Would You Fall for It? [ST08]
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ม.ค. 2023
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In the 1950s, the US automobile industry was lobbying hard to get more funding for roads and highways. Part of this effort included propaganda targeted to the general public.
In this video, I look back at one of these automobile industry propaganda videos, "Give Yourself the Green Light" by General Motors, and show what was promised versus what the reality is today for American cities. The automobile industry got everything they wanted, but the problems they were trying to solve only got worse.
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References & Further Reading
If you'd like to watch the whole film, you can watch my cleaned-up/upscaled version here:
• Give Yourself the Gree...
Or watch the original on archive.org:
Give Yourself the Green Light
General Motors Corporation, Department of Public Relations
archive.org/details/0542_Give...
To learn more about Strong Towns, visit strongtowns.org or watch my Strong Towns series of videos here:
• Strong Towns
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Segregation by Design:
www.segregationbydesign.com/
/ segregation_by_design
/ segbydesign
State Motor Vehicle Registrations, by years, 1900
www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/summary...
The gas tax chart was sourced from this classic article by Strong Towns:
Some Perspective on the Gas Tax
www.strongtowns.org/journal/2...
This video contains content licensed from Getty Images
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
Sign-up to Nebula here: nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-would-you-fall-for-it-st08
If you'd like to see the full "Give Yourself the Green Light" documentary, check out my cleaned-up/upscaled version here: th-cam.com/video/eXQayNKrj_Y/w-d-xo.html
Not satisfied with nebula's algorithm (seems they don't even have any) and their library is just really poor. TH-cam's just much better
An amazing video as usual!
The GM's video ended with a call to action-where can we find canned data that we can add to a letter to a local politician?
Have you ever seen the movie L.A. Story? There's a scene of the main character driving next door. It's hilarious. You might want to use that clip in a future video someday.
@NotJustBikes do you think you'll make the Strong Towns series a playlist on Nebula?
So what I'm getting is that cities should just take my SimCity META and tax the blood from stone on any “stroad”. Tax them, Henry, tax the sin right out of them!
Living in Poland, where it's unthinable, I showed this photo with lots of parking lots to my grandmother. Initially she thought it's a picture of flooding. I think that mistaking this design for an actual disaster speaks for itself.
the “city” with 3 highrises 2 buildings and 100000 parking spaces always gets me
I love how they realised the problem and did their best to make it so much worse
As a Houstonian, 1960 is the bane of my existence. That road is 50 miles long and the entire length of it looks like it does in this video, it brings me joy to see it be internationally hated and not just locally hated
As local 1960 user I am happy to the international hate grow.
It's one thing to notice that something is wrong with the trillions of dollars spent on highway maintenance and parking within North American cities- but to see it as it happened, watch the propaganda that our predecessors fell for, and watch it happen in "real-time" is painful. Bravo, this video was a great watch. It's way past time to stop expanding highways.
When I first watched this video, I kept thinking about Strong Towns. Here was a video, paid for by GM, that was talking about exactly the same things Strong Towns talks about. Except GM was talking about how great it would be, while Strong Towns talks about how terribly it turned out.
This was very painful to watch. I believe that it was intentional to destroy local communities, who would the individual turn to? elected officials? unaware that those officials were controlled by men/women who mean to destroy all of us...same happening today in all areas of our lives...too many men & women certain that they are gods and know the correct way forward.
Stop expanding and start upkeeping would be a great idea.
@@essex3777 well, that helps with the quality of the ride, but does nothing to deal with congestion
@@casimirgrochowski9583 It was intentional to sell cars. I really do believe the car and oil companies though that what was good for them was also good for the nation. Everyone being able to go anywhere on their own schedule sounds like a nice goal. A person with a car has access to more jobs and has a wider array of houses they can commute to work from. Cities were largely seen as concentrations of pollution, crime and poverty, and of course there was a racial element to this stereotype of cities.
Maybe it's easy to see in hindsight how the economics and geometry don't work out. But its a very human impulse to fixate on one annoyance, and think that once its solved life will be more fulfilling. It's a lot like obsessing over some fancy article of clothing, or a video game, or an instrument. But there's always a next thing once you get what you want.
It's fascinating that the movie sounds so much like an urbanist explanation of the problems of a car heavy approach.
"All these cars are making life unbearable! Let's build more highways and roads to fix the problem!"
@@NotJustBikes we all know the real solution is to build so many roads that there will be only roads left with no destination besides more roads. with 500 car lanes in each direction.
@@sirBrouwer if everywhere is road, then nowhere is road!!
@@deptusmechanikus7362 more like if everything is a road. you can never park. you just drive for eternity.
@@sirBrouwerhold up, I swear I’ve already seen that episode of Dr Who…
Honestly, if I were living in the 50s I would have fallen for this 100 percent. Hindsight is powerful, too bad we are often to aroused by what could be to use it.
I mean yes, but they literally debunked themselves in their own video. How would anyone not notice that?
I remember Bugs Bunny cartoons where highways get built at rapid pace, and disturbing his home, and stuff like that. And speeding cars bumper to bumper. The impression I always got from those cartoons was that highways are loud, ugly, chaotic eyesores that displaced people's homes and nature.
One of my favourite scenes from The Simpsons is when Homer gets accepted into the Stonecutters but still has his parking spot miles from the entrance which is then shown to be on the other side of his back garden! Sat in traffic just to wind up the other side of the fence!
it's so amazing how they knew about and forecasted every single problem we still have today but instead of realizing their mistake they doubled down on cars. from a modern lens, the film actually makes a good case for reducing car dependency!
General motors couldn't have cared less about the obvious problems car dependent infrastructure would cause. All they cared about was making money by selling more cars.
Capitalism is adverse ti to humanity and does not care that it doesn't make sense. It was created to male cents no matter what it destroys. Capitalism has already even destroyed itself. What you think all of those bailcoits for rich banks and corps were? The poor carry the rich elite on their backs with their tax dollars. It's actually socialism for the rich elite only! Rich people don't worry when they gamble and lose, because the taxpayer is its cow.
@@joseangel8368 Lol, go drive if you want? I just don’t think everyone should be in 3000 pound metal boxes is all. Sue me for wanting some bike lanes I guess.
I used to work in a design agency working mainly on mobility topic. The agency literally crumbled from the fight between the employees whom wanted to work on alternative mobility solutions and the ones (mainly management) wanting to work for automotive brands because it was a sign of success (yes, I work in Germany). To this day, I cringe at the memories of some people speaking from their heart on how self driving electric cars are going to save the world...
Oof. Yeah.
Personally I would like an electric car but I honestly just want a working street car system powered by the city's grid, with bus lines in and out of the suburbs so that people don't have to drive just to park in the city and walk
@@Joy-zz8wz yes i would much prefer that to vehicles...yes here in america its a sign of 'independence' to own and drive your own vehicle...but it feels like more of a hassel rather than just bringing yourself around town via public transporation....wish we had invested in public transportation instead... when the universe presented a fork in the Road...America chose the wrong answer...and consequently ended up influencing other countries as a result who may not have been swayed as easily by their own fork in the road.
@@arthurpendragon8192 I have a feeling that if we had some nice public transit, of, really, ANY kind at all, cars wouldn't be seen as a sign of independence, because they wouldn't literally be the one and only path to independence for most people in most places in the USA.
That's speculation though, and even if it did, they'd still be status symbols, which America (et al.) still values above, most things.
Government in the 50s: car dependency!
Government now: ✨ electric car dependency ✨
Gotta love how they don't solve the problem of American towns and cities, but replace it with another one
I love how first they were arguing that we need more parking in cities for small businesses, and then they argued that we need large spacious highways bypassing blocks where shops are. They contradict themselves even in the video
They figured that tearing down black neighborhoods and businesses would give enough room for all those city highways and parking lots.
@@elise3455 it's THANOS LOGIC !
"by destroying half the block for parking space , we save the other half..."
@@davidegaruti2582 funny how the half that suffered always happened to be black people, just another icky race matter from the 50's that still has it's effect on us today
@@davidegaruti2582 Yeah, except they ended up having to destroy half of the remaining half a block for more parking space and half of that for more and so on.
the people can live on the streets!
As a European, it's not just the stroads, but also the almost empty enormous car parks 5:45 , just unbelievable.
So much wasted space that could give actual value if they were developed into small businesses
Europe is only marginally better, car dependency is real in many, many, many places.
I hate it when they introduce US styled road and parking infrastructures in European cities. Those places are always dead and unwalkable concrete deserts.
@@TheAmericanCatholic Similar thing happened to many European cities, they removed trams and smaller settlement-to-settlement train lines for buses and now that decision has come and haunt them with increased traffic on roads. If we kept that rail and tram infrastructure, car roads would be less conjested because your transportation would be separate on completely different networks. On top of that, you would have less car pollution in your cities, since most rail networks now operate on electricity. Some European cities are trying to reintroduce trams that they removed in the 50s and 60s, but this will be a daunting task since the automotive industry holds a bigger public sway with leaders. Its far easier to remove than to rebuilt infrastructures that existed, especially train and any rail infrastructures.
All that empty space that brings in nearly zero tax revenue, but has all the infrastructure that needs to be paid for, storm drains, sewage pipes, water pipes and the roads themselves.
It's not surprise that many of these cities are bankrupt.
When watching your videos, I keep thinking about my mother. My mother, who ran marathons in her fifties, still goes hiking every week and now, at 65, is in better physical health than I've ever been. She is hardly disabled, but she's got one bad eye and she can't drive, ever. It's just not safe. Thankfully, we live in the Netherlands and living a car-free life was no problem at all for us growing up. I can't imagine what life in North America would have been like for us. With no one to drive us anywhere, would we have been stuck at home? Would she have been treated as disabled, or as a second-class citizen? In a car-centric world, it's hard to imagine her being able to enjoy all the freedom she has now.
This film is presented in a 4:3 format to preserve the integrity of Not Just Bikes’ creative vision.
Truly a Snydercut approach to walkable cities.
I absolutely love it! I have a thousand reasons, and now I'm including 'to avoid title bars when showcasing 1950s propaganda films' to the list.
Hi KB!
And I’m glad. I hate seeing 4:3 format stretched sideways to fit the wider screen. It looks horrible, and I don’t understand why people do it.
Love the 4:3 aspect ratio. It was nice to watch on my large squarish (5:4) monitor I usually use for reading documents.
It's important to note that the 1950s propaganda was at least "and in exchange you can buy a house and retire," which is largely true for the boomers of today. This is why they always respond "X Problem doesn't matter, I'll be dead by then." They are the last generation for whom the social contract was intact.
They stole our future from us.
*Was* the "social contract" intact? Because my knowledge of the era says that any dissent was a fast-track to get labelled a (((COMMUNIST SPY))) and have your life ruined by a complex web of private institutions, the Thug-Caste, and FBI state-violence. Seems more like Proto-Authoritarianism and Gaslighting to me.
Yes good point. You can heap that bullshit onto the shoulders of the young with everything else as well
And sadly it teaches the following generation of similar suit, even to the point it is kinda toxic that younger generations may tend to be pressured mentally to do the same or else they "fail" on achieving something in life. Low density houses are becoming more expensive in other cities in the world, and property prices have even gone up. Some are good that they are now going back to high density development, but kinda too late since getting condos or apartments around the city have become too expensive to many. So even more push to car centric developments due to this, cycle repeats.
People who aren't open to discussion or change respond that way. Age has nothing to do with building mental walls.
Knowing what we all (should) know now, I about fell out of my chair when Robert Moses won that contest! Wouldn’t it be fun to remake and update this video but the solution is more walkability, transit with less parking and roads.
It's super-dodgy that Robert Moses won that "award". There's no way that GM didn't already know who Robert Moses was at the time.
Maybe that was just the best way to bribe city officials at the time: have them "win" an "award". 😂
@@NotJustBikes honestly that would make sense
Perhaps I didn't understand it but it seemed like a coal mine inviting people to enter a competition to design the best type of power plant - oh look the winner is a coal power plant!
@@user-go8oj4dl4w No, it's worse than that. The contest was for "How to Plan and Pay for the Safe and Adequate Highways We Need". Highways are required to even be considered ... let alone win. In your example you're inviting the people to design the best power plant ... in real life they just made a contest for designing the best coal power plant. I don't think anyone would be shocked the winner of that contest would be pro coal power.
The episode of the podcast Behind the Bastards on Robert Moses is very informative.
The other thing I find ironic about the term “farm-to-market road” is that a decent amount of farmland was converted into suburban development as a result of those roads. In the Phoenix valley, there are still some random patches of farmland next to suburban development, though I don’t know what is grown there. I don’t know what it was like in other cities, but I imagine many cities in the Midwest had something similar happen.
Average Texan town have a ranch with cattle and horses right next to schools and suburbia. It get depressing as the years go on as horses and cattle get replaced with soulless houses
It did solve the problem GM and other automobile manufacturers were having: not selling enough cars.
9:31 This intersection of streets is the weirdest cityscape: there's car lanes, sidewalks, trees for shade, lighting fixtures, traffic lights, even a cycle path. Only one thing that is missing.... the actual buildings that make up a city!
basically a desert. Feels like one in the middle of summer for sure.
Houston moment
its painful to look at
Exactly. When I was in England studying abroad, the thing that struck me was how little wasted space there was. In America we have Walmart-sized parking lots that are 5 percent full on any given day, barring black Friday when it swells with hundreds of thousands of people. I think it makes cities so barren and lifeless. No parks, no greenery, just tons of concrete parking that is ten times what the city actually needs. It's a horribly inefficient use of space and it can be a drain on the city itself. That area could've been new recreation areas, new commercial districts, or even residential zones. Instead, it sits empty, rotting away making cities less dense and more widespread, guaranteeing a car-dependent lifestyle since walking so much less enjoyable going around these huge concrete patches instead of looking at nice trees growing
@@colechapman6976 i work at i giant home goods store in Houston Tx and let me tell you, we got a fucking massive parking lot for my and 10 other coworkers, and like 10 customers at a time. A solid 8% of the parking lot is being used at all times. I could walk over and grab some lunch at chik-fil-a, but the fucking parking lot takes me 5 out of my 15 minute break to travers it. I WANT OUT
i just wanted to say that your videos are making a huge difference. the mayor of my city, as well as the urban planners, have completely shifted their focus from car infrastructure to walkable infrastructure. thank you for educating so many people about this, its healing our nation.
OMG this is the best thing I've read all day!
I am seeing the points raised by NJB and Adam Something everywhere, the mentality is definitely shifting.
May I ask what the name of city is (if you don't mind)?
what's your full legal name and home address?
@@misty_rei my name is gary newman, i live at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
I just love how this movie literally talked about how cars will make life worse for people while encouraging people to drive cars. It’s almost as if they completely saw it coming
Oh they saw it coming, but they were making too much money to care lol
@Phillip Banes Yes, congratulations, the only method of transport available to you has made your life better because there exist no other options. This isn't the epic own you think it is.
@@phillipbanes5484 Nope, pro-car nonsense is hysteria. There's no war on cars. Also, climate change is real. Fact.
@Phillip Banes The reason why you, and most people, prefer cars over public transit is because most cities are designed to incentivize car usage (and discourage other alternatives by making them pretty much useless), and thats exactly the problem. People feel happy using a car for everything and see no problem with that because thats the only option they are given as a method of transportation (and because they have been brain washed for generations into thinking thats the "American" way of living). With the correct public transit infraestructure and city design, people would feel less inclined to use a car simply because it would be easier to ride the bus or a bike.
@Phillip Banes the 70% of dead wildlife since the 70s disagree. And the climate problems, etc. Your convenience means no survival for the planet in 50 years. Good trade off, ye?
I live in a small town in the US that is at least somewhat walkable and has lots of natural beauty. Every time my wife and I have to make a trip to the Chicago suburbs I inevitably comment to her that I just feel depressed driving through them. This channel has helped me understand why I seem to naturally feel that way.
Imagine how much more depressing Chicago would be to walk through
@@artyomarty391 And dangerous.
@@artyomarty391 Wouldn't be depressing, you'd be bleeding out.
@SafeRemain You know people just like. Live there right?
@@legoneb everyone who lives in chicago is in a constant state of bleeding
slightly dissapointed that you also didnt mention that the 4 story miracle highway they touted at 15:55 is one of the most degraded highways in new york and is currently at high risk of catastrophic failure. good job traffic engineers!
Yes, it's so upsetting that there is barely any mention of just tearing the BQE down in it's entirety. The BQE is a exact repeat of the Federal Highway act of the 1950's. In the 50's, roads were crumbling, cities didn't have the money to pay for it, then comes in the federal highway act and boom now they can take on debt because of this bill. City officials now are looking towards the 1.3 trillion dollar infrastructure bill to take on DEBT and PAY FOR SOMETHING THE CITY DOES NOT HAVE MONEY FOR. It's so upsetting.
Though I have to say if you have to build a highway puuting a pedestrian walking area above seems like a nice idea
@@m.z.593 it can certainly be an improvement in certain areas, the netherlands has "hid" some of their highways successfully with large parks over the top. my only issue with this one and the other similar projects in america is that the noise of the hundreds of cars is not isolated enough for the space to be enjoyable, presumably to save money for more roads
@@ComradeCovert fair point. We've got a grass covered highway nearby which is great, you don't hear anything and it's a lovely space
This was sad for me to watch. I grew up in Brooklyn in the late 70s and early 80s and it bascially it was a grey hellscape of crumbling highways, thru-ways and threstles (?!?) But the heartbreak of realizing a 17th century village was destroyed to make a weird roundabout overpass that is now used by drugdealers and pimps.
In the 1960s, this American way of thinking was seen as the future. The Netherlands was eager to join the modern world. and had imported American traffic engineers to redesign their transportation systems. Their highway plan would have destroyed Amsterdam.
th-cam.com/video/vI5pbDFDZyI/w-d-xo.html
These plans were voted down by the narrowest of margins, and only happened due to public backlash and the fact that the government couldn't really afford it at the time (the Dutch weren't buying a bunch of highways on debt in the 60s).
It was too late for Rotterdam though, a city that only recently started to recover from car infestation. The city “designed” for cars, rebuilt by a new city plan after ww2 bombs destroyed the old town. Instead of rebuilding the lovely old city centre they decided to go with an American aproach, something that proved to be disastrous
And boy I’m a glad that’s what happened
Sadly Dwight D Eisenhower saw the Autobahn in Germany and imported that concept to the US as Interstate network. But he failed to see that cities and towns were not in Urban Sprawl but quite compact due to tight regulations. So people do not use the Autobahn to visit their friends 5 miles away - in the US due to sprawl this would be 30 miles with endless boring single family home neighborhoods with NOTHING to do - and an Interstate which has to be used as all those residential areas are a cul du sac "to prevent through traffic".
It seems like the Netherlands lucked out by not having a guy like John Forester to tell people to "take their lane."
Please do a video on him and contrast it to the Dutch 1970s advocacy groups.
Amsterdam totally dodged a bullet!
This happened to me in a city simulator. I based all my transport on cars and build a huge road system. ended up bankrupting my city 😔
The remarkable thing to me, while watching this, is how many times I've wondered if the footage of modern traffic infrastructure was a picture of my town. These places are indistinguishable.
Robert Moses getting called to the podium felt like the moment when the main villain is introduced to a series
The Homelander of the urban planning community.
What’s so scary is I knew a time less than three years ago where, had I not seen your videos, I WOULD HAVE FALLEN FOR ALL OF THIS OUTDATED CAR-BIASED RHETORIC!!!!
Thx NJB for sharing the orange pill 🟠💊 with us all 🧡
Edit: Thanks for all the likes. I’ve never got more than 100 likes on a comment before lol. I’m glad to see there’s a lot of us who relate :) Also, Jason, you’re absolutely awesome, dude, thank you!!!
Glad to see you've been orange pilled like the rest of us! :)
@@NotJustBikes I think part it is mainly the articulation of the specific ideas and why. Very thankful for the movement.
@@NotJustBikes You have be integral for putting words into words and crediting the actual causes of the problems in city design I have noticed myself and problems I had no idea about. I want to thank you for helping build this movement with amazing videos and helping to change the discourse on infrastructure!
@@NotJustBikes your stroads video is goated with the sauce and gave me a 180 view of what it means to be free
Mee too
At 15:28, the GM ad is touting the glories of the Gowanus Expressway, and I just love the line "without disturbing life below."
As a Brooklyn native? The Gowanus Expressway runs above 3rd Avenue, the center of which is dark and dismal at all times because there's literally no sunlight. On both sides of 3rd Avenue, there's new and thriving neighborhoods, but 3rd Avenue itself? It's littered with dingy storefronts and barbed wire lots.
This method is like putting a boulder on top of a meadow and saying "the grass underneath will not be disturbed!"
I appreciate how the entire video has a consistent aspect ratio of 4:3 to match the historic footage.
I recently learned that the Twin Cities streetcar network used to have 200 million riders per year. I mourn at what was lost. The Interstate system literally destoryed the very soul of Minneapolis and St Paul.
i just found a map of all the lines and my god it had amazing coverage of two cities! Such beautiful tram cars too, that old 50s style, the PPC trams looked so neat. It feels like we have downgraded in technology, unbelievable...
Someone showed the map of the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks map way back in the day and let's just say... it was eye opening and raised hellfire in the soul. Could've grabbed my bike and explore the state on a whim if all those stations and tracks remained.
Hellfire? Like the hellfire club from stranger things?
That's more riders per year tha some airports!
America whyyyyyy
Greater Philadelphia, same thing. In the 50s Big Auto bought up then ran down all the regional light rail companies. Because they intentionally weren't maintained properly they began to break down and ridership left. It's the job of governments to do what the people/corporations won't. Government failed us.
The Robert Moses appearance was a real twist! Best horror movie I've seen all year.
I'm totally sure that "contest" GM held was fair, it just happened that a person as villainous and notorious as Robert Moses happened to win, lol. You know it was a foregone conclusion!
70 years ago, storeholders were falling for the "parking" trap. I grew up in a town of 4000, most of the population would live within two miles of that shop, which makes going by foot the fastest means to get there and back.
When I visited Tokyo in 2019, I traveled in a total of 1 car the entire trip. I walked or rode a train literally everywhere and it was great. Without even understanding the language i was able to get wherever i needed much quicker, cheaper, and easier than I ever would have through cars.
Our car centric cities are an absolute disaster
same! i went to germany and got around by bike, bus, and train. it was amazing and i wish it were viable here in the US
That may be the case for Tokyo, but as someone who lives in Japan, just not in Tokyo, I see sprawl and car-centric development occurring all over, just with more toll roads instead of freeways. Sad to see Japan "catching up" to America.
@@hoikeoiaio I really hope they don't follow our lead with car-brain.
@@shieldgenerator7 what germany did you visit lol? our public transportation is attrocious. as soon as people get their drivers license here they only use cars because public transport is so unreliable
@@hanfenis5941 Das sagen aber auch nur die Leute, die zu doof zum Planen sind oder keine 200m mehr laufen können oder wohl eher wollen. Also ich komme ohne Auto sehr gut klar.
Robert Moses popping up in the middle as this genius highway designer is almost too on the nose. It's like something out of a second-rate late night comedy sketch.
Who's Robert Moses?
@@blakksheep736 Robert Moses was an urban planner in NYC back in the early 20th century who was extremely influential in developing the highway system in NYC and LI, and his philosophy heavily influenced urban planners across the US in adopting car-dependency. He was a brilliant, but ruthless, man who understood politics well. While no single person is to blame for America's shitty infrastructure, if I WAS to blame a single person, it'd be Moses.
@@kirkginoabolafia3650 dude be parting New York like the Red Sea. 😆
(Sorry.)
@@blakksheep736 the hate is largely to do with the fact that the bridges he built were low as to prevent buses from going to the beach.
The really wild thing about Robert Moses is, he didn't drive. He was chauffeured, with police escort, essentially his entire adult life. He never had to personally deal with traffic because it was always cleared out of his way.
I would like to remind everyone they were able to do this by the public's support.
Our predecessors allowed it to be built, and now it is our responsibility to undo that mistake, for our sake and for everyone else in the future.
So please, share this video with your friends and family. To tell them that there is a better way!
If the dutch was able to undo it in a few decades, we would be able to as well!
The problem is, is that fear tactics like this are still being used today and even more sadly, believed.
The unions will never allow that to happen.
@@thomasalbrecht35 i think the best approach is detroit’s: wait for these to start crumbling as they inevitably do, and then tear them down, to be replaced with public transit, bike and walk oriented infrastructure, and buildings that generate the revenue to fund all of that basic infrastructure.
@@thomasalbrecht35 the alternative is forcing the (majority fascist) public to do things they don't want to - the government comes in and takes away the things they think they like
The difference is, the Dutch spotted the issue way early. Meanwhile, everything in USA is built around cars. Even houses and businesses are strictly separated by zones and occupy huge lots compared to their European counterparts.
Things are so spread out that even if the road layouts are changed, zoning is reformed and public transport is introduced, the buses would need to stop every 10 houses for the "last mile trip" to be walkable
"You can't build enough parking to replace the number of customers you would get from foot traffic in a walkable neighbourhood" - exactly. But somehow this doesn't register with some people.
It's so dissapointing that many cities either abandonned or ripped out their existing public transit in order to cater to car dependency. Loads of places had trams but replaced them for buses, which were then abandonned in favour of cars.
This British viewer (Roger Sexton age 75) thought the most ridiculous part of this film commenced at 23m 05s. There the speaker said that 'freedom must be fought for on the side streets'. This sounds like a conscious imitation of Winston Churchill's 1940 speech 'We will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them in the streets.' But Churchill's (and Britain's) enemy was a very different threat from that supposedly faced by the USA 14 years later.
I am absolutely certain that this is a reference to Churchhill, because the audience would be familiar with that speach, given 14 years earlier. It's certainly in bad taste, but what would you expect from General Motors?
That shot at 9:30 always looks like the aftermath of a bombing raid, but the city made it like that, just blows my mind, it’s not inviting or encouraging me to shop there
@@Thecrazyvaclav When Frank Sinatra was touring in his old age, he was surprised and disappointed that his show hadn't sold out in Germany. This was the mid 1980s I think.
He jokingly 'threatened' to turn Germany into a parking lot.
TBH most of that film reminded me of another speech. "The car suits the natural human urge to have liberty", "In the future [..] the way the degree to which a people can be called civilized will be measured by the lenght of its car-centric roads". Can you guess the speaker and name the 4 policy proposals the speech introduced?
@@simongunkel7457 I have no idea who you are quoting. I will have a wild guess at Eisenhower, as he was president at the time of the ridiculous General Motors film. (i now know the right answer, and I owe Eisenhower an apology.)
This whole General Motors thing reminded me of something I realized recently. My city has a large post-secondary institution sponsored by a lot of oil and gas companies. The largest structures on the campus are two massive parking towers. I don't think it's a coincidence.
This mineral rich oily water is good for all you kids get your cars to grow up healthy and keep them filled up. 🤷🏼♂️
The main building of the university I went to was sponsored by an oil tycoon but the only thing oil about it is this giant model oil rig and an oil rig simulator for the engineering students
Big huge PR structures and tax write-offs
I studied in a technical college that was partially funded by General Motors, Volkswagen and I believe Mercedes Benz as well; mostly because they offered degrees in Automotive Mechanical Engineering and Automotive Electrical Engineering (I was doing the first one). Funnily enough, they didn't have enough parking because they knew damn well most people studying there had no way of affording a car lmao. Two different worlds though, I suspect it would have massive parking garages if it was in any first world country.
If Google or Apple builds a similar building for the benefit of society, why should we believe them. Big Tech is in the same place of influence GM was 70 years ago.
I grew up in Detroit on the west side & rode my bike all over Dearborn. My secret was to have the ugliest bike in town, it was never stolen, but I still locked it with a chain.
I love the fact that the whole video is in the same aspect ratio throughout, I rarely see this happen on other channels. A really neat editing touch
Very insightful video. “They’re saying the same things about self-driving cars today” was eye-opening…you’re right!
Yes. I wish Jason had expanded on that.
i feel like this is Adam Something's entire channel, just talking about the "future of transportation" is often poorly thought through ideas
I went to test drive a brand new car (no alternative to cars, family implored me to get brand new) and I showed up in a 1980's car with no computers and a stick shift. Salesman had absolutely no idea how to try to sell me on the car when I instantly shot him down on any interest of it's "self driving" features.
I live in Sydney in a car dependent suburb where you can walk 15 mins in either direction and still be surrounded by single family homes. The consensus is that this is a “nice suburb”.
Contrast that with my partner lives in a different part of town which is significantly better on walkability (everything accessible within a 10 minute walk including shops, restaurants and a main train station), but the consensus is that the area she lives in is “rough”.
I much prefer spending time in the suburb that my partner lives in. There’s more to do, more local events on. But because it’s an area that is well serviced by public transport people think that it’s undesirable and crime ridden (when you tell them to provide evidence of this crime wave they tell you to Google it lmao)
>(when you tell them to provide evidence of this crime wave they tell you to Google it lmao)
Like the crime wave of Somalian youths that just vanished when newspapers got bored haha. Having lived around the world the 'roughest' parts of Melbourne are still ridiculously safe and I'm sure Sydney is the same.
Clearly nobody wants to commit crime in the big suburb, because it's too much of a hassle to even get there. And there's just not enough stuff around to crime efficiently. We might have just solved the crime problem, simply make the experience so miserable nobody bothers lol.
That shot at 22:59 is just insane. I love this channel. I'm from Australia (but its most walkable and least car dependent city - Australia as a whole can share a lot of the same issues as the US) and have done about 5 road trips through the US, and this channel articulates and explains exactly what I just found to be "off" in most American cities but couldn't put my finger on; why did they feel so dead and lifeless? Why was there no atmosphere on the streets? What was missing compared to Melbourne that made them feel so different? Why did (with a few exceptions) everything just look exactly the same? This channel has really put all the pieces together.
ty man as I originally missed that shot you mention. How seriously many people took this kind of propaganda is seriously devastating.
being disabled and unable to drive a car makes living in the us hell, you can't get anywhere without a car, and I certainly can't ride my wheelchair cause everything is too far.
Also, the movie Cars, which obviously is pro-car, also hit these issues. Highways were bad for small local businesses. It completely deserted the village.
They thought the highway would bring business, but no
would the cars in cars need parking lots? / parking?
@@skrata173 yes, but those would be like beds or chairs
Let's pretend it is pro-racing cars, which even the Dutch love it!
@@elfrjz It'd be a safe guess that'd be accepted.
the movie Cars is actually a parody of the American car culture where cars replace humans.
7:09 "gives the city a huge infrastructure liability that it can't afford"
well said
It's just more capitalism. Capitalists have always wanted to indebt public institutions because when the institution fails to repay the debt, the capitalist gets to own the constitution. By making the city buy stuff it can't afford, they get to own the city.
Ignore the haters who say they don't like his tone when he explains. The tone is part of the presentation which keeps the video interesting for all 27 minutes.
If it wasn't for this channel, I wouldn't have come across other urbanist channels and book recommendations.
Great work @Not Just Bikes
Amen, man. Before I started there was lots of urban planning content online.
... but nobody read it or watched it, because it was boring as hell. Tiptoeing around controversial topics and tone policing to avoid upsetting the fragile ego of ignorant suburbanites is a waste of time. I'm too old for that shit.
Plus the Dutch taught me to be direct.
@@NotJustBikes we're grateful for your frankness. You not only help "us" (or at least me) appreciate how much of urban planning our country got right after much research and testing, that we now take for granted (e.g. I grew up assuming bike infrastructure was normal). But you also teach us we shouldn't be complacent, and there are still lots of stupid things we need to fix in the Netherlands.
@@NotJustBikes The problem is car dependency is a more complex issue and is harder to explain to someone in a simple and understandable way than something like climate change.
It’s based kinda know whether u get it or not
@@NotJustBikes As an ignorant suburbanite, I *approve* this message.
Sadly here in Australia, we suffer the same problem. Old rail lines, even outside of cities, that took people to small cities from town in the country, have either been abandoned or are just heritage/tourist lines. Some cities, such as Sydney for example, are now playing catch up from this car centric attitude in terms of public transport.
I always assumed that cars only carrying less than two people on average was a relatively new issue…but I noticed several of the 1950s clips you played showed the same exact thing!
Maybe it’s time to finally actually admit that we have a problem and should change!
Freedom of movement, is the claim. But considering the cost, I wouldn't say it's free.
@@ChaoticNeutralMatt i feel more free sitting in a tram, listening to some music or reading a book, not having to worry about traffic
@@oLii96x imagine your kid walking to their friends home or to school and not having a panic attack when they have to cross 5 intersections
That's... the entire point of a car
@@chrispopovich700 The point of a car is to inefficiently carry 1-2 people in a giant 2 tons metal box? If so, I agree with you!
5:07 I just love how infamous this channel has made my hometown. I grew up in that area, and I made jokes constantly about how terrible the FM 1960 traffic was. I spent so much of my free time there, but I had never seen it from a pedestrian perspective. It was eye opening.
Any relation to Donna McCollum of KTRE?
It's funny, while reading your comment I never pictured 'spending time there' as driving or parking. I pictured you hanging out somewhere. Until the end. I'm European. I travelled the US quite extensively. And STILL, when I see pictures, when I'm on Google street view, that voice in my head says "the actual town has to be somewhere behind those parking lots".
i talk to my dad about these issues and what i wish to see moving forwards in cities and towns today. he often defends the sprawling, stroad-based layouts as “inevitable” or “they didn’t know back then”. he’s not young, but he was born many years after the addressed video, which is such clear evidence in the contrary that city planners had the information to make responsible decisions for the future.
I love the step by step critique to the original advertisement!
Thanks so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it. 👍
When you showed those old pictures of London ON and the depressing rotting parking lots there now, I wanted to cry
Me too. Me too. 😢
Yup... downtown London is horrible
@@rodchallis8031 Fair point about the Dundas flex area... A bit of an oasis for sure. That being said, I've driven through there many times during the day and witnessed people shooting up ... wish there was more help offered to these people to help them get into treatment...seems like London just keeps on turning a blind eye to it all.
Geez yeah how depressing was that!
That somehow reached my town in the UK though less bad still noticable.
You should make a 50s style promotion video for walkable cities!!
Should be plenty of footage of transit throughout the 1950's.
Including trolley busses.
Uuuuuh
This was sad for me to watch. I grew up in Brooklyn in the late 70s and early 80s and it bascially it was a grey hellscape of crumbling highways, smashed apartment blocks, thru-ways and threstles (?!?) But the heartbreak of realizing that several 17th and 18th century villages were destroyed to make a weird roundabout overpass that is now used by drugdealers and pimps.
The best part was when the GM award was to be given. I thought "Who will it be? Surely not some small worker nobody knows about". And when the answer came I was "Holy Sh** no!" and I could hear Liams actionable threats across the whole Atlantic.
Huh
A second freeway has hit the towers
Im so glad I came across urbanist channels. It really openned my eyes to the problems of automotive infrastructure
a reason I like YT and enthusiast programming is that supposedly niche interests are actually really interesting and neglected by MSM
I know, I would have a wildly different outlook on cities were it not for NJB. I'm so glad I live in the Netherlands.
Its just a big a echo chamber though. They still push laughable theories like Induced Demand and no one bats an eye.
All this time I sensed something was wrong but couldn't quite explain it. Watching these videos has been like a religious awakening or something.
One of the things I noticed in my dissertation about this topic is that Moses outright refused to integrate rapid transit on the Long Island Expressway, he also got 75 million to build a new interchange up in Queens rather than build a single bus lane across the LIE, I got so bewildered at how the Highways Act and GM acted together to make sure the entire country became dependant on cars
I'd be curious to read it. Of course I believe you. That totally tracks, no pun intended!
@@queens.dee.223 Oh, I don't know, that pun sounds pretty intended. 😄
Actually seeing how it developed from a film originating in that era is so interesting. How they already knew the problems that car-dependency causes and basically saying "just one more lane and it'll all be fixed," and fast forward to 2023 and they're still saying the same thing. Amazing. They won't stop until every hospitable area of land in this country is paved over and there's a 12 lane freeway connecting every single city no matter how big or small.
5:30 Former professional driver here. Worked during the Covid lockdowns of 2020. Nothing on the roads except EMS, trucks, and company vehicles.
It was glorious...
Everyone saved so much time, there were practically no accidents. Work got done. Deliveries were days ahead of schedule. When only the people that make a living on the road, are the only ones allowed on the road, and the highway/stroad/street system becomes quite efficient.
I sort of love your take, yet hate it. Did you know during lockdowns the accident rate actually went up by 30%? Just because people had the distance to get up to speed?
I guess you do know all of this.
Trucks have their place, locally or semi-locally. Bulk goods should just be on trains. It's the most efficient thing to do.
But you're right in a way, bulk trasport should have a sort of priority. And I know, I know. "But this doesn't exist". But it used to. The US was literally built on rail.
I grew up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn near the Gowanus Expressway. It destroyed the neighborhood that was under it. In fact, the mainly working class Italian-America residents fought it at the time. So Robert Moses punished them by supplying exits from the Gowanus to the Sunset Park neighborhood. But he refused to supply entrances. The people of Sunset Park had, and still have, to go to other neighborhoods to get on the Gowanus. That is Robert Moses in action.
Videos like this have made me realize why I've always loved escaping car-centric suburbia (where I grew up) to visit cities. At first I thought it was just my admiration for the architecture and the overall vibe in cities, but now I've realized just how much good urban planning matters and this has given me a major interest in the subject of urban planning. The problem though is how do you convince people that love the car-centric nature and don't want to invest in walking/public transit infrastructure to rethink their mindset? I always get laughed at and ignored by friends/family when I try to talk about moving away from car-centric infrastructure. I feel like I'm in the minority whenever I talk to other people and it really bothers me since this is a subject I'm passionate about.
It's hard to convince brainwased people and those who aren't brave enough to come out of thier comfort zone. But what matters is your own beliefs. If these beliefs are founded in truth and logic, then don't let anyone take that away from you. Just don't force it and don't give up, cause you will attract some and others would come around with the right patience and attitude.
I so totally agree. I moved from suburban Alabama to Washington, DC, partly because of this. When I go back there to friends and family, it’s very hard to get any respect at all in this topic. No one there seems to think that it can ever work any way other than the way it is now.
Car-evangelists are always convinced of two things: 1) public transit is slow and 2) long-distance public transit cannot be profitable in a low density country like the US.
So you basically have to bring the car-centric thinkers to some of the better European cities to literally show them what good city planning can lead to and how enjoyable and FAST good public transit is to use.
And if you want to convince them of how long-distance railways are not doomed to fail, you need to make a trip to Finland; not only is there less population density than US, they have the best long-distance trains in all of Europe and are making a profit despite the ticket prices being very affordable to even poor people.
As Jason calls out in the video, car centric development is expensive, usually financed by debt, and doesn’t pay for itself. One way of convincing those who want to protect it, is too put them closer to the costs of it. This might be done by making drivers shoulder more of the costs or by shifting more of the funding to towns and municipalities and away from state or federal grants. By putting end users closer to the true costs of car dependency they’ll be more likely to change.
@@obsolete959 also they’re worried about safety, failing to acknowledge that driving a car is sometimes more stressful and far more deadly than riding the subway or bus.
It's so weird to get a feeling of nostalgia from watching video footage from a country that I've never been to, dealing with issues I have never had to worry about, from an era 30 years before my birth.
It doesn't matter what the subject is. I just get instant nostalgia from old footage detailing everyday things.
I have the fortune of growing up in a country that, to this day, has kept its walkability. Not that we aren't a car dependent country, we most certainly are, but you can absolutely get around using public transportation. Owning a car is more of a luxury than a necessity, and that's never really going to change that much because of the small size of my country (Faroe Islands, in case you're wondering).
Edit: come to think of it, the nostalgia probably comes from the music and voices, as it reminds me of old, American cartoons, which I grew up with.
Ironically from what I read, Robert Moses never owned a car and didn't drive apparently.
This is insane. It's like the solutions were directly slapping them in the face and they were happily ignoring them.
Good video. I'm an America who has been living in Japan for the last 20 years. When I first got here I thought it was annoying that highways were only 2 or 3 lanes only. They clearly could have built them wider. But now I understand.
I lived in Toyota for 2 years working for the car company and mass transportation was joke. And for a small city, they had HUGE traffic jams which I imagine have only gotten worse. Luckily Toyota pays for most of the infrastructure. But buses were a joke which came only half an hour, occasionally.
Now I live in Tokyo. The problem here is that there is basically only ONE line that runs across the city and so during rush hour it is extremely crowded. I remember one rush hour trip home using my strength to prevent a pregnant woman with a baby from getting crushed. (As Japanese do, she thanked me when she had to get off). But clearly Tokyo needs another line either to the north or south to run across the city. They've done a pretty good job on planning, but it's falling behind. You can build trains, but even they must be thought of as like highways. The good thing is that with such high numbers of riders, these train lines pay a bonanza and keep doing so. Cost of maintenance is really low compare to roads.
What's your experience with Kei cars?
After watching you videos it is really hard to unsee all the space in the cities wasted for car infrastructure. I've got rid of my car a few years back and the sheer number of comments under your videos make me feel like I'm part of a movement :)
Same. I do wonder how car-infested different European cities are, there's comparatively little data since everybody focuses on the US.
@@jonsnow9659 Almost every major city barring those in the Netherlands are car infested still, lots of work is being done to pedestrianize, build bike lanes and close car through-traffic in many major cities but it's still a long way to go. We just mostly lack the insane highways cutting through cities and massive surface parking lots the US has, instead having mostly underground parking.
@@Deliverygirl suburbanisation and car-centric zoning is much less prominent in Europe though so even with all the car infrastructure you have way more walkability and mixed use almost everywhere in Europe, on top of having a lot more public transport even if we too could do a lot better
@@houndofculann1793 While this is true there is still far too much car traffic and congestion in most of our cities. Only old town centers are mostly safe, the ones that are too narrow for cars to pass.
@@jonsnow9659 the difference with Europe is that cars in any major city in Europe are optional. You can get by without one the way you can in NYC. There's choice, unlike most American cities. Also the high cost of gas in Europe discourages people from being massive and wasteful large SUVs and trucks.
I used to want to live in suburbia and think that they were better than places like Amsterdam. But now because of urbanist channels and especially your channel. Thank you for opening my eyes.
@@communist754 to be honest I thought they looked nice and they liked peaceful
@@warreviaene1747 unfortunately all they have is looking nice from above.
I'd only rather live in a suburb because most of the city's in America are dumps
I grew up in suburbia, and lived most of my adult life in suburbs. I'm now in a very nice part of a very nice city, walking distance from downtown. Of all those places, he two best are:
- where I am now.
- the New England town/suburb where I raised my kids. This was a typical New England town which grew into the built up area around Boston, but maintained its separate character. We lived on the rural edge of town, so a car was necessary, but my kids could walk to school, and the town center wasn't far away. It was about as good as suburban life can get. [For more details, the town was very much like the one in Alan Fisher's Colonial Suburb video.]
I've never wanted to live in Suburbia, because the homes are too big. I can barely keep my tiny room clean, imagine taking care of a whole house. I also love the downtown hustle and bustle, socialization and nice cafes only 3 minutes away by foot.
I do appreciate my polish trams. Not gonna lie.
Well well, here in Sydney Australia this all looks mighty familiar.
The small city i live near has two highways that cross right through the middle. Many years ago there was a petition to move or remove at least one of the highways. I was too young to fully understand and thought it was bad because it would slow us down if we wanted to go downtown. I am realizing now that the highways are likely holding the city back from developing to a greater cultural and financial powerhouse.
Car dependency in the US and Canada in general as stalled us both culturally and economically. It's becoming so isolated and lifeless, and it feels people are less likely to think about others because we don't see others, we see cars, with very few exceptions.
Depressing to see this car centric culture so rooted in our society here in America. I am a student in Austin, TX and I don't own a car, so my mode of transport is a bike. Seeing the city prioritize those who can afford a car rather than pedestrians and people walking is simple disgusting. I was wondering if there are actual ways citizens can change this. How can we get involved/what are the solutions? Thanks man, love your work.
Perhaps organize biking/walking protest marches? These could be in the form of recreational outings in the city center during a weekend every month, where as many people on bikes and walking claim back the space that was lost to car traffic.
In the city of Utrecht, which is not nearly as big as Amsterdam but was facing the same traffic congestion problems in the 1980s and 1990s, students and other city dwellers started biking in masses during the weekend (I think the demonstrations were held once a month).
When I witnessed these demonstrations, which were not nearly as massive as the organizers had hoped, I thought they had little chance of changing things. This was in the early to mid 2000s.
However, today Utrecht has changed completely how the city deals with traffic.
Four lane streets that were dangerous for pedestrians crossing and bikes trying to navigate them next to all the cars, have almost disappeared from the city center. Those that were kept in place, were changed into two lanes for cars or even just a single lane, with much bigger sidewalks and seperate bikelanes.
All I mean is, what NJB has also shown his other videos, is that The Netherlands ('Holland') was not always as bike and pedestrian friendly as it is today. In the 1960s and 1970s it was just as car infested as any place in the US. In the 1980s, traffic deaths, especially children killed by speeding cars, were at their peak and in the 1990s the great change started.
Because there was literally no other way out of the mess.
I'd honestly leave. Fuck Texas. It's literally one of the worst car dependent hellholes there is in NA. Obviously, you can stay and fight the good fight, but fighting against all the stupid car culture there is in Texas and actually seeing real change is going to take A LOT of work and A LOT of time. And frankly, I'd rather enjoy life in a better place than fight a bunch of ignorant and stupid people to see very little change in a long time
The irony is that giving more priority to pedestrians and mass transit would be a net benefit to car owners too! Less traffic should make everyone happy.
Ride a bike on grass enough and it becomes a hard packed path. Pick axe roads you don't like and they won't be repaired after a while.
"Student without a car" is such an eye-opening experience, isn't it? I ended up in a similar situation a few years ago and it's really changed how I see our country's transportation.
Props for keeping the aspect ratio consistent! This actually fills more of the screen on my tablet than widescreen does, so hey, works out great for me.
Excellent video as always. I love the quote from the GM film: "...no wonder everyone's acting so nervous. What's a citizen going to do?" You can directly tie so many of our social and political problems to the fact that Americans and Canadians are atomized and separated in private vehicles, each person competing for their share or road or tiny advantage that gets them ahead of everyone else. That anxiety described in the propaganda film from about 70 years ago is even more acute today, and it's all caused by building a society for cars, not people.
The issue isn’t that, as kcuh
Jason, where do you find these old highway propaganda videos? I feel like this is the junk my dad was raised on because he basically quotes these verbatim when I mention infrastructure solutions
I found it originally on archive.org when looking for historical footage.
We *were* raised on this propaganda ... they showed these films in school in the 1960s.
I don't know if they're online, but look for the Disney produced driving films featuring Goofy behind the wheel. Those were part of my Driver's Ed curriculum in 1973.
@@lizcademy4809 Walt Disney was an unabashed propagandist. His opinions on an animators' strike, as he himself testified to Congress "he believed communists had played a part in the strike, a conservative writer even going so for as to label Herb Sorrell, one of the strike leaders, as a 'soviet spy'". GM was a big sponsor of Disney's parks, I'm pretty sure they've always had at least one big exhibit.
@@lizcademy4809 Luckily they don't use this propaganda in drivers ed today (uni student so learned to drive several years ago).
@@NotJustBikes lol and of course it's in the description. My bad, thanks for repeating something for me
Keeping the whole project 4:3 was a great choice. Nicely done!
I'm so glad he rendered it correctly, too! A lot of content creators render out a 16:9 file with black bars on either side... which causes _endless_ problems on so many devices (ie phones).
That's a good point. Even aside from the archival footage, I notice I almost never use theater mode. A video in 4:3 is actually more efficient with my screen real estate anyway.
I have 5:4 second monitor and I really enjoyed the narrow format to the point that I didn't actually notice it before I saw comments.
wow I didn't even notice
I hadn't even noticed it lmao great eye
Did all old commercials just last for like 20 minutes 💀
I visited the US in 2015 for the first time, a small town just outside of Philadelphia. We were doing a stream broadcast from a games tournament. I grew up in Berlin in Germany which means I've known public transportation, lack of parking even in the 70s in many areas and walk ways.
What surprised me the most were two things. The lack if sidewalks on almost any road there, and the conrete-f***ing desert of what had to be at least a square kilometer of parking, in which Target, a diner and a couple of other businesses sat. That's what I was reminded of when the video showed those parking lots at 22:55.
We have large parking areas in front of the Olympic stadium in Berlin, but almost nobody comes here with the car, because there aren't enough parking spaces. On the other hand there are two different rail services that pipe all the football fans, concert goers and sports enthusiasts to this location. It's surrounded by forests and homes, and nobody is going to clear that away for a car park desert that occasionally fills up. Grud on a stick, that crap at 22:55, it just looks revolting. And talk about heat in the summer. Bad all around. A few years back a study was done on how hot it would get, depending on the amount of shade(i.e.trees). Those with little would be at least 10 C degrees hotter, sometimes 15 than those with good shade. Concrete is a bitch in summer.
Oh, want to know a more depressing facts of US stadium?
Many of them get build and use once, again on debt, whilst destroying the surrounding area (of course, the housing and business of the less privileged) 3 times the area of the stadium to build parking lot.
Murica/10.
It's funny how they use music in these old videos. They've got a really tense, dissonant sound combined with actual traffic noises when we're on the people in old downtown streets, but when four storeys of a massive highway are going over those downtown streets, suddenly all the ambient noise is dropped and everything is nice, upbeat neoclassical strings, implying that these monstrosities somehow wouldn't create unbearable noise pollution anywhere they're bulldozed through.
I remember reading that 15% of people in average American city switching to motorcycles from their cars would free up 75% of all traffic jams. It’s not like all the cars move almost empty all the time… oh wait
Study: motorcycle Leuven - might be interesting for you.
Yeah, average car occupancy in the US is like 1.5 people. It's a tremendous waste to build giant, gas-guzzling metal machines that only carry 1.5 people at a time.
but there is no such thing as a minor fender bender of minor accident on a motorcycle; if anything goes wrong the body of the rider is directly affected and often ends up tumbling down the road or flying thru the air, imagine a bicycle crash at 50-60 mph but even worse cause a heavy machine is also tangled up in the crash. plus there's extreme temps and inclement weather.
Ironic of how Detroit literally destroyed itself.
I just had an epiphany:
When people mention "free healthcare" some people will respond with "it's not free, you pay with your taxes".
When people mention "freeways" the same people who responded "it's not free, you pay with your taxes" to free healthcare keep their mouths closed shut.
Free healthcare is shit, coming from someone with no healthcare. The quality of healthcare available in America would without a doubt fall if we did that.
It would for the normal people atleast, Im sure the rich would keep the level of healthcare they already have.
I also don't need the government being able too tell me I cant go see a doctor because my problem isn't sufficient, just because they don't want to pay for it, which would invariably end up being an occurance that would happen.
Your epiphany is wrong, low IQ, and betrays the fact that you don't ACTUALLY engage with your opponents.
I, and many others, are equally opposed to govt managed transport systems, as government managed healthcare.
Mans forgot theres more than one use for the word “free” lmao
When you listen to the part where the guy sells us the idea of taking on debt to pay for future time and money saved, it comes off as a giant con.
... And yet, pretty much every city did it. 🤷♂️
Jason just hits the nail on the head every time. Such a waste of money investing in roads. It's crazy how similar things were in the 1950's compared to now. We just keep making the same mistakes over and again.
"Time & Money saved.........." Look at US now! 😂😆
"Just one more lane, bro. Please, one more lane will solve the problem. Just one more. Please."
We're not "making mistakes"
the oil companies and car manufacturers have all the money in the world
and they can pay for propaganda and lobby
the best we can do is to spread awareness of how better things could be
and organize into pressure groups and things like that
@@Brindlebrother we are indeed a bunch of road junkies. 😂
@@ciro_costaevery time you buy a car, an automotive exec makes a boat payment, as does the oil industry exec, each time you fill up. Thought we don’t have many good choices we definitely share some blame, indirectly.
Ironic. I grew up in Europe, where most "city highway" projects don't take off because of narrow streets and protected several hundred year old buildings. So take a town like Munich: they worked on a highway ring system since the 70s and finally finished it some 30 years later. It's great, very expensive and mostly underground. What they did start in the 70s too is to massively expand local transportation. So Munich's central station goes several levels down into the ground and all the different transportation systems all meet each on a different layer. It's impressive - you can go from and underground to a street car or bus by simply taking stairs or an escalator. The transportation system goes out of the city some 30 miles so a lot of people don't use their cars to work anymore because the city subsidizes public transportation systems and they made it a tax deductible business expense when you provide your employees with tickets for public transportation. Overall a much better concept. Not perfect by any means, there's plenty room for improvement but also not such a failure as US cities.
It might very well be imperfect, but it's pretty great compared to basically anywhere in North America.
As you know, the only viable option to combat congestion is viable alternatives to driving. Munich, or "München" as I like to say isn't doing too bad at this.
Alsom that's not ironic, very much like "Ironic" by Alanis Morissette wasn't about irony, it was ironic all on its own by never stating any irony.
It's just common sense. Too bad common sense isn't that common in today's world.
Growing up in rural Greece, I used to walk or bike to school from 1st grade all the way to the 12th. Later, in college, in a city of ~85k people, I took the bus a lot or walked. Visiting my family 800km away was a looong trip, but it was comfy and cheap. The first 600km took ~10 hrs via train and cost €15 as a student. Nice 😌👌
I've slept so much in buses and trains, but also read dozens of books. I've never owned a car, not even a driver's license, and I've never wanted one, which isn't really culturally acceptable in Greece, even though our public transport is quite good. Hell, the Athens metro is amazing, IMO.
I had no idea how bad things were in most of North America before stumbling onto this channel. (And the Netherlands is much better than Greece. Kudos for moving there.)
This has to be one of the best videos you’ve made so far. So informative and educational. Really enjoyed it. Thanks for making this video.
Growing up in Flushing (Queens, NY) I had the best of both - 15 minute walk to the trains, free car parking outside, local buses, side streets and parks to bike on and actually get to anywhere safely. My parents attempted to move to a more uppity part of the region when I was born, but soon came right back and settled in one of the apartment houses that sprang up right before zoning became more restrictive in the early 1960s.
you should come here to the real Flushing (the Netherlands) you can see how it's take care here. I do have to admit the bus network with in the city is not that much. but that's more because more people will take there bikes. the bus is more for the bigger legs of a trip.
Glad you had such a nice experience growing up.
Thats why I like NYC. Most neighborhoods have 15 min walks to anywhere. Subways, buses, supermarkets, laundry, etc.
@@sirBrouwer It is also... A good way to give people not able to ride a bike a way to travel. It is better to have a mixed rail and bus system that is running often enough but not just empty then making sure everyone that get into a accident lose access to there life.
Like for real a bad pubic transport system starts to make taxi buses go around serving only a handful of people. And if that is not the case then people that brakes a leg just forget doing anything but staying indoors at home. Better to have a bus system running then a fleet of taxis going all over the place and still not being enough to give the transport a well working public train or buss can. Even if it runs almost empty in parts of the route.
Often when a bus runs empty it also is not taking up space in congested traffic zones. But a buss empty in the middle of a congested intersection... That is a bad bad sign. Just look at bus lanes on highways that NEVER see a bus traveling on it. And then to see buses or taxis in the middle of a big mess just empty. And 3 buses next to it also at best just half full.
Why I talk about this point? Well I see more handicap taxis running around then buses. And still the old and hurt are still having to book in there travel plans WEEKS before if they have something important to do or whatever.
So Fake Flushing is a bit better than Fake London?
a big electronics company closed their doors here in Deventer in the Netherlands. One of the reasons cited: The location was too far away from shopping customers in the heart of the town. This electronics store was located 3 to 7 minutes walking from the other stores...
I'm curious what you think about the urban planning in South Korea, where I live. This country has excellent and affordable public transport, but it also has an incredibly car orientated approach to planning that makes cycling anywhere basically impossible.
I recently read Jeff speck’s “walkable city” and he mentions how alternatives to driving like public transit boost walkability and are extremely important, but that the only way to stop congestion is to remove lanes / make driving less appealing (congestion pricing). He mentions DART in Dallas and how it is extensive but barely used I guess because so many lanes make driving easier (and the stops are far from any destination)
Intentionally making driving less appealing seems like a hard sell. People will say "these politicians are making my life worse"(by making my driving more unpleasant) and they will be right. Many people can not invision not driving. It just seems very difficult of convince policy makers to move in this direction.
@@Parker307 it is difficult for sure although I am optimistic that more people would be in favor of this if public transit is expanded (in an intelligent way) at the same time with the revenue. There’s a reason walkable areas are high in demand. It’s typically the traffic engineer or some organization comprised of car companies that opposes it as they gain from more roads.
If I had to show someone one video from your channel to succinctly and effectively lay out all the problems with car-centric urban design you so wonderfully break down week after week, it would be this one. Great stuff.
1:28 "no one's getting anywhere"
The motorcyclist: Am I a joke to you??
Terrific video. I'm proud of the fact that Robert Moses met his end partly because of my hometown, the Staten Island borough of NYC. He tried to ram a highway over a hill that's home to the wealthiest people on the island, as well as virgin forest and parks. The residents banded together and found a champion in Jacqueline Onassis. Then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who'd wanted to get rid of Moses for years, sensed blood in the water and Moses was history. The highway was never built, was demapped, and a vast interchange for it from the SI Expressway was recently dismantled.
It is a bit sad that those people like Moses only got stopped because white, very rich suburbans hated the idea that they had to endure the same shit as black and/or poor communities. The same people who liked the idea of using the roads build through black communites.
@@Bokurano99 That's absolutely right.
11:48 those drivers feeling nervous waiting in that congestion inhaling all exhaust probably felt even more nervous in those days since that exhaust also had lead in it lol