When I stayed over at my american relatives‘ place in California, they were dumbfounded that I (a european) wanted to try out what little of public transpo L.A. offered. They were dumbfounded of course but still let me. After my day tour, they mentioned how riding public transpo in the their state is generally stigmatized and serves to signal others that you‘re either crazy or poor. Sigh.
same with me! they don't even know how to work the sub! neither the bus system :-P and I as a Mexican I found it very well!! Xd and the californians were so kind with me too
Since i do not have a license, i had to use public transport, or Uber, when i was in L.A. I can attest, it is an aggregate of poverty and mental illness for the most part.
It's crazy, I live in Budapest and none of my friends my age drive anymore. Even the wealthy programmers I work with all prefer public transport or biking.
The Italian branch of my family has worked in the train system since WW2 and it’s kinda dumbfounding that that is the the case in America, as in Milan the train system is a prestigious, both National, civil and familial. The idea that the US stigmatises both the usage and maintenance of trains blows my mind.
Most people here in Germany actually take the bus or the tram to work since its more widely avaible, cheaper and more eco friendly. You are also encouraged by the government to use those more eco friendly options. Thats why some tram lines are free
Tbh that's one of the dumbest questions I also often get in job interviews. Like why the hell would I even apply for a job If I wasn't able to get there?
"Access to transportation is the single most important factor in the individual's ability to escape poverty" I live 10 minutes walk from a train station in Sydney, Aus. I have used it since 2007 to get to high school, to get to the two universities i studied at, to travel to the two jobs i've had. I have possibly taken up to ten thousand trips on the train in my entire life and thanks to it, I went from having nothing to eat at lunch every day at school, to a comfortable full time job.
@@sharkboi6164 Any car under $500 (or what's left of it) would need extensive repairs. Regardless of whether or not you do it yourself, the parts alone will cost thousands of dollars.
CobiTheDog Gaming I buy and sell used cars for a living, you’ll just need to check the break lines and all that, if they’re intact the car will get you to point A and point B, after general maintenance. You’re actually more likely to suffer a breakdown from a new, California compliant, 40k new car, and Teslas explode.
"Owning a car = freedom", it only is freedom as long as you can choose to own a car, when it becomes a requirement for the most basic things in life it turns into a burden. Being able to reach your office fast via public transport and shop for groceries in walking distance, while using your car to go on a trip on a weekend = freedom. Having to use your car every single day to get to ANYWHERE is not.
@@thormenucci hey kid, do some basic fucking research. 328.2 million people live in the United States. China has almost 4 times that amount of people, and they have both a larger interstate system than us, and a far more advanced train system. Accept that we need better transport infrastructure
@@Sparkiebc wait are you really comparing a dictatorship country with US ? you know that a lot of slave workers were used to do china construction jobs in the past few decades not counting the absurd amount of money the china use to construct train lines that go to nowhere.
@@Sparkiebc I will say this in my state (pa) most of the place is suburbs/farms spanning miles to get anywhere. Public transportation is really only used in the city of my state because it’s just not worth it unless your taking a bus to the city
I live in Switzerland and when I visited the US I was shocked how hard it was to go anywhere with out a car. I do everything with my bike or with public transport. I regularly commute from one city to an other. (About 70 miles) it takes me about 1.15h from door to door. I grew up using public transportation. I was using it by self and alone when I was 7 or 8. And no my parents aren’t irresponsible. Public transport in Switzerland is safe.
@@tranlinhkts 6 seconds add up actually, and there are strict timetables that people are used to. Plus, the train operators have a strict education of being on time sometimes are observed by a train master with tests like Gauging how fast the train is going or Get from X to Y in 1 Minute 45 seconds.
1 of my countrymen was convincing us to be grateful for our subway/metro in my city by showing a photo of NYC Subway's W4 station & claiming he has heard no 1 complain about NYC's subway
I live in the Netherlands, most of my friends are in their late 20's and almost no one owns a car. And no one is ever thinking about buying one. It's just not a thing you need.
As a British person I was wondering wtf a streetcar was throughout the whole video so I searched it up at the end and found out that it was just a tram 🤦♂️
It's also a streetcar, also a "trolley." Streetcar is pretty descriptive though, so if you didn't get it immediately, sounds like it's because you're stupid :^)
@@RickJaeger A car mostly rides on streets (or roads) so the word "streetcar" doesn't describe the specific thing we call a tramway. Like many people call a telepheric by the same name as a cable car (San Francisco, for example, does have cable cars). If everybody called things by their actual names, there wouldn't be confusion.
@@andreiplane8380 I see someone here is rich. Because Jesus, Uber? every day? at that price I might as well go to the pawn shop and see if they take pets and organs.
@@andreiplane8380 you sound like a person that doesn't use public transportation, I went to US and you can't always find buses and metro anywhere unlike Europe and London. Uber and Lyft are all expensive, just less expensive than taxis that likes to scam but still expensive and can't be used everyday
@El LaPoint No they aren't. There hasn't been a Greyhound bus in my hometown a hour from Fort Worth for two decades. There has never been a Amtrak train serving my hometown. Greyhound has been slowly shutting down rural stops in their efforts to serve large cities non stop with express routes instead of local routes. Greyhound no longer serves western Canadian cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Regina... Any city west of Sudbury is no longer served by Greyhound (except for Vancouver with Greyhound service to Seattle). Calgary is not served by Via...
@El LaPoint Hahahaha, 'Amtrak is basically everywhere'... It runs totally at some 25,000 miles/40,000 kms in the US, a country that covers some 8 million square kms/ 3.2 million square miles without Alaska. (There is no Amtrak in Alaska).
@@EdPMur well do you know about CRT Lanaudière? They operate 10 bus route in lanaudière including one that does Joliette/Montréal in 1 hour, 10 times a day
Funnily enough I think the whole "personal freedom" thing is starting to work against cars now. With the rise of smart phones, people now pretty much always have something they'd rather be doing than driving. Certainly I know I'd rather be doing stuff on my phone during my commute than having to pay attention to the road. That's probably why we're finally starting to see people push for better public transportation in the US.
@@Turtle1631991 I agree, like imagine in the future ( I live in an city where this isn’t possible) going to a park walking 2km to the end and NOT having to walk all the way back to your car and just take the bus back home lol I can dream. Kind of weird how everyone around me has folding and new tech phones yet they all drive shit cars on roads that used to have trams/light rail lol
I think that's part of it. People aren't making as much money as they used to, so car ownership isn't assumed as much anymore. Ride sharing apps make car ownership less of a requirement. Bikes are starting to have their time in the sun. Gas prices are making car ownership a nightmare as is traffic congestion. Lots of factors are pushing Americans to public transportation and bikes. Perhaps sometimes soon and maybe even in my lifetime, the USA will have good public transportation.
@@downsjmmyjones101 "Bikes are starting to have their time in the sun." I find this sentence hillarious and bizarre because I've been riding a bicycle since the age of three. (I'm Belgian)
In Japan if the train runs late, they officially apologize and try to fix it in the future In America, if the bus runs late, they say "Welp, S.O.L! Shouldn't've been poor!"
@@deprogramm Well don't want to be the judicial system, and corruption, plust the whole depression, and suicide thing there. And it's hard to get in, and only people consuming japanesse media, or travel people wanting to relax in a cliché beautiful country would go there. It's pretty nice country though I believe it's easier to get a European passport than a japanesse one. Plus I was told that the Engligh competency is bad there you may need to learn japanesse to hold a conversation there. Just go to any Nordic country also beautiful just easier to get a passport especially if you're an immigrant. I'm not shitting on Japan it's just hard to live there due to constraints with passports, and cause people who want to live there are usually weeaboos or people who don't know anything. Or just rich people wanting to flex their money,
@@ipadair7345 Or "woke" diaspora East Asians who want to help reverse population decline in Japan, and East Asia in general. Yes, such people do exist.
@@RS-yn4ov If it's being used, it's correct enough. Language is a means to communicate and grammar rules just describe it. In spoken English such contractions happen automatically, so I think it's fair to spell it that way.
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no that is if you want in an industry that can telework. can you imagine an civil engineer that can inspect a building without going on site? Or a surgeon that can tele operate on you. Technology is a lot of things but there are a lot of careers that cannot be don't remotely for the foreseeable future. also in US, there are still people who has zero high speed internet (25 mb/s). how can they even get more opportunities?
@@KrashPad sf is a place where the poor can't even get a roof on their head. the working poor in sf have to work to at least survive on the street. Escaping poverty is a pipe dream for the poor in sf.
23 here. I have a physical disability which makes it unlikely that I will ever get a car. Thank the havens for Västtrafik (My regions public transport organization.). P.S. If I lived with my disability in The US then I would most likely be a homeless junkie or dead. But here I am in Sweden with 12'400 sek ≈ 1'300 eur, an apartment, a public transport card, a place for disabled people to go to financed by the government, and 30+ restaurants to go to if I want to have a cooked meal (My disability effects my hands so I have trouble cooking and writing.).
@@thebronywiking Hehe, we're in a similar situation though I actually live in the USA. I have a disability that messes with spatial recognition so operating a car is out of the question. I'm fortunate enough to live with family right now, however the problem is still there. I can't drive and the public transportation where I live might as well not exist, so if I want to go somewhere it depends on if someone feels like driving or not, and since it's usually not I'm stuck at home 90% of the time and I confess I go a little stir crazy. There WAS a grocery story a fairly short walk from my house but it closed years ago. And there is at least once restaurant and a few convenience stores in walking distance but it's still a good distance away, and with no sidewalks or bike paths it's kind of dangerous. Anything else I'd want to do would require a car to get to, so with no public transit in a roundabout way I'm being told I'm not meant to be part of the community nor is my money good anywhere.
@@kurisu7885 I can understand that it's rough. I've just started studying again so I take the tram for 20 min to get to my school. I live in a 7 floor apartment block on a square and the closet restaurant is just 4 meters from my gate (10 when they put out the summer furniture.), the closet store with food and basic products is 50 meters, and a 24/7 open 7-Eleven is 400 meters away. Though with city living you have to exept that there isn't something like quiet, be it the neighbors, the drunks, the cars, or the trams. One thing that shouldn't be happening though is that a few weeks ago the restaurant I just mentioned was attacked by someone with a hand granade at 2 am, though this is more of a testiment of the failed immigration policy of Sweden then anything else.
On a more fun note. My city has the highest number of restaurants per capita of any north european city, higher then London, Amsterdam, Berlin, or Copenhagen.
@@thebronywiking Well currently I'm looking into getting a motor trike so I can get around a bit more on my own, so until the public transit situation in my are improves, if it ever does, it'll simply be another option.
one of the biggest mistakes i made when i travelled to the US was not realising how car-reliant their society is. i wasn't old enough to rent a car, so i could barely visit anywhere cos I had to rely on either walking or the only bus route in the entire town that ran every hour or so, only from 9-4pm. i was completely shocked.
-heydun - rural community is slowly dying. There are fewer infastructure near them. A lot of small hospitals closed. And more than a few places don’t event have true broadband internet. Yes, there are farming jobs and that is it.
Jason Lane Designing cities for cars automatically makes it harder to travel by foot, cycle and public transport is what I mean. The USA for example loves their cars and has terrible public transport (in many cities non-existant even), isnt really walkable and is dangerous as hell to cycle through
I am always astonished to see cities or states ranked for retirement based on lower taxes; they should really be ranked based on public transportations. Do you really expect people in their 70s and 80s to drive? My dad is over 90 and retired in Kansas, yet he is forced to drive.
This is a recipe for disaster. I recall my father being unable to drive at age 77 due to vascular dementia and he had to surrender his licence and give up driving. Ireland has made great strides in reducing young driver fatalities due to high speed reckless driving and drunk driving. The tragedy is that many remaining fatalities are caused by seniors driving the wrong way on motorways ( new to Ireland, and many drivers have not learned the rules applying to them), also new road layouts confuse many older drivers and can lead to accidents. Doctors are very reluctant to remove driving licences and it is a very sensitive and touchy subject in the realm of road safety but is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore as other causes of road fatalities are tackled and squeezed out.
If they stopped with the American diet, they'd be driving right up until the day they died. Like your dad, who has a choice where he retires. (KS is not one of the btr tax states for retirement either, so that part is confusing.)
@@jgdooley2003 They really need a mandatory maximum age. If they can do a minumum they can do a max. I mean would it suck for the few old people who actually can drive safely? Sure, but then the minimum age sucks for the few kids who could drive safely too. I'd honestly much rather a 12 year old be driving than anyone over about 70
Well when your cities expand 3-4x the size they are now(land area) and are way more spread out with strict Euclidean zoning, public transit then becomes increasingly harder to implement in such low densities.
Public transportation isn't quite as flexible as a car. For example, I needed to run to the store today for toilet paper, lol. I live in Alabama and it was nearly 90 degrees outside. We do have a decent bus system here, but the nearest bus station is a mile or more in the opposite direction of the store I wanted to go to. The drive to the store is only about five minutes. Why not walk it? Lack of sidewalks and again, the sweltering heat. The five minute drive at 40MPH would take 25-30 minutes walking. I could maybe bike and I'd certainly consider that (if there was a way to affix an umbrella on the bike, lol), but the lack of a sidewalk makes me wary of that, too. So, easiest, fastest way for me to get to that store was to drive. While I would like to have more public transportation options, I still like having a car for when I need to quickly run to the store (say, I need something real quick to finish off dinner. A situation like that could also be resolved with having stores closer to residential areas, but that would begin to remove single-family homes and yards from the equation and I don't think I'd want that).
@@dr.cheeze5382 I would still call it decent by American standards as many cities don't even have one. It'll work if you absolutely have nothing else but you're going to be doing a lot of walking to get to it and to your real destination.
Even though I love my car, this video basically gets it right. Especially with more and more people living in cities, designing a society around cars makes no sense.
Except now America is re-ruralizing. All the jab and mask mandates made people hate cities again. There’s a reason the founding fathers hated cities and designed America to be an agrarian superpower.
when you randomly start having seizures without health insurance and get fired from your job , you realize how important public transportation actually is
Canada also has this problem, and it stings even more given the fact part of Canada's foundation relied upon a trans-Canada railway linking BC to Nova Scotia. Now that line is an old, outdated, badly maintained dinosaur that only ships goods and materials, and derails often. Canada's geography is begging for a new, high tech passenger rail system to alleviate roads congested with cars and semis that often have tragic collisions on long stretches of highway.
Canada has even lower population density than the US. Canada is literally vast. It is almost the largest country on the planet. The only places where rail would be profitable would be in the GTA, Montreal, Calgary-Edmonton, and Vancouver.
If you want to travel from Cochrane to Toronto, about a 7 hour drive, you have to set aside up to 12 hours, as the Northlander has such low priority on the single track available. Canada's first and foremost problem is that it doesn't have passenger only tracks. sitting around twiddling one's thumbs while a load of dollar store items goes first, and the insanely high ticket prices, are more than enough to push every one to go to the airport.
In 2012 I was visiting US for some training for couple of week. My hotel was 200meter away from training center and I would walk that distance every morning and evening while returning. In those 2 weeks, I was stopped midway (multiple times) when people saw me on foot. Some asked if I was carjacked and needed help? Some wondered if I was an illegal migrant (since they are poor and can't afford car)? Some offered me lift for those 200m. No one believed when I said I "wanted" to walk.
Also americans have a "time is money" mentality. Walking, even 200 metres, would still take time." So, to americans, they would ask: why waste your time walking, when you can get to and from work faster by driving. Taking Public transport is just as wasteful in time as you have to know and wait for the bus or train. You can never leave at your own time. That's why most americans would always opt for cars if they can afford to.
Virendra Pratap Singh that's nice of them to offer help though. Not gonna lie walkers are extremely sketchy most walkers are homeless or gang members in America
While visiting the us, we wanted to cross the street to get to the mall from the motel and everybody stared at us from their cars. I thought that was weird, the distance was a couple of hundred meters
I had the exact same experience though, in towns and outside city centers. Downtown Chicago noone bat an eyelid. Chicago South we were pretty much the only people on foot. Maybe four or five other people on a 1mi walk from the hotel to Obama's house. NY we walked almost 200mi in one week according to one of my friend's fitness watch, along with millions of NYers and other tourists. Grand Rapids we were looked at as if we were exotic animals :D My mental picture of the US has been shifted quite a bit by that visit. I now look at it as far more diverse than I did previously. Makes it easier than before to understand the big political divides in the US too.
@@duckmercy11 Also in Europe some public transit operated by private societies, including some High-Speed Trains, exists and often works quite good. But I meant to change only the name, not how it works, it is easier and cheaper.
I'm genuinely worried about Wendover Productions. He hasn't talked about planes since his last video. I believe he's been kidnapped and forced against his will to upload this video.
I've finally found someone (the maker of this video) who agrees with something I've thought for a long time: zoning laws in the US cause a city to be organized such that one always has to go a considerable distance to shop for groceries (and most other things, too), while in Europe the grocery store is more likely to be in the neighborhood a short walk away. Therefore, I've decided I'm NOT going to feel guilty about driving to go shopping--there really isn't much choice in most parts of the US.
TravisWeb Entertainment the idea that part of a city is for business and part is for residential is itself a very American concept. Most cities outside America have lots of mixed use developments, which also help allow for the smaller, neighborhood shops that are impossible to find in the US.
@@AlecSchwengler is not itself an American concept rather than an urbanism paradigm which was cemented by the Athens Charter signed by Le Corbusier among others modern architects in the 1930s
@@lmk10000 Interesting, I was not aware of that. It does seem that these ideas are most prevalent in post-war US cities rather than Europe or Asia where even newer cities tend to be fairly mixed use.
@@AlecSchwengler To be fair, in the US this ideas were more prevalent because, by the end of the WWII, the United States was super rich, and with the demographic boom, they need to build cities as fast as posible. Also, many modern architects from Europe, especifically from Germany, went to the States to escape the war and the post-war economic crisis. So the USA had the perfect conditions for these theories to be applied. You can see this fenomena in many Latin American cities for the same reasons (and have the same problems of American cities but with worst infrastructure and more poverty).
@@UltimaOmega Sure, but a lot of why the business areas of town isn't somewhere you would want to live has to do with the zoning separation. Business districts are uncomfortable places to be outside business hours because it becomes a ghost town. Mixed-use zoning makes areas with commercial zones far more pleasant.
@@RaymondHng yeah that what the government says just like baltimore they beem talking about expanding their mta network for year the most recent one was about 13 years ago they were going to expand the light rail and add in three new lines and what they do the dont do that change the bus routes and raise the rates and give shitter service it kinda sad that there is a free bus that travel the downtown area that like 10 time better then mta that make u pay and covers about 60% of Baltimore
Can relate. I used to take the city bus and walk to my job (and everywhere else) until I had to switch to a job that mandated driving a personal vehicle. I had been accosted multiple times during the walking portion of my commute by police, despite being in the population group (white, male) the least likely to be bothered by police. I wasn't trespassing or being loud and boisterous; I had my headphones on listening to an audiobook while walking down a sidewalk. I even remember being accused of being "up to something" because I "didn't look poor".
@@ShroudedWolf51 If you were close to black neighbourhoods, you would have fit the profile of a seller and/or buyer of elicit goods like narcotics, unregistered firearms, and similar. But black guy walking towards a black neighbourhood = probably just poor, ngaf.
Supposedly a true story: During the battle of the bulge, some French troops were guarding a crossroads. Some American troops came walking up and the French shot them. When asked why, they said "Obviously they were German spies - American troops dont walk, they ride in Jeeps"...
You completely failed to mention the interstate system. I would credit that just as much as the automobile for the death of public transit and the birth of sprawl. After the war US generals who were impressed with the autobahn lobbied for a national defense highway system to quickly move troops across the county. This new system that connected every city suddenly made building houses and communities many miles from the city center economically feasible.
well we still have the Autobahn network in Germany, but that doesn't keep public transport from being successfull. It's basically the 1:1 equivalent to the US interstate system, as the Autobahn basically is an interstate system as well. But there's a great share of people choosing to ride the bus, train, subway and tram to get to work
@@EnjoyFirefighting I think where the US and Germany probably diverge is how land is utilized. Land is cheaper the further you get from the city center, and there are almost no limits on how much can be sold to developers to create subdivisions. I’m not entirely sure but I’d be willing to bet European countries have tighter rules when it comes to land use. If Germany built the way the United States has there would be no countryside, farmland or timberland. I’m sure easy financing plays into it too, in America if you can spell your name you can buy a home and car on very cheap credit.
the point about zoning is something never thought of; zoning can hurt poor people; so, great observation. Europe has lower wealth inequality and part of that is zoning.
do you want a train rail run right next to you house???? do you want a walmart right next door to where u live so u can have thousand of car and kids kids runnign by ur bedroom window int eh middle of the nite every nite??? zonning was suppose to keep residential area safe and peaceful and away form all the chaotic, noise and disruption activities of a commercial area. the drawback of this US zonning is that it make it so u need a car to get around.
yia01 That’s a good thing. I care about efficiency. I care about saving as much time because those time would be spend very valuable so which transport (IN MY CASE) would save me so much time? Work from 9 to 5, sleep for 9hrs, school for 6. Total: 23 hrs. 1 hour is not enough to work out in the gym which means it’s impossible to make time unless the day is 3 hours longer. Imagine the day is 26 hours rather than 24? Those 2 extra hours can be great. So I choose car. I’m all for trains as long as it spans from California to Florida. I’m all for trains if it spans from State to state (from Las Vegas to Cali) I’m all for trains because I’m tired of 15 minute car drives. I’m tired of 20 minute walks to school (especially when it’s fucking hot and it makes me sweat). And I hate bus entirely because I don’t know the damn routes. I never do bike because where I live, it gets stolen and regardless if you place a tracker, they are smart to remove it
@@Ultraempoleon nah it happened all over. LA for example was built around the street car. The red and orange cars of pacific something something i forgot the company's name were icons of the city
I've watched this video three times now and I think you leave out a critical aspect of why Public Transit sucks in America: NIMBY (Not in my back yard). I grew up in Atlanta where MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) has a fairly good system. However, every time they try to improve it, they immediately get met with lawsuits, protests, and resistance from communities. Same thing in Boston. When I was in Grad school they were trying to improve the subway there and kept running up against communities not wanting an expansion. It is also interesting that when they do surveys in places like LA, Atlanta, and Dallas about if Public Transit is a good idea they overwhelming say "yes". Then when they ask if they personally will use it, they overwhelmingly say no.
This is very true. Coming from Boston area. It's funny the polls show people want expanded MBTA services, but they don't want to pay for it or having it running through their neighborhood. People in suburban areas like the concept of public transportation but they don't want it in their town. Then there are all the environmental and engineering studies that need to be addressed before any work is done, which adds significant cost and time to a project. Boston actually cancelled many aspects of the Green line expansion because of Billions in cost overruns and complaints from people living near the construction sites.
People like to make political statements. It's like a fucking religion. That's why this country doesn't get ahead anymore. In Asian countries, they build shit all over the place and people learn to live with it. It's part of city living. Don't like it? FUCK OFF IN THE STICKS.
Except...those places I named (Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles) are all run by Democrats. It is less about specific political parties and more about local resistance to change. It was explained to me by a commuting buddy (we sat next to each other on the train each day) like this: "If the subway opens a stop in our town, rent goes up, crime goes up, and those people in the city have a one stop ride to our neighborhoods; we're not interested!"
Whats funny is. People who then afford or is willing to buy a house, has a higher tier car so they use that. Also people think public transit is for poor people, but ive seen alot of doctors take the trains to the biggest hospital alongside crackheads.
It kinda makes sense considering a lot of people would want to live near a station to avoid long walks. Demand for it simply increases, therefor prices go up, is a simple way to look at it.
@@tibbers3755 true that leads to anouther issue of in urban America parking is a problem even if you money and can afford a nice car. These lawyers are smart.. Why pay $40 to leave your car set empty in a parking garage downtown all day?
As a 19 year old in Germany I don't have much reason to use a car other than for buying groceries or taking friends somewhere on a more private setting The ammount of busses leaving in front of my house is ridiculous (up to 1 bus / 2 min)
We don't have as many buses here, but I also don't see the need to own a car. It takes me about an hour to commute to Munich's city centre (my town is about 80 km south of Munich). Trains go every hour (and maybe even every 30 minutes a few years from now).
God damn, i have 1 bus/30 min. I mean, big city bus. We have a fewer of little little mini-buses like mercedes sprinter instead of normal public transportation system.
I admire places where cars aren't anywhere near the main mode of transportation. Where learning how to drive and getting a car isn't an essential requirement for living.
One thing I'd like to add: many cities in Europe actually were about to copy what cities in the US did during the 70s, like getting rid of trams and neighbourhoods in favour of highways. But to my knowledge they faced heavy resistance from the population and plans were dropped thankfully. I myself live in a city were you can still see some artefacts from that time, like ramps that go nowhere (because the highway was never built), or bridges that don't connect to anything. really fascinating stuff.
Yeah. No. The were cutting costs and leaving it up to people to make their own way. And it wasn't in the 1970's. There was an oil crisis don't you know? They had to build motorways because there were none in the first place. Even Germany's autobahns from the 1930's were of no use.
This was the case with Dublin and many other Irish cities in the 1970's when cars were prioritised over other forms of transport. by the mid 80's grassroots resistance to new highways and the increasing government hostility to public transport was overturned and now increasing investment is being made in public transport to avoid traffic gridlock and overeliance on single occupant cars for our transport needs. I saw these incomplete flyovers on a recent visit to Istanbul, Turkey near the cruise-ship port. It looks like these incomplete projects are a sad reflection on the perceived need of countries to follow the US in these matters when it is unwise to do so.
@@SennaHawx That doesn't really apply to Americans though, if u look up automotive sales in the U.S., Americans are buying pick up trucks and SUVs at an all time high, they really can go anywhere. Its gotten to the point where U.S. automakers have literally stopped making cars, all they make now are trucks and SUVs.
@@devilrider39000000 Yet it's still illegal in large chunks of the country to just drive off-road. Plus it also prevents people from driving on narrow roads
Having a car allows me to have the “freedom” to drive anywhere, when I say anywhere I really mean I’m only able to drive on paved roads that are subsidized by the government The whole concept of a car giving you the freedom to drive anywhere is bullshit, you can only drive where there are paved roads and these roads have to be subsidized by the government to be financially viable
_"Isn't it hilarious how cars are marketed as the ultimate symbol of freedom, and yet you can't function without owning and maintaining one? Your government-issued ID is a _*_Driver's License."_* In Europe, you can choose to drive. Some of the highest quality cars in the world are available for purchase there. And yet public transportation works. And people there CHOOSE to use it instead of driving.
interesting, i have never thought to turn the freedom perspective on its head and see that one do not have the freedom to be without a car. it made me laugh, thanks
That goes both ways. In America you can choose public transpiration, yet people prefer automobiles as soon as they can afford them. And it isn't like people don't drive in Europe either.
People "choose" public transport because there's not enough parking, and the parking that does exist is ridiculously expensive. Add to that all kinds of tolls, congestion charges, car bans, expensive fuel etc. etc. and most people will just give up driving because they can't afford it or because it's impossible in practice. There's no choice if the other option will leave you bankrupt.
I wake up at 4 am every day to catch a bus so I can make it to class by 8AM for a class 20 minutes away by car. Public transportation is so slow here that I spend anywhere from 6-8 hours every day just riding the bus to get to places 20 minutes away by car. It is absolutely pitiful.
I'm sorry, but isn't cycling an option here? Depending on your situation, getting a good bike (with the option of it being electric) will get you there at a speed of approximately 20km/h (or 25 if you're a fast cycler or even faster with an electric bike). That's what a lot of people do here. Of course it also depends on your area and road access; if it's mountainous/hilly it would be more difficult, but still, seems like a worthwhile thing to look into?
How much time you are actually on the road? Waiting time in station included. The time you wake up is not really that relevant. I wake up on 6:45 on mondays to go to classes starting at 8AM by public transport. But I only to about 50mins on the road with the worst possible waiting time. And that's because I only use the metro. (I have metro stations close both to my uni and home, but there is no direct connection between them) Perhaps, If I were to take a tram/bus I would be much faster
@@notmac1853 Biking is not really worth it. The main reason why people go by car not by bike is because a car protects you from rain and things like that.
I hear you live on Long Island? I'm on an exchange programme here from the UK and I'm actually so shocked at how bad he public transport is here... I can barely get anywhere at all. I thought being so close to NYC would mean that transport would be good but apparently not. It's truly so limiting!
Do you want to hear another quote? "A developed country is not a place where the poor own cars, it is where the rich take public transportation" - Mayor of Bogotá
While I myself don't own a car, I do think cars do have a place in society moving forward. They do allow you to transport things that would be a hassle to transport on public transportation, as well as medium-length travel, specially if you go somewhere like a national park. But I think cars should be owned in larger family groups. Not have every adult own a car. Daily transportation to work and to buy groceries or to the movies or what have you should be on public transportation. Leave the car for when you want to buy that 50lbs bag of dog food.
This vid got me into urban planning. On my 15th birthday in 2019 I forgot the key to my house and had to wait until my mom got home, so I hopped on RUclips and saw this recommended. I got hooked instantly. Thanks for helping me realize one of my passions.
Good for you. The future of work lies, in my opinion, in people discovering their passion in life and then following it with dogged persistence to its ultimate goal, a happy and fulfilling worklife with good colleagues and a good and attainable career path and progression route. Urban planners are badly needed in the US and many other countries which put great emphasis on suburban lifestyles and housing choices, including my native Ireland.
I often take the train in my Country (Italy) and trains are always at least 1 or 2 minutes late, I remember once when I was waiting my train to go to school, it was 1 hour and 20 minutes late, and I had to apologize to my teacher
@@goranshgarg836 I took a train today and it had 1 minute of delay lol, but then it has arrived 1 minute after to its destination. I love trains in Italy, even if they are always 1 or 2 minutes late, but they are very well-organized
I'm from the Philippines. We are the only big Southeast Asian economy that doesn't have an extensive train network, though we used to have one. All we have right now are three metro lines and two virtually unconnected sections (formerly connected) of conventional rail; one operating from the northern part of the capital metropolis to the suburbs in the south, and another section operating a few hundred kilometers away between two small cities (actually the infrastructure throughout the whole line is intact, but because the national rail company doesn't have enough trains, there's no regular service throughout the entire line, save for the two mentioned sections) This has much to do with American colonialism and later the colonial mentality. Now during the first couple decades of colonization, the American built extensive rail infrastructure for us, most of which, sadly has been neglected to this day. They even built a tram system in the capital, which was bombed by the Japanese and Americans during World War 2 and never repaired. After the war, we were finally given independence from America. However, there was still the colonial mentality. We were, and still are, among the most pro-American countries in the world, which by itself isn't a problem, but with that comes the desire to imitate America; skin whitening, low public spending, and prioritizing cars, and buses over trains, instead of giving equal priority like other Asian countries. But it's not just the colonial mentality; American companies basically shoved American road culture down our throats, lobbied, etc., this was later replicated by local bus companies. American road culture works in America since it's sparesly populated, but when you shove it down the throats of a densely-populated Asian country, it leads to problems such as the traffic congestion being experienced in our metropolitan areas and other busy corridors, including those in the suburbs. Then in the late 1970s, our railways started declining (fun fact: during this time we were ruled by a US-backed dictator, who started off good but later turned out to be an ass, although he did build our first metro line) thanks to bus lobbyists, but also thanks to Hollywood, albeit indirectly. Well, we now have a really good tollway network, but that doesn't mean enough when our regular roads and our railways are in relatively bad condition. We, along with Timor-Leste are like the black sheeps of Southeast Asia. Thankfully, in recent years, the government is working to revitalize our rail network. the national railway has been improved, with new lines under construction. Our first subway is under construction and our existing metro lines being improved and extended, all with the financial aid of Japan and China. We are realizing that taking notes from America was a mistake and that the only way forward is to take notes from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, etc. Edit: I can't believe I forgot to mention that the government of my home city Makati hired a private firm to construct and operate a subway with tunneling expected to start this year or the next. The city government will technically own the infrastructure but maintenance, operation, and real estate will be handled by the private partner.
@@MrPathorock Either people have lots of things to say or lots of free time. Or in my case, both lol Though I know there are people who prefer to write multiple comments/replies instead of one long comment.
The freedom to buy a car, buy gas, buy repairs & maintenance, buy winter tires, pay for traffic signals, pay for roads, pay for tolls, pay to have the roads cleaned/swept & patrolled by officers, pay for parking, pay for insurance and pay foreign despots for the oil they drilled in their land.
@@stevenvanhulle7242 I notice you pick one of the most extremely congested and largest cities on the planet. That's not the norm. It takes me 10 minutes to get to work. When I lived in San Diego, CA the most it would take me is 15 minutes. It took over 3 hours by bus.
It's hard to travel to US since I don't have a driving licence Basically most Hong Kong people don't know how to drive because we have a huge public transport system btw, HK Tramways and Star Ferry are more than 100 years old They're still being a major part of public transport here(especially every time MTR malfunction)
Same. I don't see the need for getting a driver's license anytime soon. People always ask me why I don't want to go to the US at some point...well guess what. I don't want to be stuck at the airport :P
Public Transportation in America is so bad that every job interviewer will ask you if you have a sustainable way to commute back and forth to work. Knowing that there's isn't a lot of available busses/trains and even have a cut off time so people working night shifts are screwed and have to either catch a ride with a friend/coworker or call an uber.
And there are so many guidelines over boundaries. If you live just outside the city limits or from the county border then a bus won't go near you even though you're just a minute away.
I live in Portland. Instead of school buses, my high school gives our school IDs with TriMet passes (that's the company operating here) so we can use the public transport system instead of using additional infrastructure for the purpose. This is proof of the confidence the city has confidence in what they're doing about this problem. I can walk about a mile from my house, take a bus, then walk 0.2 miles to my school. It's easy, fast, and simply better than most highway systems. Compared to Phoenix, where my family lived for several years, the public transportation is much easier to use, better for our roads, and is growing the economy to the point where my parents' 500k house has grown 6% in value in the past year. Also, this is the reason why Portland streets are not gridlocked.
He is so right. Public transportation helps so much in getting out of poverty. From personal experience I cannot afford a car and I do not have good public transportation system in my town. It is so hard to get to a job or to get an internship. I have to walk miles and miles on end to get my job.
Same here. We have cabs but they're ridiculously expensive, we've got one Uber driver. Once I have a car again, I plan to take full advantage of this and drive for Lyft or Uber in my spare time. Turning lemons into lemonade.
steve b why are you assuming I don't know how to ride a bike. The thing is I have to change one bus and 2 trains to get my destination on top of all that walking distance. It is really hard to carry bike around on trains and bus.
They called it "personal freedom" but I spent 2 hours of my personal time, operating heavy machinery, getting to and from to work, unpaid. I gave that up and spent 2.5 hours instead doing my own things while some other paid people moves me to and from work.
@@matthew8153 Nah 2.5 hours is total time. It's about 1 hour and ten minutes to work and 1 hour and 15 mins to return. There's no way I can afford to live closer as the house prices are pretty expensive here. I've been looking for a job closer to home but haven't had much luck in the last few years I was applying.
When owning a car is becoming more and more expensive with the price of a car + insurance + gas + trying to find parking compared to a transit pass, it just makes more sense to use public transit (if you live in a city that heavily supports it), which has saved me thousands in comminuting. The college I went to is 25min away, my now full time job is 15min away.
problem is, the government benefits from people being dependant on cars. Edit: I'm not even sure this is true. I assumed it was true, why else would they pay millions of dollars for road infrastructure and car subsidies.
@@leonpaelinck because oil companies and car companies astroturf to give the minority of people who actually enjoy the government pissing billions a year a megaphone and a ladder to sit right outside our politician’s windows
They need to be segregated from road traffic and slow child cyclists need to be allowed to cycle on the footpath. The problems start when authorities force young or old cyclists on to the road when they lack the skill and experience to mix it with cars, busses and lorries in a safe, confident manner.
Imagine it's the dead of summer, with temperatures in the triple digits. Now imagine that on your way to work is a steep hill that you have to bike up. By the time you get to work, you're drenched in sweat. There are no showers at your workplace, so you have to spend the next several hours drenched and reeking of sweat while sitting next to your colleagues and higher-ups. All this could have been avoided with a car, or at least anything but a bike or walking.
i mean, airplanes and helis are VERY loud and require a lot of space. Also, after 9/11 I don't think anybody's gonna let any airplanes near skyscrapers
As someone who has to visit Canada twice a year I’d say the same for Canada as America and Canada literally feel the same country every time I visit btw hasn’t Austin recently started investing a lot in public transport
Yeah, I thought Canada wasn't dissimilar, not due to the car culture the US has but just how even more spaced out everything is. It was surreal visiting Toronto and surrounding areas, seeing how vast and spread out it all is, coming from Edinburgh, where you can get a bus or train to the middle of nowhere if you wanted to. (To be fair, Edinburgh is compact by design and small even by European standards.)
@@WK-47 yeah a lot of people don't realize that the US and Canada are just too big and spaced out for reliable public transportation unlike Europe, The only cities in NA that I've been to and never needed to rent a car is Chicago, NYC and Boston. I have personally lived in Boston for a year and never once needed a car.
@@KenshiN_- It's still really inneficient in such small city as Quebec (500k pop). There is a real problem when a bus ride is taking me 45-60 min when i can do it in 10 min with my car.
South Korea has one of the world's best transportation system. With a mix of rail, bus, and taxis or cars for hire, it's so easy to get around and doesn't cost that much and clean and safe too.
@@realah3001 Never been but would like to experience how good it is. Wish the US could put more emphasis into public transportation. Giving more low income folks more mobility will improve their quality of life and the rest of us too. I've seen foreign visitors trying to use our rail system (Amtrak) and thinking how they must feel that our rail infrastructure is so outdated with spotty schedules.
@@archmad That is true. Last few times I've traveled on Amtrak, it was crowded so I think the customer base is there. I would love to use more public transpo especially since gas, new cars, insurance, tires, and maintenance are so expensive these days.
Zip (or postal) code does determine your economic mobility growing up in the US. Mine was 10454. The South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in NYC. The subway, busses and commuter trains helped me get to all the places I needed for my education, employment, and exposure to a life outside of the inner city. I now hold multiple college degrees and live a fully middle class life. I shutter to imagine how my life would have turn out if I were born where I live right now. It’s truly shameful how we selfishly handicap poor and working class people here and then blame them for not overcoming the hurdles they’re forced to stumble over. Excellent video.
In Japan they even sometimes issue explanation letters to every rider so they can show you school or employers if the train is more than ten minutes late
What shocks me as a non American is that 16 year olds have their own car and use it to go to school. It's so bizarre to me because I'm in college and still use my bike or public transportation to commute everywhere.
Not every college student here in the U.S. has a car. I had a car during most of my college and quite honestly didn't use it much, as I lived either on or adjacent to campus and pretty much everything I needed was in walking distance, but it was nice for getting back to my parents between semesters or for a weekend. I tried taking busses back home for a while and it was very inconvenient with the bus stopping at every town along the way and having to get my parents to pick me up at a not very safe feeling bus station downtown after sunset.
That's why you buy a motorcycle... I lane split in Pittsburgh all the time even though it's only legal in Cali... (makes no sense to me)... when I get caught I just tell the officer that I have an air cooled bike and it will damage the engine if I sit still too long and they just let me go.
@@sharkboi6164 California was run mostly by Republicans 1860 - 1960 though. That's the period when most of the city planning / big infrastructure projects were carried out. The blame game makes little sense when both parties are at fault - and the people involved are deceased. 🙄
Phoenix has a light rail system running all through downtown, it's the most profitable mass transit system going through downtown, and they are even expanding it.
@@Drakrau_TheDerg When a housing developer seeks planning permission for a new development then providing some funding for extending such light rail lines should be part of the conditions laid down for granting such permissions.
In my country using public transportation is a sign of "low class" and if you are using it you are frowned upon if you are with people owning cars (which many do). Personally I hate this, since I'm neither poor but afraid of driving. I.E. if you own an old diesel which leaves a trail of black smoke behind, you are cooler than a person riding in an electric bus.
One day I read some that said "The best way to measure the level of wealth and development of a country it's not how many people have a car, it's if the richest people uses public transportation"
This guy talking about cars has no idea what he's talking about. As a Canadian I can tell you our public transit systems aren't going anywhere, and in most big cities EVERYONE uses them when they are available, from the richest businessmen to the poorest homeless person, I've seen everyone on Ottawa's new LRT (Yeah I know it has its problems but I still think it's a great system). Public transit truly is the way of the future!
@jubeifyGuy guy please pay a visit to a city outside the US. I'm not even from a developed country (I'm from India) yet I prefer using public transport over going by car. It is just better, even with people around you. You don't worry about traffic, you can do whatever you want while you are travelling. Also, it is incredibly cheap. I can come from the northernmost suburbs to downtown Mumbai ( south Mumbai) for less than a dollar by train. It also beats the traffic. Plus, you get to do some sightseeing. No looking for parking. Even if you remove the pollution factor of public transport, I'd prefer it anyday to having a car.
@jubeifyGuy guy It isn't about technology, it is about space. Cars are extremely space inefficient. Buses, which are two cars long can hold more than twice the capacity of two cars. Under that token of move backwards, the same thing can be said on phones. We have tablets now, so why still use phones? It is all about optimization of anything to the fullest to maximize the benefits. Mind you, both cars and mass transit co develop at similar pace. Ships can be the oldest transportation method, and we still use them until now.
@jubeifyGuy guy public transportation is just way more convenient for students who would rather be spending money on University, shelter, and food than a manual car that is also way more dangerous.
As a user of public transportation, this hit home. There's not a lot of routes that would ideally take me to the nearest area to a job, and I refuse to drive for the few reasons mentioned in this video. This video sparked a good conversation with my dad, and I hope more can be done here in the states.
Hey wendover can you make a video of how to make the perfect city. Like the amount of public transport, where the commercial and residential places should be, and like what would be the best geographical location.
Another factor I’ve found in my travels is that while Europeans/Asians see public transport as transport for everyone, Americans (putting aside NYC/Boston/DC you mentioned) see it more as welfare for the poor; part of the mindset you highlighted that car equals freedom equals success. Glad that this attitude is changing with my generation!
It comes with an extra step: People assume busses are subsidized by them, because they own a car, which *clearly* means they paid more taxes for the road than the leeches on public transit which is ironic, considering property taxes don’t come anywhere near enough to afford the roads
As someone who has lived in several US cities and travelled to other countries I can attest to the fact that most Americans don't understand the value of having a functioning, clean and safe public transportation system. Growing up in Denver we always thought of using public transit, especially buses, as a joke and that only people who couldn't afford cars used. Once I moved to Portland, after selling my car, and using public transportation for nearly two years I realized the value of having more then one option. Sure there were times I missed having a car, especially late at night, or getting places that required more then one transfer but I also enjoyed not spending my time worrying about other drivers or spending excess money on car maintenance and payments. We as Americans enjoy having many options to choose from: cars, homes, jobs, food and yet when it comes to transportation we accept only one option the car. I think if most Americans traveled to destinations like Taipei and Tokyo where the public transit is safe, affordable and very efficient they might think differently about that car that costs them hundreds of dollars per month to maintain. Ultimately the millennial generation (which includes myself) will have to determine what we value more: bragging about the car we own and how much we have to spend on it or having an infrastructure that works for everyone and promotes the use of actual physical activity.
@Anshul Kaushik Please point out a sparsely populated area which has a public transit system comparable to Taipei or Tokyo. You can't. Your statement is nonsense.
@Anshul Kaushik Did you read the comment I replied to? Or are you just talking out of your ass? What does Scotland have to do with anything? And the nowhere in the US is even as close to the density of Taipei or Tokyo, so you can mention wherever you want.
in the USA we have the best highway system on earth. we make more money here and have a higher standard of living with less government interference and more freedoms. cars are cheap, easy to get and you can go anywhere in a short amount of time in a car. cars equal freedom, mass transit equals dependency
@@origionalwinja Germany has also a very good highway system that is specially designed for its cars. The German Autobahn is also known for having highway zones without speed limit. And it is toll free! And I think that German, Austrian and Swiss streets are in general much better in quality than American streets. Google Street View for comparing them is enough.
@origionalwinja It's actually the other way around. Cars are limiting freedom since you completely depend on it. Plus cars are still far more expensive than using mass transit. I live in Berlin and here we have a great public transport system that runs 24/7 in high frequencies that brings you everywhere you'd want to go. But since the city is polycentric, you have even most of the things you ever need in walking distance. I wouldn't want to live in a car-dependent suburb in the US where I need to drive everywhere, resulting in wasting a lot of time and money. For destinations where there is no public transports, we even have very flexible car rental systems here. And they even offer a variety of cars, so I have always access to everything from a small car to a large van.
actually, you have a point because countries like Germany and Holland can support good alternatives to the car, that could get you around fast and comfortable for virtually no cost when in poorer nations residents have to eat shit in traffic jams on their private cars
Nick Maybe where you are. Here in Germany, where I am living, I could basically get anywhere with public transportation. Btw, I'm living in a city with a population of 250,000 people, and we have 36 bus lines, 5 tram (or street car) lines (there are more getting built), and at least 5 or 6 train stations.
I love riding public transit, and take it at every possible opportunity just to learn and see new systems. People often remind me that it’s far less convenient than driving. In a perfect world, it should be far more convenient than driving.
@@archmad I live in London, England not Ontario, I don't have a car and I certainly don't want one. I did have a car for about three or four years up to 1982, but seldom used it. My mother wanted me to drive so I could take her to places such as a local small coach station if she was going away for a day or few. I think I drove about 600 miles in the years that I had the car, and almost exactly 300 of that was on one day when we went to collect some things from the home of a recently deceased aunt. That trip almost killed me, literally, I didn't realise how tired I was getting, and almost crashed. Soon after that car and mother both expired at about the same time so I gave up and have never driven since. I couldn't drive now even if I wanted to due to very poor eyesight caused by diabetes.
You could argue that public transport in US is abysmal compared to most other countries.... most of western Europe, Japan, Singapore, HK and even... China...yes China....
Lot of East European cities have quite neat public transport too. Design could be little different though instead of connecting city center to other districts it's more like everything to everything.
Singapore's public transport is inexpensive and clean (though buses in the past were dirtier & less punctual, and many subway/metro station toilets are still pretty wet/musty). On the flip side most buses don't tell you where your next stop is (we're taking deliveries of such buses even in 2017) while some subway/metro interchange stations require significant detours (since their constituent train lines were planned separately and thus not so well intergrated). If you stay in a public housing neighbourhood (like ~85% of the population) there'll definitely be a bus service, but rail service may only come decades later (unless you take a connecting bus to another neighbourhood's station), probably as the government is concerned about white elephants
@Aura Tanishq also Indian I agree with what you said Public transort is absymal where I live most people are trying to own a car, since they believe car is a cool luxury to have or something some of them do not even have to go 12 minutes to get to their workplaces.
@@JeromeJiang000 Pay to who? Do u understand how NATO works? Even stupid Trump doesn't know. Member states are required to spend 2% of GDP on their own defenses as they see fit, NOT pay it to NATO. If they have to pay anything to NATO itself, it's extremely small amount of money. NATO has its own military budget worth €1.29 billion ($1.4 billion), which is used to fund some operations and the NATO strategic command center, as well as training and research. But it is miniscule compared to overall spending on defense by NATO countries, which NATO estimates will total more than $921 billion in 2017.
@@JeromeJiang000 You clearly don't know what you are talking about. America doesn't give their over $700 billion "to" NATO. It's an obscene amount that not even China are close to. And at the expense of important things like education.
I just came back from Japan. I knew I was back home here in the Bay Area when our train was 30 minutes behind Schedule as expected lol. Not to mention how dirty it was and the unhappy train operator.
I C IKR the only place where public transport is good is sf. San Jose is decent but Sf was there before the car. Also how many times have I watched this video (prolly like 10 since it came out)
Laura Brooks look that is unique to US. I’m in Vancouver Canada, and we have a fentanyl problem just like US. Yet we never have a drug ptoblem on transit. If anybody do anything like that, they will be arrested and sent to jail
It really is awful the way society is built around cars in the US considering how expensive they are to purchase and maintain. My family has always lived paycheck to paycheck and the neighborhood we live in had a lot of theft, when our car got stolen we literally didn't know what to do. My dad's disabled, my mom is breadwinner and losing the car meant losing the ability to commute to work. We barely have any bus-lines and it's a dangerous city to travel alone especially at night, women are stalked and assaulted all the time, the buses themselves are notorious. But of course the cheapest decent cars are still thousands of dollars and we literally can't afford that because we're already barely staying afloat. Using a lyft or uber everyday would dig into the paycheck more than we could afford and still pay bills. It's sad how a car could take down the entire families income because there's no safe alternative. In the end we just got lucky that a relative had a salvaged car that he was ready to lend us, if it wasn't for that I'm not sure how much debt we would have gotten into just trying to get a car. What's sad is that I actually live in a very wealthy city (we bought property before the value rose exponentially), and the crime is terrible, there's no public transportation and employment is impossible without a prestigious degree. You realize how society really is designed to keep the poor as poor and make the rich richer. I worked my ass off to get into a good college and I devote everything into trying to get a good job to support my family, but there's so many ways that I just got lucky, and so many ways I could have been unlucky and been stuck forever in the loop of poverty. I wish we spent less time talking about fluffy philosophical concepts like "personal freedom and individualism" and spent more time thinking about REAL issues that actual affect everyday people like public transportation, medical care costs and student debt. Things that would ACTUALLY improve the lives of people instead of symbolic rights like owning a car so you have the freedom to drive aimlessly somewhere as if poor people have the time or gas money to drive wherever they want. Anyway, done with my rant in the comments section where no one will read haha
I read that I am sorry you’re living like that. America is not the place to be for the less wealthy. Pray the circumstances of your family improve soon.
Meanwhile I'm sitting here in Germany, not only having good access to public transportation, but as a university student, I can use public transportation throughout the entire state. And that's included in a 350-ish dollar semester fee. Thanks for making me appreciate my country's education and transportation system again.
To a degree, yes. But I'd say the number of people in need of transport matters as well. And Germany has more than a quarter of the US population. And the higher the number of commuters, the less the distances factor in.
We can dream of that, but it will never happen. We are slaves to the corporations. Ronald Regan said, "crumbs will fall from the table", and we the people must lick them up and be grateful. It's the Republican Way.
I paid more than $350 a semester for college. Oh, but I also didn't have to get approval from anyone to take what I did. Sometimes just opening a wallet has perks.
06:45 Living in Boston I can tell you the transit system is decrepit, breaks down almost daily, is extremely expensive, shuts off at midnight, and basically doesn't run in rain, snow, extreme cold, or high heat (the last bit often causes the A/C to go out on trains, making them a near health hazard to enter). People here are turning to scooters (micro mobility) and electric skateboards because of the lousy transit system. Public transit is great, but not without continuous upkeep and proper sustainable management.
@@ercushkakulmetov7458 and that is why taxes and government subsidies are a thing. It's the same with airline companies if you ask me. Really unprofitable for the ones running it but it sure benefits everyone else.
@@madensmith7014 In a low density US cities where everything is miles and miles apart it would actually be cheaper for the gov to give poor people cars and provide car repairs and insurance than to have rail systems and public transport everywhere. Besides most jobs in US require a poor person to own a vehicle even for a low wage job. In the end taxes and subsidies should be used in wisest way possible.
@@ercushkakulmetov7458 You mean free cars for poor people or do they have to pay it back like a loan? Low density is really a good way to describe the US but that's not the whole picture isn't it? Some states and cities are high density population (Like NYC area) and that's where more low to middle income workers are at. Adding more cars to the equation would be really counter intuitive as it adds to traffic, pollution and parking issues. Sure it gives everyone a means of transportation, but it makes more problems for what its worth. (Not to mention mass produced cars for the poor would be very low quality and if any attempt to improve that would lead to higher taxes which is just the same for implementing public transport. Add to the fact that subsidizing airlines will not disappear since traveling a couple of hours from LA to NYC is better than a weeks drive to the same locations) I'm not saying that cars is not a good thing for the US, the US is a huge country with lots of space so cars are more efficient in those places especially in the countryside.
We are now considered a third world country, but we don't like to admit it. Anyone who travels overseas can see how backward the US is. Everything is crumbling, cities, towns, bridges, so called highways, roads, electrical systems. in fact EVERYTHING is now decades out of date, backward, low tech, and non-existent we need to wake up FAST., and this guy actually said 'magnificent highways'. Where the f*** are they ? We don't compare wIith any advanced country, we are trailing in EVERYTHING. Go to China and see what we could be, but aren't. WAKE THE F*** UP AMERICA.
Other countries can not really afford the extremely high amount of money they dump in to infrastructure. The U.S. needs LESS infrastructure than it has, what would be left would be in better shape if it was maintained with direct user fees, and usage behaviors would naturally centralize in to more efficient ones.
A part of me fears that this is on purpose as a strong transportation system is one of the essentials to make social upwards mobiloty possibme in the first place
in general, having poor people get out of poverty increases economic activity, which is generally good for everyone. Plus helping the poor makes politicians look good. I dont really see any direct benefit for a politician to keep people poor. There would have to be special circumstances
Another issue facing the improvement of public transportation in US cities is poor management of the projects. Mismanagement that results in huge cost overruns, and poor service when finished. Tuscon AZ for example, has put in a streetcar system a few years ago, but it only runs between the university and part of downtown, it doesn't serve very much in the way of residents beyond college students, and serves none of the poorer population on the South Side, or work areas where they could get work at. This is also symptomatic of greater overall inefficiency and mismanagement by the people running Tuscon, with horribly run road construction/repair projects all over the place.
Hell....even though we have buses and light rails in Phx (Valley Metro) it's still pretty bad....the buses are highly unreliable- I don't mean being late because of traffic, I mean outright not showing up before the next scheduled bus 30-60 min later sometimes. Yes we have public transport, but it's still damn near impossible to get around without a car- the farther outside phoenix you go, the harder it gets to get around with public transport. I lived a bit east of phx ~7 yrs ago, and while they had a light rail set up, it was very limited (ASU campus to downtown Phx) I moved away for ~6 years and came back last april....and they still haven't figured things out in that time- only slightly expanded the light rail and got newer buses that are still just as unreliable. -And don't even get me started on the people -*-riding-*- the buses....-
Kevin Norris LOL. Another Tucsonan! I live in South East side in Rita Ranch. I have the 450 Sun Shuttle near me but it runs every hour and a half. Jobs in town are pretty much out of the question, especially retail jobs. I was lucky to get a job within walking distance.
I like the sun link, even tho it's mostly never on time and the time between rides really varies how heavy or light the traffic is. But I feel like a lot of public policy that this town makes is prioritized to university students.
Kevin Norris True, because of mismanagement the 2nd Ave line was delayed 1 year and 2 months and cost up to 4.5 billion dollars to finished the first phase and there's 3 more to go. Also the 34th Hudson yards was set back 2years and Fulton street complex was set back 1 year and 7months because of mismanagement and lack of common sense. The New York MTA ignored the warnings a possible major storm that could flood the system 6 years before Hurricane Sandy.
man muss es natürlich auch immer im Kontext sehen, wer hier richtig im Dörfchen auf dem Land lebt hat nach wie vor die A-Karte gezogen wenn es um gute öffentliche Anbindung geht.
I lived in Göttingen, NDR. It has a bus system with only 13 bus lines and a frequency of every 30 minutes. But the train system is amazing. I can get around the whole city with bike; thus I never need to drive somewhere, even with business trips to other cities. Some days I have to travel to Hannover, I even brought my bike with me and put it on the train, just so comfortable till I move to Canada
Actually, there are some things in this video that are backwards. In the 1950s, housing was engineered (through home loans) to cause the white flight to suburban areas which had NO public transit infrastructure. As a result, people had to buy a car to get to & from work. There are plenty of other things in this video that are backwards.
@@ovencake523 Yes, but they were designed for cars largely in service of the goal of segregation, which this video (and others) doesn't mention. Why did these new suburbs lack public transportation? Because the middle-class white people moving to them didn't want poor blacks and other urban minorities to be able to access their picket-fenced suburban paradises, supposedly to commit robbery, rape, and other crimes. Same with the construction of the urban Interstate freeways -- in addition to razing non-white communities in their path, they were also built to create separation between white and non-white areas. That's what a lot of urbanists miss -- they think the US was merely bamboozled and victimized by the propaganda campaigns and Judge-Doom-esque anti-transit villainy of the automobile industry, and that if we just invested enough in good transit infrastructure, things would be different. But the roots of our public transit problems run deep, all the way to the nation's Original Sin of slavery. An experience that countries in Europe and elsewhere didn't have, which explains their diverging outcomes and better transit systems.
I live in the UK and there are like over 5 public buses which I can use to get to school every morning and the bus stop is just down my road. I also love the trains, you can go from London (where I live) or even any other train station in any other city to almost anywhere cross the country. Unfortunately seems like that isn’t the case in the US…
I moved to Central Massachusetts about 2 years ago and their public transportation sucks. It is almost non-existent. Maybe it is good in the heart of Boston, but the rest of the state...we are practically stranded.
BadgerCheese...what are you talking about? What is your definition "urbanized"? Worcester, MA (the center of the state) has a comparable population to Syracuse NY, Durham, NC, Richmond Va, and TUCSON AZ. (for example) and those areas have MUCH better public transportation that Massachusetts. Have you ever been to Tucson. There is NOTHING there! In addition, Worcester is surrounding by great colleges. You would think that the state would have a system in place to actually get to them! I personally, have never lived in an area with worse public transportation. It is literally easier, faster, and CHEAPER for me to drive to Boston than to take any form of public transportation...which is missing the whole point.
The commuter rail does go to Worcester from Boston and there are buses in the city. Worcester can not afford a subway or street cars. That city is broke. It also has a much lower standard of living than most of the state, and those other cities. Also most of the state is pretty urbanized except the far western part on the New York border and around Quabbin
I live in suburbs outside of Worcester and I think we might have 1 bus that goes to White City twice a day. As far as I know, there is no way to get to the mall or any kind of attractions. If we want to take the train to Boston, we still have to drive and park in Grafton. I am taking classes at QCC (both main campus and downtown) and I have to drive. And the kids around here...if they do not have a car, they have nothing to do. And to make matters worse, you have to pay around $650 to get your driver's license if you are under 18. If you do not have the money, you're basically screwed until you're 18. I don't know, maybe it is just my town and the transportation is better in other areas of the county.
Steetcars, or trams, are amazing in Warsaw, Poland. A few years ago they started replacing old trams with brand spanking news ones (made in Poland :), and now 99% are great. It's quite satisfying to speed past rush hour traffic, even in a crowded tram. And unlike New York bus seats, Warsaw bus/tram seats don't feel like the designers wanted to take revenge on your back...
Similar improvements are also slowly being made to the Upper Silesian tram network as well. I lived in Bytom for 12 years before moving to the UK, but I still follow their local news. I remember how shocking the state of the trams was all those years ago - the track quality was tragic, they still used 50-year-old trams, journeys were slow and many routes were under serious threats of closure (a few short stretches did close down, most recently in 2013). Now they are finally starting to invest in infrastructure improvements and brand-new trams, in Katowice they closed a few roads to make way for the trams (and also encourage the public onto the trams as well), and some new routes are currently being built, planned or proposed. It's great to see a metropolitan area like this, blemished by hideous old coalmines, finally being brought back to life!
@@ronclark9724 ... Poland is like half the size of texas. Of course there's only one really big city. The US has multiple cities the size/population of Warsaw. Honestly, in some places... the US sort of feels stuck in the past. In the last 10 years, Poland has changed enormously (for the better).
@@Olivia-W Texas may look large but its not even ten percent of the land mass of USA. Texas is 268 thousand square miles, the USA is 3.5 million square miles. Please don't pretend that even big Texas dominates the USA. It doesn't... If Texas did, Amtrak would provide better than 3 times a week service in both directions from Houston with the Sunset Limited. Houston one of the largest metro cities in the USA doesn't even have daily Amtrak service...
@@ronclark9724 Uh... that's what I'm trying to say- Poland is small compared to the US, and only has one very big city, and that's why it gets most of the media focus. I could have compared it to any other state...
As I live in a medieval old town of a big city in Europe and I would never imagine that there is something like zoning - here I can walk to offices, shopping malls, market squares, grocerys... anything I need. Everything is mixed. Poor US.
I am from Europe but in US its all about money , and so cities were built to make money and force people to buy more cars, more gasoline, buy full trunk of food in markets since nobody want to drive every few hours to distant store, there would not be shitload of cars if people had in walking distance or 5-10 min metro/rail ride all they need, like its case with all big cities here in Europe. With those endless suburban residential areas in US it is impossible now to implement some public transportation other than buses.
Yeah, zoning sucks. It makes people live away from their businesses so there is little security at night. This gives cause for security lights, and now all cities are aglow all night and no one can see a star.
funny that i have driving anxiety which has led me to go without a license for 8 years after developing panic attacks. yet i was born in a country that has one of the best public transportation systems in the world (korea). its one reason i had to move to the city from the suburb. in high school, i felt so ashamed that i had to take the bus up until senior year. would be really great if i wasnt constantly burdened by this issue in my life. like yeah, i could "fix" my anxiety. more likely, ill probably move to asia instead where i have more choices. one thing i hate is going to the dmv where all the workers always look done with their lives and fed up with humanity. if i wasnt forced into my car with them, passing might be a lot easier.
When I stayed over at my american relatives‘ place in California, they were dumbfounded that I (a european) wanted to try out what little of public transpo L.A. offered. They were dumbfounded of course but still let me. After my day tour, they mentioned how riding public transpo in the their state is generally stigmatized and serves to signal others that you‘re either crazy or poor. Sigh.
same with me! they don't even know how to work the sub! neither the bus system :-P and I as a Mexican I found it very well!! Xd and the californians were so kind with me too
Since i do not have a license, i had to use public transport, or Uber, when i was in L.A. I can attest, it is an aggregate of poverty and mental illness for the most part.
It's crazy, I live in Budapest and none of my friends my age drive anymore. Even the wealthy programmers I work with all prefer public transport or biking.
that's because crazy or poor people only do use the train, not even a stereotype.
The Italian branch of my family has worked in the train system since WW2 and it’s kinda dumbfounding that that is the the case in America, as in Milan the train system is a prestigious, both National, civil and familial. The idea that the US stigmatises both the usage and maintenance of trains blows my mind.
I live in Los Angeles, and the first question i got asked in a job interview was "Do you have a car to commute to work?"
Every job application I've filled out has asked the same thing
@Fniux i am also from Germany and live in a big City (580.000). The public transportion is very good good but at night there is nothing driving
Most people here in Germany actually take the bus or the tram to work since its more widely avaible, cheaper and more eco friendly. You are also encouraged by the government to use those more eco friendly options. Thats why some tram lines are free
Tbh that's one of the dumbest questions I also often get in job interviews. Like why the hell would I even apply for a job If I wasn't able to get there?
I also live in LA and I've gotten that annoying question as well.
"Access to transportation is the single most important factor in the individual's ability to escape poverty"
I live 10 minutes walk from a train station in Sydney, Aus. I have used it since 2007 to get to high school, to get to the two universities i studied at, to travel to the two jobs i've had. I have possibly taken up to ten thousand trips on the train in my entire life and thanks to it, I went from having nothing to eat at lunch every day at school, to a comfortable full time job.
A car in the US can cost less than $500. There’s really no excuse. We also HATE public anything in the US. Cause most of it is in the way.
@@sharkboi6164 You're right about that, but it won't be a working car!
@@cobithedoggaming2119 Only if you don't know how to fix it
@@sharkboi6164 Any car under $500 (or what's left of it) would need extensive repairs. Regardless of whether or not you do it yourself, the parts alone will cost thousands of dollars.
CobiTheDog Gaming I buy and sell used cars for a living, you’ll just need to check the break lines and all that, if they’re intact the car will get you to point A and point B, after general maintenance. You’re actually more likely to suffer a breakdown from a new, California compliant, 40k new car, and Teslas explode.
"Owning a car = freedom", it only is freedom as long as you can choose to own a car, when it becomes a requirement for the most basic things in life it turns into a burden.
Being able to reach your office fast via public transport and shop for groceries in walking distance, while using your car to go on a trip on a weekend = freedom.
Having to use your car every single day to get to ANYWHERE is not.
Congratulations you learn how is to live in a giant country with more than 400 millions people and still growing.
@@thormenucci hey kid, do some basic fucking research. 328.2 million people live in the United States. China has almost 4 times that amount of people, and they have both a larger interstate system than us, and a far more advanced train system. Accept that we need better transport infrastructure
@@Sparkiebc wait are you really comparing a dictatorship country with US ? you know that a lot of slave workers were used to do china construction jobs in the past few decades not counting the absurd amount of money the china use to construct train lines that go to nowhere.
@@Sparkiebc I will say this in my state (pa) most of the place is suburbs/farms spanning miles to get anywhere. Public transportation is really only used in the city of my state because it’s just not worth it unless your taking a bus to the city
@@thormenucci FUXKING U.S.A. THE COUNTRY OF THE FREE & DEMOCRACY FUXK YEAH WE RULE 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷
I live in Switzerland and when I visited the US I was shocked how hard it was to go anywhere with out a car. I do everything with my bike or with public transport.
I regularly commute from one city to an other. (About 70 miles) it takes me about 1.15h from door to door. I grew up using public transportation. I was using it by self and alone when I was 7 or 8. And no my parents aren’t irresponsible. Public transport in Switzerland is safe.
Lea Dimsch
The Swiss are supposed to be neutral
In usa the bus is for drug addicts and very poor people
Ercushka Kulmetov
But that’s where I met your mom
It also doesnt help that a lot of Americans hate bikers, as in bicycle riders. Its also usually a pretty far walk to the bus stop.
The Swiss Public transport system dos allmost serve every small village, that means you can travel every place without a car or bike.
and then you have the Japanese rail system, that posts federal apologies for a single train that showed up 6 seconds late
People can't even have enough patience for 6 seconds? That sounds horrible
Hoàng Túy Trần Linh japan has a culture of perfection
Japan isn't a Federation
federal? Japan doesn't have a federal government...
@@tranlinhkts 6 seconds add up actually, and there are strict timetables that people are used to. Plus, the train operators have a strict education of being on time sometimes are observed by a train master with tests like Gauging how fast the train is going or Get from X to Y in 1 Minute 45 seconds.
When Boston's, NYC's and DC's public transit are considered "Good" by American standards, that's says alot about how low those standards are 😬
Good does exist. There's no need for the scare quotes.
1 of my countrymen was convincing us to be grateful for our subway/metro in my city by showing a photo of NYC Subway's W4 station & claiming he has heard no 1 complain about NYC's subway
new york's subway/bus are gross but to give them credit you can get just about anywhere in the city on em (aside from staten island lol)
Boston's Metro is not bad
@@EuropeanQoheleth C O P E
I live in the Netherlands, most of my friends are in their late 20's and almost no one owns a car. And no one is ever thinking about buying one. It's just not a thing you need.
That means only those who need one or truly passionate about cars would get a car.
That’s true, the only thing is that your parents can get mad if you don’t get your driver’s license
Now let's step outside of Indiana's and Scotland's borders. What do you see?
@@jdog22c34 I see lots of high-speed rails conecting every city
I'm 20 and live in London, only one of my friends can drive.
As a British person I was wondering wtf a streetcar was throughout the whole video so I searched it up at the end and found out that it was just a tram 🤦♂️
Same here mate... it is tram not streetcar... hahahah 😂
It's also a streetcar, also a "trolley." Streetcar is pretty descriptive though, so if you didn't get it immediately, sounds like it's because you're stupid :^)
@@RickJaeger A car mostly rides on streets (or roads) so the word "streetcar" doesn't describe the specific thing we call a tramway. Like many people call a telepheric by the same name as a cable car (San Francisco, for example, does have cable cars). If everybody called things by their actual names, there wouldn't be confusion.
@@korelly I'll take Things That Are A Joke for $500, Alex
Definitely thought streetcar was just a pretentious name for a car. Kind of like you hear people say "town car".
You realize how bad the situation is when your car breaks down
So true. When your car breaks down and you don't have the money to have it repaired, you're screwed.
@@nativetexanful No you're not. You use uber/lift or just buses which is good enough.
@@andreiplane8380 What if there are no buses that go to where you work. Taking an uber everyday would cost a fortune.
@@andreiplane8380 I see someone here is rich. Because Jesus, Uber? every day? at that price I might as well go to the pawn shop and see if they take pets and organs.
@@andreiplane8380 you sound like a person that doesn't use public transportation, I went to US and you can't always find buses and metro anywhere unlike Europe and London. Uber and Lyft are all expensive, just less expensive than taxis that likes to scam but still expensive and can't be used everyday
I would take the bus or train, if there WERE SOME
El LaPoint not in my town, no bus routes either
Same, my city (Montreal, Canada) has a decent public transport system, but to travel between cities, there aren't many options except driving
@El LaPoint No they aren't. There hasn't been a Greyhound bus in my hometown a hour from Fort Worth for two decades. There has never been a Amtrak train serving my hometown. Greyhound has been slowly shutting down rural stops in their efforts to serve large cities non stop with express routes instead of local routes. Greyhound no longer serves western Canadian cities such as Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Regina... Any city west of Sudbury is no longer served by Greyhound (except for Vancouver with Greyhound service to Seattle). Calgary is not served by Via...
@El LaPoint Hahahaha, 'Amtrak is basically everywhere'... It runs totally at some 25,000 miles/40,000 kms in the US, a country that covers some 8 million square kms/ 3.2 million square miles without Alaska. (There is no Amtrak in Alaska).
@@EdPMur well do you know about CRT Lanaudière? They operate 10 bus route in lanaudière including one that does Joliette/Montréal in 1 hour, 10 times a day
Funnily enough I think the whole "personal freedom" thing is starting to work against cars now. With the rise of smart phones, people now pretty much always have something they'd rather be doing than driving. Certainly I know I'd rather be doing stuff on my phone during my commute than having to pay attention to the road. That's probably why we're finally starting to see people push for better public transportation in the US.
Not to mention having to go back to the same place where you parked the car is a pain in the ass.
@@Turtle1631991 I agree, like imagine in the future ( I live in an city where this isn’t possible) going to a park walking 2km to the end and NOT having to walk all the way back to your car and just take the bus back home lol I can dream. Kind of weird how everyone around me has folding and new tech phones yet they all drive shit cars on roads that used to have trams/light rail lol
I think that's part of it. People aren't making as much money as they used to, so car ownership isn't assumed as much anymore.
Ride sharing apps make car ownership less of a requirement.
Bikes are starting to have their time in the sun.
Gas prices are making car ownership a nightmare as is traffic congestion.
Lots of factors are pushing Americans to public transportation and bikes. Perhaps sometimes soon and maybe even in my lifetime, the USA will have good public transportation.
Don’t visit NYC. You’ll get your phone stolen on the Subway, since you’re not paying attention.
@@downsjmmyjones101 "Bikes are starting to have their time in the sun."
I find this sentence hillarious and bizarre because I've been riding a bicycle since the age of three. (I'm Belgian)
In Japan if the train runs late, they officially apologize and try to fix it in the future
In America, if the bus runs late, they say "Welp, S.O.L! Shouldn't've been poor!"
you will never be japanese.
@@deprogramm Well don't want to be the judicial system, and corruption, plust the whole depression, and suicide thing there. And it's hard to get in, and only people consuming japanesse media, or travel people wanting to relax in a cliché beautiful country would go there. It's pretty nice country though I believe it's easier to get a European passport than a japanesse one. Plus I was told that the Engligh competency is bad there you may need to learn japanesse to hold a conversation there. Just go to any Nordic country also beautiful just easier to get a passport especially if you're an immigrant. I'm not shitting on Japan it's just hard to live there due to constraints with passports, and cause people who want to live there are usually weeaboos or people who don't know anything. Or just rich people wanting to flex their money,
@@ipadair7345 Or "woke" diaspora East Asians who want to help reverse population decline in Japan, and East Asia in general.
Yes, such people do exist.
@@RS-yn4ov If it's being used, it's correct enough. Language is a means to communicate and grammar rules just describe it. In spoken English such contractions happen automatically, so I think it's fair to spell it that way.
@@deprogramm That doesn't really seem related to anything they said at all
"Access to transportation is the single most important factor in the individual's ability to escape poverty" -- Great statement i learnt
Eh, that's intellect and conscientiousness. In the digital age especially, transportation isn't needed to grapple on opportunities.
Yeap.. But he forgot to say that homes closer to the public transportation are more expensive. And the end, nothing changes for the poor
@@KevinJohnson-cv2no that is if you want in an industry that can telework. can you imagine an civil engineer that can inspect a building without going on site? Or a surgeon that can tele operate on you. Technology is a lot of things but there are a lot of careers that cannot be don't remotely for the foreseeable future. also in US, there are still people who has zero high speed internet (25 mb/s). how can they even get more opportunities?
Xaxa xa San Francisco gives out free transit passes to the poor yet very few escape poverty.
@@KrashPad sf is a place where the poor can't even get a roof on their head. the working poor in sf have to work to at least survive on the street. Escaping poverty is a pipe dream for the poor in sf.
I'm 20 and can't yet buy myself a car.
I'm really blessed to live in Europe where I never really needed one.
23 here. I have a physical disability which makes it unlikely that I will ever get a car. Thank the havens for Västtrafik (My regions public transport organization.).
P.S. If I lived with my disability in The US then I would most likely be a homeless junkie or dead. But here I am in Sweden with 12'400 sek ≈ 1'300 eur, an apartment, a public transport card, a place for disabled people to go to financed by the government, and 30+ restaurants to go to if I want to have a cooked meal (My disability effects my hands so I have trouble cooking and writing.).
@@thebronywiking
Hehe, we're in a similar situation though I actually live in the USA. I have a disability that messes with spatial recognition so operating a car is out of the question. I'm fortunate enough to live with family right now, however the problem is still there. I can't drive and the public transportation where I live might as well not exist, so if I want to go somewhere it depends on if someone feels like driving or not, and since it's usually not I'm stuck at home 90% of the time and I confess I go a little stir crazy. There WAS a grocery story a fairly short walk from my house but it closed years ago. And there is at least once restaurant and a few convenience stores in walking distance but it's still a good distance away, and with no sidewalks or bike paths it's kind of dangerous. Anything else I'd want to do would require a car to get to, so with no public transit in a roundabout way I'm being told I'm not meant to be part of the community nor is my money good anywhere.
@@kurisu7885 I can understand that it's rough. I've just started studying again so I take the tram for 20 min to get to my school. I live in a 7 floor apartment block on a square and the closet restaurant is just 4 meters from my gate (10 when they put out the summer furniture.), the closet store with food and basic products is 50 meters, and a 24/7 open 7-Eleven is 400 meters away. Though with city living you have to exept that there isn't something like quiet, be it the neighbors, the drunks, the cars, or the trams.
One thing that shouldn't be happening though is that a few weeks ago the restaurant I just mentioned was attacked by someone with a hand granade at 2 am, though this is more of a testiment of the failed immigration policy of Sweden then anything else.
On a more fun note. My city has the highest number of restaurants per capita of any north european city, higher then London, Amsterdam, Berlin, or Copenhagen.
@@thebronywiking
Well currently I'm looking into getting a motor trike so I can get around a bit more on my own, so until the public transit situation in my are improves, if it ever does, it'll simply be another option.
one of the biggest mistakes i made when i travelled to the US was not realising how car-reliant their society is. i wasn't old enough to rent a car, so i could barely visit anywhere cos I had to rely on either walking or the only bus route in the entire town that ran every hour or so, only from 9-4pm. i was completely shocked.
You went to the US as a tourist while under 18 by yourself? Where were your parents?
@@AG-yc7vt I was 19.
But relax, a lot of teenagers travel without their parents.
@@AG-yc7vt A lot of people under 18 travel alone.
@@ankanspelar1508 As a tourist??
@@entertain7us148 exactly thier parents might be dead or in jail. It's not like they're 3 years old
When anyone not from Scotland talks about Scotland (and is being nice) it warms my soul
I know how you feel, I live in Bangor Maine!
Think Sam has studied or lived in Edinburgh in the past
Shrek
Well you have public transportation
Let's be honest, our country does kinda slap tho
Car: personal freedom.
Freedom to be stuck in traffic jams for hours! :)))
*Laughs in rural community*
-heydun - rural community is slowly dying. There are fewer infastructure near them. A lot of small hospitals closed. And more than a few places don’t event have true broadband internet. Yes, there are farming jobs and that is it.
I'm from Indiana you rarely get in traffic jams here
ilghiz when everything is laid out for the car, it takes away the freedom of using alternative ways to get around
how ironic :)
Jason Lane Designing cities for cars automatically makes it harder to travel by foot, cycle and public transport is what I mean. The USA for example loves their cars and has terrible public transport (in many cities non-existant even), isnt really walkable and is dangerous as hell to cycle through
I am always astonished to see cities or states ranked for retirement based on lower taxes; they should really be ranked based on public transportations. Do you really expect people in their 70s and 80s to drive? My dad is over 90 and retired in Kansas, yet he is forced to drive.
This is a recipe for disaster. I recall my father being unable to drive at age 77 due to vascular dementia and he had to surrender his licence and give up driving. Ireland has made great strides in reducing young driver fatalities due to high speed reckless driving and drunk driving. The tragedy is that many remaining fatalities are caused by seniors driving the wrong way on motorways ( new to Ireland, and many drivers have not learned the rules applying to them), also new road layouts confuse many older drivers and can lead to accidents.
Doctors are very reluctant to remove driving licences and it is a very sensitive and touchy subject in the realm of road safety but is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore as other causes of road fatalities are tackled and squeezed out.
If they stopped with the American diet, they'd be driving right up until the day they died. Like your dad, who has a choice where he retires. (KS is not one of the btr tax states for retirement either, so that part is confusing.)
@@jgdooley2003 show your work. Of course police are gonna say they make a difference. Wouldn't you at work?
80 years olds walking to their nearest bus stop doesn't work either. Most cities have separate paratransit systems for these cases.
@@jgdooley2003 They really need a mandatory maximum age. If they can do a minumum they can do a max. I mean would it suck for the few old people who actually can drive safely? Sure, but then the minimum age sucks for the few kids who could drive safely too. I'd honestly much rather a 12 year old be driving than anyone over about 70
"Cars are about freedom, they let you go where you want when you want!"
Yeah but...so do good public transit systems. That's the whole point.
Homeless and criminals have entered the chat.
Well when your cities expand 3-4x the size they are now(land area) and are way more spread out with strict Euclidean zoning, public transit then becomes increasingly harder to implement in such low densities.
Public transportation isn't quite as flexible as a car. For example, I needed to run to the store today for toilet paper, lol. I live in Alabama and it was nearly 90 degrees outside. We do have a decent bus system here, but the nearest bus station is a mile or more in the opposite direction of the store I wanted to go to. The drive to the store is only about five minutes. Why not walk it? Lack of sidewalks and again, the sweltering heat. The five minute drive at 40MPH would take 25-30 minutes walking. I could maybe bike and I'd certainly consider that (if there was a way to affix an umbrella on the bike, lol), but the lack of a sidewalk makes me wary of that, too. So, easiest, fastest way for me to get to that store was to drive.
While I would like to have more public transportation options, I still like having a car for when I need to quickly run to the store (say, I need something real quick to finish off dinner. A situation like that could also be resolved with having stores closer to residential areas, but that would begin to remove single-family homes and yards from the equation and I don't think I'd want that).
@@BewareTheLilyOfTheValley Did you not watch the video? The bus line sucks if it's that far.
@@dr.cheeze5382 I would still call it decent by American standards as many cities don't even have one. It'll work if you absolutely have nothing else but you're going to be doing a lot of walking to get to it and to your real destination.
You might have even called this video "A Desire Named Streetcars"
What a missed opportunity!
This title fits more with his vid
Holy crap, it's THE MinuteEarth! How has this not gotten more attention?
Heh, that play was also popping into my head throughout the video. Good punning.
I'm not sure what I'm more mad at: The pun or the fact that I didn't think of it.
I‘m from Germany and I‘m very glad that I can travel almost every where by bus and train!
Ja Die ICE Drei
Germany is very good with public transport
I'm from Belgium and I'm very glad I can choose between crappy public transit and crappy roads!
@@leonpaelinckyour roads are the worst in Western Europe
Even though I love my car, this video basically gets it right. Especially with more and more people living in cities, designing a society around cars makes no sense.
Except now America is re-ruralizing. All the jab and mask mandates made people hate cities again. There’s a reason the founding fathers hated cities and designed America to be an agrarian superpower.
exactly
As an 11 yr old in suburbia who wants and likes cars, I just don't wanna be forced to use them.
Nothing is wrong with owning a car, but it shouldn’t be peoples first option as transportation…
Cars are rad and cityoids aren’t people.
when you randomly start having seizures without health insurance and get fired from your job , you realize how important public transportation actually is
A nightmare. In some parts of rural Ireland the same applies, without a car you are effectively disabled and unemployable.
we dont do health insurance where public transportation is good.
@@jgdooley2003 But you can at least see a doctor about your seizures in Ireland.
It wasn't random, keep searching for answers, you'll get there. We put a man on the moon after all...
@@seanservo3105 putting a man on the moon dosnet relate to healthcare in any way.
When the U.S. electrified its horsecart rails, I’ll bet the horses were shocked 😳
Did they move shockingly fast?
I see what you did there...
get it? Shocked? LOL
Streetcar 2: Electric Boogaloo
boooooooooooooo
Canada also has this problem, and it stings even more given the fact part of Canada's foundation relied upon a trans-Canada railway linking BC to Nova Scotia. Now that line is an old, outdated, badly maintained dinosaur that only ships goods and materials, and derails often. Canada's geography is begging for a new, high tech passenger rail system to alleviate roads congested with cars and semis that often have tragic collisions on long stretches of highway.
Canadas speed limits seem painfully slow through the rural areas
Canada has even lower population density than the US. Canada is literally vast. It is almost the largest country on the planet. The only places where rail would be profitable would be in the GTA, Montreal, Calgary-Edmonton, and Vancouver.
If you want to travel from Cochrane to Toronto, about a 7 hour drive, you have to set aside up to 12 hours, as the Northlander has such low priority on the single track available. Canada's first and foremost problem is that it doesn't have passenger only tracks. sitting around twiddling one's thumbs while a load of dollar store items goes first, and the insanely high ticket prices, are more than enough to push every one to go to the airport.
@@davidshepherd397 exactly, I believe airline industry in Canada has a large part to play in lack of transnational passenger train system
@@hsun7997 Your point Canada is huge is meaningless. The vast majority of all Canadians live in a very small geographic Area.
In 2012 I was visiting US for some training for couple of week. My hotel was 200meter away from training center and I would walk that distance every morning and evening while returning. In those 2 weeks, I was stopped midway (multiple times) when people saw me on foot. Some asked if I was carjacked and needed help? Some wondered if I was an illegal migrant (since they are poor and can't afford car)? Some offered me lift for those 200m. No one believed when I said I "wanted" to walk.
Also americans have a "time is money" mentality. Walking, even 200 metres, would still take time." So, to americans, they would ask: why waste your time walking, when you can get to and from work faster by driving.
Taking Public transport is just as wasteful in time as you have to know and wait for the bus or train. You can never leave at your own time. That's why most americans would always opt for cars if they can afford to.
Virendra Pratap Singh that's nice of them to offer help though. Not gonna lie walkers are extremely sketchy most walkers are homeless or gang members in America
While visiting the us, we wanted to cross the street to get to the mall from the motel and everybody stared at us from their cars. I thought that was weird, the distance was a couple of hundred meters
Lucas Fernandez that’s most definitely not true? People walk all the time
I had the exact same experience though, in towns and outside city centers. Downtown Chicago noone bat an eyelid. Chicago South we were pretty much the only people on foot. Maybe four or five other people on a 1mi walk from the hotel to Obama's house.
NY we walked almost 200mi in one week according to one of my friend's fitness watch, along with millions of NYers and other tourists. Grand Rapids we were looked at as if we were exotic animals :D
My mental picture of the US has been shifted quite a bit by that visit. I now look at it as far more diverse than I did previously. Makes it easier than before to understand the big political divides in the US too.
Anything with the word "public" is shunned in the US, baffling how the country still lives its very own red scare to this day.
well, it is enough to change its name so: Capitalistic transportation or Militar transportation will be good. Or change cars in Communist transport.
@@jackmorass private capitalist transit is a thing in Asia.
@@duckmercy11 Also in Europe some public transit operated by private societies, including some High-Speed Trains, exists and often works quite good.
But I meant to change only the name, not how it works, it is easier and cheaper.
Except for roads and sewage systems. They insist those must all be publicly owned, even if it's financially unsustainable (thank you, Not Just Bikes).
@@safe-keeper1042 well, obviously. Big corporations would need those anyway, so it is better if you make the government pay for those
I'm genuinely worried about Wendover Productions. He hasn't talked about planes since his last video. I believe he's been kidnapped and forced against his will to upload this video.
He was probably threatened with a small child kicking the back of his seat if he didn't make this video.
Hahaha
Lol.
its funny what answer get hundreds of likes... i like studying the innerworkings of peoples minds, this intreagues me...
He didn't passed his Spanish lessons.
I've finally found someone (the maker of this video) who agrees with something I've thought for a long time: zoning laws in the US cause a city to be organized such that one always has to go a considerable distance to shop for groceries (and most other things, too), while in Europe the grocery store is more likely to be in the neighborhood a short walk away. Therefore, I've decided I'm NOT going to feel guilty about driving to go shopping--there really isn't much choice in most parts of the US.
TravisWeb Entertainment the idea that part of a city is for business and part is for residential is itself a very American concept. Most cities outside America have lots of mixed use developments, which also help allow for the smaller, neighborhood shops that are impossible to find in the US.
@@AlecSchwengler is not itself an American concept rather than an urbanism paradigm which was cemented by the Athens Charter signed by Le Corbusier among others modern architects in the 1930s
@@lmk10000 Interesting, I was not aware of that. It does seem that these ideas are most prevalent in post-war US cities rather than Europe or Asia where even newer cities tend to be fairly mixed use.
@@AlecSchwengler To be fair, in the US this ideas were more prevalent because, by the end of the WWII, the United States was super rich, and with the demographic boom, they need to build cities as fast as posible.
Also, many modern architects from Europe, especifically from Germany, went to the States to escape the war and the post-war economic crisis.
So the USA had the perfect conditions for these theories to be applied. You can see this fenomena in many Latin American cities for the same reasons (and have the same problems of American cities but with worst infrastructure and more poverty).
@@UltimaOmega Sure, but a lot of why the business areas of town isn't somewhere you would want to live has to do with the zoning separation. Business districts are uncomfortable places to be outside business hours because it becomes a ghost town. Mixed-use zoning makes areas with commercial zones far more pleasant.
Cincinnati has a new street car line. The problem is that it is not reliable . It is closed for parades or other big events
Then that defeats the purpose!! 😵
It's only four years old. You have to give it time to expand.
Bruh
@@RaymondHng yeah that what the government says just like baltimore they beem talking about expanding their mta network for year the most recent one was about 13 years ago they were going to expand the light rail and add in three new lines and what they do the dont do that change the bus routes and raise the rates and give shitter service it kinda sad that there is a free bus that travel the downtown area that like 10 time better then mta that make u pay and covers about 60% of Baltimore
I can't remember who told the story, but someone was actually stopped by a police officer in the US because he was _walking_ to the shops!
Can relate. I used to take the city bus and walk to my job (and everywhere else) until I had to switch to a job that mandated driving a personal vehicle. I had been accosted multiple times during the walking portion of my commute by police, despite being in the population group (white, male) the least likely to be bothered by police. I wasn't trespassing or being loud and boisterous; I had my headphones on listening to an audiobook while walking down a sidewalk.
I even remember being accused of being "up to something" because I "didn't look poor".
@@ShroudedWolf51 That's crazy lol
@@ShroudedWolf51
If you were close to black neighbourhoods, you would have fit the profile of a seller and/or buyer of elicit goods like narcotics, unregistered firearms, and similar.
But black guy walking towards a black neighbourhood = probably just poor, ngaf.
@@ShroudedWolf51 were you in a neighborhood that if you're white the only reason you would be here is to buy drugs?
Supposedly a true story: During the battle of the bulge, some French troops were guarding a crossroads. Some American troops came walking up and the French shot them. When asked why, they said "Obviously they were German spies - American troops dont walk, they ride in Jeeps"...
You completely failed to mention the interstate system. I would credit that just as much as the automobile for the death of public transit and the birth of sprawl. After the war US generals who were impressed with the autobahn lobbied for a national defense highway system to quickly move troops across the county. This new system that connected every city suddenly made building houses and communities many miles from the city center economically feasible.
Not to mentioned The Koch Brothers were also behind all this. In order to use the Interstate system, you obviously must have one thing... a car.
well we still have the Autobahn network in Germany, but that doesn't keep public transport from being successfull. It's basically the 1:1 equivalent to the US interstate system, as the Autobahn basically is an interstate system as well. But there's a great share of people choosing to ride the bus, train, subway and tram to get to work
While the Germans improve the Autobahn, so does their rail network. It is the latter the Americans left out.
You think a highway with 75mph speed limit is better than a 100mph or even 200mph railway track, in terms of personal mobility?
Please
@@EnjoyFirefighting I think where the US and Germany probably diverge is how land is utilized. Land is cheaper the further you get from the city center, and there are almost no limits on how much can be sold to developers to create subdivisions. I’m not entirely sure but I’d be willing to bet European countries have tighter rules when it comes to land use. If Germany built the way the United States has there would be no countryside, farmland or timberland. I’m sure easy financing plays into it too, in America if you can spell your name you can buy a home and car on very cheap credit.
the point about zoning is something never thought of; zoning can hurt poor people; so, great observation. Europe has lower wealth inequality and part of that is zoning.
Problem Solving at it's finest.
Zoning laws were literally used to segregate people so yeah
A lot of European cities were edtablished before zoning was even a thing, at least as we know it today.
do you want a train rail run right next to you house???? do you want a walmart right next door to where u live so u can have thousand of car and kids kids runnign by ur bedroom window int eh middle of the nite every nite??? zonning was suppose to keep residential area safe and peaceful and away form all the chaotic, noise and disruption activities of a commercial area. the drawback of this US zonning is that it make it so u need a car to get around.
yia01
That’s a good thing.
I care about efficiency. I care about saving as much time because those time would be spend very valuable so which transport (IN MY CASE) would save me so much time?
Work from 9 to 5, sleep for 9hrs, school for 6. Total: 23 hrs.
1 hour is not enough to work out in the gym which means it’s impossible to make time unless the day is 3 hours longer.
Imagine the day is 26 hours rather than 24? Those 2 extra hours can be great.
So I choose car. I’m all for trains as long as it spans from California to Florida. I’m all for trains if it spans from State to state (from Las Vegas to Cali)
I’m all for trains because I’m tired of 15 minute car drives.
I’m tired of 20 minute walks to school (especially when it’s fucking hot and it makes me sweat). And I hate bus entirely because I don’t know the damn routes.
I never do bike because where I live, it gets stolen and regardless if you place a tracker, they are smart to remove it
I like cars as a hobby/interest, but we really need to stop relying on them.
In a country the size of the US? Silly.
@@jdog22c34 you're right! Cars are so silly. A proper train system like here in europe whoud do wonders
I'll stay in my car thank you. Safer to keep my gun in my glove box than my hand tucked into my bomber jacket while on a bus 😂😂💀
@@vlonen8926 murica
@@vlonen8926 don't end up like cheddar bob
Our cities weren’t built for the car…they were blown up and completely rebuilt for the car.
@@theventman9227 Well more like they were demolished for the car and are continuing to be demolished for the car but tomato tomahto
Sounds more like the eastern US
In addition, they were used as an excuse to segregate blacks from white wealthy neighborhoods. Follow the money...
@@Ultraempoleon nah it happened all over.
LA for example was built around the street car. The red and orange cars of pacific something something i forgot the company's name were icons of the city
"They weren't built for the car, they were bulldozed for the car. It didn't have to be this way"
-Not Just Bikes
I've watched this video three times now and I think you leave out a critical aspect of why Public Transit sucks in America: NIMBY (Not in my back yard). I grew up in Atlanta where MARTA (Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority) has a fairly good system. However, every time they try to improve it, they immediately get met with lawsuits, protests, and resistance from communities. Same thing in Boston. When I was in Grad school they were trying to improve the subway there and kept running up against communities not wanting an expansion. It is also interesting that when they do surveys in places like LA, Atlanta, and Dallas about if Public Transit is a good idea they overwhelming say "yes". Then when they ask if they personally will use it, they overwhelmingly say no.
This is very true. Coming from Boston area. It's funny the polls show people want expanded MBTA services, but they don't want to pay for it or having it running through their neighborhood. People in suburban areas like the concept of public transportation but they don't want it in their town. Then there are all the environmental and engineering studies that need to be addressed before any work is done, which adds significant cost and time to a project. Boston actually cancelled many aspects of the Green line expansion because of Billions in cost overruns and complaints from people living near the construction sites.
People like to make political statements. It's like a fucking religion. That's why this country doesn't get ahead anymore. In Asian countries, they build shit all over the place and people learn to live with it. It's part of city living. Don't like it? FUCK OFF IN THE STICKS.
in Asian countries? or just China. i only know that China is the one that builds a lot of useless cities because they have the space
Too many Republicans unwilling to improve society
Except...those places I named (Boston, Dallas, Atlanta, Los Angeles) are all run by Democrats. It is less about specific political parties and more about local resistance to change. It was explained to me by a commuting buddy (we sat next to each other on the train each day) like this: "If the subway opens a stop in our town, rent goes up, crime goes up, and those people in the city have a one stop ride to our neighborhoods; we're not interested!"
In the UK, house prices go up whenever a railway gets a new or bigger station.
The same thing usually happens in the US, despite what the idiot NIMBYs say.
Whats funny is. People who then afford or is willing to buy a house, has a higher tier car so they use that. Also people think public transit is for poor people, but ive seen alot of doctors take the trains to the biggest hospital alongside crackheads.
It kinda makes sense considering a lot of people would want to live near a station to avoid long walks. Demand for it simply increases, therefor prices go up, is a simple way to look at it.
That happens everywhere I would say.
@@tibbers3755 true that leads to anouther issue of in urban America parking is a problem even if you money and can afford a nice car. These lawyers are smart.. Why pay $40 to leave your car set empty in a parking garage downtown all day?
As a 19 year old in Germany
I don't have much reason to use a car other than for buying groceries or taking friends somewhere on a more private setting
The ammount of busses leaving in front of my house is ridiculous (up to 1 bus / 2 min)
Holy shit i can only dream that
We don't have as many buses here, but I also don't see the need to own a car. It takes me about an hour to commute to Munich's city centre (my town is about 80 km south of Munich). Trains go every hour (and maybe even every 30 minutes a few years from now).
God damn, i have 1 bus/30 min. I mean, big city bus. We have a fewer of little little mini-buses like mercedes sprinter instead of normal public transportation system.
1 bus pro 2 Minuten? Wo wohnst du denn
@@2Kaleb in der Nähe von Düsseldorf
I admire places where cars aren't anywhere near the main mode of transportation. Where learning how to drive and getting a car isn't an essential requirement for living.
So most of the developed countries
@@moon-uh5kd Except the US lol
One thing I'd like to add: many cities in Europe actually were about to copy what cities in the US did during the 70s, like getting rid of trams and neighbourhoods in favour of highways. But to my knowledge they faced heavy resistance from the population and plans were dropped thankfully. I myself live in a city were you can still see some artefacts from that time, like ramps that go nowhere (because the highway was never built), or bridges that don't connect to anything. really fascinating stuff.
May I ask what city that is?
Yeah. No. The were cutting costs and leaving it up to people to make their own way. And it wasn't in the 1970's. There was an oil crisis don't you know? They had to build motorways because there were none in the first place. Even Germany's autobahns from the 1930's were of no use.
This was the case with Dublin and many other Irish cities in the 1970's when cars were prioritised over other forms of transport. by the mid 80's grassroots resistance to new highways and the increasing government hostility to public transport was overturned and now increasing investment is being made in public transport to avoid traffic gridlock and overeliance on single occupant cars for our transport needs. I saw these incomplete flyovers on a recent visit to Istanbul, Turkey near the cruise-ship port. It looks like these incomplete projects are a sad reflection on the perceived need of countries to follow the US in these matters when it is unwise to do so.
Deutsche bahn: I am so upset. I have so many delays. Sometimes my trains don't come on time
Amtrak : Hold my beer
European: why do you need a car?
Me: the trains are so bad, Amtrak employees pray to Mussolini.
Does any German train go more than a hundred miles, or close to two hundred kilometers? Any?
@@ronclark9724 yes loads of 'em you can destinguish them by their red on white paintsceme rather then the white on red paint
@@ronclark9724 is that a serious question?
A Portuguese train goes more than 100miles....
@@ronclark9724 the ICE 1004 (Munich to Berlin) goes roughly 500 km.
“Boston, New York, and D.C have decent public transportation systems
Chicago: *am I a joke to you?*
yeah that's because Chicago has the slowest metro system in America
Moonlight Busfan 906 most people take the trains in the downtown core, and that’s the core where it goes slow
Chicago is like the european part of america
@Michael Metz i fuckin love the 5000 series lmao
@Michael Metz ikr. downtown gets the 5000s while the other lines are stuck with the junky 2600 series
"With the car, you can go anywhere..." And yet, people use it, most of the time to get to work lol
And usually people only drive on pre-made roads and paths
@@SennaHawx That doesn't really apply to Americans though, if u look up automotive sales in the U.S., Americans are buying pick up trucks and SUVs at an all time high, they really can go anywhere. Its gotten to the point where U.S. automakers have literally stopped making cars, all they make now are trucks and SUVs.
@@devilrider39000000 Yet it's still illegal in large chunks of the country to just drive off-road. Plus it also prevents people from driving on narrow roads
Having a car allows me to have the “freedom” to drive anywhere, when I say anywhere I really mean I’m only able to drive on paved roads that are subsidized by the government
The whole concept of a car giving you the freedom to drive anywhere is bullshit, you can only drive where there are paved roads and these roads have to be subsidized by the government to be financially viable
Car guys
_"Isn't it hilarious how cars are marketed as the ultimate symbol of freedom, and yet you can't function without owning and maintaining one? Your government-issued ID is a _*_Driver's License."_*
In Europe, you can choose to drive. Some of the highest quality cars in the world are available for purchase there. And yet public transportation works. And people there CHOOSE to use it instead of driving.
interesting, i have never thought to turn the freedom perspective on its head and see that one do not have the freedom to be without a car. it made me laugh, thanks
My father has a Mercedes S-Klasse but he prefers public transportation bc it’s faster 😂
That goes both ways. In America you can choose public transpiration, yet people prefer automobiles as soon as they can afford them. And it isn't like people don't drive in Europe either.
People "choose" public transport because there's not enough parking, and the parking that does exist is ridiculously expensive. Add to that all kinds of tolls, congestion charges, car bans, expensive fuel etc. etc. and most people will just give up driving because they can't afford it or because it's impossible in practice. There's no choice if the other option will leave you bankrupt.
@@torrace12 Why _did_ our grandparents think it would be okay to make communities in which one must have a car to survive?
I wake up at 4 am every day to catch a bus so I can make it to class by 8AM for a class 20 minutes away by car. Public transportation is so slow here that I spend anywhere from 6-8 hours every day just riding the bus to get to places 20 minutes away by car. It is absolutely pitiful.
I'm sorry, but isn't cycling an option here? Depending on your situation, getting a good bike (with the option of it being electric) will get you there at a speed of approximately 20km/h (or 25 if you're a fast cycler or even faster with an electric bike). That's what a lot of people do here.
Of course it also depends on your area and road access; if it's mountainous/hilly it would be more difficult, but still, seems like a worthwhile thing to look into?
How much time you are actually on the road? Waiting time in station included.
The time you wake up is not really that relevant. I wake up on 6:45 on mondays to go to classes starting at 8AM by public transport. But I only to about 50mins on the road with the worst possible waiting time. And that's because I only use the metro. (I have metro stations close both to my uni and home, but there is no direct connection between them) Perhaps, If I were to take a tram/bus I would be much faster
@@notmac1853 Biking is not really worth it. The main reason why people go by car not by bike is because a car protects you from rain and things like that.
@@nottoday38176-8 hours a day riding the bus meant precisely that. Obviously I don't consider time spent at home getting ready, that makes no sense.
I hear you live on Long Island? I'm on an exchange programme here from the UK and I'm actually so shocked at how bad he public transport is here... I can barely get anywhere at all. I thought being so close to NYC would mean that transport would be good but apparently not. It's truly so limiting!
Access to transportation is the single most important factor in an individual's ability to escape poverty.. - wow quote of truth!...
Do you want to hear another quote? "A developed country is not a place where the poor own cars, it is where the rich take public transportation" - Mayor of Bogotá
What about education lol
Access to education is heavily dependent on access to transport too.
While I myself don't own a car, I do think cars do have a place in society moving forward. They do allow you to transport things that would be a hassle to transport on public transportation, as well as medium-length travel, specially if you go somewhere like a national park. But I think cars should be owned in larger family groups. Not have every adult own a car. Daily transportation to work and to buy groceries or to the movies or what have you should be on public transportation. Leave the car for when you want to buy that 50lbs bag of dog food.
Altrantis: that's where Car Sharing finds its market ;)
This vid got me into urban planning. On my 15th birthday in 2019 I forgot the key to my house and had to wait until my mom got home, so I hopped on RUclips and saw this recommended. I got hooked instantly. Thanks for helping me realize one of my passions.
Good for you. The future of work lies, in my opinion, in people discovering their passion in life and then following it with dogged persistence to its ultimate goal, a happy and fulfilling worklife with good colleagues and a good and attainable career path and progression route. Urban planners are badly needed in the US and many other countries which put great emphasis on suburban lifestyles and housing choices, including my native Ireland.
In Singapore if a train arrives 3 minutes late there will be a public apology
Japan: 3 minutes?
I often take the train in my Country (Italy) and trains are always at least 1 or 2 minutes late, I remember once when I was waiting my train to go to school, it was 1 hour and 20 minutes late, and I had to apologize to my teacher
You all are Lucky
In India we have faced even 12 hours delay
With constipation inducing toilets
@@goranshgarg836 I took a train today and it had 1 minute of delay lol, but then it has arrived 1 minute after to its destination.
I love trains in Italy, even if they are always 1 or 2 minutes late, but they are very well-organized
China the same . If subway late for 1 minute or broken 15 minutes, will be the headline of the local media even national media
When you were talking about zoning, all I could think was how useful the info was to making more accurate European cities in Cities Skylines.
panner11 same
DUDE I LITERALLY WATCHED THIS AND FIRED THAT SHIT UP.
I'm from the Philippines. We are the only big Southeast Asian economy that doesn't have an extensive train network, though we used to have one. All we have right now are three metro lines and two virtually unconnected sections (formerly connected) of conventional rail; one operating from the northern part of the capital metropolis to the suburbs in the south, and another section operating a few hundred kilometers away between two small cities (actually the infrastructure throughout the whole line is intact, but because the national rail company doesn't have enough trains, there's no regular service throughout the entire line, save for the two mentioned sections)
This has much to do with American colonialism and later the colonial mentality.
Now during the first couple decades of colonization, the American built extensive rail infrastructure for us, most of which, sadly has been neglected to this day. They even built a tram system in the capital, which was bombed by the Japanese and Americans during World War 2 and never repaired.
After the war, we were finally given independence from America. However, there was still the colonial mentality. We were, and still are, among the most pro-American countries in the world, which by itself isn't a problem, but with that comes the desire to imitate America; skin whitening, low public spending, and prioritizing cars, and buses over trains, instead of giving equal priority like other Asian countries.
But it's not just the colonial mentality; American companies basically shoved American road culture down our throats, lobbied, etc., this was later replicated by local bus companies. American road culture works in America since it's sparesly populated, but when you shove it down the throats of a densely-populated Asian country, it leads to problems such as the traffic congestion being experienced in our metropolitan areas and other busy corridors, including those in the suburbs.
Then in the late 1970s, our railways started declining (fun fact: during this time we were ruled by a US-backed dictator, who started off good but later turned out to be an ass, although he did build our first metro line) thanks to bus lobbyists, but also thanks to Hollywood, albeit indirectly. Well, we now have a really good tollway network, but that doesn't mean enough when our regular roads and our railways are in relatively bad condition. We, along with Timor-Leste are like the black sheeps of Southeast Asia.
Thankfully, in recent years, the government is working to revitalize our rail network. the national railway has been improved, with new lines under construction. Our first subway is under construction and our existing metro lines being improved and extended, all with the financial aid of Japan and China.
We are realizing that taking notes from America was a mistake and that the only way forward is to take notes from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, etc.
Edit: I can't believe I forgot to mention that the government of my home city Makati hired a private firm to construct and operate a subway with tunneling expected to start this year or the next. The city government will technically own the infrastructure but maintenance, operation, and real estate will be handled by the private partner.
I'm also from the Philippines, specifically Cebu.
Please send help
why people love to write such a long comment on Ytube?
@@MrPathorock Either people have lots of things to say or lots of free time.
Or in my case, both lol
Though I know there are people who prefer to write multiple comments/replies instead of one long comment.
@@MrPathorock y not. I learned a lot from reading his post
@@frick2555 hahhaha, trapik diri sa Cagayan yawa
The freedom to buy a car, buy gas, buy repairs & maintenance, buy winter tires, pay for traffic signals, pay for roads, pay for tolls, pay to have the roads cleaned/swept & patrolled by officers, pay for parking, pay for insurance and pay foreign despots for the oil they drilled in their land.
‘Murcia!
The freedom to get from point A to point B in 20 minutes in a car versus 4 hours on public transportation.
@@computernerdtechmanYou might be shocked but it’s not that different here in my city in Germany lol
@@computernerdtechman That's not what I hear: >2 hours to get to your work in downtown LA in rush hour?
@@stevenvanhulle7242 I notice you pick one of the most extremely congested and largest cities on the planet. That's not the norm. It takes me 10 minutes to get to work. When I lived in San Diego, CA the most it would take me is 15 minutes. It took over 3 hours by bus.
It's hard to travel to US since I don't have a driving licence
Basically most Hong Kong people don't know how to drive because we have a huge public transport system
btw, HK Tramways and Star Ferry are more than 100 years old
They're still being a major part of public transport here(especially every time MTR malfunction)
Same. I don't see the need for getting a driver's license anytime soon. People always ask me why I don't want to go to the US at some point...well guess what. I don't want to be stuck at the airport :P
Ah. So I was just born in the wrong country to get around? Makes sense.
leDespicable you don’t need a licence for the US, I got around Boston and New York completely fine on the public transport
Elle Bee You and me both! They never should have gotten rid of the streetcar!
csyac10495 垃圾本土狗
"Public transportation gets worse the further west you go" *sad Portland noises*
Alaska and Hawai'i
San Francisco feels completely forgotten. We have a regular commuter train, two light rail systems, streetcars, cable cars, and electric trolleybuses.
It's not bad
*It's Non-Existent*
Wait till you see Malaysia.
@@rocappreciater5540 ah yes that shit holr
@@NightcorEDM can't even spell hole right
@@rocappreciater5540 What do you mean, is it even more nonexistent? I expected more, given Malaysia is one of the more developed countries in SE Asia.
@@destituteanddecadent9106 If you live anywhere outside of the Kuala Lumpur metropolitan area the public transport is just plain terrible.
Public Transportation in America is so bad that every job interviewer will ask you if you have a sustainable way to commute back and forth to work.
Knowing that there's isn't a lot of available busses/trains and even have a cut off time so people working night shifts are screwed and have to either catch a ride with a friend/coworker or call an uber.
And there are so many guidelines over boundaries. If you live just outside the city limits or from the county border then a bus won't go near you even though you're just a minute away.
“Some cities like Portland, Kansas City, Detroit, and D.C. are turning back to street cars.” *shows video of street car in Salt Lake City, Utah*
Haha. But also, look at how Detroit, DC and Portland are doing. They're absolute shitholes.
Clax all run by democrats.
I live in Portland. Instead of school buses, my high school gives our school IDs with TriMet passes (that's the company operating here) so we can use the public transport system instead of using additional infrastructure for the purpose. This is proof of the confidence the city has confidence in what they're doing about this problem. I can walk about a mile from my house, take a bus, then walk 0.2 miles to my school. It's easy, fast, and simply better than most highway systems. Compared to Phoenix, where my family lived for several years, the public transportation is much easier to use, better for our roads, and is growing the economy to the point where my parents' 500k house has grown 6% in value in the past year. Also, this is the reason why Portland streets are not gridlocked.
Eyyy Snazzy Labs, I'm a fan
Didnt expect to find you here.
He is so right. Public transportation helps so much in getting out of poverty. From personal experience I cannot afford a car and I do not have good public transportation system in my town. It is so hard to get to a job or to get an internship. I have to walk miles and miles on end to get my job.
Why not get a bike?
Same here. We have cabs but they're ridiculously expensive, we've got one Uber driver. Once I have a car again, I plan to take full advantage of this and drive for Lyft or Uber in my spare time. Turning lemons into lemonade.
couldn't get to school to get the degree in hope of bettering my financially situation w/o the bus
Daniyal Amed get a bike then.
steve b why are you assuming I don't know how to ride a bike. The thing is I have to change one bus and 2 trains to get my destination on top of all that walking distance. It is really hard to carry bike around on trains and bus.
They called it "personal freedom" but I spent 2 hours of my personal time, operating heavy machinery, getting to and from to work, unpaid. I gave that up and spent 2.5 hours instead doing my own things while some other paid people moves me to and from work.
Why would you live 2 1/2 hours from work? I personally can’t handle more than 20 minutes at most.
@@matthew8153 Nah 2.5 hours is total time. It's about 1 hour and ten minutes to work and 1 hour and 15 mins to return. There's no way I can afford to live closer as the house prices are pretty expensive here. I've been looking for a job closer to home but haven't had much luck in the last few years I was applying.
i dont get it, you got a chauffeur now?
@@archmad kinda, public transport
@@archmad he's not a politician
When owning a car is becoming more and more expensive with the price of a car + insurance + gas + trying to find parking compared to a transit pass, it just makes more sense to use public transit (if you live in a city that heavily supports it), which has saved me thousands in comminuting. The college I went to is 25min away, my now full time job is 15min away.
problem is, the government benefits from people being dependant on cars.
Edit: I'm not even sure this is true. I assumed it was true, why else would they pay millions of dollars for road infrastructure and car subsidies.
@@leonpaelinck because oil companies and car companies astroturf to give the minority of people who actually enjoy the government pissing billions a year a megaphone and a ladder to sit right outside our politician’s windows
Chicago is another anomaly compared to the rest of the midwest, with it being the train capital of the US.
one of the only things i miss about chicago is the transport
More bicycle paths are a good idea also as I used to ride a bike and sometimes walk regularly to work.
In many European cities, in particular in the Netherlands and Denmark, bicycle traffic is greater than car traffic.
They need to be segregated from road traffic and slow child cyclists need to be allowed to cycle on the footpath. The problems start when authorities force young or old cyclists on to the road when they lack the skill and experience to mix it with cars, busses and lorries in a safe, confident manner.
Imagine it's the dead of summer, with temperatures in the triple digits. Now imagine that on your way to work is a steep hill that you have to bike up. By the time you get to work, you're drenched in sweat. There are no showers at your workplace, so you have to spend the next several hours drenched and reeking of sweat while sitting next to your colleagues and higher-ups. All this could have been avoided with a car, or at least anything but a bike or walking.
Maybe US should have an Airplane Public Transport System.
Powered by Wendover Productions.
i mean, airplanes and helis are VERY loud and require a lot of space. Also, after 9/11 I don't think anybody's gonna let any airplanes near skyscrapers
specially in lax
Deepak Thakur Google "Dubai Flying Taxis"
The seats would be 100% plastic
I was just trying to add some planes in this episode...
#moarplanes
As a Canadian now living in Austin, I can say confidently that you can't live without a car in America
You finally got how spread out and low density American cities truly are? Austin is even considered one of the more denser cities in Texas.
As someone who has to visit Canada twice a year I’d say the same for Canada as America and Canada literally feel the same country every time I visit btw hasn’t Austin recently started investing a lot in public transport
Yeah, I thought Canada wasn't dissimilar, not due to the car culture the US has but just how even more spaced out everything is. It was surreal visiting Toronto and surrounding areas, seeing how vast and spread out it all is, coming from Edinburgh, where you can get a bus or train to the middle of nowhere if you wanted to. (To be fair, Edinburgh is compact by design and small even by European standards.)
@@WK-47 yeah a lot of people don't realize that the US and Canada are just too big and spaced out for reliable public transportation unlike Europe, The only cities in NA that I've been to and never needed to rent a car is Chicago, NYC and Boston. I have personally lived in Boston for a year and never once needed a car.
@@KenshiN_- It's still really inneficient in such small city as Quebec (500k pop). There is a real problem when a bus ride is taking me 45-60 min when i can do it in 10 min with my car.
South Korea has one of the world's best transportation system. With a mix of rail, bus, and taxis or cars for hire, it's so easy to get around and doesn't cost that much and clean and safe too.
Germany is also a good contender
@@realah3001 Never been but would like to experience how good it is. Wish the US could put more emphasis into public transportation. Giving more low income folks more mobility will improve their quality of life and the rest of us too. I've seen foreign visitors trying to use our rail system (Amtrak) and thinking how they must feel that our rail infrastructure is so outdated with spotty schedules.
that's the thing, most people can actually afford a car here in the US.
@@archmad That is true. Last few times I've traveled on Amtrak, it was crowded so I think the customer base is there. I would love to use more public transpo especially since gas, new cars, insurance, tires, and maintenance are so expensive these days.
Zip (or postal) code does determine your economic mobility growing up in the US. Mine was 10454. The South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in NYC. The subway, busses and commuter trains helped me get to all the places I needed for my education, employment, and exposure to a life outside of the inner city. I now hold multiple college degrees and live a fully middle class life. I shutter to imagine how my life would have turn out if I were born where I live right now. It’s truly shameful how we selfishly handicap poor and working class people here and then blame them for not overcoming the hurdles they’re forced to stumble over.
Excellent video.
"Zip (or postal) code does determine your economic mobility growing up in the US. Mine was 10454."
10454? That sounds like a lot of mobility.
In Japan they even sometimes issue explanation letters to every rider so they can show you school or employers if the train is more than ten minutes late
In America the reason doesn’t matter, late is late.
@@matthew8153 Sad but true!
I live in Tokyo and I never received any laters when the train is delay that's BS
@@elmalanmalan2175 station staff would be handing out notes/letters. Some ppl don’t notice them.
What shocks me as a non American is that 16 year olds have their own car and use it to go to school. It's so bizarre to me because I'm in college and still use my bike or public transportation to commute everywhere.
Not every college student here in the U.S. has a car. I had a car during most of my college and quite honestly didn't use it much, as I lived either on or adjacent to campus and pretty much everything I needed was in walking distance, but it was nice for getting back to my parents between semesters or for a weekend. I tried taking busses back home for a while and it was very inconvenient with the bus stopping at every town along the way and having to get my parents to pick me up at a not very safe feeling bus station downtown after sunset.
Many American schools especially in newer areas are not in walkable areas, you gotta drive or take the school bus.
@@patxepi Not even with bikes?
@@victuz in the US and Canada people only use bikes for sport. Rarely for transport.
@@victuz No bike lanes and wide fast roads.
Insert horrible traffic jams in LA which makes you hate anything related to cars
That's why you buy a motorcycle... I lane split in Pittsburgh all the time even though it's only legal in Cali... (makes no sense to me)... when I get caught I just tell the officer that I have an air cooled bike and it will damage the engine if I sit still too long and they just let me go.
Ironically the result of poor public road planning and gov’t neglect.
@@sharkboi6164 And yet LA has one of the world's highest surface area set aside for roads.
Niklas Molén Exactly, how the hell do the Democrats fuck this up?
@@sharkboi6164 California was run mostly by Republicans 1860 - 1960 though. That's the period when most of the city planning / big infrastructure projects were carried out. The blame game makes little sense when both parties are at fault - and the people involved are deceased. 🙄
Phoenix has a light rail system running all through downtown, it's the most profitable mass transit system going through downtown, and they are even expanding it.
Why only downtown?
@@wigglebot2368 They're expanding it, so it won't go through only downtown anymore.
@@Drakrau_TheDerg When a housing developer seeks planning permission for a new development then providing some funding for extending such light rail lines should be part of the conditions laid down for granting such permissions.
@@jgdooley2003
Except that most developments happen outside the city limit, then the city expands after it’s built.
In my country using public transportation is a sign of "low class" and if you are using it you are frowned upon if you are with people owning cars (which many do). Personally I hate this, since I'm neither poor but afraid of driving. I.E. if you own an old diesel which leaves a trail of black smoke behind, you are cooler than a person riding in an electric bus.
here in hongkong, if the train is 30 minutes late, they are fined 100k+ USD and here the metro keeps expanding and keeps getting better!
Here in the US the train arrives 13 hours late and your lucky if the train conductor only gives you the middle finger lol
One day I read some that said "The best way to measure the level of wealth and development of a country it's not how many people have a car, it's if the richest people uses public transportation"
This guy talking about cars has no idea what he's talking about. As a Canadian I can tell you our public transit systems aren't going anywhere, and in most big cities EVERYONE uses them when they are available, from the richest businessmen to the poorest homeless person, I've seen everyone on Ottawa's new LRT (Yeah I know it has its problems but I still think it's a great system). Public transit truly is the way of the future!
@jubeifyGuy guy please pay a visit to a city outside the US. I'm not even from a developed country (I'm from India) yet I prefer using public transport over going by car. It is just better, even with people around you. You don't worry about traffic, you can do whatever you want while you are travelling. Also, it is incredibly cheap. I can come from the northernmost suburbs to downtown Mumbai ( south Mumbai) for less than a dollar by train. It also beats the traffic. Plus, you get to do some sightseeing. No looking for parking.
Even if you remove the pollution factor of public transport, I'd prefer it anyday to having a car.
@jubeifyGuy guy It isn't about technology, it is about space. Cars are extremely space inefficient. Buses, which are two cars long can hold more than twice the capacity of two cars.
Under that token of move backwards, the same thing can be said on phones. We have tablets now, so why still use phones? It is all about optimization of anything to the fullest to maximize the benefits.
Mind you, both cars and mass transit co develop at similar pace. Ships can be the oldest transportation method, and we still use them until now.
@jubeifyGuy guy public transportation is just way more convenient for students who would rather be spending money on University, shelter, and food than a manual car that is also way more dangerous.
@jubeifyGuy guy Sorry but more cars=more traffic jams
As a user of public transportation, this hit home. There's not a lot of routes that would ideally take me to the nearest area to a job, and I refuse to drive for the few reasons mentioned in this video. This video sparked a good conversation with my dad, and I hope more can be done here in the states.
Hey wendover can you make a video of how to make the perfect city. Like the amount of public transport, where the commercial and residential places should be, and like what would be the best geographical location.
Harry li that would be entertaining
This would be a cool video!
As a cities skylines fan, that would be a very insightful video to watch!
Harry li That would be a very interesting video, good idea!
Harry li check out the venus project
Another factor I’ve found in my travels is that while Europeans/Asians see public transport as transport for everyone, Americans (putting aside NYC/Boston/DC you mentioned) see it more as welfare for the poor; part of the mindset you highlighted that car equals freedom equals success. Glad that this attitude is changing with my generation!
Good public transports is shit and should be made fun of
It comes with an extra step:
People assume busses are subsidized by them, because they own a car, which *clearly* means they paid more taxes for the road than the leeches on public transit
which is ironic, considering property taxes don’t come anywhere near enough to afford the roads
As someone who has lived in several US cities and travelled to other countries I can attest to the fact that most Americans don't understand the value of having a functioning, clean and safe public transportation system. Growing up in Denver we always thought of using public transit, especially buses, as a joke and that only people who couldn't afford cars used. Once I moved to Portland, after selling my car, and using public transportation for nearly two years I realized the value of having more then one option. Sure there were times I missed having a car, especially late at night, or getting places that required more then one transfer but I also enjoyed not spending my time worrying about other drivers or spending excess money on car maintenance and payments. We as Americans enjoy having many options to choose from: cars, homes, jobs, food and yet when it comes to transportation we accept only one option the car. I think if most Americans traveled to destinations like Taipei and Tokyo where the public transit is safe, affordable and very efficient they might think differently about that car that costs them hundreds of dollars per month to maintain. Ultimately the millennial generation (which includes myself) will have to determine what we value more: bragging about the car we own and how much we have to spend on it or having an infrastructure that works for everyone and promotes the use of actual physical activity.
Name one city in the US(or the Americas at all) with the population density of Taipei or Tokyo....
Spot on👏🏽
@Anshul Kaushik Did I forget about Scotland? In the Americas? Yes, I must have.
@Anshul Kaushik Please point out a sparsely populated area which has a public transit system comparable to Taipei or Tokyo. You can't. Your statement is nonsense.
@Anshul Kaushik Did you read the comment I replied to? Or are you just talking out of your ass? What does Scotland have to do with anything? And the nowhere in the US is even as close to the density of Taipei or Tokyo, so you can mention wherever you want.
In germany a lot of bigger cities have a really really good infrastructure and in smaller towns we have a pretty good bus connection to go anywhere
in the USA we have the best highway system on earth. we make more money here and have a higher standard of living with less government interference and more freedoms. cars are cheap, easy to get and you can go anywhere in a short amount of time in a car. cars equal freedom, mass transit equals dependency
origionalwinja
Again, can you give me proof?
origionalwinja KEK
@@origionalwinja Germany has also a very good highway system that is specially designed for its cars. The German Autobahn is also known for having highway zones without speed limit. And it is toll free! And I think that German, Austrian and Swiss streets are in general much better in quality than American streets. Google Street View for comparing them is enough.
@origionalwinja It's actually the other way around. Cars are limiting freedom since you completely depend on it. Plus cars are still far more expensive than using mass transit. I live in Berlin and here we have a great public transport system that runs 24/7 in high frequencies that brings you everywhere you'd want to go. But since the city is polycentric, you have even most of the things you ever need in walking distance.
I wouldn't want to live in a car-dependent suburb in the US where I need to drive everywhere, resulting in wasting a lot of time and money. For destinations where there is no public transports, we even have very flexible car rental systems here. And they even offer a variety of cars, so I have always access to everything from a small car to a large van.
Developed country is not the one where poor can afford cars but that country where rich use public transportation
Sourav Poddar nah. Public transportation is for losers
Nick u seem to be uneducated enough to debate
Fun Station nope. Just call it like I see it.
actually, you have a point because countries like Germany and Holland can support good alternatives to the car, that could get you around fast and comfortable for virtually no cost when in poorer nations residents have to eat shit in traffic jams on their private cars
Nick Maybe where you are.
Here in Germany, where I am living, I could basically get anywhere with public transportation.
Btw, I'm living in a city with a population of 250,000 people, and we have 36 bus lines, 5 tram (or street car) lines (there are more getting built), and at least 5 or 6 train stations.
I love riding public transit, and take it at every possible opportunity just to learn and see new systems. People often remind me that it’s far less convenient than driving. In a perfect world, it should be far more convenient than driving.
Driving is convenient, its the parking that sucks.
use your key and drive - anytime 24/7. people who complain are those who dont have a car.
@@archmad except when you use it for your commut and you're stuck in traffic.
@@archmad
I live in London, England not Ontario, I don't have a car and I certainly don't want one. I did have a car for about three or four years up to 1982, but seldom used it. My mother wanted me to drive so I could take her to places such as a local small coach station if she was going away for a day or few. I think I drove about 600 miles in the years that I had the car, and almost exactly 300 of that was on one day when we went to collect some things from the home of a recently deceased aunt. That trip almost killed me, literally, I didn't realise how tired I was getting, and almost crashed. Soon after that car and mother both expired at about the same time so I gave up and have never driven since. I couldn't drive now even if I wanted to due to very poor eyesight caused by diabetes.
@@archmad alright. Wanna pay out the ass for my petrol prices?
Well in Indiana, we have corn, soybeans, and corn
EvilPyro don't forget soybeans
Don't forget the corn
EvilPyro So that's were all food comes from.
Ohio too the career I went to was across the street from a corn field
And racing! And a decent football team a decade ago.
RUclipsr: *Puts out a nice informative video*
Commenters: *99.9+% Absolute nonsense*
including yours?
@@julien948 You didn't get the joke, did you?
No, including yours.
This youtuber just reads from articles.
@@uproar8745 "Your government-issued ID is a Driver's License"
That's not true in the U.S.A it's the STATE not the U.S. federal government.
then the street car received a stay of execution... *WW2*
>Shows footage of WW1 era soldiers in no man's land
Wendover gets quick with the editing....
Grabs any war clip that thinks will work.
Sydney, Australia had one of the most extensive tram systems in the world. All gone by 1961. Now, they're building it again.
it had the biggest in the southern hemisphere, Bigger than Melbourne
You could argue that public transport in US is abysmal compared to most other countries.... most of western Europe, Japan, Singapore, HK and even... China...yes China....
Lot of East European cities have quite neat public transport too. Design could be little different though instead of connecting city center to other districts it's more like everything to everything.
@@pawebernaciak1581 come to Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi to get blown away
Singapore's public transport is inexpensive and clean (though buses in the past were dirtier & less punctual, and many subway/metro station toilets are still pretty wet/musty). On the flip side most buses don't tell you where your next stop is (we're taking deliveries of such buses even in 2017) while some subway/metro interchange stations require significant detours (since their constituent train lines were planned separately and thus not so well intergrated). If you stay in a public housing neighbourhood (like ~85% of the population) there'll definitely be a bus service, but rail service may only come decades later (unless you take a connecting bus to another neighbourhood's station), probably as the government is concerned about white elephants
@Aura Tanishq also Indian I agree with what you said
Public transort is absymal where I live most people are trying to own a car, since they believe car is a cool luxury to have or something some of them do not even have to go 12 minutes to get to their workplaces.
@Aura Tanishq China built many metro lines for India. It should be okay now.
If you reduce the military budget for %10 and use that money for public transportation u will have the best public transportation in the world...
Just award the contracts to Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics and they would be on board.
Well some european countries don't even pay enough as required by NATO
@@stephenh5944 BOEING TRIED BUILLDING TRANSIT VEICHLES THEY WERE CRAP ASKBOSTON AND SAN FRANSISCO
@@JeromeJiang000 Pay to who? Do u understand how NATO works? Even stupid Trump doesn't know. Member states are required to spend 2% of GDP on their own defenses as they see fit, NOT pay it to NATO. If they have to pay anything to NATO itself, it's extremely small amount of money.
NATO has its own military budget worth €1.29 billion ($1.4 billion), which is used to fund some operations and the NATO strategic command center, as well as training and research. But it is miniscule compared to overall spending on defense by NATO countries, which NATO estimates will total more than $921 billion in 2017.
@@JeromeJiang000 You clearly don't know what you are talking about. America doesn't give their over $700 billion "to" NATO. It's an obscene amount that not even China are close to. And at the expense of important things like education.
I just came back from Japan. I knew I was back home here in the Bay Area when our train was 30 minutes behind Schedule as expected lol. Not to mention how dirty it was and the unhappy train operator.
I C IKR the only place where public transport is good is sf. San Jose is decent but Sf was there before the car. Also how many times have I watched this video (prolly like 10 since it came out)
And BART is one of the better transit system in US!
@People Evil and isht on sidewalks.
And the disgusting people shitting and shooting dope in the BART. Gack, I saw it with my own eyes last summer
Laura Brooks look that is unique to US. I’m in Vancouver Canada, and we have a fentanyl problem just like US. Yet we never have a drug ptoblem on transit. If anybody do anything like that, they will be arrested and sent to jail
It really is awful the way society is built around cars in the US considering how expensive they are to purchase and maintain. My family has always lived paycheck to paycheck and the neighborhood we live in had a lot of theft, when our car got stolen we literally didn't know what to do.
My dad's disabled, my mom is breadwinner and losing the car meant losing the ability to commute to work. We barely have any bus-lines and it's a dangerous city to travel alone especially at night, women are stalked and assaulted all the time, the buses themselves are notorious.
But of course the cheapest decent cars are still thousands of dollars and we literally can't afford that because we're already barely staying afloat. Using a lyft or uber everyday would dig into the paycheck more than we could afford and still pay bills.
It's sad how a car could take down the entire families income because there's no safe alternative.
In the end we just got lucky that a relative had a salvaged car that he was ready to lend us, if it wasn't for that I'm not sure how much debt we would have gotten into just trying to get a car.
What's sad is that I actually live in a very wealthy city (we bought property before the value rose exponentially), and the crime is terrible, there's no public transportation and employment is impossible without a prestigious degree. You realize how society really is designed to keep the poor as poor and make the rich richer.
I worked my ass off to get into a good college and I devote everything into trying to get a good job to support my family, but there's so many ways that I just got lucky, and so many ways I could have been unlucky and been stuck forever in the loop of poverty.
I wish we spent less time talking about fluffy philosophical concepts like "personal freedom and individualism" and spent more time thinking about REAL issues that actual affect everyday people like public transportation, medical care costs and student debt. Things that would ACTUALLY improve the lives of people instead of symbolic rights like owning a car so you have the freedom to drive aimlessly somewhere as if poor people have the time or gas money to drive wherever they want. Anyway, done with my rant in the comments section where no one will read haha
I read that I am sorry you’re living like that. America is not the place to be for the less wealthy. Pray the circumstances of your family improve soon.
Meanwhile I'm sitting here in Germany, not only having good access to public transportation, but as a university student, I can use public transportation throughout the entire state.
And that's included in a 350-ish dollar semester fee.
Thanks for making me appreciate my country's education and transportation system again.
To a degree, yes. But I'd say the number of people in need of transport matters as well. And Germany has more than a quarter of the US population. And the higher the number of commuters, the less the distances factor in.
We can dream of that, but it will never happen. We are slaves to the corporations. Ronald Regan said, "crumbs will fall from the table", and we the people must lick them up and be grateful. It's the Republican Way.
You mean basic economics used by pretty much every country?
Craig F. Thompson
No, Trumptard Nazi wanna-be, Hitler only opened them, major construction projects were launched under the Weimar Republic.
I paid more than $350 a semester for college. Oh, but I also didn't have to get approval from anyone to take what I did. Sometimes just opening a wallet has perks.
06:45 Living in Boston I can tell you the transit system is decrepit, breaks down almost daily, is extremely expensive, shuts off at midnight, and basically doesn't run in rain, snow, extreme cold, or high heat (the last bit often causes the A/C to go out on trains, making them a near health hazard to enter). People here are turning to scooters (micro mobility) and electric skateboards because of the lousy transit system. Public transit is great, but not without continuous upkeep and proper sustainable management.
public transport makes no sense if its expensive
In a car dominated country public transport in places like Boston still exists via it's metro system via virtue of existing at all.
@@ercushkakulmetov7458 and that is why taxes and government subsidies are a thing. It's the same with airline companies if you ask me. Really unprofitable for the ones running it but it sure benefits everyone else.
@@madensmith7014 In a low density US cities where everything is miles and miles apart it would actually be cheaper for the gov to give poor people cars and provide car repairs and insurance than to have rail systems and public transport everywhere. Besides most jobs in US require a poor person to own a vehicle even for a low wage job. In the end taxes and subsidies should be used in wisest way possible.
@@ercushkakulmetov7458 You mean free cars for poor people or do they have to pay it back like a loan?
Low density is really a good way to describe the US but that's not the whole picture isn't it? Some states and cities are high density population (Like NYC area) and that's where more low to middle income workers are at. Adding more cars to the equation would be really counter intuitive as it adds to traffic, pollution and parking issues. Sure it gives everyone a means of transportation, but it makes more problems for what its worth. (Not to mention mass produced cars for the poor would be very low quality and if any attempt to improve that would lead to higher taxes which is just the same for implementing public transport. Add to the fact that subsidizing airlines will not disappear since traveling a couple of hours from LA to NYC is better than a weeks drive to the same locations)
I'm not saying that cars is not a good thing for the US, the US is a huge country with lots of space so cars are more efficient in those places especially in the countryside.
I've wondered about this for so long. I'm so glad I finally found the answer!
We are now considered a third world country, but we don't like to admit it. Anyone who travels overseas can see how backward the US is. Everything is crumbling, cities, towns, bridges, so called highways, roads, electrical systems. in fact EVERYTHING is now decades out of date, backward, low tech, and non-existent we need to wake up FAST., and this guy actually said 'magnificent highways'. Where the f*** are they ? We don't compare wIith any advanced country, we are trailing in EVERYTHING. Go to China and see what we could be, but aren't. WAKE THE F*** UP AMERICA.
Other countries can not really afford the extremely high amount of money they dump in to infrastructure. The U.S. needs LESS infrastructure than it has, what would be left would be in better shape if it was maintained with direct user fees, and usage behaviors would naturally centralize in to more efficient ones.
Hi Yuta, love your channel!
A part of me fears that this is on purpose as a strong transportation system is one of the essentials to make social upwards mobiloty possibme in the first place
in general, having poor people get out of poverty increases economic activity, which is generally good for everyone. Plus helping the poor makes politicians look good.
I dont really see any direct benefit for a politician to keep people poor. There would have to be special circumstances
@@ovencake523 politicians don't benefit from people using public transportation. they benefit more from people being dependent on cars and fuel
Another issue facing the improvement of public transportation in US cities is poor management of the projects. Mismanagement that results in huge cost overruns, and poor service when finished. Tuscon AZ for example, has put in a streetcar system a few years ago, but it only runs between the university and part of downtown, it doesn't serve very much in the way of residents beyond college students, and serves none of the poorer population on the South Side, or work areas where they could get work at. This is also symptomatic of greater overall inefficiency and mismanagement by the people running Tuscon, with horribly run road construction/repair projects all over the place.
The Beeching Axe comes to my mind...
Hell....even though we have buses and light rails in Phx (Valley Metro) it's still pretty bad....the buses are highly unreliable- I don't mean being late because of traffic, I mean outright not showing up before the next scheduled bus 30-60 min later sometimes. Yes we have public transport, but it's still damn near impossible to get around without a car- the farther outside phoenix you go, the harder it gets to get around with public transport.
I lived a bit east of phx ~7 yrs ago, and while they had a light rail set up, it was very limited (ASU campus to downtown Phx) I moved away for ~6 years and came back last april....and they still haven't figured things out in that time- only slightly expanded the light rail and got newer buses that are still just as unreliable. -And don't even get me started on the people -*-riding-*- the buses....-
Kevin Norris LOL. Another Tucsonan! I live in South East side in Rita Ranch. I have the 450 Sun Shuttle near me but it runs every hour and a half. Jobs in town are pretty much out of the question, especially retail jobs. I was lucky to get a job within walking distance.
I like the sun link, even tho it's mostly never on time and the time between rides really varies how heavy or light the traffic is. But I feel like a lot of public policy that this town makes is prioritized to university students.
Kevin Norris True, because of mismanagement the 2nd Ave line was delayed 1 year and 2 months and cost up to 4.5 billion dollars to finished the first phase and there's 3 more to go. Also the 34th Hudson yards was set back 2years and Fulton street complex was set back 1 year and 7months because of mismanagement and lack of common sense. The New York MTA ignored the warnings a possible major storm that could flood the system 6 years before Hurricane Sandy.
In germany we got so much transportation, that its very difficult to leave germany without seeing at least one bus
Blure Star in Wien auch
man muss es natürlich auch immer im Kontext sehen, wer hier richtig im Dörfchen auf dem Land lebt hat nach wie vor die A-Karte gezogen wenn es um gute öffentliche Anbindung geht.
I lived in Göttingen, NDR. It has a bus system with only 13 bus lines and a frequency of every 30 minutes. But the train system is amazing. I can get around the whole city with bike; thus I never need to drive somewhere, even with business trips to other cities. Some days I have to travel to Hannover, I even brought my bike with me and put it on the train, just so comfortable till I move to Canada
You guys can show Americans that roads and rails can coexist. They do not have to give up the car to benefit the rail.
Actually, there are some things in this video that are backwards.
In the 1950s, housing was engineered (through home loans) to cause the white flight to suburban areas which had NO public transit infrastructure. As a result, people had to buy a car to get to & from work.
There are plenty of other things in this video that are backwards.
Oh suburbs. The most racist american thing ever invented
Definitely... It's reaching on some points. Overall accurate though.
wait isnt that what the video is talking about? Cities and residential areas were designed for cars
@@lukasvondaheim
And thank God for them.
@@ovencake523 Yes, but they were designed for cars largely in service of the goal of segregation, which this video (and others) doesn't mention. Why did these new suburbs lack public transportation? Because the middle-class white people moving to them didn't want poor blacks and other urban minorities to be able to access their picket-fenced suburban paradises, supposedly to commit robbery, rape, and other crimes. Same with the construction of the urban Interstate freeways -- in addition to razing non-white communities in their path, they were also built to create separation between white and non-white areas.
That's what a lot of urbanists miss -- they think the US was merely bamboozled and victimized by the propaganda campaigns and Judge-Doom-esque anti-transit villainy of the automobile industry, and that if we just invested enough in good transit infrastructure, things would be different. But the roots of our public transit problems run deep, all the way to the nation's Original Sin of slavery. An experience that countries in Europe and elsewhere didn't have, which explains their diverging outcomes and better transit systems.
I live in the UK and there are like over 5 public buses which I can use to get to school every morning and the bus stop is just down my road. I also love the trains, you can go from London (where I live) or even any other train station in any other city to almost anywhere cross the country. Unfortunately seems like that isn’t the case in the US…
I moved to Central Massachusetts about 2 years ago and their public transportation sucks. It is almost non-existent. Maybe it is good in the heart of Boston, but the rest of the state...we are practically stranded.
This is the main reason the rest of the state which does not benefit from any MBTA services, do not want to pay for it through their taxes.
No shit, central Mass isn't highly urbanised like eastern Mass.
BadgerCheese...what are you talking about? What is your definition "urbanized"? Worcester, MA (the center of the state) has a comparable population to Syracuse NY, Durham, NC, Richmond Va, and TUCSON AZ. (for example) and those areas have MUCH better public transportation that Massachusetts. Have you ever been to Tucson. There is NOTHING there! In addition, Worcester is surrounding by great colleges. You would think that the state would have a system in place to actually get to them! I personally, have never lived in an area with worse public transportation.
It is literally easier, faster, and CHEAPER for me to drive to Boston than to take any form of public transportation...which is missing the whole point.
The commuter rail does go to Worcester from Boston and there are buses in the city. Worcester can not afford a subway or street cars. That city is broke. It also has a much lower standard of living than most of the state, and those other cities.
Also most of the state is pretty urbanized except the far western part on the New York border and around Quabbin
I live in suburbs outside of Worcester and I think we might have 1 bus that goes to White City twice a day. As far as I know, there is no way to get to the mall or any kind of attractions. If we want to take the train to Boston, we still have to drive and park in Grafton. I am taking classes at QCC (both main campus and downtown) and I have to drive. And the kids around here...if they do not have a car, they have nothing to do. And to make matters worse, you have to pay around $650 to get your driver's license if you are under 18. If you do not have the money, you're basically screwed until you're 18. I don't know, maybe it is just my town and the transportation is better in other areas of the county.
Steetcars, or trams, are amazing in Warsaw, Poland. A few years ago they started replacing old trams with brand spanking news ones (made in Poland :), and now 99% are great. It's quite satisfying to speed past rush hour traffic, even in a crowded tram.
And unlike New York bus seats, Warsaw bus/tram seats don't feel like the designers wanted to take revenge on your back...
Similar improvements are also slowly being made to the Upper Silesian tram network as well. I lived in Bytom for 12 years before moving to the UK, but I still follow their local news. I remember how shocking the state of the trams was all those years ago - the track quality was tragic, they still used 50-year-old trams, journeys were slow and many routes were under serious threats of closure (a few short stretches did close down, most recently in 2013). Now they are finally starting to invest in infrastructure improvements and brand-new trams, in Katowice they closed a few roads to make way for the trams (and also encourage the public onto the trams as well), and some new routes are currently being built, planned or proposed.
It's great to see a metropolitan area like this, blemished by hideous old coalmines, finally being brought back to life!
Isn't Warsaw the big dog huge mega city in Poland which dominates Polish politics and government? No US city can make the same claim...
@@ronclark9724 ... Poland is like half the size of texas. Of course there's only one really big city. The US has multiple cities the size/population of Warsaw.
Honestly, in some places... the US sort of feels stuck in the past. In the last 10 years, Poland has changed enormously (for the better).
@@Olivia-W Texas may look large but its not even ten percent of the land mass of USA. Texas is 268 thousand square miles, the USA is 3.5 million square miles. Please don't pretend that even big Texas dominates the USA. It doesn't... If Texas did, Amtrak would provide better than 3 times a week service in both directions from Houston with the Sunset Limited. Houston one of the largest metro cities in the USA doesn't even have daily Amtrak service...
@@ronclark9724 Uh... that's what I'm trying to say- Poland is small compared to the US, and only has one very big city, and that's why it gets most of the media focus.
I could have compared it to any other state...
As I live in a medieval old town of a big city in Europe and I would never imagine that there is something like zoning - here I can walk to offices, shopping malls, market squares, grocerys... anything I need. Everything is mixed. Poor US.
Kacper Włoch Especially when you live in a rural area.
I'm from Europe too. I live in average town and prefer driving since buses are full of junkies or smelly. So prefer american system
I am from Europe but in US its all about money , and so cities were built to make money and force people to buy more cars, more gasoline, buy full trunk of food in markets since nobody want to drive every few hours to distant store, there would not be shitload of cars if people had in walking distance or 5-10 min metro/rail ride all they need, like its case with all big cities here in Europe. With those endless suburban residential areas in US it is impossible now to implement some public transportation other than buses.
Yeah, zoning sucks. It makes people live away from their businesses so there is little security at night. This gives cause for security lights, and now all cities are aglow all night and no one can see a star.
Being able to buy a trunk full of non perishables once a month is pretty convenient.
funny that i have driving anxiety which has led me to go without a license for 8 years after developing panic attacks. yet i was born in a country that has one of the best public transportation systems in the world (korea). its one reason i had to move to the city from the suburb. in high school, i felt so ashamed that i had to take the bus up until senior year. would be really great if i wasnt constantly burdened by this issue in my life. like yeah, i could "fix" my anxiety. more likely, ill probably move to asia instead where i have more choices. one thing i hate is going to the dmv where all the workers always look done with their lives and fed up with humanity. if i wasnt forced into my car with them, passing might be a lot easier.