Recently moved to the U.S after living in HK for 5 years.. the difference is astonishing. Going straight from not owning a car to needing one for every journey feels so tedious.
Owned a car in China...didn't NEED to but old habits die hard. Now back in America and wishing I didn't NEED a car for most things (luckily live close to work so I walk everyday for that).
@@jok2000 car depreciation and maintenance can easily be thousands a year. I think the idea is that you still have access to a car, but not everybody needs to have one.
finally someone mentioning 'urban sprawl' in Asian cities. Yes, it's not the same as North American cities full of suburban housings - more like disorganised clusters of apartment complexes and mid-to-highrise residential buildings. It indeed has a lot of problems (traffic jams, high city-centre dependency.. similar with North American suburbs but slightly better), but thanks to the high population density of those sprawly areas, we can (and we do) mitigate those problems with good transit services.
@@MK-jq8ow That's not true, and China actually takes after the US in a lot of ways when it comes to urban design. Most cities are very unfriendly to pedestrians with wide roads and very segregated uses of land. Many cities are also far larger than they need to be, and there are usually only the metro and buses for rapid transit. No regional rail systems nor trams. Metros also tend to have very wide stop spacing, with little ability for more local trips in the city centers to be taken by rail. Fuzhou is an excellent example of this. Its metro only has a handful of stops in the actual city, with the rest being in the suburbs and rural areas. The purpose is for these areas to become more developed in the future, yet so much land in the city itself remains underutilized, being space dedicated to cars.
I think it can be properly classified as suburban in places like Hong Kong. In America, it's more like subrural or exurbs. Little boxes made of ticky tacky. The single use zoning also harms American places, too. There is no missing middle or mixed use.
@@MK-jq8ow and 'city' in china is basically as large as one of those small American states in terms of land sizes. so the fundamentals are a bit different
So crazy that for public transit it's like: -Taxes for infrastructure -Ticket/fare Cars it's like: -Pay for the car itself -Pay taxes on the purchase -Pay taxes every year on the car (in my state) -Pay taxes for road infrastructure -Pay car insurance -Pay for fuel -Pay for maintenance/tires/oil -(Optional) Pay for roadside assistance subscription -Haggle with the mechanic to make sure you're not getting taken advantage of/scammed lol, and also hope that they actually did fix the car correctly..
People are borderline enslaved by their cars. It's a chaotic unreliable thing that can seriously f your budget up at very inopportune times. And the poorer you are the worse it gets. It's a hellish trap that you can't get out of. You can only afford a crappy unreliable car that can bust your budget and make you get fired because you couldn't show up to work. Alternatively you get an expensive new car and again your budget is busted because of this high upfront cost you're paying for reliability. Then eventually depreciation comes and screws you up. Better not get in an accident either. Doesn't matter if it's your fault or not. It is going to suck.
@@yungrichnbroke5199 Yeah as i look around and i see people who aren't as knowledgeable of cars as me (not that im an expert) i think about how 10x more annoying and uncomfortable it is (and prone to being scammed on top of that, just to be able to get around) to have to deal with maintenance or surprise failures or even just living with driving, a lot of people get anxiety doing it. It's crazy how it's expected of literally EVERYONE in 95% of American cities to just deal with. People always say it's crazy that we let 16 year olds drive or how easy it is to pass the driving test but thats because there is literally no other options unless you live in a few select major cities.
The financial problem though is that the highest costs, car payment plus insurance, are typically fixed costs that don't change much with use. This means once you have a car, the financial incentive to use transit SOME of the time goes away. The additional cost per mile to use the car can even sometimes be cheaper than using transit, especially things like commuter rail. Now, a couple might be able to go from two cars to one with transit for one to use it to commute, but that doesn't work for a true single person.
@Zaydan Alfariz $5 is expensive for a transit ticket. Usually they cost $2-3 at most, $1.25 in Houston. And Houston is nice that except for paying by cash you get unlimited rides for three hours after paying your $1.25 fare, free five rides per 50 paid ones. Since I'm a student that price drops even more.
You should mention the difference in safety between driving and transit too. It’s arguably the biggest reason to decrease the number of cars on the road
While what you say is true, not all cities have the safest mass transit they could. When you have a mass transit system that gets in the news for accidents every few months, it's really easy to lose sight of the fact that in that same time system, the entire transit system's annual rate of accidents happen between cars every day. It's also easy to lose sight of the fact that a lot of those mass transit systems are due to under-funding the mass transit system for decades. If we spent half as much as we did on our cars to have a mass transit system that worked, it would be a real wonder of a system. Those people who "like" driving could then go for a drive on our suddenly relatively empty streets whenever they wanted without facing all of the ridiculous traffic we have, because they wouldn't have to contend with nearly as many drivers who have to drive somewhere they need to go.
I miss Hong Kong so much, I did a summer programme there after I finished secondary school. I remember the transport felt so freeing. I’m learning to drive now (at 30) but I couldn’t drive for medical reasons at 17 (our age for getting your licence) and it was horrible being stuck in rural Ireland when all my friends could go and come as they like. So the MTR really was freedom to me. Compare that to waiting for the bus to next town yesterday for an additional 15 mins once again, a bus that only runs to 1800 every two hours
@@JamesLaw87 The physical city itself (and infrastructure), tiny homes and all, was the favourite part for myself and almost everyone I knew. We moved because we had no choice.
I was shocked when you've shown the "main station" in Houston. I tried to find it on google maps manually, but it's so small (and of course burried withing a huge parking lot), that I had to google it's location. And of course what do you see first when you arrive? Big parking lot, highway and behind all that it's the skyline.
I actually used to live in Houston and the transit situation is sad (BUT! while I lived there, METRO Next -- a ballot initiative to increase funding by billions of dollars to their transit system, passed! and the BRT Silver Line [which was supposed to be rail, but a anti-transit politician who thankfully lost re-election forced it to be BRT] opened a few months before I moved). I'm not from Houston but while I lived there I'd frequently use the bus and light rail system when I went out to drink or to go to work and my coworkers thought I was insane. It was bizarre. Like, people would go out drinking and always drink and drive there. It's more common than anywhere I've ever lived (I've lived in more mid sized cities in the southeast, Houston, Denver and San Diego). It's wild. Whenever I got them to ride the LRT while we bar hopped, some of them said it was literally the *first* time they've used the light rail. They've lived in Houston their entire lives and were in their mid 20s and never used the light rail, even when drinking in the urban core. They'd rather drive and pay $20+ for parking and risk DUIs. It's truly a wild, wild place. I'm SO glad to see they're actually trying to do something about their transit situation (though, it's going to be hard with how car dependent they are) and honestly, even though my friends and coworkers rarely used transit, they all supported and voted for initiatives to increase transit funding. Also, their public transit authority, METRO, is actually pretty well ran. Honestly, despite the flaws in their system, out of actual operators -- METRO has been the best ran one out of anywhere I've lived or lived near (on terms of finances, actually making smart transit decisions and cutting certain routes or decreasing their frequency if they were in the middle of nowhere, expanding their transit hubs, increasing frequency and making more bus routes to connect major population centers, etc). Sorry for the long winded comment. I haven't finished the video and honestly, with all of my praise -- it's hard to deny Houston really is a transit hellscape and they have a pretty tough challenge to actually improve it. Besides that, I honestly never want to live in Houston again and didn't really enjoy my time there - but I really do hope the transit authority continues to make headway and have public support.
The problem is common to many cities in USA: it depends on railway taxation model. In USA there's a railway infrastructure taxation that leads to downgrading railway lines and station to save cost and pay less taxes. After '60s, many rail company has suffered a downturn of passengers caused by airplanes and cars, so the company ceased your passengers service and sold your central stations or, at least, a biggest part of the main/central stations' land to builders, so a huge part of the cities in USA have only small station(s), outside from downtown and with a very few number of tracks and unbelievable low number of trains serving them.
The biggest problem for car traffic is cars ... cars make car traffic worse ... transit makes car traffic better, that's what all advocates of car traffic should keep in mind ...
"Brother and sisters are natural enemies. Like cyclists and motorists. Or pedestrians and motorists. Or skaters and motorists. Or motorists and other motorists. Damn motorists! They ruined motorways!"
The big thing with trains is that they have a massive capacity. A extensive train network can transport 70% of Hong Kong's population every day without being a major disruptor. Cars can't do that.
Hong Kong is just an amazing place for any transit lover. An excellent metro system? Check Well-designed highways? Check Good connection to the Airport? Check The MTR stations are often located next to a public transport interchange, making transfers between different modes of transport, and thus the journey, relatively seamless. And the highways(what we call expressways in Hong Kong) too, either designed to skirt around the edges of major urban areas(like the Kwun Tong Bypass)and/or fitted with noise barriers(Tuen Mun Road within Tuen Mun town centre), minimizing noise pollution to the urban areas and makes the living environment pleasant while allowing easy access for road traffic. (Though a east-west RER-like rail line would've been a neat addition for Hong Kong as the travelling time for that as of now is just taking way too long) In my humble opinion Hong Kong is a good example of achieving a good balance between road and rail transit.
Hong Kong is a city and country in one on an island like Singapore so it should have good transit system and connections there due to a committed government
That’s not a valid excuse at all. Many places on earth are hotter and more humid than Houston is yet the people still use transit. Weather has no factor in Public transit and walking.
The funniest thing about this is that ice houses - bars that are primarily outdoors - are extremely common and beloved in Houston, including in the summer. We're okay with sweat. We just don't build in a walkable or transitable way.
Hmm can’t say the concern of humid heat is entirely invalid But by having extensive and well connected public transport (where buses stop near building/malls, where metro exits connect to the basements of office buildings, where buildings are often interconnected with pedestrian bridges) is probably the exact answer to that concern!
I disagree. People preferring to be at comfortable temperatures is totally valid. The sunbelt was generally not colonized, uh I mean, populated by Americans until AC was invented.
@@jonathanip7882 I remember when I went to Japan a few years ago in December, I would walk through the underground networks to connect to other stations. It felt so insane thinking that there are literally shopping malls entirely underground with walkways full of eateries like bakeries, cafe shops, and convienence store like 7/11. You can just walk a few blocks down in one direction and be away from the cold ass wind and rain for the entire walk. I don't quite remember if i've experienced this during the summer, but I probably have in the past when I was younger.
I'm a Londoner but I've spent some time in Hong Kong. Public transport there is fantastic. We lived for some time in a village on a smallish island connected to Hong Kong Island only by ferry. It was about a mile's walk to the pier. For most of our stay, we were on the 21st floor of a block in Kornhill (see Wikipedia), a cluster of about thirty 31 floor blocks (mid-rise in HK terms) built to serve the, then new, MTR Island Line. At the end of the street: forest covered hills. Every morning, old folk would gather in the woods or in any public space to exercise. The streets are full of life. Because HK is the densest place I have lived in, it is also the greenest. I think that the green and red minibus networks also deserve a shout, as do the taxis.
I think lower wages and people dedicated to working play a huge part in serving the whole public transportation system in Hong Kong. For example, the green minibus drivers as part-time drivers working from 6:15 am to 2:45 pm as a standard morning shift can earn 600 HKD, and the night shift starting from 4 pm to 12 am earns 630-700 HKD. No official break times or very limited benefits for drivers. Sure the basic traffic accident scheme from Gov HK call Traffic Accident Victims Assistance scheme can cover injuries or even support fatalities. Full-time bus driver works around 8 hours a day for standard shift and routes and can earn roughly 18000HKD to 22000 HKD a month for the first 2 years of service. Normally can jump to a bit more to 22-25k HKD level after 2 years of good level service means no accident occurs in that two years. Other than that will have an excuse to about the 19-21k level. Most of the drivers work 6 days a week around 48 hours working a week. Break time is around 20-60 minutes but depending on traffic time when you complete the shift, there was a mandatory break time in law that says 6 hours of driving must have at least 20 minutes of break time. Seems wages are a bit lower than in London and working hours longer.
I love Kornhill! I used to live about 15-20 minute walk from it. Kornhill and Tai Koo are the best neighborhoods I've been to in the world. Convenient shopping, major shops are practically downstairs from where you live and a short walk away from older neighborhoods with independent stores. International name brands to generic all within the area. Two movie theaters in walking distance! Restaurants from high class expensive fine dinning to cheap food court stuff. Transit of all kinds. Sandwiched between natural mountainous park and well designed water front park. One of 10-12 ice rink in the city right there.
In HK we often appoint to meet others at MTR stations usually, and even after gatherings we leave on the same train if our destination is along the same line. This is one of the main features in a transit city.
An additional point to the transportation for airport workers is that HK's airport buses actually travel around the airport complex to pick up said workers before their trip back to the city center. And HK also has its many lane highway moments - just very rarely and only used as the connecting point of multiple highways. As a kid I always loved traveling past those sections. The scale and grandeur is incredible. But that's only because it's not everywhere in HK that we have that many lanes, that it feels special to go through those sections.
I believe only the E-series routes ply through those areas. A-series Airport routes are still planned to exclusively bring passengers to and from airport terminals
@@willy_gooseling69 The N routes to Tung Chung are supposed to go to the Airport then end at Tung Chung. At least the N29 over here is like this. And some A routes have special trips that go into the working areas too.
The big hidden benefit of transit over cars is often not travel time/convenience...but parking. People will take transit into downtown NY/DC/Chicago/etc primarily because parking is scarce. Parking more so than freeways has destroyed our urban downtowns. On the flip side, many medium size cities have seen their downtowns decay and die because of lack of parking (or a transit replacement). Often white flight is blamed for the death of many downtowns, but in reality it is because there is an inability to get downtown in appreciable numbers. Downtowns need transit to thrive.
Downtown decay was caused by many factors but cheap land available outside the city centers should be focused on more. America, Australia, and Canada have room to sprawl and become poly centric. If you are a business that doesn't really feel the need for a fancy headquarters to call your own, an office park is a lot cheaper than downtowns. The businesses that remain downtown tend to be ones that need to be close to something. So a lot of lawyers and law firms want to be close to the courts they practice in rather than having to drive an hour or so to get to court.
Parking or not, nothing can save American cities as long as they are minority-majority and crime infested, which is usually a byproduct of the minority culture that dominates. You could build all the mass transit you wanted, but if it is not safe and doesn't serve where people want to go(like suburbs) while keeping the undesirable away somehow, it is not going to happen. If you don't believe this is real, go take a walk around LA right now and talk to anyone there who is stuck with an apartment downtown or in Santa Monica. They can't escape the homeless epidemic and have to wait until their leases expire to move to another state. And on the flip side, talk to anyone in a midwest or Rocky Mountain state and ask them about what Californian's are doing to the places they grew up in. Don't allow them to spit on your shoe.
@@starventure Sadly crime and more broadly immaturity represents serious threats to downtown vitalities. I'm not sure there is a simple solution. If inner-city education were to emphasize accountability and discipline (which it doesn't) that might help.
Two additional points which I don't think you made (although I could have missed it, so if you did, please forgive me): 1.) Distribution of traffic to multiple means of transit - that is, even if you're a "car person", taking more people off the roads via convenient and frequent transit is better for you because it gives you an easier ride and makes it more likely you'll get there faster. 2.) Providing additional means of transit provides options - meaning that even if you're a "car person", you still benefit by gaining flexibility in ways to get places. For example, I'm from the DC area and even though I own a car, I'm really happy that I can take the silver line from near my parents' house to National Airport (with a ton of bags) instead of having to drive all that way and try to find expensive and inconvenient parking every time I fly out of there.
few people who rely on cars actually like it. they just have no better option or just don't know any better. most car enthousiasts don't like driving to work, but do like cruising when the road is empty
The famous statement “more lanes equals more traffic” can sum up the problem Houston has. The Katy Freeway is a famous example of wide freeway but there is still serious traffic jams in rush hour. Also, in comparison, cars are far less space inefficient than public transit, which takes up large amount of space building infrastructures for cars.(this can be seen clearly in Downtown Houston where lots of grids are used as a parking lot instead of buildings for living or offices) I recently watched traffic videos talking about Houston and coincidentally you made this new video explaining Houston transit! So lucky to see you making a video for this! Hello from Hong Kong!
yes more roads nice and wide everywhere is needed.. and lots of parking.. we should have 3 lane roads everywhere with underground subways. you car NIMBYS are off the rails
@@otherssingpuree1779 Just look at any developing nation's railway for that. Overcrowded to the point theres people riding on the top yet thing still moves.
People in the urbanist community fail to acknowledge that more lanes does enable more capacity. The goal isn't to eliminate traffic, its to move more people per hour. Houston and LA are huge. Cutting down lanes will reduce road capacity. Widening increases. You've seen what happens when a lane gets closed for construction. Everything slows way down.
A good point about options, and about competition of travel means. Waze, the driving app, found that the Netherlands ranked highest on its Driver Satisfaction Index, despite having great transit, biking and walking. Or because of.
Well the reason isn't actually that the roads are that much more pleasant to drive on though they are quite good. It's because all the alternatives means that if someone doesn't want to drive then they just don't. The standards for getting a license in the Netherlands are also some of the highest in the world with some not qualifying ever even though they are not seriously handicapped. This means the people who can drive can drive well and are well disciplined. That's a big advantage of having alternatives to driving, you can put much higher standards on drivers because people are not crippled if they can't meet those standards. If you take the people who don't want to drive off the road and force all the ones that remain to know and obey the rules well and take pride in being a driver you are getting a much more pleasant experience. Dutch drivers also actually have the law stacked against them. If a Dutch driver hits someone then the burden of proof is on them by default, it's not neutral. They are considered guilty unless they can prove their innocence. This might seem unfair to some but cars are considered a stronger and more physically protected road user so they should be held to higher standards than others. Of all the reasons the final one actually might be the most important. If drivers have a greater level of responsibility put on them then they tend to behave better in general. Cars tend to give people a sense of empowerment and so you need to counteract that effect.
One of the things i love about Germany, although not perfect, the cities are dense, still filled with wonderful natural parks, and enough space, one of the reasons i love cologne is the green ring around the city, but inbetween cities is just untouched nature. In Australia that untouched beautiful nature would be bulldozed to make way for culsdec and single family dwellings.
Germany, at least the cities I've been to, seems to strike the perfect balance of crowded, interesting, accessible city centres and a good spacious environment for all people to enjoy a high quality of life. Hong Kong may have transit that is the envy of the world, but its living conditions are crushing for such an affluent society, with much of the population living in, what most people in developed countries would consider, utter squalor. And today's environment is already better than before, with cleaner streets and better separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The density is just too high, for many complicated reasons.
Your focus is needed in the discussion of transit in our society (US). We’re so used to framing things as one thing pitted against another, but if we join together and make common sense choices, everybody benefits as you suggest. Thank you!!
Even the greatest transit cities have a smattering of cars on the roads for some use cases, so I appreciate when people focus on promoting transit friendly policies rather than trying to eliminate all cars from existence.
You need to take into account the road to population ratio though. It seems like a lot of cars on Hong Kong roads but they are only a very small fraction of the travelling mass
Something jag wanna tell about as a dude who är now living in HK: 1. There're some much cheaper way to go to the Airport from Central, you can take the Tung Chung Line which is nearly parallel to the Airport Express but only takes you to Tung Chung, then take the S1 bus route to the Airport Terminal. There're also have many E routes which can takes you to Airport which are less expensive than A routes but take longer times. 2. Sometimes buses can be faster than MTR. För example, go to Central from Ma On Shan might need 1 hours on MTR but the bus route 681 is fxxking fast (Although only 10 minutes fewer with perfect road conditions). However it always depend on road conditions, sometimes it can become a commuting hell if there're traffic jam. 3. Travel between some district always feels like a journey to some far place, no matter what Transit you take. Det är because much of the land is country parks which are remained natural, unlike Huston which spread the city out. When you go to the town centre of other districts except between urban areas, you will go across many green areas, like you are on the way to other cities. I love seeing the views while going to other places. 4. Transportation in HK: - MTR - Frenchised Bus - Estate Bus - Green minibus - Red minibus (Don't take this as this one driving at very crazy ways) - Taxi
Estate buses are technically under Non-Franchised bus under HK Law, which CTB is the rare case where (same branding company) has BOTH Franchised and non-Franchised department
I live in Frankfurt Germany. We mostly have 2 or 3 lane Autobahns and 4+ lanes are rare. Public transport is quite decent compared to American standards, but could be operated more regular if rail was priority
I think it’s fair to say that driving on highways are horrible at peak rush hours in HK (especially at bottlenecks like tunnel entrances). But that further backs the point that having alternative choices is important!
Yeah and just imagine if they didn't have such a transit system and millions more on the roads. Public transit is one of the best ways to reduce traffic on roads.
This was a fantastic video. I really appreciate the point you made about having more natural areas in dense cities, as that's something that I've been thinking for a long time, but haven't seen anyone else really discuss. I also appreciate you really nailing home the point that car centric cities are really terrible for everyone, not just those who cannot drive. I think it's important that we are more critical of how bad car infrastructure is for us and our cities, and we shouldn't mince words here. Thanks for all you do!
I find it wild (as someone who's doing their Master's in climate change) how underemphasised it is that building denser means more "actual" nature is preserved, great to see it brought up in this video even if briefly. Building outwards just means more habitats and nature are lost and more difficult to reach. Obviously green space in cities is important but that shouldn't be used as an excuse to not build upwards instead of horizontally, both can be done.
@@ShoummaShams ikr, as an architecture student who keeps receiving all those 'skyscrapers is ruining the world' messages from school, this really blows my mind, this is like 180 degrees off from what we were studying
I lived in Houston for several years and while I have good memories from my time there (mostly related to the friendships I developed), I was so excited when I had the opportunity to move to a city with better transit available (Chicago). I was so frustrated having to use my vehicle to get anywhere in Houston, whereas I eventually got rid of my car in Chicago and rarely ever missed it. I will say even with a more extensive rapid transit network in Houston, the thought of walking to a transit station from May - mid October doesn't sound particularly enticing, when heat & humidity is incredibly high and the heat index is frequently 104F+ (40C+). If they want to entice transit ridership, not only is frequent reliable service that goes where people want to go an important element, but also making it comfortable is also important which probably means enclosing stations to make use of air conditioning (e.g. a monorail network or SkyTrain-type network with enclosed stations since a subway system there would be difficult given the high water table). It's one thing to walk in the cold & wait for transit since you can often just pile on more layers to keep warm. It's an entirely different scenario if walking to a transit station when it feels like a sauna since there's only so much clothing you can take off to try to cool down. Using a car where you have your own air conditioning to get from place to place will likely remain the most attractive travel option as a result.
Hong Konger here, I’m actually living in a low density residential area near the roundabout in 12:16 ❤ Yes despite it is 15 min drive from the nearest MTR, I usually take public transport.
I lived in Fairview Park as a kid and "going downtown" meant going to Yuen Long as the city was not yet very accessible back in the 90s. Still miss YL, it's just so much more laid back and less pretentious than the city.
When I was living in New York City, I was using the trains and buses to get around the City without the use of a Car and it was very convenient, but now, I live in Raleigh NC and the Triangle area is very Car dependent and the Transit system is very awful. No commuter rail, and no shuttle service to the Airport ( RDU ). I do hope that the Triangle region boost their Transit system.
My brother lives in a Raleigh suburb. He wonders why I won't move there. I don't like cars, strangely half of my uncles have been killed by cars, not that it is the cars fault. Being born in NYC, I'm used to the convenience. Miss the train, it is often feasible to take the bus, not that much more of a walk. Or just wait another five minutes for the next train, 10 minutes if the line has poor service, and rarely more than 15 minutes.
It's good that you mentioned how travelling by car is still convenient in hk. I am I hker and my dad has a car. Although most of my trips are still going by MTR, sometimes we would still drive to my grandma's house to drive her to somewhere else. It's surprising for me that when I recall my experience of going to my grandma's house either by MYR or car, they both are so convenient and comfortable. I can choose however I like to get there, depending on what I have to do. Someone may claim that car gives you freedom of going anywhere you like, and that's true. But having a good transit system also gives you the freedom to choose your way to travel depending on your purpose, but not depending on where you want to go.
There’s an interesting dynamic in Hong Kong I’ve observed. On weekdays there is the usual congestion on key highway choke points but it eases up a little into the day. But on weekends the traffic can be even worse, and the congestion patterns are very different, with logjams in popular hangout areas, throughout the day. Presumably this is because most people commute with public transit but those that can afford to have a car like to take their family out for a drive on weekends. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else.
What we used to do as a budget tourist other than using bus from HK Airport is using the MTR from Tung Chung and then connect to a bus or vice versa. It's pretty awesome and way way wayyy cheaper than the airport express.
I could write entire thousand word essays about Houston, METRO (their transit authority)/etc from my time living there and my days spent researching their transit system. Maybe I should. Great video, though! Everytime I traveled abroad while living in Houston and returned it made me sorta sad. On the positive, as I mentioned in my other comment, METRONext did get passed and Houston is one of the few cities I've seen consistently and actively increase their transit build out. So while I don't think it'll be anywhere near the level of HK... ever... I do think the next few decades may look way different for Houston. But it's sad when LA makes Houston look like world class transit lol Always down to write long winded comments or share my knowledge if anyone is interested!
@@natepasman6414 word! I can't even link to Metro's page without it getting blocked but I might make a longer comment explaining it later. it's a pretty interesting story
Immigrant from HK here - Family is still in Toronto. I have to add that parking in HK is really inconvenient - you'd save more time taking transit rather than trying to find a space in those multi-level parking garages. Parking in residential areas are limited and very pricey. Also, the vehicle registration tax of a privately owned vehicle is any where from 40% to 150% of the price of the vehicle. This roughly translates to paying 1.5x to 2 x more for a car. My family used to live in Mei Foo, now a major transit hub, in Kowloon and we were contemplating buying a car because my mom had to commute on a bus 1.5 hr/day to go back and forth between Mei Foo and Tuen Mun, a "satellite city" in the New Territories (West Rail was not built yet in the 90s). My family, at the end, gave up on that idea because it was becoming cost prohibitive. When we lived in Markham in the 90s, my family bought 2 cars!!! It was a new found freedom for my parents that they could only dream of in HK.
Love the point about the distribution of nature/ green space! When the only "green space" is private lawns, it mostly sits unused. The footage you used was a great example of how people come together in public green space. I had my first real visit to NYC recently, and seeing folks come together in Central Park was awesome to me. It's a unique and wonderful experience in the US, but there's no reason it shouldn't be that way everywhere. Nature can't be truly experienced if it's chopped up into little pieces, and not to mention it completely destroys natural habitats for plants and other animals. Green space is so good for our environment, and our physical and mental well being. Having access to that should certainly be a right for everyone. It's possible in a walkable, transit-oriented city.
First :) Also make a medellin, colombia video please!!! its a great case study on how transit elevates otherwise marginalized populations (cable cars/gondolas connected to trains)
@Zaydan Alfariz no you’re right, although it’s a bit unfair to characterize a metro of 3.7 million people by that… nonetheless, medellin is used to it I suppose Since that era, the city has done a lot to elevate the economic opportunities for the people that live in the mountainside slums through public transit… it’s actually a beautiful and rather modern city, I urge you to visit it
There are buses going from Huston to Dallas etc. But I was shocked when I took a bus in the city itself I was shocked how far is everything and how large are freeways.
Yes, there are definitely feeder railway systems, especially trams or light rail. In Hong Kong (where I currently reside) the Light Rail system (in the suburb-ish residential areas) acts as a feeder for the Tuen Ma Line (a sort of S-Bahn/RER/Metro combination).
I'm from Houston, and while it's poor from a transit perspective I'm actually glad it exists in our current car-centric world. It's the ultimate example of why various propositions to make car-dependancy work better are ineffective. Houston is a large, highly developed, high population city and has done more to make the car as fast and convenient as possible than almost any other place. Multiple large loop systems, and numerous redundant, wide arterials going in nearly every direction. Almost completely flat with freeways that are all able to run close to straight. And there is still traffic. In conjunction with everything being super far apart to where long trips are super common even when there isn't congestion. Without alternative modes you simply can't build your way out of the problems with car-oriented development. If you could Houston would the best example to point to.
Hong Kong MTR is also a apartment builder, hk government give lands to them to build stations + shopping malls + apartments. 3 in one project to make sure profits and enough passengers.
Hongkonger here! I take the mtr everyday, and our entire family doesn't have a car. We very often forget how lucky we are to have access to such an extensive transit system (though accidents happen every other day) basically our city is developed on public transit. MTR is the most profitable transit system in the world, because it is also a giant real estate developer who develops on and around its stations. another thing is most of the population here doesn't own a car, its mostly the rich who drive. So the richest communities here (kowloon tong, the peak etc) often lack transit access (although still very accessible, just less compared to others)
It is true that driving in Hong Kong is so much more pleasure than other cities. Not only you get to enjoy the view, the highway network is so well designed. Also, the government of Hong Kong is still pumping an enormous amount of money to build a new highways, which I think is better solution to solve traffic than widen the highway. That’s why whenever I play cities Skyline Hong Kong is always the city that I’m referencing.
It's worth mentioning that Houston's ridership per mile for light rail is among one of the highest in the US, beating out cities like Portland, Denver and even Los Angeles. While probably nowhere near the magnitude of HK, it's still shockingly good for a city infamous for its freeways and sprawl. Even the frequency of trains are better than some metro systems in the US.
This is because Houston has a small Light rail system serving only busiest corridors around the downtown and major destinations. Other cities you mentioned have light rail going into the suburbs
@@mathewho9796 That is true, but I only pointed out those cities simply because they are more left leaning than Houston in terms of getting any transit built. While Houston on the other hand seems to be getting the best bang for the buck for it.
@@mathewho9796 I consider DART to be a regional interurban than traditional light rail. Coupled with poor land use around stations and 15-30 minute frequencies depending on time of day.
I wonder how they fund it? and have you ever ridden from Downtown to Medical Centre? The passengers are appallingly unruly, unemployed homeless and violent on drugs or whatever mostly mentally ill. I really think the figures are false.
American cities are really sad. Being an old person who can no longer drive, a stroke survivor or someone who cannot drive for other medical reasons, or simply being low income and therefore unable to afford the costs of a car are all things which can be an actual nightmare for people in cities with limited to no public transportation.
In my area a mass transit light rail is being built closely to me, and you will never guess what the complaints are, “it will raise my home values too much and I will be paying higher property taxes or my rent will increase too much”
i kinda love the slight more political angle you've been taking recently in these videos! everything is political already, but transit is sooooo political and there's a lot of statements to be made in relation to it. keep it up as always reece!
As a car enthusiast I'd like to point out that Houston also sucks for car enthusiasts, its in the flat part of Texas so there's no "fun" roads nearby, if you drive anywhere you get stuck in traffic or pay a toll and Houston is also full of pretty atrocious drivers (like every city in Texas). That said because its Texas car ownership is ridiculously cheap compared to pretty much anywhere else.
As a European, more than 3 highway lanes seems absurd to me. Even for main town roads, you only really see at most two lanes in very big cities, which suffice because every driver is trained to stay in the outer most lane when not overtaking.
Hahaha I love your channel because the car people in my life think I'm crazy for being so anti-car but honestly you make me feel like FLOWERS IN MY HEART
Having lived in a city with a lot of urban sprawl, and sadly little transit outside of the city centre, that city being Sydney, I agree with you on that point. In fact in 2014 I lived in an outer suburb called Campbelltown, and travelled to the University of Sydney Camperdown, in the inner city, for work. To get to work, I had to drive from my home to the station, then catch the train to Central station, and then a bus down to the uni. It took a long time. I then tried driving, and using surface roads, so not toll roads, it was quicker for me to drive. I then got my motorcycle license, which cut down commute times even further. Basically using transit I was spending the equivalent, each week, of working an entire shift on transit, assuming everything ran as they should. Once I switched to a motorcycle, my commute time was cut by 25% - 30%, and the weekly costs were similar.
One of the biggest problems of why people in America will never change their habits from thinking they need a car is that the scheduling of transportation is awful. Until scheduling gets better to include over night trains people will not change their habits.
Yes, it’s totally counterintuitive but adding capacity (lanes, bridges or tunnels) causes more traffic, not less! Best example was the opening of the Whitestone Bridge between the Bronx and Queens, essentially a short cut route where you no longer needed to drive all the way up to the edge of Queens for the Triborogh Bridge to get out of Long Island. Traffic immediately overwhelmed the new route, so they planned and built the Throggs Neck Bridge farther east. As soon as that opened, traffic overwhelmed BOTH bridges! I fully expect the current plan to add a lane in each direction to the Van Wyck Expressway to/from JFK airport to have the same effect.
More traffic isn't bad, increasing capacity is what's happening when you add more lanes. You're able to serve more people. The goal isn't to simply increase the speed of the average car, it's to move more cars.
@@yungrichnbroke5199 It's the false perception of added capacity that exacerbates the congestion. The increased volume of vehicle traffic just bottlenecks somewhere else further down where capacity for traffic to flow really remains the same.
@@pauly5418 you're telling me 1 lane on 405 still support the same throughput of the current highway? Induced demand is a thing. Yes. But think about what those two words mean. You're inducing, aka adding, demand aka new drivers. You're able to literally support a greater number of vehicles and people and it does.
I lived in the Houston area for over 15 years and yes a car is an absolute necessity. When I did work downtown I took a bus but anywhere else would be difficult if not impossible. However, the bottom line is the primary reason that Hong Kong is able to have such a wide variety of transit is population density. 18,500 people per square mile in Hong Kong versus 2,700 people per square mile in Harris County in which Houston is located. Houston will never have transit like Hong Kong unless the population density increased. The fact is that living in a tiny apartment 30 stories high is not viewed as ideal for many people. Single family homes on a private plot of land exist because people like that. I do not see Houston neighborhoods being torn down to put up high rise apartment buildings on top of one another anytime soon. Instead of lamenting how Houston is not Hong Kong perhaps it would be better to consider how best to maximize transit in low population density areas.
Have done a back of the envelope comparison between the Greater Houston Urban and Metro area against germanys most populated area. There is for one the Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr) and the Metropolregion Ruhr-Rhein (Rhine). Both places are comparable in population, population density and surface area. The big difference is public transit and with that land use. Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (public transit provider) connects the different cities in a manner not visible in Houston. Land utilization is roughly 35-40% settlements, 35-40% agricultural land, 15-20% forests, 5% water. In comparison the I-610 is a loop around Houston with a land utilization of 31% of single-family housing.
Several years ago when driving in a cab to Ontario Airport in greter Los Angeles at 5 am I asked why there was so much traffic on the freeway. The cab driver replied that in another hour the traffic would be so bad the freeway would choke and travel take much longer. By contrast a few years later I experienced a Tokyo morning peak 7-9 am. The expressways flowed freely, none of the subway trains were crowded, and the sound environment was restful, with the loudest sounds being station chimes and footsteps. I have never seen an urbanist point out such features, but these mean so much to quality of life.
I’m from Portland originally. We can talk all day about how much more affordable, efficient, eco-friendly, and overall enjoyable mass public transit is; but if there’s even a slight chance that a homeless person might hop on the same vehicle as a white-collar businessperson, the fight for better transit will always be steep in the US.
A better comparison would be Huston and Oslo, Norway. Both cities are rich because of oil. One decided to build roads and highways. The other decides to ban cars in downtown area while have a very decent public transit.
Hong Kong do sort of create a less interfered economy just like in Texas, but the Hong Kong government basiclly generates market and economic incentives towards the policy, like dirt cheap transport and high fuel prices and taxes for drivers
As a Hong Konger, I am really grateful to have such an effective transportation system. Especially after I traveled other similar cities. I can say it is top 3 in the world. Sometimes taking trains is even faster than taking a taxi in countryside railway line. And it is relatively cheap, just less than USD $2 a trip in most cases
Great video. I absolutely agree that mobility is the main benefit of transit, especially increased mobility for the transit dependent and single-car families and the resultant economic benefits afforded by that increased mobility. I have never believed that the "traffic reduction" rational for initially building transit is a very good one and is the least of its benefits. In every case, traffic reduction is often imperceptible to the average person and a reduction in traffic is often quickly filled with more traffic. No one has ever said "Thank goodness the Expo Line was built because traffic on the 10 Frwy is a breeze now." After all, traffic in NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco is still terrible. So, traffic isn't a great argument because it's an easy target and builds an expectation that can't be met, furthering the argument that transit is merely welfare for the poor with no other benefit for the rest. I believe the main benefit of transit is that it is a civic engine that boosts economic prosperity that benefits everyone; employees and employers. Mobility afforded by fast, reliable, and frequent transit provides more opportunities for the transit dependent and single-car families to get to more jobs and support second jobs, especially late night or early morning jobs, this increases the employee pool for businesses and their customer pool, as well as reducing poverty and underemployment. Transit also allows more transit dependent students better opportunities to get to colleges across town or in the city from the suburbs which increases a city's pool of higher educated employee candidates which in turn attracts employers, which helps diversify a city's economy, and which brings more employment opportunities for the entire city. Increasing earned wages among the lower classes trickles UP to all classes. Rapid transit in particular, increases the customer base from the transit dependent to choice riders, which helps take away the "welfare" stigma. Over time, land use does change to support transit and, in turn, increases a city's pedestrian prioritization, walkability, and urban form. Transit isn't the only reason for a city's economic activity or potential revival but it certainly is, and its expansion continues to be, a key component that drives that activity. Now, coming back to the "traffic" argument, as a city's economic activity increases, so will traffic and probably to even higher levels than before the transit system. However, with a highly used transit system, it's easy for everyone to see that traffic would be far worse without it; and that is the value proposition.
The best way to reduce traffic is actually a combination of higher density and more local facilities. Every person that takes a bike to go shopping is a car taken off the road. Every delivery made by cargo bike is a mini van off the road. I think medium density centered around bikes can work very well too. Especially if you have a government sponsored system of rental bikes connected to public transport.
The biggest thing with bikes though is that unlike transit they do get in the way of drivers as people won't bike if the road is filled with assholes who drive too fast and don't pay attention. Cycling infrastructure goes hand in hand with car traffic calming. Unfortunately those with cars are often the ones with money and therefore with power. The reason the Netherlands is considered the cycling capital is because cycling never went away and safety and community were always major values. The safety of cyclists was considered important always and that combined with the number of cyclists meant the infrastructure was made to prioritize cyclist safety over driver convenience. Americans often tend to be very stingy and so many oppose transit as they themselves don't use it. Social responsibility in the US is at an all time low and transit is a social infastructure. I think the ultimate example of this is how many praised Musk's Vagas strip because it was made super cheaply. Even though it's capacity is absolutely pathetic compared to a conventional metro system. That proves that the most important thing for Americans is that THEIR dollars are not spend on things that don't benefit them and not that their society has a well functioning system.
Seattle delayed all new lightrail lines to 2024-early 2025 due to cement strike, soil foundation issues and pandemic. Bellevue might get its independent east link unconnected to seattle but transit board won't announce plan til January
@@yungrichnbroke5199 east link will later connect to seattle but Redmond technology center to Bellevue will get people to work at Microsoft and Amazon offices there
@@yungrichnbroke5199 Bellevue is still a major city in its own right. And opening the Bellevue segment that's isolated from the rest of the system will allow it to open about a year earlier than it otherwise would.
Please do a video on the Manchester tram network. Grown incredibly in the past 20 years, with relatively little impact in terms of road closures or disruptions.
I actually feel sorry for the Americans to just have that discussion if public transport is needed and should be funded or not. It´s a (most of the time) reliable option for your citizens to move around the place and connect important nodes of work, leisure and living.
Um...no. The Netherland's transit is average at best and quite lackluster by European standards. The reason actually is the massive amounts of cycling infrastructure that pushes medium density which means there are few places with the density to support transit. It also means in many instances people can cycle to shop or to work so transit is unnecessary.
In my country, cost benefit analysis from the standpoint of government favours car infrastructure because they can: 1. Collect more car sales tax, road tax 2. Collect more summon money for the slightest traffic violation. 3. Cutthroat charge for driving license fees. 4. Collect more tolls and erp with concession contracts of 50y++ for close political associates(cronies). 5. Cheaper to construct compare to rail That is a lucrative business model for government to milk more money from a regular citizen like me😢. Whatever you suggest here is a pipedream.
Hong Kong is the perfect example of transit-oriented development. This city has developed for several years around its public transport network, with a dense and concentrated urban environment which favors the development of high-capacity transport. In result, every district in Hong Kong is served by at least one MTR line. Transport is also a question of town planning, which is why it fails to be profitable in car-friendly countries.
The thing that really gets me about Houston is that it's built for cars and cars only (yes, some progress has been made in recent years on public transit, walkability & cycling), but the roads are absolutely awful. Like, almost universally terrible. You can drive past strip-malls, "poor" neighborhoods, or gated communities and the thing they all share in common is shockingly awful road quality. Driving in that city is unpleasant for a lot of reasons, but the constant rabbit-punching of your guts as you roll over what might as well be dirt roads may be the thing I hate the most.
This is the biggest thing for me. I am a Houstonian, and while I live without a car now, I drove for years, and only some of this video rings true for me (yes, there are some heavily congested routes at peak hours, but I routinely made my ten-mile commute from Midtown to Mid-West in about 15 minute in the mornings and 35 minutes in the afternoon, and while the video makes a good case for driving comfort in HK, I can certainly say that there is absolutely no comparison between driving in Houston and driving in the NYC or Boston areas; biking is a wash between those metros in my experience). But the fiscal impossibility of sustaining a citywide network of 6,400 miles of (often multilane) street grid *and* 4,000 highway lane miles is inarguable, and it is constantly evident. Moreover, the endless sprawl makes it exhorbitantly expensive to operate and maintain the (generally quite good for non-BRT) bus network. In other words, the main problem with Houston - especially if you're talking about the entire metro area (which is where the 7mil population comes from) is that it is **way** too big. The city collects about the same tax revenue each year as Amsterdam (about $5B), but has four times the population and seven times the geographic area, with some level of street grid covering nearly all of it. In other words, if it's too expensive to build a rail on Richmond or Washington, then it's definitely too expensive to build a whole-ass road right to your house.
not to mention the Ugly billboards that promote the A-Z of everything. I could drop a family member or friend blindfolded, along any of Houston's Freeways and ask them where they are? Not one redeeming landmark of distinction. oh may be the Local House of Ill repute?
I think going forward whenever I introduce someone to your channel I'll make them watch this video first. While it's a fantastic explainer and comparison, it also does a good job of serving as an overview of the topics you usually discuss on your channel.
Every city needs both car infrastructure and public transport. They shouldn't supplant the other, they should supplement the other. Don't take away the power of choice. I love cars. But I hate car dependency. I shouldn't have to pick between one or the other.
This is the right way to view it. So many people on the roads would be better off not driving but they are because that's their only option. Driving is great but not when you're stuck behind people going to the grocery shops.
I hate cars but choice is always better. Supposedly freedom of choice is the American way. We have a large choice of food, restaurants, stores, product sizes, why not transit. Besides one size only fits one person. Also some trips favor different modes than others. And some people should not be driving just like some people should not be allowed on the subway. If one mode is incapacitated for whatever reason, you would have another mode.
Invent skyscraper apartments that have front and back yards. That can also be remodeled at will and are not made of concrete, but wood. Also, overturn the Fair Housing Act and allow for single ethnicity dwellings and buildings and neighborhoods. In addition, pay for the operation costs of any mass transit system with fairy dust and unicorn toots so no taxpayers groups decide to ruin it. See? Easy.
interesting trying to fix anything in Texas or America, they rather trash it and leave it, (look at any inner city gone wrong with vacant disused buildings and infrastructure) and build new, America is not into recycling or repurposing, each cycle of local state or federal government wants their name on a new project. Just take for example the Hardy Tollway out of Houston, it used to connect before Hurrican Harvey, (sort of), but now you drive single-lane speed bumps and a dozen traffic lights thru the ghetto to join the Toll Way at 610, they rebuilt a new bridge over Buffalo Bayou, at the city end... but then it's a joke thru to 610. I see ex Houstonions crowing well about the Metro Bus network but really it's a government sham, trying it out and see where and how you go. Houston has got real potential with the HOV if they converted it to rail, but let's see Texas, Come and Get It, meaning no change, not in my backyard. It's so conservative that hell will freeze over before TXDOT allows anything but the car door to open. Sorry for being negative but that's the way it is. oh Yes Reese let's see if you can come up with a Plan. Also grateful to compare a city with the best transit in the world with yes the worst city with no transit, Houston, with a cover-up to transfer good government grants (intended for the Metro Network) but to pay for I45N and 59/69 widening thru communities Schools and businesses. Texas, Come and Get It!
Been to Houston and can confirm that public transportation in Texas in-general is an undeserving joke. Houston is similar to Phoenix where sprawl has gotten so far outta hand that any rail proposals would receive a capitol "F" for it's lack of usefulness.
Hong Kong: Only city with rail system that makes money and pays dividends. Houston: USA city with the longest time period that had NO rail or electric based transit.
The Metro in DC has suffered from lower frequency (thanks to the loss of ATC) plus delays (thanks to unreliable rolling stock and bottlenecking at the Rosslyn Tunnel). Together it renders the service way less useful. Even at peak, we only have 6 minute headways where we probably should have 4 minute headways. Off-peak wait times are even worse. 15 minutes is a long time to wait for a Metro, especially if you’re transferring between lines. Frequency is freedom.
I grew up in Houston but now I thankfully live in Denver. I traded Houston Metro for RTD, an upgrade but not as much of one as it should be. Metro in Houston is definitely for captive riders not choice. I never took Metro for anything other than getting to the Rodeo (for that it's amazing and moves a LOT of people). As is the typical American trend, Houston once had a very decent streetcar network. Many older parts of town that were once streetcar suburbs are some of the most desirable places to live like Bellaire, The Heights, and Montrose. Houston Electric was removed in 1940 by National City Lines. Houston and its architectural history are a perfect example of paving over paradise. Houston Grand Central station was demolished in 1959. The once dense and walkable urban core was gradually turned into parking lots in the 1950's and 60's. The infamous Katy Freeway was widened using the ROW of the MKT Railroad line from Katy to near 610. They ripped up a railroad there to build their lame brain freeway. Much of I45's ROW is also on the route of the old Galveston Houston Interurban. The Westpark toll road is built on another intercity rail ROW. I know Who Framed Roger Rabbit was about LA and the Pacific Electric but it could have very well been about Houston.
I live right on the west boundary of Lincolnshire, and I would much rather live in either of two cities 60-90 minutes away (Sheffield or Nottingham) because they have frequent and reliable buses, trams and trains.
HK relies on transit so heavily that some routes (both trains and buses) are overloaded even if the frequency hits 3 or 4min. Indeed owning a car would be even more convenient, but using public transport is certainly enough for daily life.
It's remarkable how cheap transport is in Hong Kong TBH especially the buses and how joined up everything is I.e. you can use the octopus card for the star ferry and other ferries. The bus takes around 40-45 minutes to the airport from Hong Kong Island or about an hour from Kowloon. I haven't been to Houston to can't compare but maybe it would make more sense to compare Houston to another North American city such as Calgary.
The Premium AEL (Airport Express Line) is HKD 100, about USD 12.5. The airport Bus is HKD 40, about USD 5. From where I live in the eastern district of HK Island, the Airport Bus is 10% of a taxi to the airport, while taking more or less the same time.
HK public transport is cheap at point of use but doesn't mean it's cheap overall. Realistically it's not possible to disentangle the MTR's income (and therefore transit costs) stream as being unrelated to the extreme housing costs in HK..
Houston also just straight up doesn’t have zoning. This is why there are houses next to chemical plants and other potentially hazardous facilities. This has led to entire neighborhoods having to be evacuated when there are issues at the plant.
That's not entirely true. Houston doesn't have zoning per se but developments are still subject to deed restrictions and other ordinances which are effectively zoning.
I don't think Americans understand how much well engineered public transit systems can improve lives for everyone. Often we complain about traffic and parking but build more highways hoping to solve the problem which only encourages more people to drive. When you travel overseas and experience how convenient it is to have more than one option for transit you have more freedom in transportation. I appreciate that younger generations (like myself) see the value in public transit and are willing to invest in transit that supports everyone.
Car ownership is EXTREMELY expensive in Hong Kong. Parking prices are off the roof. As a student, the thought of taking a taxi is like ruining my budget - hate when I have to. People can NOT afford cars in Hong Kong hence there is a more reason to have a better public transportation system.
How does quality and speed of transit correlate to cost of home ownership, education, and salary? Seems to me that if trains allow people to travel further in less time, people wont feel as constrained by their local economy; say if local jobs aren't up to snuff, the person with access to a fast metro line is more likely to reach another local job market than one who can only drive _and_ if the local businesses care to stay competitive, they would essentially need to compete with other jobs basically half a state away. The reverse should apply for having a place of interest and housing.
I’m an overseas Hong Konger which currently live in Vancouver. Because of how crammed Hong Kong is, every single inch of available space is used for development just to fit enough people. Even though it is indeed crowded, at least everything functions seamlessly. Btw hail the MTR! The best subway system in the world! Even though it doesn’t have many lines than some other subway systems around the world, at least the coverage does indeed serve most populous areas in Hong Kong.
Though I think these videos usually miss the point of why cars originally became popular outside of car company lobbying and often ignore the negatives of public transportation, I agree that we need more. And with some minor changes, these systems could become the gold standard. But, only if those negatives are ironed out.
Actually to create Transit oriented city, housing culture need to be changed. Most Hong Kongers live in super high density residential apartments while most people in Houston live in suburban low density single houses. Almost impossible to cover transit city with single unit residential compared to apartments.
@@RMTransit What does Toronto show? The percent of Toronto residents living in apartments are likely more than that of Huston Metro area residents. Huston is a sprawled area...
@@Aidan_Au You don't always necessarily need high density to have subway systems or commuter rail. Even the NYC does go deep into areas that can be classified as low density but tons of people use it. As long as it is walkable to an area, people will use it versus in Los Angeles case, they built the subways next to highways or in the middle of no where next to warehouses. So no one gets to use it.
Hong Kong is well known for it's "Octopus Card" and it's used for all kinds of Transits and even for Shopping. Plus some highways in Hong Kong have Toll booths, the Buses dont need to stop which makes commuting easier
Geez, it's like transit channels love to pick on Houston! LOL. It's okay, we get it. One thing that often gets left out here is that Houston does not control highway planning. Houstonians overwhelmingly oppose the highway expansions, but are powerless against the Texas Department of Transportation. Also, Houston is undemocratically under-represented on the regional planning council HGAC. Lastly, you could give credit to Houston for its current bike lane boom. Even outside of protected bike lanes, it's becoming much easier to bike across the city these days. But yeah, I get it. Houston has a long way to go and could be much much better if we fixed transportation.
You hit the nail on the head with your Catch 22 reference! In the post-WWII era, American automobile manufacturers somehow convinced Americans that car ownership, and ONLY car ownership, was the embodiment of freedom. It's ironic that that is now the only option available in many American cities.
It is also an entitlement of the road users. In America jaywalking is illegal and they are unique in that. In some countries like the Netherlands they not only not favor cars they have laws discriminating against cars. Cars are considered a more powerful, dangerous and consequence immume vehicle. If a car hits a cyclist the cyclist is obviously in greater danger than the driver is. So they put the burden of proof against cars. If a car hits someone they need to prove they were not at fault. If nothing can be proven conclusively then by default the driver is considered to be at fault. Some considered that unfair but it is one of the absolutely most effective methods of roadside safety because it puts a burden of responsibility on drivers.
I'm glad you are realizing the politics behind good transit and it's tie in with successful urban planning. I rewatched your video yesterday about not making public transit free and I feel the current Reece would disagree with the past Reece.
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Recently moved to the U.S after living in HK for 5 years.. the difference is astonishing. Going straight from not owning a car to needing one for every journey feels so tedious.
Where in US do you now live?
Owned a car in China...didn't NEED to but old habits die hard. Now back in America and wishing I didn't NEED a car for most things (luckily live close to work so I walk everyday for that).
@@jok2000 You going to pay thousands of dollars a year for a car for the couple times a year you buy something from IKEA?
@@jok2000 car depreciation and maintenance can easily be thousands a year.
I think the idea is that you still have access to a car, but not everybody needs to have one.
@@jok2000 older and wiser now. :)
finally someone mentioning 'urban sprawl' in Asian cities. Yes, it's not the same as North American cities full of suburban housings - more like disorganised clusters of apartment complexes and mid-to-highrise residential buildings. It indeed has a lot of problems (traffic jams, high city-centre dependency.. similar with North American suburbs but slightly better), but thanks to the high population density of those sprawly areas, we can (and we do) mitigate those problems with good transit services.
China has so much urban sprawl, it's insane.
@@kirkrotger9208 in china a small town is anything under a million population
@@MK-jq8ow That's not true, and China actually takes after the US in a lot of ways when it comes to urban design. Most cities are very unfriendly to pedestrians with wide roads and very segregated uses of land. Many cities are also far larger than they need to be, and there are usually only the metro and buses for rapid transit. No regional rail systems nor trams. Metros also tend to have very wide stop spacing, with little ability for more local trips in the city centers to be taken by rail. Fuzhou is an excellent example of this. Its metro only has a handful of stops in the actual city, with the rest being in the suburbs and rural areas. The purpose is for these areas to become more developed in the future, yet so much land in the city itself remains underutilized, being space dedicated to cars.
I think it can be properly classified as suburban in places like Hong Kong. In America, it's more like subrural or exurbs. Little boxes made of ticky tacky. The single use zoning also harms American places, too. There is no missing middle or mixed use.
@@MK-jq8ow and 'city' in china is basically as large as one of those small American states in terms of land sizes. so the fundamentals are a bit different
So crazy that for public transit it's like:
-Taxes for infrastructure
-Ticket/fare
Cars it's like:
-Pay for the car itself
-Pay taxes on the purchase
-Pay taxes every year on the car (in my state)
-Pay taxes for road infrastructure
-Pay car insurance
-Pay for fuel
-Pay for maintenance/tires/oil
-(Optional) Pay for roadside assistance subscription
-Haggle with the mechanic to make sure you're not getting taken advantage of/scammed lol, and also hope that they actually did fix the car correctly..
People are borderline enslaved by their cars. It's a chaotic unreliable thing that can seriously f your budget up at very inopportune times. And the poorer you are the worse it gets. It's a hellish trap that you can't get out of. You can only afford a crappy unreliable car that can bust your budget and make you get fired because you couldn't show up to work. Alternatively you get an expensive new car and again your budget is busted because of this high upfront cost you're paying for reliability. Then eventually depreciation comes and screws you up. Better not get in an accident either. Doesn't matter if it's your fault or not. It is going to suck.
@@yungrichnbroke5199 Yeah as i look around and i see people who aren't as knowledgeable of cars as me (not that im an expert) i think about how 10x more annoying and uncomfortable it is (and prone to being scammed on top of that, just to be able to get around) to have to deal with maintenance or surprise failures or even just living with driving, a lot of people get anxiety doing it. It's crazy how it's expected of literally EVERYONE in 95% of American cities to just deal with. People always say it's crazy that we let 16 year olds drive or how easy it is to pass the driving test but thats because there is literally no other options unless you live in a few select major cities.
Yes!
The financial problem though is that the highest costs, car payment plus insurance, are typically fixed costs that don't change much with use. This means once you have a car, the financial incentive to use transit SOME of the time goes away. The additional cost per mile to use the car can even sometimes be cheaper than using transit, especially things like commuter rail. Now, a couple might be able to go from two cars to one with transit for one to use it to commute, but that doesn't work for a true single person.
@Zaydan Alfariz $5 is expensive for a transit ticket. Usually they cost $2-3 at most, $1.25 in Houston.
And Houston is nice that except for paying by cash you get unlimited rides for three hours after paying your $1.25 fare, free five rides per 50 paid ones. Since I'm a student that price drops even more.
You should mention the difference in safety between driving and transit too. It’s arguably the biggest reason to decrease the number of cars on the road
Especially when considering a road rager in Houston might shoot you while driving
While what you say is true, not all cities have the safest mass transit they could. When you have a mass transit system that gets in the news for accidents every few months, it's really easy to lose sight of the fact that in that same time system, the entire transit system's annual rate of accidents happen between cars every day. It's also easy to lose sight of the fact that a lot of those mass transit systems are due to under-funding the mass transit system for decades. If we spent half as much as we did on our cars to have a mass transit system that worked, it would be a real wonder of a system. Those people who "like" driving could then go for a drive on our suddenly relatively empty streets whenever they wanted without facing all of the ridiculous traffic we have, because they wouldn't have to contend with nearly as many drivers who have to drive somewhere they need to go.
@@edgrimm5862 Literally speaking, the cannonball record would have been broken earlier if there was less cars on the road.(as shown with Covid)
Are we including pickpockets, SA, and robbery that occurs in transit?
@@ganymedehedgehog371 at least you don’t die lol. yeah these are valid concerns and it doesn’t happen as much in asia.
I miss Hong Kong so much, I did a summer programme there after I finished secondary school. I remember the transport felt so freeing. I’m learning to drive now (at 30) but I couldn’t drive for medical reasons at 17 (our age for getting your licence) and it was horrible being stuck in rural Ireland when all my friends could go and come as they like. So the MTR really was freedom to me. Compare that to waiting for the bus to next town yesterday for an additional 15 mins once again, a bus that only runs to 1800 every two hours
Yep, I know that feeling of freedom having grown up in a semi rural area!
Hong kongers didn’t leave Hong Kong to take subways and live in small homes. We would’ve stayed in Hong Kong.
@@JamesLaw87 Fun fact: it is possible to have both a subway and big houses.
@@JamesLaw87 The physical city itself (and infrastructure), tiny homes and all, was the favourite part for myself and almost everyone I knew. We moved because we had no choice.
@@AlCatSplat: it is in London.
I was shocked when you've shown the "main station" in Houston. I tried to find it on google maps manually, but it's so small (and of course burried withing a huge parking lot), that I had to google it's location. And of course what do you see first when you arrive? Big parking lot, highway and behind all that it's the skyline.
I actually used to live in Houston and the transit situation is sad (BUT! while I lived there, METRO Next -- a ballot initiative to increase funding by billions of dollars to their transit system, passed! and the BRT Silver Line [which was supposed to be rail, but a anti-transit politician who thankfully lost re-election forced it to be BRT] opened a few months before I moved). I'm not from Houston but while I lived there I'd frequently use the bus and light rail system when I went out to drink or to go to work and my coworkers thought I was insane. It was bizarre.
Like, people would go out drinking and always drink and drive there. It's more common than anywhere I've ever lived (I've lived in more mid sized cities in the southeast, Houston, Denver and San Diego). It's wild. Whenever I got them to ride the LRT while we bar hopped, some of them said it was literally the *first* time they've used the light rail. They've lived in Houston their entire lives and were in their mid 20s and never used the light rail, even when drinking in the urban core. They'd rather drive and pay $20+ for parking and risk DUIs.
It's truly a wild, wild place. I'm SO glad to see they're actually trying to do something about their transit situation (though, it's going to be hard with how car dependent they are) and honestly, even though my friends and coworkers rarely used transit, they all supported and voted for initiatives to increase transit funding. Also, their public transit authority, METRO, is actually pretty well ran. Honestly, despite the flaws in their system, out of actual operators -- METRO has been the best ran one out of anywhere I've lived or lived near (on terms of finances, actually making smart transit decisions and cutting certain routes or decreasing their frequency if they were in the middle of nowhere, expanding their transit hubs, increasing frequency and making more bus routes to connect major population centers, etc).
Sorry for the long winded comment. I haven't finished the video and honestly, with all of my praise -- it's hard to deny Houston really is a transit hellscape and they have a pretty tough challenge to actually improve it. Besides that, I honestly never want to live in Houston again and didn't really enjoy my time there - but I really do hope the transit authority continues to make headway and have public support.
I think it’s important to recognize that some in Houston are trying! It’s hard though! Very hard!
Wait, do yoh mean the Amtrak station? The Metro doesn't go there lol
I assumed he was going from the Preston stop on the Red Line
It's worth repeating how bad intercity rail is in Houston. One train, three times a week (per direction). That's it.
The problem is common to many cities in USA: it depends on railway taxation model. In USA there's a railway infrastructure taxation that leads to downgrading railway lines and station to save cost and pay less taxes. After '60s, many rail company has suffered a downturn of passengers caused by airplanes and cars, so the company ceased your passengers service and sold your central stations or, at least, a biggest part of the main/central stations' land to builders, so a huge part of the cities in USA have only small station(s), outside from downtown and with a very few number of tracks and unbelievable low number of trains serving them.
That's the thing, right: more cars = cars are less convenient but more trains = trains are more convenient.
The biggest problem for car traffic is cars ... cars make car traffic worse ... transit makes car traffic better, that's what all advocates of car traffic should keep in mind ...
"Brother and sisters are natural enemies.
Like cyclists and motorists.
Or pedestrians and motorists.
Or skaters and motorists.
Or motorists and other motorists.
Damn motorists! They ruined motorways!"
The big thing with trains is that they have a massive capacity. A extensive train network can transport 70% of Hong Kong's population every day without being a major disruptor. Cars can't do that.
As long as the trains run at the same speed, which for the most part, they do.
Exactly
Hong Kong is just an amazing place for any transit lover.
An excellent metro system? Check
Well-designed highways? Check
Good connection to the Airport? Check
The MTR stations are often located next to a public transport interchange, making transfers between different modes of transport, and thus the journey, relatively seamless.
And the highways(what we call expressways in Hong Kong) too, either designed to skirt around the edges of major urban areas(like the Kwun Tong Bypass)and/or fitted with noise barriers(Tuen Mun Road within Tuen Mun town centre), minimizing noise pollution to the urban areas and makes the living environment pleasant while allowing easy access for road traffic.
(Though a east-west RER-like rail line would've been a neat addition for Hong Kong as the travelling time for that as of now is just taking way too long)
In my humble opinion Hong Kong is a good example of achieving a good balance between road and rail transit.
Hong Kong is definitely transport maximalism
Hong Kong is a city and country in one on an island like Singapore so it should have good transit system and connections there due to a committed government
@@MrDigitalman78since when did HK become a country?😂
@@AmelieZh my bad. Hong Kong is part of China like the former Portuguese colony of Macau
@@MrDigitalman78 Singapore doesn't have direct rail to the airport. It still relies on a bus, so it fails.
Also, don't forget that Hong Kong and Houston suffer from long, hot and humid summers, so "It's too hot to take transit/walk in Houston" is not valid
That’s not a valid excuse at all. Many places on earth are hotter and more humid than Houston is yet the people still use transit. Weather has no factor in Public transit and walking.
The funniest thing about this is that ice houses - bars that are primarily outdoors - are extremely common and beloved in Houston, including in the summer.
We're okay with sweat. We just don't build in a walkable or transitable way.
Hmm can’t say the concern of humid heat is entirely invalid
But by having extensive and well connected public transport (where buses stop near building/malls, where metro exits connect to the basements of office buildings, where buildings are often interconnected with pedestrian bridges) is probably the exact answer to that concern!
I disagree. People preferring to be at comfortable temperatures is totally valid. The sunbelt was generally not colonized, uh I mean, populated by Americans until AC was invented.
@@jonathanip7882 I remember when I went to Japan a few years ago in December, I would walk through the underground networks to connect to other stations. It felt so insane thinking that there are literally shopping malls entirely underground with walkways full of eateries like bakeries, cafe shops, and convienence store like 7/11. You can just walk a few blocks down in one direction and be away from the cold ass wind and rain for the entire walk. I don't quite remember if i've experienced this during the summer, but I probably have in the past when I was younger.
I'm a Londoner but I've spent some time in Hong Kong. Public transport there is fantastic. We lived for some time in a village on a smallish island connected to Hong Kong Island only by ferry. It was about a mile's walk to the pier. For most of our stay, we were on the 21st floor of a block in Kornhill (see Wikipedia), a cluster of about thirty 31 floor blocks (mid-rise in HK terms) built to serve the, then new, MTR Island Line. At the end of the street: forest covered hills. Every morning, old folk would gather in the woods or in any public space to exercise. The streets are full of life. Because HK is the densest place I have lived in, it is also the greenest. I think that the green and red minibus networks also deserve a shout, as do the taxis.
Yep! The minibuses are quite something! Hong Kong is a very special place
@@RMTransit Minibuses exist thanks to the communists who decided to start a riot in 1967.
I think lower wages and people dedicated to working play a huge part in serving the whole public transportation system in Hong Kong.
For example, the green minibus drivers as part-time drivers working from 6:15 am to 2:45 pm as a standard morning shift can earn 600 HKD, and the night shift starting from 4 pm to 12 am earns 630-700 HKD. No official break times or very limited benefits for drivers. Sure the basic traffic accident scheme from Gov HK call Traffic Accident Victims Assistance scheme can cover injuries or even support fatalities.
Full-time bus driver works around 8 hours a day for standard shift and routes and can earn roughly 18000HKD to 22000 HKD a month for the first 2 years of service. Normally can jump to a bit more to 22-25k HKD level after 2 years of good level service means no accident occurs in that two years. Other than that will have an excuse to about the 19-21k level.
Most of the drivers work 6 days a week around 48 hours working a week.
Break time is around 20-60 minutes but depending on traffic time when you complete the shift, there was a mandatory break time in law that says 6 hours of driving must have at least 20 minutes of break time.
Seems wages are a bit lower than in London and working hours longer.
I love Kornhill! I used to live about 15-20 minute walk from it. Kornhill and Tai Koo are the best neighborhoods I've been to in the world. Convenient shopping, major shops are practically downstairs from where you live and a short walk away from older neighborhoods with independent stores. International name brands to generic all within the area. Two movie theaters in walking distance! Restaurants from high class expensive fine dinning to cheap food court stuff. Transit of all kinds. Sandwiched between natural mountainous park and well designed water front park. One of 10-12 ice rink in the city right there.
In HK we often appoint to meet others at MTR stations usually, and even after gatherings we leave on the same train if our destination is along the same line.
This is one of the main features in a transit city.
An additional point to the transportation for airport workers is that HK's airport buses actually travel around the airport complex to pick up said workers before their trip back to the city center.
And HK also has its many lane highway moments - just very rarely and only used as the connecting point of multiple highways. As a kid I always loved traveling past those sections. The scale and grandeur is incredible. But that's only because it's not everywhere in HK that we have that many lanes, that it feels special to go through those sections.
I believe only the E-series routes ply through those areas. A-series Airport routes are still planned to exclusively bring passengers to and from airport terminals
@@nelsonyang1216 yes, but some E routes don’t even go to the airport, only tc.
@@willy_gooseling69 The N routes to Tung Chung are supposed to go to the Airport then end at Tung Chung. At least the N29 over here is like this.
And some A routes have special trips that go into the working areas too.
The big hidden benefit of transit over cars is often not travel time/convenience...but parking. People will take transit into downtown NY/DC/Chicago/etc primarily because parking is scarce. Parking more so than freeways has destroyed our urban downtowns. On the flip side, many medium size cities have seen their downtowns decay and die because of lack of parking (or a transit replacement). Often white flight is blamed for the death of many downtowns, but in reality it is because there is an inability to get downtown in appreciable numbers. Downtowns need transit to thrive.
Downtown decay was caused by many factors but cheap land available outside the city centers should be focused on more. America, Australia, and Canada have room to sprawl and become poly centric. If you are a business that doesn't really feel the need for a fancy headquarters to call your own, an office park is a lot cheaper than downtowns. The businesses that remain downtown tend to be ones that need to be close to something. So a lot of lawyers and law firms want to be close to the courts they practice in rather than having to drive an hour or so to get to court.
This is very true! A downtown with plenty of parking spots is no joy to be in. A downtown with no transit is nojoy to access.
Parking or not, nothing can save American cities as long as they are minority-majority and crime infested, which is usually a byproduct of the minority culture that dominates. You could build all the mass transit you wanted, but if it is not safe and doesn't serve where people want to go(like suburbs) while keeping the undesirable away somehow, it is not going to happen. If you don't believe this is real, go take a walk around LA right now and talk to anyone there who is stuck with an apartment downtown or in Santa Monica. They can't escape the homeless epidemic and have to wait until their leases expire to move to another state. And on the flip side, talk to anyone in a midwest or Rocky Mountain state and ask them about what Californian's are doing to the places they grew up in. Don't allow them to spit on your shoe.
@@starventure Sadly crime and more broadly immaturity represents serious threats to downtown vitalities. I'm not sure there is a simple solution. If inner-city education were to emphasize accountability and discipline (which it doesn't) that might help.
Bro what are you talking about? Do you live in LA? Because I do and none of what you’re saying represents reality.
Two additional points which I don't think you made (although I could have missed it, so if you did, please forgive me):
1.) Distribution of traffic to multiple means of transit - that is, even if you're a "car person", taking more people off the roads via convenient and frequent transit is better for you because it gives you an easier ride and makes it more likely you'll get there faster.
2.) Providing additional means of transit provides options - meaning that even if you're a "car person", you still benefit by gaining flexibility in ways to get places. For example, I'm from the DC area and even though I own a car, I'm really happy that I can take the silver line from near my parents' house to National Airport (with a ton of bags) instead of having to drive all that way and try to find expensive and inconvenient parking every time I fly out of there.
Yep even if you don’t use it as a commuter you benefit because traffic decrease.
few people who rely on cars actually like it. they just have no better option or just don't know any better. most car enthousiasts don't like driving to work, but do like cruising when the road is empty
@@leonpaelinck yep.
In Texas they say (add one more Lane bro)
The famous statement “more lanes equals more traffic” can sum up the problem Houston has. The Katy Freeway is a famous example of wide freeway but there is still serious traffic jams in rush hour. Also, in comparison, cars are far less space inefficient than public transit, which takes up large amount of space building infrastructures for cars.(this can be seen clearly in Downtown Houston where lots of grids are used as a parking lot instead of buildings for living or offices)
I recently watched traffic videos talking about Houston and coincidentally you made this new video explaining Houston transit! So lucky to see you making a video for this! Hello from Hong Kong!
The old reply to people calling trains crowded.
A packed train still moves.
Thanks for watching! Highways are a struggle!
yes more roads nice and wide everywhere is needed.. and lots of parking.. we should have 3 lane roads everywhere with underground subways. you car NIMBYS are off the rails
@@otherssingpuree1779 Just look at any developing nation's railway for that.
Overcrowded to the point theres people riding on the top yet thing still moves.
People in the urbanist community fail to acknowledge that more lanes does enable more capacity. The goal isn't to eliminate traffic, its to move more people per hour. Houston and LA are huge. Cutting down lanes will reduce road capacity. Widening increases. You've seen what happens when a lane gets closed for construction. Everything slows way down.
A good point about options, and about competition of travel means. Waze, the driving app, found that the Netherlands ranked highest on its Driver Satisfaction Index, despite having great transit, biking and walking. Or because of.
Well the reason isn't actually that the roads are that much more pleasant to drive on though they are quite good.
It's because all the alternatives means that if someone doesn't want to drive then they just don't. The standards for getting a license in the Netherlands are also some of the highest in the world with some not qualifying ever even though they are not seriously handicapped. This means the people who can drive can drive well and are well disciplined.
That's a big advantage of having alternatives to driving, you can put much higher standards on drivers because people are not crippled if they can't meet those standards.
If you take the people who don't want to drive off the road and force all the ones that remain to know and obey the rules well and take pride in being a driver you are getting a much more pleasant experience. Dutch drivers also actually have the law stacked against them. If a Dutch driver hits someone then the burden of proof is on them by default, it's not neutral. They are considered guilty unless they can prove their innocence. This might seem unfair to some but cars are considered a stronger and more physically protected road user so they should be held to higher standards than others.
Of all the reasons the final one actually might be the most important. If drivers have a greater level of responsibility put on them then they tend to behave better in general. Cars tend to give people a sense of empowerment and so you need to counteract that effect.
One of the things i love about Germany, although not perfect, the cities are dense, still filled with wonderful natural parks, and enough space, one of the reasons i love cologne is the green ring around the city, but inbetween cities is just untouched nature. In Australia that untouched beautiful nature would be bulldozed to make way for culsdec and single family dwellings.
Germany, at least the cities I've been to, seems to strike the perfect balance of crowded, interesting, accessible city centres and a good spacious environment for all people to enjoy a high quality of life. Hong Kong may have transit that is the envy of the world, but its living conditions are crushing for such an affluent society, with much of the population living in, what most people in developed countries would consider, utter squalor. And today's environment is already better than before, with cleaner streets and better separation of pedestrian and vehicular traffic. The density is just too high, for many complicated reasons.
Germany is kind of a middle ground between the two. It's mostly medium density with transit that serves a significant portion but not everyone.
In Australia...?? Sydney and Melbourne have unbelievable Greenspace all over the city, what drug are you on?
Your focus is needed in the discussion of transit in our society (US). We’re so used to framing things as one thing pitted against another, but if we join together and make common sense choices, everybody benefits as you suggest. Thank you!!
Even the greatest transit cities have a smattering of cars on the roads for some use cases, so I appreciate when people focus on promoting transit friendly policies rather than trying to eliminate all cars from existence.
Indeed, and when people still choose to use transit despite passable roads you know its probably fairly compelling!
You need to take into account the road to population ratio though. It seems like a lot of cars on Hong Kong roads but they are only a very small fraction of the travelling mass
Something jag wanna tell about as a dude who är now living in HK:
1. There're some much cheaper way to go to the Airport from Central, you can take the Tung Chung Line which is nearly parallel to the Airport Express but only takes you to Tung Chung, then take the S1 bus route to the Airport Terminal. There're also have many E routes which can takes you to Airport which are less expensive than A routes but take longer times.
2. Sometimes buses can be faster than MTR. För example, go to Central from Ma On Shan might need 1 hours on MTR but the bus route 681 is fxxking fast (Although only 10 minutes fewer with perfect road conditions). However it always depend on road conditions, sometimes it can become a commuting hell if there're traffic jam.
3. Travel between some district always feels like a journey to some far place, no matter what Transit you take. Det är because much of the land is country parks which are remained natural, unlike Huston which spread the city out. When you go to the town centre of other districts except between urban areas, you will go across many green areas, like you are on the way to other cities. I love seeing the views while going to other places.
4. Transportation in HK:
- MTR
- Frenchised Bus
- Estate Bus
- Green minibus
- Red minibus (Don't take this as this one driving at very crazy ways)
- Taxi
Estate buses are technically under Non-Franchised bus under HK Law, which CTB is the rare case where (same branding company) has BOTH Franchised and non-Franchised department
I live in Frankfurt Germany. We mostly have 2 or 3 lane Autobahns and 4+ lanes are rare. Public transport is quite decent compared to American standards, but could be operated more regular if rail was priority
I think it’s fair to say that driving on highways are horrible at peak rush hours in HK (especially at bottlenecks like tunnel entrances).
But that further backs the point that having alternative choices is important!
Yeah and just imagine if they didn't have such a transit system and millions more on the roads. Public transit is one of the best ways to reduce traffic on roads.
This was a fantastic video. I really appreciate the point you made about having more natural areas in dense cities, as that's something that I've been thinking for a long time, but haven't seen anyone else really discuss.
I also appreciate you really nailing home the point that car centric cities are really terrible for everyone, not just those who cannot drive. I think it's important that we are more critical of how bad car infrastructure is for us and our cities, and we shouldn't mince words here.
Thanks for all you do!
I find it wild (as someone who's doing their Master's in climate change) how underemphasised it is that building denser means more "actual" nature is preserved, great to see it brought up in this video even if briefly. Building outwards just means more habitats and nature are lost and more difficult to reach. Obviously green space in cities is important but that shouldn't be used as an excuse to not build upwards instead of horizontally, both can be done.
@@ShoummaShams ikr, as an architecture student who keeps receiving all those 'skyscrapers is ruining the world' messages from school, this really blows my mind, this is like 180 degrees off from what we were studying
I lived in Houston for several years and while I have good memories from my time there (mostly related to the friendships I developed), I was so excited when I had the opportunity to move to a city with better transit available (Chicago). I was so frustrated having to use my vehicle to get anywhere in Houston, whereas I eventually got rid of my car in Chicago and rarely ever missed it. I will say even with a more extensive rapid transit network in Houston, the thought of walking to a transit station from May - mid October doesn't sound particularly enticing, when heat & humidity is incredibly high and the heat index is frequently 104F+ (40C+). If they want to entice transit ridership, not only is frequent reliable service that goes where people want to go an important element, but also making it comfortable is also important which probably means enclosing stations to make use of air conditioning (e.g. a monorail network or SkyTrain-type network with enclosed stations since a subway system there would be difficult given the high water table). It's one thing to walk in the cold & wait for transit since you can often just pile on more layers to keep warm. It's an entirely different scenario if walking to a transit station when it feels like a sauna since there's only so much clothing you can take off to try to cool down. Using a car where you have your own air conditioning to get from place to place will likely remain the most attractive travel option as a result.
Hong Konger here, I’m actually living in a low density residential area near the roundabout in 12:16 ❤
Yes despite it is 15 min drive from the nearest MTR, I usually take public transport.
I lived in Fairview Park as a kid and "going downtown" meant going to Yuen Long as the city was not yet very accessible back in the 90s. Still miss YL, it's just so much more laid back and less pretentious than the city.
Not me, but my family on my mother's side lives there, too, and they take the same approach to get to or come back from Yuen Long.
@@canto_v12Even though the transit near Fairview Park still isn't good, you can ride a bike there to Yuen Long nowadays.
@@mokyiuhei I do want to try this bike path next time I’m in town!!
When I was living in New York City, I was using the trains and buses to get around the City without the use of a Car and it was very convenient, but now, I live in Raleigh NC and the Triangle area is very Car dependent and the Transit system is very awful. No commuter rail, and no shuttle service to the Airport ( RDU ). I do hope that the Triangle region boost their Transit system.
My brother lives in a Raleigh suburb. He wonders why I won't move there. I don't like cars, strangely half of my uncles have been killed by cars, not that it is the cars fault. Being born in NYC, I'm used to the convenience. Miss the train, it is often feasible to take the bus, not that much more of a walk. Or just wait another five minutes for the next train, 10 minutes if the line has poor service, and rarely more than 15 minutes.
It's good that you mentioned how travelling by car is still convenient in hk. I am I hker and my dad has a car. Although most of my trips are still going by MTR, sometimes we would still drive to my grandma's house to drive her to somewhere else. It's surprising for me that when I recall my experience of going to my grandma's house either by MYR or car, they both are so convenient and comfortable. I can choose however I like to get there, depending on what I have to do.
Someone may claim that car gives you freedom of going anywhere you like, and that's true. But having a good transit system also gives you the freedom to choose your way to travel depending on your purpose, but not depending on where you want to go.
There’s an interesting dynamic in Hong Kong I’ve observed. On weekdays there is the usual congestion on key highway choke points but it eases up a little into the day. But on weekends the traffic can be even worse, and the congestion patterns are very different, with logjams in popular hangout areas, throughout the day. Presumably this is because most people commute with public transit but those that can afford to have a car like to take their family out for a drive on weekends. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else.
What we used to do as a budget tourist other than using bus from HK Airport is using the MTR from Tung Chung and then connect to a bus or vice versa. It's pretty awesome and way way wayyy cheaper than the airport express.
It is doing a planning for Tung Chung Line expansion, due to Tung Chung is fast growing in this few decade (2022-2042 era).
I could write entire thousand word essays about Houston, METRO (their transit authority)/etc from my time living there and my days spent researching their transit system. Maybe I should.
Great video, though! Everytime I traveled abroad while living in Houston and returned it made me sorta sad. On the positive, as I mentioned in my other comment, METRONext did get passed and Houston is one of the few cities I've seen consistently and actively increase their transit build out. So while I don't think it'll be anywhere near the level of HK... ever... I do think the next few decades may look way different for Houston. But it's sad when LA makes Houston look like world class transit lol
Always down to write long winded comments or share my knowledge if anyone is interested!
I'd actually love to hear about houston's transit lol
@@natepasman6414 word! I can't even link to Metro's page without it getting blocked but I might make a longer comment explaining it later. it's a pretty interesting story
Immigrant from HK here - Family is still in Toronto. I have to add that parking in HK is really inconvenient - you'd save more time taking transit rather than trying to find a space in those multi-level parking garages. Parking in residential areas are limited and very pricey. Also, the vehicle registration tax of a privately owned vehicle is any where from 40% to 150% of the price of the vehicle. This roughly translates to paying 1.5x to 2 x more for a car. My family used to live in Mei Foo, now a major transit hub, in Kowloon and we were contemplating buying a car because my mom had to commute on a bus 1.5 hr/day to go back and forth between Mei Foo and Tuen Mun, a "satellite city" in the New Territories (West Rail was not built yet in the 90s). My family, at the end, gave up on that idea because it was becoming cost prohibitive.
When we lived in Markham in the 90s, my family bought 2 cars!!! It was a new found freedom for my parents that they could only dream of in HK.
Love the point about the distribution of nature/ green space! When the only "green space" is private lawns, it mostly sits unused. The footage you used was a great example of how people come together in public green space. I had my first real visit to NYC recently, and seeing folks come together in Central Park was awesome to me. It's a unique and wonderful experience in the US, but there's no reason it shouldn't be that way everywhere. Nature can't be truly experienced if it's chopped up into little pieces, and not to mention it completely destroys natural habitats for plants and other animals. Green space is so good for our environment, and our physical and mental well being. Having access to that should certainly be a right for everyone. It's possible in a walkable, transit-oriented city.
First :)
Also make a medellin, colombia video please!!! its a great case study on how transit elevates otherwise marginalized populations (cable cars/gondolas connected to trains)
I’d like to, but I need to gather up some footage first!
@Zaydan Alfariz no you’re right, although it’s a bit unfair to characterize a metro of 3.7 million people by that… nonetheless, medellin is used to it I suppose
Since that era, the city has done a lot to elevate the economic opportunities for the people that live in the mountainside slums through public transit… it’s actually a beautiful and rather modern city, I urge you to visit it
My kind of video.
I love it.
We all need the right mix of walking, cycling, public transit and cars in our cities.
There are buses going from Huston to Dallas etc. But I was shocked when I took a bus in the city itself I was shocked how far is everything and how large are freeways.
Moral of the video: having multiple modes of transportation in a city is better for the people
This guy always say the right things. 12:41. Impressive 👍
Please consider doing a video explaining feeder buses ( are there feeder trains too?)
Here in Warsaw we have feeder trams at the very least
Definitely feeder trams...
Yes, there are definitely feeder railway systems, especially trams or light rail. In Hong Kong (where I currently reside) the Light Rail system (in the suburb-ish residential areas) acts as a feeder for the Tuen Ma Line (a sort of S-Bahn/RER/Metro combination).
Aren’t trams often feeder trains
It’s something I’ve talked about a lot in various videos, but perhaps a dedicated via would make sense
I'm from Houston, and while it's poor from a transit perspective I'm actually glad it exists in our current car-centric world. It's the ultimate example of why various propositions to make car-dependancy work better are ineffective.
Houston is a large, highly developed, high population city and has done more to make the car as fast and convenient as possible than almost any other place. Multiple large loop systems, and numerous redundant, wide arterials going in nearly every direction. Almost completely flat with freeways that are all able to run close to straight.
And there is still traffic. In conjunction with everything being super far apart to where long trips are super common even when there isn't congestion.
Without alternative modes you simply can't build your way out of the problems with car-oriented development. If you could Houston would the best example to point to.
Fabulous & very well delivered. Great video.
Glad you liked it!
Everything you say is music to my ears!
Hong Kong MTR is also a apartment builder, hk government give lands to them to build stations + shopping malls + apartments. 3 in one project to make sure profits and enough passengers.
Hongkonger here! I take the mtr everyday, and our entire family doesn't have a car. We very often forget how lucky we are to have access to such an extensive transit system (though accidents happen every other day)
basically our city is developed on public transit. MTR is the most profitable transit system in the world, because it is also a giant real estate developer who develops on and around its stations. another thing is most of the population here doesn't own a car, its mostly the rich who drive. So the richest communities here (kowloon tong, the peak etc) often lack transit access (although still very accessible, just less compared to others)
EXCELLENT points at the end brother, and a banger video overall. Thank you for you hard work.
If it's the only choice, it's not a choice.
It is true that driving in Hong Kong is so much more pleasure than other cities. Not only you get to enjoy the view, the highway network is so well designed. Also, the government of Hong Kong is still pumping an enormous amount of money to build a new highways, which I think is better solution to solve traffic than widen the highway. That’s why whenever I play cities Skyline Hong Kong is always the city that I’m referencing.
Nice video. Hong Kong do have a good transportation systems. There is almost (not all) no places in Hong Kong that requires driving to get there.
If you include taxis, which are rather convenient and easy to get, albeit expensive, then no places require driving
@@Ianchia860 well technically, you are right. Even though taxi doesn't count as a public transport
Very true!
It doesn't make sense to drive in Hong Kong unless you're a billionaire living in the luxury residential district called Mid-Levels.
@Zaydan Alfariz The district is at the middle elevation of Victoria Peak.
It's worth mentioning that Houston's ridership per mile for light rail is among one of the highest in the US, beating out cities like Portland, Denver and even Los Angeles. While probably nowhere near the magnitude of HK, it's still shockingly good for a city infamous for its freeways and sprawl. Even the frequency of trains are better than some metro systems in the US.
This is because Houston has a small Light rail system serving only busiest corridors around the downtown and major destinations. Other cities you mentioned have light rail going into the suburbs
@@mathewho9796 That is true, but I only pointed out those cities simply because they are more left leaning than Houston in terms of getting any transit built. While Houston on the other hand seems to be getting the best bang for the buck for it.
@@PresentGenGamer , Dallas Light Rail fans out to the Suburbs
@@mathewho9796 I consider DART to be a regional interurban than traditional light rail. Coupled with poor land use around stations and 15-30 minute frequencies depending on time of day.
I wonder how they fund it? and have you ever ridden from Downtown to Medical Centre? The passengers are appallingly unruly, unemployed homeless and violent on drugs or whatever mostly mentally ill. I really think the figures are false.
American cities are really sad. Being an old person who can no longer drive, a stroke survivor or someone who cannot drive for other medical reasons, or simply being low income and therefore unable to afford the costs of a car are all things which can be an actual nightmare for people in cities with limited to no public transportation.
In my area a mass transit light rail is being built closely to me, and you will never guess what the complaints are, “it will raise my home values too much and I will be paying higher property taxes or my rent will increase too much”
Are they wrong? I genuinely don't know.
@@RextheRebel my state froze property tax decades ago.
i kinda love the slight more political angle you've been taking recently in these videos! everything is political already, but transit is sooooo political and there's a lot of statements to be made in relation to it. keep it up as always reece!
As a car enthusiast I'd like to point out that Houston also sucks for car enthusiasts, its in the flat part of Texas so there's no "fun" roads nearby, if you drive anywhere you get stuck in traffic or pay a toll and Houston is also full of pretty atrocious drivers (like every city in Texas). That said because its Texas car ownership is ridiculously cheap compared to pretty much anywhere else.
As a European, more than 3 highway lanes seems absurd to me. Even for main town roads, you only really see at most two lanes in very big cities, which suffice because every driver is trained to stay in the outer most lane when not overtaking.
Hahaha I love your channel because the car people in my life think I'm crazy for being so anti-car but honestly you make me feel like FLOWERS IN MY HEART
Having lived in a city with a lot of urban sprawl, and sadly little transit outside of the city centre, that city being Sydney, I agree with you on that point. In fact in 2014 I lived in an outer suburb called Campbelltown, and travelled to the University of Sydney Camperdown, in the inner city, for work. To get to work, I had to drive from my home to the station, then catch the train to Central station, and then a bus down to the uni. It took a long time. I then tried driving, and using surface roads, so not toll roads, it was quicker for me to drive. I then got my motorcycle license, which cut down commute times even further. Basically using transit I was spending the equivalent, each week, of working an entire shift on transit, assuming everything ran as they should. Once I switched to a motorcycle, my commute time was cut by 25% - 30%, and the weekly costs were similar.
One of the biggest problems of why people in America will never change their habits from thinking they need a car is that the scheduling of transportation is awful. Until scheduling gets better to include over night trains people will not change their habits.
Yes, it’s totally counterintuitive but adding capacity (lanes, bridges or tunnels) causes more traffic, not less! Best example was the opening of the Whitestone Bridge between the Bronx and Queens, essentially a short cut route where you no longer needed to drive all the way up to the edge of Queens for the Triborogh Bridge to get out of Long Island. Traffic immediately overwhelmed the new route, so they planned and built the Throggs Neck Bridge farther east. As soon as that opened, traffic overwhelmed BOTH bridges! I fully expect the current plan to add a lane in each direction to the Van Wyck Expressway to/from JFK airport to have the same effect.
More traffic isn't bad, increasing capacity is what's happening when you add more lanes. You're able to serve more people. The goal isn't to simply increase the speed of the average car, it's to move more cars.
@@yungrichnbroke5199 It's the false perception of added capacity that exacerbates the congestion. The increased volume of vehicle traffic just bottlenecks somewhere else further down where capacity for traffic to flow really remains the same.
@@pauly5418 you're telling me 1 lane on 405 still support the same throughput of the current highway?
Induced demand is a thing. Yes. But think about what those two words mean. You're inducing, aka adding, demand aka new drivers. You're able to literally support a greater number of vehicles and people and it does.
@@yungrichnbroke5199 2 or 3 lanes would be enough IF there was viable transit options along that route.
@@yungrichnbroke5199 yeah, and then you need another lane and another and another.
I lived in the Houston area for over 15 years and yes a car is an absolute necessity. When I did work downtown I took a bus but anywhere else would be difficult if not impossible. However, the bottom line is the primary reason that Hong Kong is able to have such a wide variety of transit is population density. 18,500 people per square mile in Hong Kong versus 2,700 people per square mile in Harris County in which Houston is located. Houston will never have transit like Hong Kong unless the population density increased. The fact is that living in a tiny apartment 30 stories high is not viewed as ideal for many people. Single family homes on a private plot of land exist because people like that. I do not see Houston neighborhoods being torn down to put up high rise apartment buildings on top of one another anytime soon. Instead of lamenting how Houston is not Hong Kong perhaps it would be better to consider how best to maximize transit in low population density areas.
Have done a back of the envelope comparison between the Greater Houston Urban and Metro area against germanys most populated area. There is for one the Ruhrgebiet (Ruhr) and the Metropolregion Ruhr-Rhein (Rhine). Both places are comparable in population, population density and surface area.
The big difference is public transit and with that land use. Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (public transit provider) connects the different cities in a manner not visible in Houston. Land utilization is roughly 35-40% settlements, 35-40% agricultural land, 15-20% forests, 5% water. In comparison the I-610 is a loop around Houston with a land utilization of 31% of single-family housing.
Several years ago when driving in a cab to Ontario Airport in greter Los Angeles at 5 am I asked why there was so much traffic on the freeway. The cab driver replied that in another hour the traffic would be so bad the freeway would choke and travel take much longer. By contrast a few years later I experienced a Tokyo morning peak 7-9 am. The expressways flowed freely, none of the subway trains were crowded, and the sound environment was restful, with the loudest sounds being station chimes and footsteps. I have never seen an urbanist point out such features, but these mean so much to quality of life.
I’m from Portland originally. We can talk all day about how much more affordable, efficient, eco-friendly, and overall enjoyable mass public transit is; but if there’s even a slight chance that a homeless person might hop on the same vehicle as a white-collar businessperson, the fight for better transit will always be steep in the US.
A better comparison would be Huston and Oslo, Norway.
Both cities are rich because of oil.
One decided to build roads and highways. The other decides to ban cars in downtown area while have a very decent public transit.
Hong Kong do sort of create a less interfered economy just like in Texas, but the Hong Kong government basiclly generates market and economic incentives towards the policy, like dirt cheap transport and high fuel prices and taxes for drivers
As a Hong Konger, I am really grateful to have such an effective transportation system. Especially after I traveled other similar cities. I can say it is top 3 in the world. Sometimes taking trains is even faster than taking a taxi in countryside railway line. And it is relatively cheap, just less than USD $2 a trip in most cases
Great video. I absolutely agree that mobility is the main benefit of transit, especially increased mobility for the transit dependent and single-car families and the resultant economic benefits afforded by that increased mobility.
I have never believed that the "traffic reduction" rational for initially building transit is a very good one and is the least of its benefits. In every case, traffic reduction is often imperceptible to the average person and a reduction in traffic is often quickly filled with more traffic. No one has ever said "Thank goodness the Expo Line was built because traffic on the 10 Frwy is a breeze now." After all, traffic in NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco is still terrible. So, traffic isn't a great argument because it's an easy target and builds an expectation that can't be met, furthering the argument that transit is merely welfare for the poor with no other benefit for the rest.
I believe the main benefit of transit is that it is a civic engine that boosts economic prosperity that benefits everyone; employees and employers. Mobility afforded by fast, reliable, and frequent transit provides more opportunities for the transit dependent and single-car families to get to more jobs and support second jobs, especially late night or early morning jobs, this increases the employee pool for businesses and their customer pool, as well as reducing poverty and underemployment. Transit also allows more transit dependent students better opportunities to get to colleges across town or in the city from the suburbs which increases a city's pool of higher educated employee candidates which in turn attracts employers, which helps diversify a city's economy, and which brings more employment opportunities for the entire city. Increasing earned wages among the lower classes trickles UP to all classes. Rapid transit in particular, increases the customer base from the transit dependent to choice riders, which helps take away the "welfare" stigma. Over time, land use does change to support transit and, in turn, increases a city's pedestrian prioritization, walkability, and urban form.
Transit isn't the only reason for a city's economic activity or potential revival but it certainly is, and its expansion continues to be, a key component that drives that activity.
Now, coming back to the "traffic" argument, as a city's economic activity increases, so will traffic and probably to even higher levels than before the transit system. However, with a highly used transit system, it's easy for everyone to see that traffic would be far worse without it; and that is the value proposition.
The best way to reduce traffic is actually a combination of higher density and more local facilities. Every person that takes a bike to go shopping is a car taken off the road. Every delivery made by cargo bike is a mini van off the road.
I think medium density centered around bikes can work very well too. Especially if you have a government sponsored system of rental bikes connected to public transport.
The biggest thing with bikes though is that unlike transit they do get in the way of drivers as people won't bike if the road is filled with assholes who drive too fast and don't pay attention.
Cycling infrastructure goes hand in hand with car traffic calming. Unfortunately those with cars are often the ones with money and therefore with power. The reason the Netherlands is considered the cycling capital is because cycling never went away and safety and community were always major values. The safety of cyclists was considered important always and that combined with the number of cyclists meant the infrastructure was made to prioritize cyclist safety over driver convenience.
Americans often tend to be very stingy and so many oppose transit as they themselves don't use it. Social responsibility in the US is at an all time low and transit is a social infastructure.
I think the ultimate example of this is how many praised Musk's Vagas strip because it was made super cheaply. Even though it's capacity is absolutely pathetic compared to a conventional metro system.
That proves that the most important thing for Americans is that THEIR dollars are not spend on things that don't benefit them and not that their society has a well functioning system.
This video well done, big thumbs up
Big thanks!
Seattle delayed all new lightrail lines to 2024-early 2025 due to cement strike, soil foundation issues and pandemic. Bellevue might get its independent east link unconnected to seattle but transit board won't announce plan til January
What purpose would the light rail serve if not connected to the city?
@@yungrichnbroke5199 east link will later connect to seattle but Redmond technology center to Bellevue will get people to work at Microsoft and Amazon offices there
@@yungrichnbroke5199 Bellevue is still a major city in its own right. And opening the Bellevue segment that's isolated from the rest of the system will allow it to open about a year earlier than it otherwise would.
Please do a video on the Manchester tram network. Grown incredibly in the past 20 years, with relatively little impact in terms of road closures or disruptions.
I actually feel sorry for the Americans to just have that discussion if public transport is needed and should be funded or not. It´s a (most of the time) reliable option for your citizens to move around the place and connect important nodes of work, leisure and living.
The Netherlands make it look so easy again. They have both amazing transit and car infrastructure.
Um...no.
The Netherland's transit is average at best and quite lackluster by European standards.
The reason actually is the massive amounts of cycling infrastructure that pushes medium density which means there are few places with the density to support transit. It also means in many instances people can cycle to shop or to work so transit is unnecessary.
In my country, cost benefit analysis from the standpoint of government favours car infrastructure because they can:
1. Collect more car sales tax, road tax
2. Collect more summon money for the slightest traffic violation.
3. Cutthroat charge for driving license fees.
4. Collect more tolls and erp with concession contracts of 50y++ for close political associates(cronies).
5. Cheaper to construct compare to rail
That is a lucrative business model for government to milk more money from a regular citizen like me😢. Whatever you suggest here is a pipedream.
It is always interesting and enjoyable to see your analysis on different passenger transport models!
Hong Kong is the perfect example of transit-oriented development. This city has developed for several years around its public transport network, with a dense and concentrated urban environment which favors the development of high-capacity transport. In result, every district in Hong Kong is served by at least one MTR line. Transport is also a question of town planning, which is why it fails to be profitable in car-friendly countries.
The thing that really gets me about Houston is that it's built for cars and cars only (yes, some progress has been made in recent years on public transit, walkability & cycling), but the roads are absolutely awful. Like, almost universally terrible. You can drive past strip-malls, "poor" neighborhoods, or gated communities and the thing they all share in common is shockingly awful road quality. Driving in that city is unpleasant for a lot of reasons, but the constant rabbit-punching of your guts as you roll over what might as well be dirt roads may be the thing I hate the most.
Yeah, I lived on Richmond near the galleria and the roads were so bad that I was terrified of it destroying my car...
The road quality is abysmal.
This is the biggest thing for me. I am a Houstonian, and while I live without a car now, I drove for years, and only some of this video rings true for me (yes, there are some heavily congested routes at peak hours, but I routinely made my ten-mile commute from Midtown to Mid-West in about 15 minute in the mornings and 35 minutes in the afternoon, and while the video makes a good case for driving comfort in HK, I can certainly say that there is absolutely no comparison between driving in Houston and driving in the NYC or Boston areas; biking is a wash between those metros in my experience).
But the fiscal impossibility of sustaining a citywide network of 6,400 miles of (often multilane) street grid *and* 4,000 highway lane miles is inarguable, and it is constantly evident. Moreover, the endless sprawl makes it exhorbitantly expensive to operate and maintain the (generally quite good for non-BRT) bus network.
In other words, the main problem with Houston - especially if you're talking about the entire metro area (which is where the 7mil population comes from) is that it is **way** too big.
The city collects about the same tax revenue each year as Amsterdam (about $5B), but has four times the population and seven times the geographic area, with some level of street grid covering nearly all of it.
In other words, if it's too expensive to build a rail on Richmond or Washington, then it's definitely too expensive to build a whole-ass road right to your house.
not to mention the Ugly billboards that promote the A-Z of everything. I could drop a family member or friend blindfolded, along any of Houston's Freeways and ask them where they are? Not one redeeming landmark of distinction. oh may be the Local House of Ill repute?
I think going forward whenever I introduce someone to your channel I'll make them watch this video first. While it's a fantastic explainer and comparison, it also does a good job of serving as an overview of the topics you usually discuss on your channel.
Every city needs both car infrastructure and public transport. They shouldn't supplant the other, they should supplement the other. Don't take away the power of choice.
I love cars. But I hate car dependency. I shouldn't have to pick between one or the other.
This is the right way to view it. So many people on the roads would be better off not driving but they are because that's their only option. Driving is great but not when you're stuck behind people going to the grocery shops.
I hate cars but choice is always better. Supposedly freedom of choice is the American way. We have a large choice of food, restaurants, stores, product sizes, why not transit. Besides one size only fits one person.
Also some trips favor different modes than others. And some people should not be driving just like some people should not be allowed on the subway. If one mode is incapacitated for whatever reason, you would have another mode.
I was wondering, could you do a video looking at a city like Houston, and going over the ways you would fix it.
Invent skyscraper apartments that have front and back yards. That can also be remodeled at will and are not made of concrete, but wood. Also, overturn the Fair Housing Act and allow for single ethnicity dwellings and buildings and neighborhoods. In addition, pay for the operation costs of any mass transit system with fairy dust and unicorn toots so no taxpayers groups decide to ruin it. See? Easy.
interesting trying to fix anything in Texas or America, they rather trash it and leave it, (look at any inner city gone wrong with vacant disused buildings and infrastructure) and build new, America is not into recycling or repurposing, each cycle of local state or federal government wants their name on a new project. Just take for example the Hardy Tollway out of Houston, it used to connect before Hurrican Harvey, (sort of), but now you drive single-lane speed bumps and a dozen traffic lights thru the ghetto to join the Toll Way at 610, they rebuilt a new bridge over Buffalo Bayou, at the city end... but then it's a joke thru to 610.
I see ex Houstonions crowing well about the Metro Bus network but really it's a government sham, trying it out and see where and how you go. Houston has got real potential with the HOV if they converted it to rail, but let's see Texas, Come and Get It, meaning no change, not in my backyard. It's so conservative that hell will freeze over before TXDOT allows anything but the car door to open. Sorry for being negative but that's the way it is. oh Yes Reese let's see if you can come up with a Plan. Also grateful to compare a city with the best transit in the world with yes the worst city with no transit, Houston, with a cover-up to transfer good government grants (intended for the Metro Network) but to pay for I45N and 59/69 widening thru communities Schools and businesses. Texas, Come and Get It!
Been to Houston and can confirm that public transportation in Texas in-general is an undeserving joke.
Houston is similar to Phoenix where sprawl has gotten so far outta hand that any rail proposals would receive a capitol "F" for it's lack of usefulness.
Hong Kong: Only city with rail system that makes money and pays dividends.
Houston: USA city with the longest time period that had NO rail or electric based transit.
The Metro in DC has suffered from lower frequency (thanks to the loss of ATC) plus delays (thanks to unreliable rolling stock and bottlenecking at the Rosslyn Tunnel). Together it renders the service way less useful. Even at peak, we only have 6 minute headways where we probably should have 4 minute headways. Off-peak wait times are even worse. 15 minutes is a long time to wait for a Metro, especially if you’re transferring between lines.
Frequency is freedom.
I think Washington DC's Metro can think as "USA's MTR" 😁
I grew up in Houston but now I thankfully live in Denver. I traded Houston Metro for RTD, an upgrade but not as much of one as it should be. Metro in Houston is definitely for captive riders not choice. I never took Metro for anything other than getting to the Rodeo (for that it's amazing and moves a LOT of people). As is the typical American trend, Houston once had a very decent streetcar network. Many older parts of town that were once streetcar suburbs are some of the most desirable places to live like Bellaire, The Heights, and Montrose. Houston Electric was removed in 1940 by National City Lines. Houston and its architectural history are a perfect example of paving over paradise. Houston Grand Central station was demolished in 1959. The once dense and walkable urban core was gradually turned into parking lots in the 1950's and 60's.
The infamous Katy Freeway was widened using the ROW of the MKT Railroad line from Katy to near 610. They ripped up a railroad there to build their lame brain freeway. Much of I45's ROW is also on the route of the old Galveston Houston Interurban. The Westpark toll road is built on another intercity rail ROW. I know Who Framed Roger Rabbit was about LA and the Pacific Electric but it could have very well been about Houston.
I live right on the west boundary of Lincolnshire, and I would much rather live in either of two cities 60-90 minutes away (Sheffield or Nottingham) because they have frequent and reliable buses, trams and trains.
Toronto politicians should watch this
But they can't understand a word
HK relies on transit so heavily that some routes (both trains and buses) are overloaded even if the frequency hits 3 or 4min. Indeed owning a car would be even more convenient, but using public transport is certainly enough for daily life.
Not owning a car save you tons of money. Seriously. And I enjoy living car-free.
Only to be eaten up by high rent and living costs.
It might, but the difference will be minimal when you have a housing affordability crisis as bad as Hong Kong
@@metrofilmer8894 Thankfully Hong Kong has lots of public housing to alleviate the problem.
It's remarkable how cheap transport is in Hong Kong TBH especially the buses and how joined up everything is I.e. you can use the octopus card for the star ferry and other ferries.
The bus takes around 40-45 minutes to the airport from Hong Kong Island or about an hour from Kowloon.
I haven't been to Houston to can't compare but maybe it would make more sense to compare Houston to another North American city such as Calgary.
The point is to compare a car centric city with a relatively transit centric city!
The Premium AEL (Airport Express Line) is HKD 100, about USD 12.5. The airport Bus is HKD 40, about USD 5. From where I live in the eastern district of HK Island, the Airport Bus is 10% of a taxi to the airport, while taking more or less the same time.
HK public transport is cheap at point of use but doesn't mean it's cheap overall. Realistically it's not possible to disentangle the MTR's income (and therefore transit costs) stream as being unrelated to the extreme housing costs in HK..
Houston also just straight up doesn’t have zoning. This is why there are houses next to chemical plants and other potentially hazardous facilities. This has led to entire neighborhoods having to be evacuated when there are issues at the plant.
That's not entirely true. Houston doesn't have zoning per se but developments are still subject to deed restrictions and other ordinances which are effectively zoning.
And even if it doesn't have zoning, a lot of typical car-centric rules like parking minimums still exist in Houston.
I don't think Americans understand how much well engineered public transit systems can improve lives for everyone. Often we complain about traffic and parking but build more highways hoping to solve the problem which only encourages more people to drive. When you travel overseas and experience how convenient it is to have more than one option for transit you have more freedom in transportation. I appreciate that younger generations (like myself) see the value in public transit and are willing to invest in transit that supports everyone.
Car ownership is EXTREMELY expensive in Hong Kong. Parking prices are off the roof. As a student, the thought of taking a taxi is like ruining my budget - hate when I have to. People can NOT afford cars in Hong Kong hence there is a more reason to have a better public transportation system.
@Zaydan Alfariz it’s equally expensive, if not more.
How does quality and speed of transit correlate to cost of home ownership, education, and salary? Seems to me that if trains allow people to travel further in less time, people wont feel as constrained by their local economy; say if local jobs aren't up to snuff, the person with access to a fast metro line is more likely to reach another local job market than one who can only drive _and_ if the local businesses care to stay competitive, they would essentially need to compete with other jobs basically half a state away. The reverse should apply for having a place of interest and housing.
This should be a series. Vancouver and Charlotte would be a good comparison of smaller cities. LA vs NY.
Is Charlotte big enough for a metro system?
@@GenericUrbanism For comparison: Charlotte, NC is more populous, Vancouver, BC and also have a similar metro population.
@@MarioFanGamer659 Correct and Vancouver has a fully automated metro compared to Charlottes single light rail line and partially realized street car.
Not a bad idea, but such smaller cities makes the likely audience of very interested people lower!
@@RMTransit dude, you make videos on Vancouver and those videos get a decent audience.
I’m an overseas Hong Konger which currently live in Vancouver. Because of how crammed Hong Kong is, every single inch of available space is used for development just to fit enough people. Even though it is indeed crowded, at least everything functions seamlessly. Btw hail the MTR! The best subway system in the world! Even though it doesn’t have many lines than some other subway systems around the world, at least the coverage does indeed serve most populous areas in Hong Kong.
Though I think these videos usually miss the point of why cars originally became popular outside of car company lobbying and often ignore the negatives of public transportation, I agree that we need more. And with some minor changes, these systems could become the gold standard. But, only if those negatives are ironed out.
Actually to create Transit oriented city, housing culture need to be changed. Most Hong Kongers live in super high density residential apartments while most people in Houston live in suburban low density single houses. Almost impossible to cover transit city with single unit residential compared to apartments.
Finally someone speaks up. Huston and HK are apples and oranges
I think Toronto shows that’s not true, but it helps of course!
@@RMTransit What does Toronto show? The percent of Toronto residents living in apartments are likely more than that of Huston Metro area residents. Huston is a sprawled area...
@@Aidan_Au You don't always necessarily need high density to have subway systems or commuter rail. Even the NYC does go deep into areas that can be classified as low density but tons of people use it. As long as it is walkable to an area, people will use it versus in Los Angeles case, they built the subways next to highways or in the middle of no where next to warehouses. So no one gets to use it.
@@punchkicker3837 You make it sound like NYC Subway is world class when in reality it's far from it
I like your explanation!
Currently searching about TOD (Transit Oriented Development) & today your video appear on my Home.
Hi from Malaysia 🇲🇾
Hong Kong is well known for it's "Octopus Card" and it's used for all kinds of Transits and even for Shopping. Plus some highways in Hong Kong have Toll booths, the Buses dont need to stop which makes commuting easier
Geez, it's like transit channels love to pick on Houston! LOL. It's okay, we get it. One thing that often gets left out here is that Houston does not control highway planning. Houstonians overwhelmingly oppose the highway expansions, but are powerless against the Texas Department of Transportation. Also, Houston is undemocratically under-represented on the regional planning council HGAC. Lastly, you could give credit to Houston for its current bike lane boom. Even outside of protected bike lanes, it's becoming much easier to bike across the city these days.
But yeah, I get it. Houston has a long way to go and could be much much better if we fixed transportation.
You hit the nail on the head with your Catch 22 reference! In the post-WWII era, American automobile manufacturers somehow convinced Americans that car ownership, and ONLY car ownership, was the embodiment of freedom. It's ironic that that is now the only option available in many American cities.
It is also an entitlement of the road users. In America jaywalking is illegal and they are unique in that. In some countries like the Netherlands they not only not favor cars they have laws discriminating against cars. Cars are considered a more powerful, dangerous and consequence immume vehicle. If a car hits a cyclist the cyclist is obviously in greater danger than the driver is.
So they put the burden of proof against cars. If a car hits someone they need to prove they were not at fault. If nothing can be proven conclusively then by default the driver is considered to be at fault. Some considered that unfair but it is one of the absolutely most effective methods of roadside safety because it puts a burden of responsibility on drivers.
I'm glad you are realizing the politics behind good transit and it's tie in with successful urban planning. I rewatched your video yesterday about not making public transit free and I feel the current Reece would disagree with the past Reece.