos are so interesting to me as an English guy. Thanks for posting !
In Belgium,in Gent and Antwerp specificly,there are zones(Low emission zones) in those cities where you Can't enter if your car produces too much damaging substances.
Holland has a crazy amount of bikes.
But interestingly still has more motor vehicles per capita than the UK.
That's because it's so flat. If you live up on the moors or in Switzerland you have to be pretty darned fit to get around on a bike.
You should visit Copenhagen!
@@steddie4514 Capital of another of Europe's flattest countries.
Very good video but there are way more both streets and roads in Europe than showed on the maps
Love your reactions though!
They even missed the rail line that goes all the way to the top of Scotland?; making it look like the Highlands had no railways.
the train 7:06 is from switzerland (sbb = schweizer bundes bahn) and in my opinion the best train system in europe (im from switzerland and know really well how they look like). fun fact in switzerland travelling with train is faster than with a car cause of speed limit 120 km/h and the pretty good job of sbb
5:53 (Just take a bus to the train station)
The Europe being bigger part was hilarious 😂😂😂 keep the videos coming, you seem like a genuine cool guy 😁
Every time I hover over a "fairly large city with skyscrapers" on Google Streetview in the US, I always end up surprised how much of the downtown area is occupied by plain old parking lots. Like, come on, if you want your parking lots, just hide them in the basement and use the rest of the space for housing or offices. No wonder it's so hard to get into the city center from a suburb if you don't have a car. Trams and subway lines are probably the best public transport ever to be fair.
"Where would you put your bike?"
I know this video is a year old, but at least in Denmark, pretty much every train station has a bike shack, and a large portion of trains are built with the intention of you bringing the bike unto the train, so you can use it where you're going, too.
When my cousin first moved from England to florida, he couldn't believe that nobody walked anywhere. Literally nobody lol. Where he lives they even drive to their postboxes at the end on their road.
They live a 5 minute walk from his stepsons school, but his mum still drives him there everyday 😒
Soul crushing
America's biggest issue is its zoning system. If you allowed mixed zoning you would not need to drive 10 miles to find a grocery store.
I saw a great video about zoning on The Black forest family channel, Ashton who is an architect, compared the structure of an American city and a European one. It is mind blowing that one cannot open a shop/grocery/bakery or a restaurant in a residential area in the USA. Locating big shopping malls or supermarkets on the outskirts is ok for me, since they require a huge parking lots, but some small local shops and cafes are perfect for a community/housings estate.
@@joannajaworska0000 I think I may have seen that video, enjoyable to watch.
Yes, but zoning laws also preserve aesthetics and beautiful suburbs. Not everyone wants to live in an urban environment with houses mixed with businesses. I guess it’s just what you prefer and are used to.
@@SWLinPHX Have you ever been to a European town with a suburban housing estate or a village? I live in Germany and there are beautiful local communities with small shops (grocery and a bakery or a butcher) and a cafe. Sometimes the estates are created with a central square. I am not taking about huge malls, but basic amenities within a walking distance, homes surrounded by greenery, with bike lanes and pavements.
There is a great English tv show "Escape to the country", one can see how these communities work.
@@joannajaworska0000 Yes, I lived in Europe and am aware of that. I was talking about urban environments with shops on top of apartments. There are plenty of suburbs that may have large big box stores (which, for better or worse, are the monopolies and biggest draw in the U.S.) along the freeways or near suburbs, but not in them.
You can absolutely run a train track trough a city without it being annoying. The trains can be undeground or simply so quiet they don't bother anyone. There are footbridges or underpasses to go from one side to another. It's no problem at all :)
Or, they can slow down a bit in city limits so there is not as much noise. Not even needed to place new tracks or buy new trains. Just take it easy.
Its insane how good the transportation system is in europe. If live in Germany but go to school in austria so every day I go by train and by bus to go to school
You might enjoy the channel Not Just Bikes where you can learn a lot about the Dutch strategies of making bikes and public transportation insanely attractive, and how this raises the quality of life for everybody. In the Netherlands, there are huge huge bike parking lots everywhere, especially around train stations. Watching it just makes me want to jump on my bike. Germany is not on that level, far from it.
Well, German cities are much more extensive while Dutch are more condensed. Commuting through cities even with a decent public transport can sometimes take one hour, much more so with a bike, so no one is gonna bother cycling when everything is so far.
6:55 in most cities of germany we got a building next to the trainstation only for our bikes
Over here we have train stations with bicycle storage for thousands of bikes at a time, surveilled, and also hundreds of (cheap) rental bikes you can rent with the swipe of your public transport card for an entire day. -Netherlands
no u dont drive or ride to station, there is always one nearby.. unless u live deep in remote countryside in very little village😉
Exactly :D
Personally, I don't own a car (student) and usually just use busses or my bike, but I sometimes take my moms car, and using it to get to the train station is not uncommon, since I am from a small village, and if I return after 10PM, I have no alternative. There are often so called "park and ride" parking lots, also for bikes, exactly for this purpose.
Now, take the car to school and skip the nonsense trains and buses. Simple, easier, more efficient.
I live in budapest, the main problem here is that its so hard to find parking place tho. Its close to impossible. That parking lot looked so promising to me lmao, because we always struggle to park, looking for parking space in the city for 20-30 minutes after arriving somewhere
Dont you have an app for that?
I don't even have a driving license. I live in a mountain town and I only have to walk 3 minutes (uphill XDDD) to get to the subway.
Basauri / Spain
"Where would you put your bike?"
At least in Poland: on station or in train, as yea, there is at least one traincar which bosts bike hooks or however they would be called.
“where would you put your bike?” had me sitting in silence for a good couple of seconds. here in The Netherlands every big train station has literal parking garages for our bikes. (but you can also bring your bike along with you in the train) in New Zealand there’s more sheep than people, in The Netherlands there’s more bikes than people. 1.4 bikes per person. also, basically every road here is a bike lane, unless it’s a road strictly for cars, like a highway or provincial road. but then still, there’s probably a bike road right beside the big road somewhere in the fields.
6:55 you can leave the bike at the train station or you can take it along with you in most of the regional trains. They make some room near the doors for bikes to be stored.
Love this topic. In our capital in Belgium, Brussels, several streets are closed to cars. And in many other cities in Belgium
That map at 0:35 only shows the long distance trains which is a tiny portion of the total train network. In the editor's defense, showing the entire network would mean just painting the entirety of europe yellow, with a few green spots here and there.
an inperfection in the netherlands with public transport is that if you travel with friends, gas for a car is cheaper then train/bus tickets for the group
I just want to add that the hunt for a parking spot in European cities is a major reason for leaving the car at home. When I lived in Munich (6km or 3.6 miles away from the city centre), we always went like: „Should we use car, bike or public transportation to the city centre?“ and it resulted in: „Where should we park the car (without paying expensive parking fees)? And public transportation is so expensive … bike it is.“
Right now we live right in the middle of an historic small town and we literally walk everywhere, because sometimes the closest free parking spot is a 10 minute walk away, while we can reach literally anything in a 20 to 30 minute walk.
I live in a soviet era flat. Our grocery store is litteraly inside our flat so i need just 1 minute to go down the elevator to buy food with no other expense ( except elevator taxes and stuff ). And even then in less then 1 kilometer they are already like 10-20 other stores for different things and even supermarket
Where I am from yes some people takes the car to the trainstation and have their car parked at "communters parking". Mostly happens in more rural areas where the public transportation has fewer departures and take much longer time then driving the car. However it also happens that people that live and work close to eachother pool up and use one car at the time and split the cost of gas.
Regarding 6:20 yes, we do drive to the train station! And even if we didn't, at least in Portugal buses take you from a place near the cities to the terminal, which is near a train station
here in spain for example, you can grab a bus ride that takes you to any location in the city just for 30 cents or 0,32$, thats with a special card that you get from the city hall, thats the case for the smaller cities, and in the big cities like barcelona or madrid you can get to the subway that is pretty much the same situation like NYC, but in the smaller cities the buses are super comfortable and affordable, taking you everywhere you want
To answer your question "How do people get to the train station? ":
I live in what is considered to be a third-world country in Europe called Bulgaria. We have a very poor but really wide railway web.
1. You get more train stations with big cities
2. You can use all kinds of public transport to get to the station:
A. Bus
B. Traincar
C. Subway
3. You can also rent a bike or e-bike (not so popular yet)
4. You can use your personal bike, there are lots of public bike parkings (ironic, but take a lot less space)
5. You can rent an e-scooter
6. There are really affordable e-cars that you can rent and pay something like $5-$10 for the first 15 minutes (depending on the model) and then you're charged by the minute
7. Of course you can walk to the station as well if it's within a walking distance
As you can see there are lots of ways to get to the station and I'm probably missing something since it's currently 1:30AM.
On any Trip in Europe you have some slow transport system for a the short distance that brings you to some fast travel system and back to a slow system to bring you to your designated target. And most of the time all 3 transport systems working with each other so you dont loose time while changing. If my daily commute is faster on the car i will take my car! I normally need around 300-500 steps to reach to get from A-B. (With the car i need around 100steps if i find a close parkingslot.) Because we are lazy as well, and have bus stations every 200m everywhere where people live. If i'm late and want to skip the bus to train i can take the bicycle to the train. Bus takes me 8mins with my bike i reach the train station 2 km away in 5mins. It's like someone brings you on a horse to the highway, where you get picked up by a supercar. Efficency is the key.
Most walking you will ever do in EUROPE on public transport systems are big airports & old huge central train stations.
I’m from Norway and where I live I can reach a train station, multiple bus stops, shopping center, 5 different grocery stores and more by just walking for 15 minutes
We in the UK have underground parking lots or 3 or 4 level parking garages. You get a ticket on the way in and pay for time used on the way out. Saves space! Now we are closing roads in towns and cities for cars and making them pedestrianised.
to answer your question about how to get to the train station, from a personal perspective, i live in a tiny village of around 200-250 people and we have two bus stations, that you can get to in like 5-8 minutes from the furthest houses.
sure, because it's such a small village, the buses only run once every two hours on average and one of the lines only runs on weekdays, but it's still very easily workable around and to live here, unless you need to haul big and heavy things often, you do not need a car at all, even for an area that's considered quite remote.
when i'm in the city for uni, there are buses, trams and metro that runs everywhere at all times of the day (of course there's not that many night lines, but those only operate from 1-5 am, any other time the regular transport runs very often)
and even if you don't use public transport, biking is almost always a viable option, since everything is so close together
7:06 bike on public transport only outside of rush hours. That make the success of new scooter who can be packed. You park it at the station for the day, but we have a lot of steal issues so people choose to walk or take the bus (to the train or tramway)
I am Dutch. and i live an a family of 4. we own 6 bikes and we have one car that is mostly only used for distances greater then 10 kilometres.
I can litterally go ANYWHERE in the netherlands by just following a bikepath. i live in a small village in the middle of nowhere and when i need to go to a grocerystore, i take my bike and drive 3 minutes to a busstop. the bus comes every 10 minutes to pick up people from other small villages around and then the bus drives to a larger village with all the shops and things like that.
It works really good and in our case it is really cheap. the busride is like 4 kilometres and only costs 45 cents (That is only possible because of the high tax rate).
Everywhere you go there are smaller train stations with a LOT of bicycle parking spaces. In Amsterdam there are parking spaces underground because there are so much bikes.
a Dutch person owns 1.5 bikes on average btw.
A central train station only has value if it is connected to the rest of the city by good options for further transportation. The best options in European cities are typically underground trains (for the biggest cities), trams, buses, bicycles and taxis. A typical central train station has a huge bus/tram station next to it, as well as a large bicycle parking garage (oftentimes below the station square), a taxi station and a pick and ride for a car owner to drop you off / pick you up.
This sounds like it takes up a lot of space. And while it sure does take up a fair bit of space in your city center, keep in mind that particularly in older European cities, you'll find station buildings being pretty monuments, and stepping out of the station onto a nice and good looking open space is a good first impression to give to tourists, who usually arrive to the city through the central station!
I'm European and I some times take the car if I'm late for the train and leave the car in the parking lots that are appositely made for who takes the train, but wen I was a kid or even now some times, I use to just walk or bike to the train and take. The bike. With. Me.
You can leave it if you want in those places for parking bikes but I would not recommend given that some times they get stolen
In France, people in the cities usually don't own a car because it's expensive and less reliable than subway / tramway.
Even if you need to move from one city to another, many just don't find pleasant to drive when you can just sit in the train and work on your computer. Of course that only is possible because we have a properly deployed internet connection network. In that case we take the bus/subway/tramway to go to the train station.
Answearing your question about driving to the train station. Yes, most Europeans have cars - even here in Poland. And yes we drive to train station to than leave a car in "Park and Ride" parking spot and move to the city center by train (or bus or whatever). Many bigger cities got places where you can leave your car and use public transportation. My home is 25 km from the city center. Most of the time i don't want to spend my time in jams, so I drive few km to the place I have best connection to my destination using public tranportation. My city is around 400k ppl. And i have seen some comments about towns in America that have 500k ppl, to be too small to have advance public transportation. In my town there are 80 bus lines, 14 tram lines and many trains. Most of them operate from 5 am to 11 pm every 10-15 minutes. From the outskirts of the city you have around 4 to 5 ways of getting to another part of the town. And it is not even an exemplary public tranportation in Europe. Around my city there are 5 smaller ones - every one of them is around 10k to 50k ppl. And all of them have busses and trains coming to the biggest city every 15 minutes. And thats also normal for us. When I travel to another country in Europe i am looking for a place that is near metro or bus station to use public transport and DO NOT use my car EVER during my whole stay. And most of my friends do the same.
Hey Ryan, yes, you go to the train station by bike, on foot or by public transport. Most train stations here have large areas where you can park your bike. You can also get on the train with your bike in certain cases. And there are also parking gararges in the cities for cars . They are usually a few floors high and you obviously have to pay by the hour for them . They can be close to the city centre, but usually a bit further away so you still need to walk a little. You see, you can't have a busy parking garage right next to a beautiful gothic cathedral. That's not nice. I also recommend you the TH-cam channel Notjustbikes. I like your sense of humor. Greetings from Antwerp, Belgium.
I just got back from Antwerp and there are lots of parking garages in the city center. I used one of them, there were 3 others within 500m.
Yep, and they are usually inside a building and they have a few floors. They're not open parking lots, huge slabs of concrete that would take up many square meters of space, inside the city centre. Hope you enjoyed your trip to Antwerp. All the best😊
Yes, in Italy, at least, if you live in the countryside or smaller towns and you have to go to a train station, you do need to drive.
Fun fact, recently in Rome it’s possible to pay for some public transportations with empty plastic water bottles
Fun Fact, London is an urban monster. The street system is so complex that a study was conducted on the brains of London taxi drivers and found significant differences.