Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/notjustbikes If you already have Nebula, you can watch this video ad-free and sponsor-free: nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-the-german-city-with-more-bikes-than-cars And here's the link to Type Ashton! www.youtube.com/@TypeAshton
I started to sign up to Nebula, you (and others) finally convinced me. But there's no PayPal or iDEAL option, so for the moment sadly I don't/won't/can't. (Of course I can, by starting a 'Link'? account or get a credit card, but I don't want to go in that at the moment)
What do you think of all the acolyte channels popping up rehashing the same topics you've brought up as well as the React videos straight up taking your content to re-upload on their channels.
I visited a friend in Freiburg back in 2011 and the first day that I went outside, I thought to myself “wow, is it a holiday today or something?” just because it was so quiet. But no, tons of people were out and going about their days. At first I attributed the quiet to the Black Forest absorbing all that extra sound. Took a while to notice there just…weren’t many cars!
Same, and also 2011! Quiet streets and yet people everywhere. In the evening, we drank beer in the square, people met their friends, there was music everywhere ... it was like a festival, but it was just a normal Friday night. I also remember being struck by the number of solar panels. Trams and bike paths, obviously ... but none of this is new to that city.
As my father works as a city planner in Freiburg, i can confidently tell you that a big part of Freiburgs bike friendlyness comes from the fact that almost every city planner there is an avid bicycle fan and commutes to work by bike or tram. Definitly sending this video to my father!
As a Londoner I don’t really get a chance to use trams ever (Croydon absolutely does not count) but I’ve been living in Berlin this month and I’ve been blown away with just how often trams come, how fast they are, and how much of the neighbourhood they cover. I’m usually a fan of walking or I’ll pop on a bus or train to save time, but I’m finding myself going for the tram for how perfect it fits into the scheme of things. That and no matter what mode of transport I take it’s all included in the €49/ month deutschland ticket, I’m a happy camper
Older generations will complain that 'kids don't play outside anymore' and 'people aren't even having kids anymore' like they didn't design a world that is actively hostile to children
As a wheelchair bound person from NL who visited Freiburg several times, l can totally agree; it is a very people friendly city in a beautiful part of Germany.
They’ve levelled part of the cobblestones in the older part of the city a few years back so that Accessibility could be better (: now there is flat paths in most of the older streets (:
@@thatrocksong The cobblestones are not too bad to ride on. They can be quite flat and smooth but uneven on the other side of the street. You just have to look where the pavement is best.
I was in Freiburg during a heat wave last summer , and people were having dinner, wine or coffee (all in real, non disposable dishes) while sitting on the ground with their feeet in the little canal stream. So nice.
I'd be interested to know to what extent (if at all) reducing car numbers reduces the urban heat island effect. Either way, it sounds nice to stand on ground that doesn't fry an egg in the summer.
I've had the privilege of living in Vauban for 2 years (for cheap in student housing), and I now compare every city I go to with it. It's truly heaven. I don't know if I'll ever move back to Freiburg, but it changed how I view my surroundings. I lived there during the first few months of Covid as well, and it was genuinely the best place to live in Germany at that time. Uni was cancelled/online, you weren't allowed to meet more than one other household and so on. I lived there with my 5 roomies, so we were one big friend group counting as a household, and we would just go on little adventures into the black forest (which is 10 mins by foot away), cook together or just stroll through the area. During that time I made hiking my hobby and it ironically made me healthier mentally and physically than before covid. Where you live and your surroundings influence you heavily. I now live in Frankfurt and I have to actively seek out and maintain what was just second nature in Vauban.
I was only there on exchange for a semester, but I had a very similar experience in Freiburg also during COVID. I'm now living in Montreal (as good as it gets in Canada) but I'm always looking out for a way that I can make my way back to Freiburg.
@@PeripheryFanboy I'm from Chicago and while I haven't yet had the opportunity to visit Montreal, I did visit Victoria, B.C. this past summer, for a few days. The place just seemed very liveable, considering everything that I have seen in my life.
@@Brian-bp5pe Nice! I haven't been out west myself yet but I would recommend visiting the Plateau in Montreal. Probably one of the most walkable/livable neighbourhoods in the continent
its great! I had a window facing a street pretty close to what might be considered a main road and I still only ever heard the trams (and the occasional drunk soccer fan)
Maybe it's just me, but watching Freiburg's infrastructure just instills this sense of calmness and 'goodness' into my body, like seeing something you never knew you truly needed
@@RedScareClair I don't want children particularly, but if a partner managed to change my mind...I'd be strongly encouraging us all to upsticks and move to somewhere in NL, or this Freiburg looks like a good call. Somewhere that affords children autonomy.
Very true, I live in southwestern Germany and I visit Freiburg annually. Not for typical touristy stuff, I just really enjoy the vibe that the old town gives me.
There's just something about the little waterways in the streets and the grassy tram lines. In th us it would just be kind of ugly looking crushed stone with weeds and litter in it.
The rule that new suburbs must be within walking distance of a tram stop is amazing. We need this so much in Australian cities! (where developers will make a random suburb with only car and (terrible) bus access. They sprawl their way too far into what was farm land. It’s sad)
need public transport in australia first to do this. the expansion of the melbourne subway train network connected to the airport is going to take a century to complete.
@@samelmudir I think it's pretty clear really - if a new suburb is to be built away from existing transit routes, then the developer needs to proportionally pay for building (at least some of) rail / tram infrastructure. This will heavily discourage urban sprawl as it'll reduce their profits, instead incentivising to redevelop within existing suburbs
I live in Freiburg and the rule is great but unfortunately there's no real areas left to be built by Tram stops so the only way for the city to expand and help our housing crisis is to expand the tram network. Which is happening but it's slow progress
Australia has the same problems with car dependency and sprawl that North America has. It's not quite as bad as North America, but it's still terrible and something needs to change.
I live in America and my car has been in the shop for a while now. If I can't find a ride my only option is to walk. It has been so eye opening to see how poorly designed and filthy my city is. There are sidewalks that abruptly end either because they were built that way or because they are so old that they have just been consumed by nature. Bike gutters full of trash, leaves, sometimes flooded, and are also crumbling apart same as the sidewalks. There are buses in my town but they're hardly worth using. The closest stop to my house is 1.7 miles and in the entire 4 mile walk I see only 0 to 2 buses. Every bus stop besides the one right outside the Kum & Go is covered in trash because that's where the only public trash cans are but they probably only get emptied every few months. How is this the norm in America? We think of ourselves as the freest country on Earth, yet I have no choice but to own a car. Small business are being choked because people would rather get everything at once at Walmart. Everybody stays inside because there's nothing worth being outdoors for so there's not a strong sense of community here. I believe your channel really paints a picture of what a healthy city looks like and it's nothing like what I've seen here.
Worth mentioning that Germany (currently) has a public transit ticket for 49 € per month (or less if you're a student). With this you can use all buses, trams and trains (except long-distance/high-speed trains like the one you see at 12:30) nationwide. If you have the time to ride the slower trains, you can just hop on the next train and go basically anywhere in Germany for no additional cost.
@@bananenmusli2769I'm Englishman who spent three months travelling all over Germany using the €49 'Deutschland Ticket' this summer. It is absolutely possible to buy the tickets as a foreigner!
@@checkcommentsfirst3335 I hope that politics decides to keep this long-term, as well, but It wouldn't surprise me if FDP or CDU cut the funding for it. Don't vote for these parties.
I was in Munich this summer and was shocked on how amazing the bike infrastructure is compared to Toronto. Also loved how the city centre was entirely pedestrian only. It was a huge breath of fresh air.
Fantastic that two of my favorite RUclipsrs, NJB and Ashton should find each other. The story here is so interesting as Frieburg seems to have 'caught itself' before it went too far down the automobile rabbit hole. Here's hoping that Dutch-style protected bike lanes become more of a standard in the coming years. Also, as mentioned Ashton and the Black Forest Family channels have a TON of very high quality videos comparing a variety of topics from a North American and European perspective. Highly recommended.
Totally agree. ❤ It was my pleasure to share "our neck of the woods" with Jason. Freiburg is a great place to go home and I'm thrilled he enjoyed his time visiting. I always get the feeling that Freiburgers are passionate about their city and are consistently advocating for their community and environment in the long term, as a kind of pastoral stewardship for future generations. Makes me proud to call it home.
Yes I think it was a perfect match: the conservatives wanted their medieval town back after the war and wen the car thing went mad in the 1970s the green movement was strong in the city council. (This city was not only green/progressive. It's the seat of a catholic archbishop and has a conservative tradition like the rest of south Germany.)
I was in Freiburg this summer. As a Dutchie (Leiden, also a historic university town) i can say it felt like home. A beautiful well organized city and the surrounding nature (Black Forest) is amazing. On a bike versus car perspective is Freiburg even further than a Dutch city like Leiden. Great stuff.
I was singing in Freiburg in Summer but stayed in a town in the forest. The quietness was the same in both places. My poor London brain couldn’t compute
We visited Freiburg a couple of weeks ago and what the tram really astonished us. It comes every 5 minutes and it is so fast. In our hometown Leipzig which is more than twice as large as Freiburg the trams never come more frequently than 10 minutes and are subject to traffic lights, often share lanes with cars. Big up for Freiburg!
Si alguien necesita un auto para trabajar es necesario que lo utilice, pero la mayoria de personas usan el auto para moverse de su casa al trabajo y por las tardes hace lo mismo, ademas de las personas que tienen que recorrer largas distancias en carro para comprar un huevo en la tienda
I've been living in Freiburg for about 7 years and I don't even feel the need to get a driver's licence yet. Every single commute can be easily done with a bike, public transport or a combination of both. It's such a great city for this reason alone
Oh, my HOMETOWN❤❤❤ i only fully appreciate how beautiful it is since i moved away. Life there is so relaxed. It's a medieval town, the water tracks were needed back then. I am so glad that after the war, Freiburg didnt decide to built a car-centric city onto the ruins but rebuilt as much as possible!
I don't understand if that was supposed to be an actual statement or irony. Because when the speed limit is low, these kinds of bike lanes are never insufficient. Yeah protection would be a nice addon, but you don't actually need that until the next major works on the street. Good drivers make bicycle infrastructure much easier to build
@@jan-lukas the road is to busy to have a bike lane there. (At least sonsideribg Dutch design guidelines) and it looks like a 50km/h road. Ideally you would put in a curb to prevent cars from going into the bike lane. And mybe even put in some trees to make a real barrier between the motor traffic and the bike lane. So it's a good start to take that lane and give it to cyclist. But now they have to really commit and make it pleasurable for cyclist to ride there.
i think he was referring situation before one car lane was closed for bikes. the small side walk was splitt for both pedestrians and bikes.. while the cars had 2 lanes each direction and could go 50km/h. Now its one lane and 30km/h for cars.
@@jan-lukas Drivers ignore paint on the street (no matter its purpose) quite often, and hit cyclistsor pedestrians in the process. Where it's reasonably doable, you want is physical barriers.
@@automation7295 Design wise it's a 50km/h road and i didn't see they limited the speed to 30km/h. So yes that's a good thing. But still it would be a lot safer with a physical barrier between those cars and the cyclist. And it doesn't take much to just place some concrete barriers there for now. And after they have a good final design they can build some real separated lanes.
Even though this channel isn't just about bicycles the two bicycle superhighways of Freiburg deserve at least an honourable mention: FR1 along the Dreisam creek and FR2 along the freight railroad tracks. Being able to cycle longer distances without having to deal with traffic lights and junctions at all is a game changer!
I lived in Freiburg for ten years and after leaving I am realizing how spoiled I was. Only after moving back to North America did I notice how good of a city it was. You have access to anything you would NEED in 15 minutes and be anywhere in town in 30 minutes or less by tram. You can be in forests, mountains, lakes, water parks, stadiums, zoos in no time and it is all very affordable. Even the poorest neighborhood is gorgeous and well-connected to the rest of the city. Trams are all stroller and wheelchair accessible. The elderly have easy access to groceries and doctors which are always within 15 minutes of walking. I had 2 young babies/kids and everything in the entire city was kid-friendly and accessible for strollers (more than anywhere Ive been to in the world). Not to mention I could let my kids play in one of the 100s of parks and playgrounds and bike anywhere. Btw, many bikes have add ons for babies. and every school and kindergarten they went to was within 15 minutes by either walking, biking, or tram. And you can still easily own a car and drive as fast as you want on the autobahn.
I fully agree. Freiburg deserves to be a template for others. I'm Dutch and moved to Freiburg 4 months ago. This is the first city that I feel takes care of its people as well as Dutch cities do.
Sad thing is that while we do have the knowledge of hiw to build people-friendly cities, many people fear the change. I know so many people in Germany that are pro car infrastructure (probably also beacyse its a big part of Germanys "culture") and its hard to change those mindsets...
yeah, in Munich there was an experiment done by the Uni where they removed the parking spaces and car lanes from a street and replaced them with a playground and public greenspace. What followed was just hate from the elderly living there because apparently children playing on the streets was too loud. Sometimes I hate my country
@@breznknedlsimilar thing happened in Berlin. A street was made car free but people complained and voted for other politicians who removed the car free zone and made it a street again
the fear is even in freiburg very present. for example there are planings to extend the tram network towards a neighbor city/town which basically is like a few hundred meters away from the outskirts of freiburg itself. you may mistake it as just a part of Freiburg. But people in this neighbor city are protesting against the direct connection with the tram network because it would be the first step to totally absorb this city into Freiburg and doom the city center with lots of small shops to fail. the other example is the long distance cycling street connecting Freiburg with the two largest cities in the area. there is a small part of that planed route that would convert a normal residential street eithin freiburg in to a cycling street. basically all that would change is that cars can no longer park on this street and as said in the video have to yield to bikes. like 50 parking spots will be removed and people living there are taking legal action to prevent that from happening.
13:00 I live in Middelburg, The Netherlands. The bridge to cross from the old city center to the train station has big signs indicating no car traffic is allowed, except for busses. Yet so often I see German tourists crossing the bridge in their cars and looking all confused when cyclists and pedestrians look at them angrily. It's kind of funny, because German tourists are the most well-behaved people in the world and immediately apologize for any wrongdoing.
A smart city is a green city and it's also defined by an easy access to the surrounding nature! This is what I love about your channel... to see the actual transformation and to realize that we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Freiburg is the perfect example for an urban development that was created around its citizens. I love it!
Well,....Germany burns a lot of brown coal to power those trams and stuff. You have to figure all those solar panels aren't really helping in the snowy dark days of Winter. Maybe, they could learn from France.
The bloody french blocked EU development of thorium based nuclear energy 20 years ago, because they had billions of sunk investments in their uranium nuclear infrastructure. If not for the french the EU would probably scaling up thorium energy plants ! ( thorium has only a half time of 200-300 years compared to uranium , it is more widely accessible , harder to use for nukes amongst other ...)
I'm weirded out how some people think urban development means no greenery. Like if there aren't lawns every 5 feet somehow there's no place to go to enjoy nature, despite the fact that denser cities actually means that the wilderness will be closer to your front door. Maybe that's what they're scared of.
Having lived in Freiburg for two years, I have to agree: it's a pretty great city (the reason I left didn't have anything to do with the city itself). Oh, and we lived there car-free by the way. Lots of biking, a bit of using the tram, and renting a van the few times we really needed to move something big. IKEA even had a deal where you could rent an electric van for free (for the first hour or so) if you came by tram!
Being born there you sometimes take the nice things for granted. Really loved your kind words about the city. And my thoughts after watching the video were „oh no, now the rent prices in Freiburg will rise even more“. 😅
I am from Freiburg, and I really like living in this city, great video. I actualy know every place you have shown. I just wanted to mention, that the footage you show in 4:23 which is from 1973 does not show the same place as you show when you compare to how it looks today. It‘s the same gate, or Martinstor how we call it, but from the other side. It stil looks kind of similar today as in 1973.
@@borek772even better. When the light rail gets its route to itself, there's way fewer delays and it becomes far more reliable. Cobblestone is superior to asphalt, too. Costs way less in maintenance, lasts longer, and encourages drivers to slow down.
@@borek772 that's the point. Making tracks exclusively for trams means the trams can travel at faster speeds. Much better since trams have signal priority at intersections.
Earlier this year me and my family decided to move out of the USA. We looked at the Netherlands, Ireland, and eventually decided on Germany. Wolter's World and Asthon's videos helped us understand Freiburg and I applied for a job. I was nervous interviewing in July. Nervous it was the right decision for my family and our future. Stepping off the plane in Frankfurt then taking a train to Freiburg didn't ease my anxiety. As soon as I stepped off the train and saw all of the bikes near Hauptbahnhof I felt home. We've been living in Herdern since August and are staying in Freiburg for a long time! Glad to see you made it to Freiburg and to see the comparisons with Vauban. I plan on visiting Amsterdam soon!
Thank you for this video! It's really great that you covered the short history since world war 2 - Freiburg, and Germany on a whole, were almost on track to become much more car centric. A tour of the Colombischlössle which you probably passed will always include an explanation that it is part of a medieval fortification system. The hill Colombischlössle stands on was one of four (or six?) hills. Today it is the only one remaining, as the other were paved over. I also wished you visited the Studierendensiedlung! Literally "student settlement" it's a whole neighborhood with all necessities close by
I've been studying in Freiburg since 2 years and I've very recently come across your channel and became a huge admirer of your videos! I wondered why you didn't have many videos on Germany but this video about our city made me extremely happy and satisfied :) The tram network and the proximity to Black forest were my main reasons to choose Freiburg for my studies! I was able to guess the city from the thumbnail itself :) Really appreciate your efforts to make this amazing video about our beautiful city!!
Great Video. Would also be great if you could do a video about Münster - the bike capital of Germany, where you actually have more bikes than people. Also it is very near to the Netherlands so you could actually do a day trip to see how great of a city it is
If you want to see a Video about bad city planning, how people help themselves because they have a medival city with subpar local transport - go for it. In Münster ( eventhough nobody at the decision takers level admit it) the car rules supreme when it there have to be new infrastructure projects. Bicycles are an nuisance and necessity, because of the university, the lack of public transport and the bad ring infrastructure. Bicycle projects are to call a street in a habitation area bicycle street, paint the street red and change nothing else. These streets are commonly already limited to 30 kph and the cars won't be prohibited in these streets. Also these are areas where there is already not much traffic, so they ar not really the main traffic axis for bicycles at all. The only nice idea, was to keep the old city wall as a bycycle road, but since it is disrupted by all the streets with right of passage going into the city, it is not the bicycle speedway everybody says.
I kinda agreed with you about Public Transit in Münster. But despite a very Frustrating inactivity of the Administration, and some really Strange attempts of bikelash from powerful parts of the Public, Münster IS pretty much a cycling paradise, especially in comparison to pretty much all of Germany ( one could argue even to Freiburg). But that's Just my private opinion as longtime Leezenritter.
I was born in Freiburg and I can tell you that during the time I lived there, A LOT has changed to the good. And there is no ending in sight. I'm kind of jealous about the improvements in transport that I didn't use to have
I absolutely love Freiburg, I'm from Stuttgart which is considered to be the "Automobile City" in Germany. Stuttgart is a car hell hole and I hate it so much. I travel to Freiburg quite often for business purposes and it always feels so amazing. If I could, I'd move there permanently but for now I'm stuck in Stuttgart.
Great video! I'm currently studying in Freiburg, and I really wish I could have had the chance to meet you there. However, I'd like to address the point you made about the city being 'financially sustainable.' It's important to note that Freiburg is actually one of the most expensive cities to live in within Germany. The cost of living, even in shared housing, is significantly higher compared to other student cities like Duisburg and Essen in the north. Additionally, Freiburg's primary source of income comes from tourism and visitors, rather than a robust industrial or residential base. Most of the city's residents are wealthy families with stable jobs and, on average, 1.5 children. The majority of people living here are students who tend to leave the city once they graduate. So, while Freiburg may be financially sustainable for itself and its affluent residents, it's not necessarily the case for the average person. Thanks for your videos, and keep up the excellent work! :)
I love the clip at 14:08 where there is so much going on that there is almost an accident, but it's easily avoided and everyone continues as normal. There is just no way to move cars through that kind of space at any speed safely but bikes, trams and pedestrians can all intermingle without any issues. Fantastic.
Another great example ist the "Karlsruher model" of the near City Karlsruhe. It's not particular about bicycles, but also comfortable way to travel from the urban areas directly to the city center. Love Freiburg
I spent a couple weeks in Freiburg a few years back. It's one of the most pleasant cities to exist in that I've visited. Never once felt like I wished I had access to a car and was the start of my realising how poorly designed cities in Australia can be. That trip was largely Freiburg with a short stay in Amsterdam, and at the time I just assumed most of Europe was like that. Having done a bit of travel over the years they are the two cities I still measure other cities against in terms of livability.
@@annother3350 Most supermarkets in German cities do offer a "bring home" service nowadays, so there'd be little to no need to do your grocery shopping via tram as a disabled person but instead have it delivered right to your doorstep. There are also plenty of other opportunities to get help in these regards. And most people would of course help a person in need if they saw one struggling to get on the tram/train/bus etc. Same thing with baby strollers etc. Edit: typos
A couple years back we spent our holiday on a bike trip through the black forest towards Freiburg. Then once there, instead of using our bikes, we ended up walking everywhere because we were mostly in the city center and it is so walkable. Great city.
I recently spent a few weeks in Freiburg studying. The tram system is indeed brilliant. Getting around was nearly effortless. It's a great little city to spend time in.
Been living in Freiburg for almost 2 years now, and been loving it. While I was not car dependent before, still nice to get out of the concrete ocean that is São Paulo to go to a city I can bike everywhere... I didn't even had public transport ticket until recently, and the only reason I got it is because it allows me to travel all over Germany for just 49 euros... Also, there is pretty good bike infrastructure all over the region and surroundings. I've biked to Strassbourg (France) and Basel (Switzerland) and it was pretty much only in dedicated bike paths
Freiburg is actually my Urban Geography case study for sustainable cities and I'm moving onto this topic sometime this year. This should be very helpful, thank you!
Oh my god the kids making boats, when I was younger my family visited Norway and there were these fountains everywhere that connected to gutters like those, and me and my brothers sailed soda bottles through it it was so fun. As someone who had never left the U.S., walking through that country was so fun I’ll never forget that trip
It's interesting to see such a report from an outsider. I myself was born in Freiburg and still live here and take it all as normal. thank you for the beautiful video.
YESSSS!!!! I've been in Germany a few months for work and I'm going back to the US soon unfortunately. Freiburg was the first place I traveled in Germany that wasn't for work and I was absolutely blown away. I went there to do some running and biking in the Black Forest and knew almost nothing about the city itself. After having been to a ton of cities across Europe now, I think Freiburg would still be the place I'd move to if I relocated to Europe. Its more affordable than Salzburg and Innsbruck, has much better access to nature than Belgium, the Netherlands, and most other cities in Germany, and punches far above it's weight in terms of urbanism. I think it competes with the likes of Cologne, Munich, and Dusseldorf in that respect.
The only good thing about Cologne is the progress, but it's easy to have lots of progress when you start at nearly nothing... So much left to do, sadly, and the Stadtbahn system is just to small for such a large city. Hopefully the expansion of the S-Bahn will help...
@@jan-lukas Cologne's bike infrastructure in particular is atrocious, and as the video mentions, these transformations take decades. It's still incredibly car centric, but what gives me some hope is that so many people cycle DESPITE the lacking infrastructure and obviously want a more human centric city. I hope city planning catches up to what the citizens are already trying to implement in their daily lives.
NJB have you seen Ljubljana? From what I've seen online it has thousands of protected bike lanes, super frequent public transport and lots of bike rental places! You should do a video on it. What do you think? Correction: The whole country of Slovenia has protected bike lanes and protected intersections! Really wanna see a vid here as even on yt there's hardly any videos even about the country and no videos about the fantastic urban design
+1 ...that was an old communist project, Id like to see it and learn whether they've expanded also, Almetyevsk (in Tatarstan, Russia) would be interesting to see (they've worked with Copenhagenization)
I recently moved from Spain to Munich, although is more car centric than Freiburg it was such an improvement over the average Spanish city. My mental health improved so much simply by biking everywhere and hearing less traffic, I just can’t imagine how great a real car free city could be
We visited during our Black Forest vacation this summer and enjoyed it very much. The huge playground north of the old town is superb. As is tradition, we also tried the local pediatric energency ward, and i'm happy to report that it lives up to the standard set by the rest of the city. We were even able to walk there, and luckily it was at the end of our visit.
As a geography student that lives near and in Freiburg my whole life I was immediately hyped to see you visited Freiburg! I'm really glad to live in a city where I don't need a car, because I haven't driven for years and now I'm afraid of driving such monstums of vehicles and also don't see the need for it. A few months ago I had american friends come to visit and I showed them also the Schauinslandbahn (cable car) just to show them the very well infrastructure and how fast you can get out of the crowded inner city and into the nature. They too loved it. Thanks for the video!
Everytime I watch videos like this one I am so surprised by the reaction to Freiburg, as somebody who grew up there, it is so normal to me! This video really puts it into perspective. I'm very impressed by how much has changed for the better since I left Freiburg 8 years ago, like several new tram stops and lines being put in place. Also that pedestrian square at the Uni-Bibliothek you mentioned used to be next to a FOUR lane road, when I was a kid, the students would cross that road via a bridge to get to the library on the other side (that's so crazy to think about)
Whereever you live now PLEASE help activists to make cities more people centric, you, having first-hand experience could be key in moving such endeavors along in wherever you live, because make no.listake, these initiatives exist everywhere, they just need people to help get them to the forefront of public knowledge
As someone who's been living in Freiburg for the past 8 years, I genuinely thought it's like this everywhere, until I moved to Seville for 6 Months and the cars were awful, I could barely breathe most of the time and the noise was just horrible. Now I'm happily back here, and I appreciate Freiburg more than ever ❤
I visited Freiburg this summer and absolutely fell in love. We went mountain biking in the Black Forest, which was incredible, of course. But riding our bikes through Freiburg was fabulous. It's the safest I've ever felt riding my bike. The Fahrradvorrangstraßen (bike priority routes) are amazing and such a great way to transport a large number of people by bike through the city. I would love to live there someday. I highly recommend a trip to visit Freiburg!
I have friends who live in Freiburg. In the winter, you can even go to the local skiing resorts with public transportation. Just grab your Ski or Snowboard and take the S-Bahn to Tittisee and then the train to Feldberg and you arrive directly at the resort. Its 1:17h with public transportation and only a few minutes less by car.
as much as i agree with pretty much all of what you said, you could have mentioned that freiburg is among the top 10 most expesive cities to live in in germany, which is surprising considering its size. unfortunately, in that sense, its not really a city for "everyone". would be interesting to look into the connections between freiburg's sustainability and its cost of living...
That I think gets into an interesting question: is it more expensive because it costs more to keep the city operational, or does it cost more because its a nicer place to live and therefore there's more demand for homes there? (which, I think, is your point, I'm just spelling it out a bit more) Its that relationship between cost of living and sustainability that frustrates me, and not even in the way you might think. See, places like this tend to be very expensive places to live and yet, despite that, people are still living there and visiting from other places. That suggests to me that these places are highly desirable (either because of high demand jacking up prices or because people are willing to overlook the high cost of living). "Location, Location, Location" is an old adage for a reason: because when picking a home that really is one of the most important features. And yet, despite that desirability, despite the knowledge that people _like_ to live in places with a lot of amenities and things to do, its still a fight to get anything even a 1/10th as nice as this in the US. I suspect that the cost of living isn't that much to do with high maintenance costs. Sure, a robust public transit system can cost a pretty penny to maintain, but other things like bike paths, walking paths, and density don't. It might be expensive to initially design and implement them, but they cost way less in year to year maintenance then endless streets. Hell, denser cities tend to generate _more_ in revenue. I figure that developers should be racing each other to build dense cities before there's too much supply that they can't charge an arm and a leg for a studio apartment, yet they aren't. Weird.
@@SilverDragonJay The only thing that is expensive in Freiburg is the rents, which are very inflated because housing is so scarce. Which is of course because so many people want to live in Freiburg.
The city of Karlsruhe, 100km north of Freiburg could be worth a trip too. It had the best cycling infrastructure in Germany for years, but last year it was overtaken by Münster again. They gave one line of nearly every multi line road just for bikes. But more impressing is the tram/train network which is unique in Germany. Many trams go far (>30km) out of the city center using the main railway track so you don’t have to switch the train to get from a small town nearby to the city centre. And many trams continue their way into the tram networks of other cities (Heilbronn). Just amazing.
You totally missed the most important thing! 3 literally "bike highroads" that run all the way across the city without catching a light or a car! It makes travelling through the city possible (by bike) in around 10-15 minutes. Awesome video 😊. I'm a fan of Freiburg, I've been living there for two years and I just left last month 😢
Ghent in Belgium is also a city with a lot of students, trams, bikes and beautiful old architecture. I would love to see a video about Ghent one day as it's also a beautiful example on how to build city infrastructure for people instead of for cars
I had a conference in Freiburg last year that had a guided bike tour as part of the entertainment program. The conference center is a bit outside the city center (next to a large parking lot and a concert venue with the attractive name "Sick Arena"), but we could easily get to the main station by tram and pick up our rental bikes there. The tour went by the river, through urban areas, and ended at a viewpoint looking over the entire city , really nice.
I grew up in the Black Forest and everytime we had to go to a specialised doctor, we went to Freiburg. It was always nice taking the very scenic route through the hills and by the lakes in to Freiburg and then travel by tram through the citycenter. We also visited nearby Basel in Switzerland often, since my father lived there. It also has a great tramnetwork and a beautiful, walkable, medieval city-center. Altough i feel like it has more cars than Freiburg. Basel is definitly worth a visit though!
This summer I was planning to hike in the forests of the black forest with some friends, but as we headed to our campsite we passed the city of Freiburg. The city looked super interesting, so we decided to visit it for a day. Without regret, because the following day we decided to visit the city again, besides that we also decided to go out that night. We found Freibrug such a cool summer experience, because the city is so alive there. During the summer months, it is a tradition there to sit next to the water canals with a glass of wine and enjoy all the excitement. We saw all different ages, both students and retired persons. With that if you would like to visit the city, definitely do it during the summer months and enjoy a touch of joy while visiting.
Fantastic! Two of my very favourite RUclips channels combining! Ashton and Jonathan has a wonderful video on how all this came to be in Freiburg, and now you provide us with another take on what Freiburg is. Thanks ever so much!
I've been living in Freiburg for 8 years and moved to Dublin last year. In both cities I lived 4 km from the city center. In Freiburg I could get a tram to the city center every 5 mins and it would be a 9 minute ride. In Dublin on the other hand I waited for up to 30 minutes for a bus that would (of course) get stuck in traffic and take 30 minutes for the drive. I think it was in the rain at this awful bus stop on a stroad in northern Dublin where I truly fell in love with Freiburg
My hometown. ❤ Had the car of my mom for two full months and used it twice. There are just rarely cases when driving by car is more convenient over here. And if you need a car, there are many cars around the city from a car sharing company you can use. Even friends with kids sold their cars as having cargo bikes is easier here. That being said, as pointed out in the video, we still have areas which can be improved for public transport and bikes, but we are getting there bit by bit. And yes, our Hauptbahnhof is very ugly.
Moved to Freiburg a year ago from another smaller bike friendly city. It really is great here. Never had a car and I feel like there is absolutely no need to get one in cities like Freiburg. It's large enough to not only have a public transport system but a very quick and efficient one, but still small enough to have everything in reach. I've never even had to take a bus, the trams cover pretty much every part of the city and the bike lanes everywhere make it easy to get to any place by cycling. Loved the video!
I appreciated your patience with a thumbs up. Other noteable bike-friendly cities in Germany include Leipzig, Münster and maybe Greifswald that would come to mind.
Idk about Leipzig, it didn't really impress me, but Münster, Karlsruhe, Oldenburg, Bremen and Kiel are pretty impressive since they all have what so many other German cities lack: a usable bike network in the entire city. Not just fancy 3 meter wide bike lanes on 5 streets and terrific streets everywhere else like Berlin or Hamburg, but real bike paths everywhere. Of course they also have very different standards from street to street, but everything is usable. Berlin, Cologne, Dresden and Stuttgart on the other hand give me nightmares. Leipzig is somewhere in between, just like Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg or Düsseldorf
@@haisheauspforte1632 I think it is pretty interesting that you mention Bremen. As someone from near Bremen I do never think of the city as one with bike infrastructure but on second thought, yeah you are right. But I have to disagree on Hamburg, the three times I was cycling there I feared for my life so I would definetly put it on the lower end of the range. But I am pretty sure every German cyclist can agree on Münster. And there was a really interesting podcast by SWR that I heard years ago regarding Karlsruhe tearing down a lot of their car lanes to replace it with infrastructure for cyclists.
Münster is not bike friendly. It often markets itself as such, but it really isn't. @NotJustBikes If you ever want to visit the "Fahrradstadt" Münster, Hit me up and I'll give you a tour showing you all the reasons why Münster is a complete failure in terms of city planning.
In the past few years I'm also actually really impressed by Cologne's progress. I wouldn't say that it's good right now, but it feels like a lot of progress in a somewhat short amount of time, so let's just hope!
I implore you, look at my home city of Ostrava, large expansive tram, trolley and bus service, whilst car heavy and the centre being commercially gutted. The city of less than 300k transports more people on public transit (by ridership) then the entire uk light rail/ trams not including london underground but including overground does.
I just moved to Bremen from the a decent sized city in the Midwest. I really enjoy not needing a car here. I can bike or take public transport basically anywhere I want to go, definitely everywhere I need to go. This morning I had an appointment that was about 15 minutes away by bike and it was so quiet. I was late and in my rush I forgot my headphones, which I normally wear while biking, so it really stood out to me just how quiet this city is in the central parts. Especially compared to where I lived before, which was also basically downtown but since it was in the US, naturally there was a 10 lane interstate that I could see and hear from my house.
Wow I’m an American living in NL and have a new found love for cycling. Freiburg sounds like a dream! I would love to visit just to experience cycling in this quaint city. I hope I can rent a bike just to enjoy. Thanks for sharing 😊!
Visited Freiberg about a year ago and loved it. I had never rented a bike in a foreign city before but I had nothing to do one morning and I had an amazing time. The city's bike rental system works via an app on your phone and it's very easy. Didn't feel nervous cycling through the city at all
Also what I think is pretty interesting and another point is, that all streets that run through the city are limited to 30 km/h. This leads to the cars being more quiet and the traffic run far more smooth and also leads to other transportation options be more attractive. And another point is, that Freiburg has a great car sharing program. So you really don't need to own your own car, as you can just rent one for the few occasions you need it. Overall great video. Loved it.
Holy shit I was born there. I was too young to remember, so I had no idea it had this beautiful pedestrianized infrastructure. I want to thank you so much for making this video, because apparently this kind of city has been a part of my life for much longer than I knew.
Went there earlier this year as a tourist by car. Even the parking situation for cars was a lot better than in cities that are more car oriented. And once parked you can just enjoy the whole City by foot. Edit: Also parking fees are super low. At Westarkaden the first 2 hours were free which was enough for me to have a nice dinner nearby.
Freiburg is a lovely city that I have had the pleasure of visiting! Also witnessed a very minor tram derailment, but the system is fantastic. The water channels are great to go through too!
Wow, it's so nice to see the city I grew up in featured on this channel. It is a great city for kids, I remember just roaming around the streets with my friends and having fun. One of my best friends when I was a child lived in Vauban, so I spent a lot of afternoons in the neighborhood, and I can tell you that it is amazing. There were parks and green spaces everywhere and pretty much no car traffic. There are also a ton of playgrounds in the area, so we could just walk from playground to playground and have fun. I also remember there being a henhouse on one of the streets where you could go, take eggs, and then pay by putting some money in a box. We used to go there and just chill out with the chickens. It's really amazing that 6 year olds can just run around the neighborhood there. The tram network is really amazing, but it can be annoying if you live a bit further outside the city where the trams don't reach, because the bus network is far less efficient compared to the trams (still pretty good though). What's really cool on the other hand is that you have pretty frequent trains to go into the black forest, which you can take to quickly get into nature. The best way to get around Freiburg is by far the bicycle. Especially the Southern and Eastern part of the city are as bike friendly as any city I've ever visited, and you can get out to nature really quickly. From my home, it was a 15 minute bike ride to get to the center of the city, over 80% of it on a seperate bike path by the Dreisam river or on a Fahrradstraße. It is 100 times more convenient compared to taking a car, and you get exercise at the same time. If you take a turn on the Fahrradstraße, you get to some of Germany's best MTB downhill trails, and if you go the other way, away from the city, you're in the middle of fields after 5 minutes. The bike network is also really well connected with the other villages and small towns around, you can go to places which are 20 kilometers away, pretty much without having to leave the bike paths, and there are direction signs all around telling you which direction to go, and how far your destination is away. Even though I have a driver's licence, I always prefer to go by bike over going by car.
Again I can't stop grinning over your enthusiasm about all the little things. It is so fun to watch your videos! And as a side note: although Freiburg definitely is a showcase example lots of other German cities I know are not too far off. The extent to which the city is walkable and car free is of course not the same but the ideas are there and wait to be applied to more parts of the cities. Thank you!!
Will second how amazing Fribourg-im-Breisgau is. Stayed there last year and loved it. From Weingarten, I only ever used the tram or my feet to get around. Everything was accessible, the market amazing, and walking along and through the river (which has also been made into various swimming holes near the city centre) divine. Thanks for highlighting this wonderful city.
I grew up in Freiburg and after living in other cities for a few years I truly realized how lucky I am that I spent my childhood there! It’s truly a nice place with a high quality of life (though I don’t see myself moving back there anytime soon due to career options and it’s simply a bit too small and „slow“ for me rn if that makes sense). My parent’s house is in a similar suburb to Vauban, so having only slow streets and/or designated „Spielstraßen“ (play streets) gave us a lot of safe areas to play as children and most of us started going to places by ourselves in kindergarten/first years of elementary school. I would argue a well planned area actually gives children a lot of freedom! Also taking the bike everywhere (the tram is pretty expensive imo and doesn’t run at night which is super annoying if you’re 18 and staying in clubs until 5am) made me so used to it that I kept this habit in the car dependent hell that is North Rhine-Westphalia. However, I would argue that not every city can be designed like Freiburg, after all it’s a fairly small town (about 200k inhabitants) and pretty rich, even for the south of Germany which is known to be more wealthy
Modal filtering is so important. Chicago's lakefront trail is heavily modal filtered, but some of these barriers are removable to allow access for special events. One of the filters wasn't put back in my neighborhood after an event in about August and very quickly cars were parking in the park and along the trail. It was such a relief when the barrier was finally recovered and put back about a month later.
Your patience and timing is highly appreciated! Nice to see a good example for city development from Germany. Hopefully many others will learn from it.
I grew up 45minutes from Freiburg and my friends and I used to take the train there all the time as teenagers. I’ve been back earlier this month after a couple of years and boy did I fall right back in love with the city and buzzing and lively city centre 🥰😍
God, watching the footage from this video fills me with so much excitement and happiness. I know it was a joke in the video but I genuinely do appreciate the work you put into getting these clips, because its an absolute powerhouse to your videos. Coincidentally, I just spend this weekend looking at different towns and cities I could live in when I move to Germany, so this came just in time! I'll have to add Freiburg to my list now; it's a bit more expensive than my other options, but I just might be able to make it work if I play my cards right.
If you do try to move there, good luck! one of the downsides of the city is the absurd price for housing, which happens because we have a lot of students who need places, as well as young families trying to move there, as well as a lot of tourism, which means that airbnbs take up a lot of the flats as well. But if you do find something good its a great city to live in
@@misscutenar2333 lmao that's exactly what I was worried about. thank you for the warning though, much appreciated :) My first choice (at least before this, looks like it still is) is Duisburg.
@@daisycarbonell Wow I'm surprised. What made you pick Duisburg? I think it's a good pick: The Ruhr area is a very interesting place to live, and Duisburg is very underrated in my opinion. But still not the first place people name when they want to move to Germany.
@@daisycarbonell Duisburg is very surprising because many in Germany view it as a "poor shabby industrial city" but I think Duisburg and the Ruhr area in general is super interesting. I actually prefer the socially and ethically diverse cities in the west and the "rough" cities in the north (excluding Hamburg) over the "fancy" ones in the south (+ Hamburg which is basically the north's Munich). So yeah, pretty good choice, if you are into cities like Duisburg you could also look into the other Ruhr cities as well as old industrial hubs in the north like Bremen or Kiel
Im from Oxford UK which is also a very bike heavy city (although not as much as this). I think there may be an element of University cities being expecially suited to bikes as the population is disproportionately young, healthy and doesn't necessarily have money for a car. At the same time recently the people who complained to me most about recently restrictions on cars in the city were business owners, thinking about goods deliveries. I think it is an issue that Universities are a very specific industry, not necessarily representative of the workforce as a whole. Small cities that don't grow much and have an entirely service based economy can definitely be pedestrian friendly. I think cities which are industrial heavy are going to be the biggest challenge for walkable infrastructure. These are vital for a ballenced economy though, University towns are not a good model for nations as whole.
Whattttttttt I am from Freiburg ❤ and this has been one of my favourite RUclips channels for a while now. Really cool to see my city through an outside perspective ✨✨
Worked in Freiburg for 3 years. Gosh I miss that city, even though i'm now way better off with a full-time remote job and no 60km one-way commute anymore. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and still come by to meet up with old colleagues fairly regular.
i am doing my masters of urban planning currently and have been thinking of what to do my thesis on and looking at this video (after spending months working out how to come up with a topic from all your other videos) i just found it! thank you!
Get Nebula using my link for 40% off an annual subscription: go.nebula.tv/notjustbikes
If you already have Nebula, you can watch this video ad-free and sponsor-free:
nebula.tv/videos/notjustbikes-the-german-city-with-more-bikes-than-cars
And here's the link to Type Ashton!
www.youtube.com/@TypeAshton
Noting that the link in description links to your previous video.
I started to sign up to Nebula, you (and others) finally convinced me.
But there's no PayPal or iDEAL option, so for the moment sadly I don't/won't/can't.
(Of course I can, by starting a 'Link'? account or get a credit card, but I don't want to go in that at the moment)
What do you think of all the acolyte channels popping up rehashing the same topics you've brought up as well as the React videos straight up taking your content to re-upload on their channels.
I wonder , why are there no car lanes in shopping malls?
And we also have one of the largest walking areas at all, in the Center of Copenhagen.
I visited a friend in Freiburg back in 2011 and the first day that I went outside, I thought to myself “wow, is it a holiday today or something?” just because it was so quiet. But no, tons of people were out and going about their days. At first I attributed the quiet to the Black Forest absorbing all that extra sound. Took a while to notice there just…weren’t many cars!
Same, and also 2011! Quiet streets and yet people everywhere. In the evening, we drank beer in the square, people met their friends, there was music everywhere ... it was like a festival, but it was just a normal Friday night. I also remember being struck by the number of solar panels. Trams and bike paths, obviously ... but none of this is new to that city.
As my father works as a city planner in Freiburg, i can confidently tell you that a big part of Freiburgs bike friendlyness comes from the fact that almost every city planner there is an avid bicycle fan and commutes to work by bike or tram. Definitly sending this video to my father!
That "terrible bicycle gutter" is nicer than anything in my city.
As a Londoner I don’t really get a chance to use trams ever (Croydon absolutely does not count) but I’ve been living in Berlin this month and I’ve been blown away with just how often trams come, how fast they are, and how much of the neighbourhood they cover. I’m usually a fan of walking or I’ll pop on a bus or train to save time, but I’m finding myself going for the tram for how perfect it fits into the scheme of things.
That and no matter what mode of transport I take it’s all included in the €49/ month deutschland ticket, I’m a happy camper
Trams are the best. I actually believe they're necessary for a successful walkable city, as they act like "walking extenders".
Hi Evan! Another great channel. Yours, NJB and Type Ashton.
Have fun in Germany. Hope there are some videos of it. Greetings from Lake Constance
London is a nice city to live comparing to many car-infested ones.
Unfortunately, west Berlin got rid of it's trams and only the east retained it
@@maxim5156 They're currently rebuilding the net, extending it to e.g. Moabit, which is in the west. There is also a tram line going to Wedding.
Older generations will complain that 'kids don't play outside anymore' and 'people aren't even having kids anymore' like they didn't design a world that is actively hostile to children
Exactly this.
As a wheelchair bound person from NL who visited Freiburg several times, l can totally agree; it is a very people friendly city in a beautiful part of Germany.
It looks like there is quite a lot of cobblestone pavement. Was that an issue for you?
They’ve levelled part of the cobblestones in the older part of the city a few years back so that Accessibility could be better (: now there is flat paths in most of the older streets (:
@@thatrocksong The cobblestones are not too bad to ride on. They can be quite flat and smooth but uneven on the other side of the street. You just have to look where the pavement is best.
I hate walking and cycling on cobblestone. I know cobblestone looks better, but asphalt is much smoother.
I was in Freiburg during a heat wave last summer , and people were having dinner, wine or coffee (all in real, non disposable dishes) while sitting on the ground with their feeet in the little canal stream. So nice.
Hah! That sounds great! It's amazing what you can find people doing in people-friendly cities!
Wouldnt that contaminate the water🤔?
@@Monkeysiwowiwit's not drinking water quality. It will contain rainwater, runoff from the streets, etc. already.
You will see that in many European university cities. And using disposable dishes is very American 🙃🫣
I'd be interested to know to what extent (if at all) reducing car numbers reduces the urban heat island effect. Either way, it sounds nice to stand on ground that doesn't fry an egg in the summer.
I've had the privilege of living in Vauban for 2 years (for cheap in student housing), and I now compare every city I go to with it. It's truly heaven. I don't know if I'll ever move back to Freiburg, but it changed how I view my surroundings. I lived there during the first few months of Covid as well, and it was genuinely the best place to live in Germany at that time. Uni was cancelled/online, you weren't allowed to meet more than one other household and so on. I lived there with my 5 roomies, so we were one big friend group counting as a household, and we would just go on little adventures into the black forest (which is 10 mins by foot away), cook together or just stroll through the area. During that time I made hiking my hobby and it ironically made me healthier mentally and physically than before covid. Where you live and your surroundings influence you heavily. I now live in Frankfurt and I have to actively seek out and maintain what was just second nature in Vauban.
I was only there on exchange for a semester, but I had a very similar experience in Freiburg also during COVID. I'm now living in Montreal (as good as it gets in Canada) but I'm always looking out for a way that I can make my way back to Freiburg.
that sounds awesome
@@PeripheryFanboy I'm from Chicago and while I haven't yet had the opportunity to visit Montreal, I did visit Victoria, B.C. this past summer, for a few days. The place just seemed very liveable, considering everything that I have seen in my life.
@@Brian-bp5pe Nice! I haven't been out west myself yet but I would recommend visiting the Plateau in Montreal. Probably one of the most walkable/livable neighbourhoods in the continent
Man the quietness there is incredible. I dream of car free cities every time i’m woken up by the tire noise of someone driving by my window
its great! I had a window facing a street pretty close to what might be considered a main road and I still only ever heard the trams (and the occasional drunk soccer fan)
we should be the change the executives are scared of. the more cyclists the better the streets
While filming the „there is no noise“ section there was noise from the church bells 😂
(Still preferable to church bells + car noise of course)
@@Alina_SchmidtKnowing NJB he shot that scene on purpose with the bells ringing, so you realise how quiet the city really is.
@@annother3350 alr bro whatever you say 💀
Maybe it's just me, but watching Freiburg's infrastructure just instills this sense of calmness and 'goodness' into my body, like seeing something you never knew you truly needed
Completely agree! 👍
Completely. I shared this with my husband and said what would it be like to raise a child here?
@@RedScareClair I don't want children particularly, but if a partner managed to change my mind...I'd be strongly encouraging us all to upsticks and move to somewhere in NL, or this Freiburg looks like a good call. Somewhere that affords children autonomy.
Very true, I live in southwestern Germany and I visit Freiburg annually. Not for typical touristy stuff, I just really enjoy the vibe that the old town gives me.
There's just something about the little waterways in the streets and the grassy tram lines. In th us it would just be kind of ugly looking crushed stone with weeds and litter in it.
The rule that new suburbs must be within walking distance of a tram stop is amazing. We need this so much in Australian cities! (where developers will make a random suburb with only car and (terrible) bus access. They sprawl their way too far into what was farm land. It’s sad)
need public transport in australia first to do this. the expansion of the melbourne subway train network connected to the airport is going to take a century to complete.
@@samelmudir I think it's pretty clear really - if a new suburb is to be built away from existing transit routes, then the developer needs to proportionally pay for building (at least some of) rail / tram infrastructure. This will heavily discourage urban sprawl as it'll reduce their profits, instead incentivising to redevelop within existing suburbs
I live in Freiburg and the rule is great but unfortunately there's no real areas left to be built by Tram stops so the only way for the city to expand and help our housing crisis is to expand the tram network. Which is happening but it's slow progress
Are you sure you're not talking about the US?
Australia has the same problems with car dependency and sprawl that North America has. It's not quite as bad as North America, but it's still terrible and something needs to change.
I live in America and my car has been in the shop for a while now. If I can't find a ride my only option is to walk. It has been so eye opening to see how poorly designed and filthy my city is. There are sidewalks that abruptly end either because they were built that way or because they are so old that they have just been consumed by nature. Bike gutters full of trash, leaves, sometimes flooded, and are also crumbling apart same as the sidewalks. There are buses in my town but they're hardly worth using. The closest stop to my house is 1.7 miles and in the entire 4 mile walk I see only 0 to 2 buses. Every bus stop besides the one right outside the Kum & Go is covered in trash because that's where the only public trash cans are but they probably only get emptied every few months. How is this the norm in America? We think of ourselves as the freest country on Earth, yet I have no choice but to own a car. Small business are being choked because people would rather get everything at once at Walmart. Everybody stays inside because there's nothing worth being outdoors for so there's not a strong sense of community here. I believe your channel really paints a picture of what a healthy city looks like and it's nothing like what I've seen here.
Worth mentioning that Germany (currently) has a public transit ticket for 49 € per month (or less if you're a student). With this you can use all buses, trams and trains (except long-distance/high-speed trains like the one you see at 12:30) nationwide.
If you have the time to ride the slower trains, you can just hop on the next train and go basically anywhere in Germany for no additional cost.
I think you have to have a German postal address, so it's not for foreign tourists
currently? it is long-term :)
@@checkcommentsfirst3335 - it's not yet long term. Financing only secured until 2024.
@@bananenmusli2769I'm Englishman who spent three months travelling all over Germany using the €49 'Deutschland Ticket' this summer. It is absolutely possible to buy the tickets as a foreigner!
@@checkcommentsfirst3335 I hope that politics decides to keep this long-term, as well, but It wouldn't surprise me if FDP or CDU cut the funding for it. Don't vote for these parties.
I was in Munich this summer and was shocked on how amazing the bike infrastructure is compared to Toronto. Also loved how the city centre was entirely pedestrian only. It was a huge breath of fresh air.
Munich resident here. What fresh air are you talking about?
@@pperoni7047 A huge breath of fresh air, figuratively speaking. Toronto's bicycle infrastructure is pathetic.
Fantastic that two of my favorite RUclipsrs, NJB and Ashton should find each other. The story here is so interesting as Frieburg seems to have 'caught itself' before it went too far down the automobile rabbit hole. Here's hoping that Dutch-style protected bike lanes become more of a standard in the coming years. Also, as mentioned Ashton and the Black Forest Family channels have a TON of very high quality videos comparing a variety of topics from a North American and European perspective. Highly recommended.
Totally agree. ❤ It was my pleasure to share "our neck of the woods" with Jason. Freiburg is a great place to go home and I'm thrilled he enjoyed his time visiting.
I always get the feeling that Freiburgers are passionate about their city and are consistently advocating for their community and environment in the long term, as a kind of pastoral stewardship for future generations.
Makes me proud to call it home.
3 days ago ???
@@micxyyhave you really never heard of Patreon? They get access to videos early. NJB has said this regularly.
Yes I think it was a perfect match: the conservatives wanted their medieval town back after the war and wen the car thing went mad in the 1970s the green movement was strong in the city council. (This city was not only green/progressive. It's the seat of a catholic archbishop and has a conservative tradition like the rest of south Germany.)
@@TypeAshtonHello Ashton 🤗
"Call it home" ❤
I was in Freiburg this summer. As a Dutchie (Leiden, also a historic university town) i can say it felt like home. A beautiful well organized city and the surrounding nature (Black Forest) is amazing. On a bike versus car perspective is Freiburg even further than a Dutch city like Leiden. Great stuff.
Warum leidest du, Kamerade??
@@adrianseanheidmann4559 💀
I was singing in Freiburg in Summer but stayed in a town in the forest. The quietness was the same in both places. My poor London brain couldn’t compute
which Freiburg?
Cool. What did you sang?
@@leonhaven6262 is that a troll question? :D What city is this video about?
@@leonhaven6262 The Real one
@@Persimontreegreat answer😂
We visited Freiburg a couple of weeks ago and what the tram really astonished us. It comes every 5 minutes and it is so fast. In our hometown Leipzig which is more than twice as large as Freiburg the trams never come more frequently than 10 minutes and are subject to traffic lights, often share lanes with cars. Big up for Freiburg!
Ah Leipzig, my favorite construction site...
Si alguien necesita un auto para trabajar es necesario que lo utilice, pero la mayoria de personas usan el auto para moverse de su casa al trabajo y por las tardes hace lo mismo, ademas de las personas que tienen que recorrer largas distancias en carro para comprar un huevo en la tienda
@@prod.dead.T Stuttgart 21 is my favorite
I've been living in Freiburg for about 7 years and I don't even feel the need to get a driver's licence yet. Every single commute can be easily done with a bike, public transport or a combination of both. It's such a great city for this reason alone
Oh, my HOMETOWN❤❤❤ i only fully appreciate how beautiful it is since i moved away. Life there is so relaxed. It's a medieval town, the water tracks were needed back then. I am so glad that after the war, Freiburg didnt decide to built a car-centric city onto the ruins but rebuilt as much as possible!
That "totally insufficient" bike lane along the ring road would be an absolute dream here in Toronto.
I don't understand if that was supposed to be an actual statement or irony. Because when the speed limit is low, these kinds of bike lanes are never insufficient. Yeah protection would be a nice addon, but you don't actually need that until the next major works on the street. Good drivers make bicycle infrastructure much easier to build
@@jan-lukas the road is to busy to have a bike lane there. (At least sonsideribg Dutch design guidelines) and it looks like a 50km/h road.
Ideally you would put in a curb to prevent cars from going into the bike lane. And mybe even put in some trees to make a real barrier between the motor traffic and the bike lane.
So it's a good start to take that lane and give it to cyclist. But now they have to really commit and make it pleasurable for cyclist to ride there.
i think he was referring situation before one car lane was closed for bikes. the small side walk was splitt for both pedestrians and bikes.. while the cars had 2 lanes each direction and could go 50km/h.
Now its one lane and 30km/h for cars.
@@jan-lukas Drivers ignore paint on the street (no matter its purpose) quite often, and hit cyclistsor pedestrians in the process. Where it's reasonably doable, you want is physical barriers.
@@automation7295 Design wise it's a 50km/h road and i didn't see they limited the speed to 30km/h.
So yes that's a good thing.
But still it would be a lot safer with a physical barrier between those cars and the cyclist. And it doesn't take much to just place some concrete barriers there for now.
And after they have a good final design they can build some real separated lanes.
Even though this channel isn't just about bicycles the two bicycle superhighways of Freiburg deserve at least an honourable mention: FR1 along the Dreisam creek and FR2 along the freight railroad tracks. Being able to cycle longer distances without having to deal with traffic lights and junctions at all is a game changer!
I lived in Freiburg for ten years and after leaving I am realizing how spoiled I was. Only after moving back to North America did I notice how good of a city it was.
You have access to anything you would NEED in 15 minutes and be anywhere in town in 30 minutes or less by tram.
You can be in forests, mountains, lakes, water parks, stadiums, zoos in no time and it is all very affordable.
Even the poorest neighborhood is gorgeous and well-connected to the rest of the city.
Trams are all stroller and wheelchair accessible.
The elderly have easy access to groceries and doctors which are always within 15 minutes of walking.
I had 2 young babies/kids and everything in the entire city was kid-friendly and accessible for strollers (more than anywhere Ive been to in the world). Not to mention I could let my kids play in one of the 100s of parks and playgrounds and bike anywhere. Btw, many bikes have add ons for babies. and every school and kindergarten they went to was within 15 minutes by either walking, biking, or tram.
And you can still easily own a car and drive as fast as you want on the autobahn.
I fully agree. Freiburg deserves to be a template for others. I'm Dutch and moved to Freiburg 4 months ago. This is the first city that I feel takes care of its people as well as Dutch cities do.
Sad thing is that while we do have the knowledge of hiw to build people-friendly cities, many people fear the change. I know so many people in Germany that are pro car infrastructure (probably also beacyse its a big part of Germanys "culture") and its hard to change those mindsets...
yeah, in Munich there was an experiment done by the Uni where they removed the parking spaces and car lanes from a street and replaced them with a playground and public greenspace. What followed was just hate from the elderly living there because apparently children playing on the streets was too loud. Sometimes I hate my country
@@breznknedlsimilar thing happened in Berlin. A street was made car free but people complained and voted for other politicians who removed the car free zone and made it a street again
In gießen they tried something similar and actually got sued over it and lost 😭
the fear is even in freiburg very present.
for example there are planings to extend the tram network towards a neighbor city/town which basically is like a few hundred meters away from the outskirts of freiburg itself. you may mistake it as just a part of Freiburg. But people in this neighbor city are protesting against the direct connection with the tram network because it would be the first step to totally absorb this city into Freiburg and doom the city center with lots of small shops to fail.
the other example is the long distance cycling street connecting Freiburg with the two largest cities in the area. there is a small part of that planed route that would convert a normal residential street eithin freiburg in to a cycling street. basically all that would change is that cars can no longer park on this street and as said in the video have to yield to bikes. like 50 parking spots will be removed and people living there are taking legal action to prevent that from happening.
The challenge is turning that vision into a series of incremental changes that would be a continuous improvement at each step.
13:00 I live in Middelburg, The Netherlands. The bridge to cross from the old city center to the train station has big signs indicating no car traffic is allowed, except for busses. Yet so often I see German tourists crossing the bridge in their cars and looking all confused when cyclists and pedestrians look at them angrily. It's kind of funny, because German tourists are the most well-behaved people in the world and immediately apologize for any wrongdoing.
A smart city is a green city and it's also defined by an easy access to the surrounding nature!
This is what I love about your channel... to see the actual transformation and to realize that we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Freiburg is the perfect example for an urban development that was created around its citizens. I love it!
Well,....Germany burns a lot of brown coal to power those trams and stuff. You have to figure all those solar panels aren't really helping in the snowy dark days of Winter. Maybe, they could learn from France.
The bloody french blocked EU development of thorium based nuclear energy 20 years ago, because they had billions of sunk investments in their uranium nuclear infrastructure.
If not for the french the EU would probably scaling up thorium energy plants !
( thorium has only a half time of 200-300 years compared to uranium , it is more widely accessible , harder to use for nukes amongst other ...)
I'm weirded out how some people think urban development means no greenery. Like if there aren't lawns every 5 feet somehow there's no place to go to enjoy nature, despite the fact that denser cities actually means that the wilderness will be closer to your front door.
Maybe that's what they're scared of.
Having lived in Freiburg for two years, I have to agree: it's a pretty great city (the reason I left didn't have anything to do with the city itself).
Oh, and we lived there car-free by the way. Lots of biking, a bit of using the tram, and renting a van the few times we really needed to move something big. IKEA even had a deal where you could rent an electric van for free (for the first hour or so) if you came by tram!
I just wondered how people without a car would manage to take big packets of furniture to their home - but you answered my question right away!
That Ikea actually also lets you borrow a cargo bike as well...
Being born there you sometimes take the nice things for granted. Really loved your kind words about the city.
And my thoughts after watching the video were „oh no, now the rent prices in Freiburg will rise even more“. 😅
I live here too and I really don't want too many more people to move here. I can barely afford rent as it is!
I am from Freiburg, and I really like living in this city, great video. I actualy know every place you have shown. I just wanted to mention, that the footage you show in 4:23 which is from 1973 does not show the same place as you show when you compare to how it looks today. It‘s the same gate, or Martinstor how we call it, but from the other side. It stil looks kind of similar today as in 1973.
Grassy tram tracks rule.
Cobblestone tram tracks are pretty cool, too.
Actually, both are horrible. Grassy tracks means they cannot be used as a bus lane.
@@borek772even better. When the light rail gets its route to itself, there's way fewer delays and it becomes far more reliable.
Cobblestone is superior to asphalt, too. Costs way less in maintenance, lasts longer, and encourages drivers to slow down.
@@borek772 that's the point. Making tracks exclusively for trams means the trams can travel at faster speeds. Much better since trams have signal priority at intersections.
@@Coffeepanda294cobblestone is not better. Cobblestone is for a different purpose; lower speeds.
Earlier this year me and my family decided to move out of the USA. We looked at the Netherlands, Ireland, and eventually decided on Germany. Wolter's World and Asthon's videos helped us understand Freiburg and I applied for a job. I was nervous interviewing in July. Nervous it was the right decision for my family and our future. Stepping off the plane in Frankfurt then taking a train to Freiburg didn't ease my anxiety. As soon as I stepped off the train and saw all of the bikes near Hauptbahnhof I felt home.
We've been living in Herdern since August and are staying in Freiburg for a long time! Glad to see you made it to Freiburg and to see the comparisons with Vauban. I plan on visiting Amsterdam soon!
Thank you for this video! It's really great that you covered the short history since world war 2 - Freiburg, and Germany on a whole, were almost on track to become much more car centric. A tour of the Colombischlössle which you probably passed will always include an explanation that it is part of a medieval fortification system. The hill Colombischlössle stands on was one of four (or six?) hills. Today it is the only one remaining, as the other were paved over.
I also wished you visited the Studierendensiedlung! Literally "student settlement" it's a whole neighborhood with all necessities close by
I've been studying in Freiburg since 2 years and I've very recently come across your channel and became a huge admirer of your videos!
I wondered why you didn't have many videos on Germany but this video about our city made me extremely happy and satisfied :)
The tram network and the proximity to Black forest were my main reasons to choose Freiburg for my studies!
I was able to guess the city from the thumbnail itself :) Really appreciate your efforts to make this amazing video about our beautiful city!!
Great Video. Would also be great if you could do a video about Münster - the bike capital of Germany, where you actually have more bikes than people. Also it is very near to the Netherlands so you could actually do a day trip to see how great of a city it is
If you want to see a Video about bad city planning, how people help themselves because they have a medival city with subpar local transport - go for it. In Münster ( eventhough nobody at the decision takers level admit it) the car rules supreme when it there have to be new infrastructure projects. Bicycles are an nuisance and necessity, because of the university, the lack of public transport and the bad ring infrastructure. Bicycle projects are to call a street in a habitation area bicycle street, paint the street red and change nothing else. These streets are commonly already limited to 30 kph and the cars won't be prohibited in these streets. Also these are areas where there is already not much traffic, so they ar not really the main traffic axis for bicycles at all. The only nice idea, was to keep the old city wall as a bycycle road, but since it is disrupted by all the streets with right of passage going into the city, it is not the bicycle speedway everybody says.
I kinda agreed with you about Public Transit in Münster. But despite a very Frustrating inactivity of the Administration, and some really Strange attempts of bikelash from powerful parts of the Public, Münster IS pretty much a cycling paradise, especially in comparison to pretty much all of Germany ( one could argue even to Freiburg). But that's Just my private opinion as longtime Leezenritter.
I was born in Freiburg and I can tell you that during the time I lived there, A LOT has changed to the good. And there is no ending in sight. I'm kind of jealous about the improvements in transport that I didn't use to have
I absolutely love Freiburg, I'm from Stuttgart which is considered to be the "Automobile City" in Germany. Stuttgart is a car hell hole and I hate it so much. I travel to Freiburg quite often for business purposes and it always feels so amazing. If I could, I'd move there permanently but for now I'm stuck in Stuttgart.
Great video! I'm currently studying in Freiburg, and I really wish I could have had the chance to meet you there.
However, I'd like to address the point you made about the city being 'financially sustainable.' It's important to note that Freiburg is actually one of the most expensive cities to live in within Germany. The cost of living, even in shared housing, is significantly higher compared to other student cities like Duisburg and Essen in the north. Additionally, Freiburg's primary source of income comes from tourism and visitors, rather than a robust industrial or residential base. Most of the city's residents are wealthy families with stable jobs and, on average, 1.5 children. The majority of people living here are students who tend to leave the city once they graduate.
So, while Freiburg may be financially sustainable for itself and its affluent residents, it's not necessarily the case for the average person.
Thanks for your videos, and keep up the excellent work! :)
I love the clip at 14:08 where there is so much going on that there is almost an accident, but it's easily avoided and everyone continues as normal. There is just no way to move cars through that kind of space at any speed safely but bikes, trams and pedestrians can all intermingle without any issues. Fantastic.
You can see this in old films (1903) where the camera was mounted on a streetcar (tram) in New York City! I think we've gone backwards.
Another great example ist the "Karlsruher model" of the near City Karlsruhe.
It's not particular about bicycles, but also comfortable way to travel from the urban areas directly to the city center.
Love Freiburg
Karlsruhe is also known for their tram-trains. RMTransit has a video dedicated to it
I spent a couple weeks in Freiburg a few years back. It's one of the most pleasant cities to exist in that I've visited. Never once felt like I wished I had access to a car and was the start of my realising how poorly designed cities in Australia can be. That trip was largely Freiburg with a short stay in Amsterdam, and at the time I just assumed most of Europe was like that. Having done a bit of travel over the years they are the two cities I still measure other cities against in terms of livability.
I wonder how Melbourne does so poorly with so many trams? I guess it is because we let them get stuck in traffic.
@@annother3350Such cities are better for the disabled and old people. Freedom
@@annother3350please don't feed this troll
@@annother3350 I can use the car, the bike, the train, the bus, or walk, now who has more freedom?
@@annother3350 Most supermarkets in German cities do offer a "bring home" service nowadays, so there'd be little to no need to do your grocery shopping via tram as a disabled person but instead have it delivered right to your doorstep. There are also plenty of other opportunities to get help in these regards. And most people would of course help a person in need if they saw one struggling to get on the tram/train/bus etc. Same thing with baby strollers etc.
Edit: typos
A couple years back we spent our holiday on a bike trip through the black forest towards Freiburg. Then once there, instead of using our bikes, we ended up walking everywhere because we were mostly in the city center and it is so walkable. Great city.
I recently spent a few weeks in Freiburg studying. The tram system is indeed brilliant. Getting around was nearly effortless. It's a great little city to spend time in.
Been living in Freiburg for almost 2 years now, and been loving it. While I was not car dependent before, still nice to get out of the concrete ocean that is São Paulo to go to a city I can bike everywhere... I didn't even had public transport ticket until recently, and the only reason I got it is because it allows me to travel all over Germany for just 49 euros...
Also, there is pretty good bike infrastructure all over the region and surroundings. I've biked to Strassbourg (France) and Basel (Switzerland) and it was pretty much only in dedicated bike paths
FINALLY A BRAZILIAN IN THE COMMENT SECTION
Freiburg is actually my Urban Geography case study for sustainable cities and I'm moving onto this topic sometime this year. This should be very helpful, thank you!
Oh my god the kids making boats, when I was younger my family visited Norway and there were these fountains everywhere that connected to gutters like those, and me and my brothers sailed soda bottles through it it was so fun. As someone who had never left the U.S., walking through that country was so fun I’ll never forget that trip
Usually there's a sales stand selling the boats for 5 euros
It's interesting to see such a report from an outsider. I myself was born in Freiburg and still live here and take it all as normal. thank you for the beautiful video.
YESSSS!!!! I've been in Germany a few months for work and I'm going back to the US soon unfortunately. Freiburg was the first place I traveled in Germany that wasn't for work and I was absolutely blown away. I went there to do some running and biking in the Black Forest and knew almost nothing about the city itself. After having been to a ton of cities across Europe now, I think Freiburg would still be the place I'd move to if I relocated to Europe. Its more affordable than Salzburg and Innsbruck, has much better access to nature than Belgium, the Netherlands, and most other cities in Germany, and punches far above it's weight in terms of urbanism. I think it competes with the likes of Cologne, Munich, and Dusseldorf in that respect.
The only good thing about Cologne is the progress, but it's easy to have lots of progress when you start at nearly nothing... So much left to do, sadly, and the Stadtbahn system is just to small for such a large city. Hopefully the expansion of the S-Bahn will help...
@@jan-lukas Cologne's bike infrastructure in particular is atrocious, and as the video mentions, these transformations take decades. It's still incredibly car centric, but what gives me some hope is that so many people cycle DESPITE the lacking infrastructure and obviously want a more human centric city. I hope city planning catches up to what the citizens are already trying to implement in their daily lives.
NJB have you seen Ljubljana? From what I've seen online it has thousands of protected bike lanes, super frequent public transport and lots of bike rental places! You should do a video on it. What do you think?
Correction: The whole country of Slovenia has protected bike lanes and protected intersections! Really wanna see a vid here as even on yt there's hardly any videos even about the country and no videos about the fantastic urban design
I'd love that too. Vote up!
+1 ...that was an old communist project, Id like to see it and learn whether they've expanded
also, Almetyevsk (in Tatarstan, Russia) would be interesting to see (they've worked with Copenhagenization)
I recently moved from Spain to Munich, although is more car centric than Freiburg it was such an improvement over the average Spanish city. My mental health improved so much simply by biking everywhere and hearing less traffic, I just can’t imagine how great a real car free city could be
We visited during our Black Forest vacation this summer and enjoyed it very much. The huge playground north of the old town is superb. As is tradition, we also tried the local pediatric energency ward, and i'm happy to report that it lives up to the standard set by the rest of the city. We were even able to walk there, and luckily it was at the end of our visit.
As a geography student that lives near and in Freiburg my whole life I was immediately hyped to see you visited Freiburg!
I'm really glad to live in a city where I don't need a car, because I haven't driven for years and now I'm afraid of driving such monstums of vehicles and also don't see the need for it.
A few months ago I had american friends come to visit and I showed them also the Schauinslandbahn (cable car) just to show them the very well infrastructure and how fast you can get out of the crowded inner city and into the nature. They too loved it.
Thanks for the video!
Everytime I watch videos like this one I am so surprised by the reaction to Freiburg, as somebody who grew up there, it is so normal to me! This video really puts it into perspective.
I'm very impressed by how much has changed for the better since I left Freiburg 8 years ago, like several new tram stops and lines being put in place.
Also that pedestrian square at the Uni-Bibliothek you mentioned used to be next to a FOUR lane road, when I was a kid, the students would cross that road via a bridge to get to the library on the other side (that's so crazy to think about)
NJB tends to have that effect. 😀
Whereever you live now PLEASE help activists to make cities more people centric, you, having first-hand experience could be key in moving such endeavors along in wherever you live, because make no.listake, these initiatives exist everywhere, they just need people to help get them to the forefront of public knowledge
As someone who's been living in Freiburg for the past 8 years, I genuinely thought it's like this everywhere, until I moved to Seville for 6 Months and the cars were awful, I could barely breathe most of the time and the noise was just horrible.
Now I'm happily back here, and I appreciate Freiburg more than ever ❤
I visited Freiburg this summer and absolutely fell in love. We went mountain biking in the Black Forest, which was incredible, of course. But riding our bikes through Freiburg was fabulous. It's the safest I've ever felt riding my bike. The Fahrradvorrangstraßen (bike priority routes) are amazing and such a great way to transport a large number of people by bike through the city. I would love to live there someday. I highly recommend a trip to visit Freiburg!
I have friends who live in Freiburg. In the winter, you can even go to the local skiing resorts with public transportation. Just grab your Ski or Snowboard and take the S-Bahn to Tittisee and then the train to Feldberg and you arrive directly at the resort. Its 1:17h with public transportation and only a few minutes less by car.
as much as i agree with pretty much all of what you said, you could have mentioned that freiburg is among the top 10 most expesive cities to live in in germany, which is surprising considering its size. unfortunately, in that sense, its not really a city for "everyone". would be interesting to look into the connections between freiburg's sustainability and its cost of living...
That I think gets into an interesting question: is it more expensive because it costs more to keep the city operational, or does it cost more because its a nicer place to live and therefore there's more demand for homes there? (which, I think, is your point, I'm just spelling it out a bit more)
Its that relationship between cost of living and sustainability that frustrates me, and not even in the way you might think. See, places like this tend to be very expensive places to live and yet, despite that, people are still living there and visiting from other places. That suggests to me that these places are highly desirable (either because of high demand jacking up prices or because people are willing to overlook the high cost of living). "Location, Location, Location" is an old adage for a reason: because when picking a home that really is one of the most important features. And yet, despite that desirability, despite the knowledge that people _like_ to live in places with a lot of amenities and things to do, its still a fight to get anything even a 1/10th as nice as this in the US.
I suspect that the cost of living isn't that much to do with high maintenance costs. Sure, a robust public transit system can cost a pretty penny to maintain, but other things like bike paths, walking paths, and density don't. It might be expensive to initially design and implement them, but they cost way less in year to year maintenance then endless streets. Hell, denser cities tend to generate _more_ in revenue. I figure that developers should be racing each other to build dense cities before there's too much supply that they can't charge an arm and a leg for a studio apartment, yet they aren't. Weird.
@@SilverDragonJay The only thing that is expensive in Freiburg is the rents, which are very inflated because housing is so scarce. Which is of course because so many people want to live in Freiburg.
i wanna cry its so lovely there.
The city of Karlsruhe, 100km north of Freiburg could be worth a trip too. It had the best cycling infrastructure in Germany for years, but last year it was overtaken by Münster again. They gave one line of nearly every multi line road just for bikes. But more impressing is the tram/train network which is unique in Germany. Many trams go far (>30km) out of the city center using the main railway track so you don’t have to switch the train to get from a small town nearby to the city centre. And many trams continue their way into the tram networks of other cities (Heilbronn). Just amazing.
You totally missed the most important thing! 3 literally "bike highroads" that run all the way across the city without catching a light or a car! It makes travelling through the city possible (by bike) in around 10-15 minutes.
Awesome video 😊. I'm a fan of Freiburg, I've been living there for two years and I just left last month 😢
Ghent in Belgium is also a city with a lot of students, trams, bikes and beautiful old architecture. I would love to see a video about Ghent one day as it's also a beautiful example on how to build city infrastructure for people instead of for cars
And ghent is currently building the biggest bike parking
maybe liege will be like this one day soon. currently building a tram network around the city. don't know when it will be complete though.
@@samelmudir it's for 2025
I had a conference in Freiburg last year that had a guided bike tour as part of the entertainment program. The conference center is a bit outside the city center (next to a large parking lot and a concert venue with the attractive name "Sick Arena"), but we could easily get to the main station by tram and pick up our rental bikes there. The tour went by the river, through urban areas, and ended at a viewpoint looking over the entire city , really nice.
There's a reason theme parks design themselves to look like these sorts of places.
I grew up in the Black Forest and everytime we had to go to a specialised doctor, we went to Freiburg. It was always nice taking the very scenic route through the hills and by the lakes in to Freiburg and then travel by tram through the citycenter.
We also visited nearby Basel in Switzerland often, since my father lived there. It also has a great tramnetwork and a beautiful, walkable, medieval city-center. Altough i feel like it has more cars than Freiburg. Basel is definitly worth a visit though!
This summer I was planning to hike in the forests of the black forest with some friends, but as we headed to our campsite we passed the city of Freiburg. The city looked super interesting, so we decided to visit it for a day. Without regret, because the following day we decided to visit the city again, besides that we also decided to go out that night. We found Freibrug such a cool summer experience, because the city is so alive there. During the summer months, it is a tradition there to sit next to the water canals with a glass of wine and enjoy all the excitement. We saw all different ages, both students and retired persons. With that if you would like to visit the city, definitely do it during the summer months and enjoy a touch of joy while visiting.
I am from Freiburg and I am glad to see such a great post about my city. Greetings
Fantastic! Two of my very favourite RUclips channels combining! Ashton and Jonathan has a wonderful video on how all this came to be in Freiburg, and now you provide us with another take on what Freiburg is. Thanks ever so much!
link plz?
@@AuraCraft Search for Type Ashton.
I've been living in Freiburg for 8 years and moved to Dublin last year. In both cities I lived 4 km from the city center. In Freiburg I could get a tram to the city center every 5 mins and it would be a 9 minute ride. In Dublin on the other hand I waited for up to 30 minutes for a bus that would (of course) get stuck in traffic and take 30 minutes for the drive.
I think it was in the rain at this awful bus stop on a stroad in northern Dublin where I truly fell in love with Freiburg
My hometown. ❤ Had the car of my mom for two full months and used it twice. There are just rarely cases when driving by car is more convenient over here. And if you need a car, there are many cars around the city from a car sharing company you can use. Even friends with kids sold their cars as having cargo bikes is easier here. That being said, as pointed out in the video, we still have areas which can be improved for public transport and bikes, but we are getting there bit by bit. And yes, our Hauptbahnhof is very ugly.
We don't talk about the HBF for a reason
Moved to Freiburg a year ago from another smaller bike friendly city. It really is great here. Never had a car and I feel like there is absolutely no need to get one in cities like Freiburg. It's large enough to not only have a public transport system but a very quick and efficient one, but still small enough to have everything in reach. I've never even had to take a bus, the trams cover pretty much every part of the city and the bike lanes everywhere make it easy to get to any place by cycling. Loved the video!
I appreciated your patience with a thumbs up. Other noteable bike-friendly cities in Germany include Leipzig, Münster and maybe Greifswald that would come to mind.
Idk about Leipzig, it didn't really impress me, but Münster, Karlsruhe, Oldenburg, Bremen and Kiel are pretty impressive since they all have what so many other German cities lack: a usable bike network in the entire city. Not just fancy 3 meter wide bike lanes on 5 streets and terrific streets everywhere else like Berlin or Hamburg, but real bike paths everywhere. Of course they also have very different standards from street to street, but everything is usable. Berlin, Cologne, Dresden and Stuttgart on the other hand give me nightmares. Leipzig is somewhere in between, just like Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg or Düsseldorf
@@haisheauspforte1632 I think it is pretty interesting that you mention Bremen. As someone from near Bremen I do never think of the city as one with bike infrastructure but on second thought, yeah you are right. But I have to disagree on Hamburg, the three times I was cycling there I feared for my life so I would definetly put it on the lower end of the range. But I am pretty sure every German cyclist can agree on Münster.
And there was a really interesting podcast by SWR that I heard years ago regarding Karlsruhe tearing down a lot of their car lanes to replace it with infrastructure for cyclists.
Münster is not bike friendly. It often markets itself as such, but it really isn't.
@NotJustBikes If you ever want to visit the "Fahrradstadt" Münster, Hit me up and I'll give you a tour showing you all the reasons why Münster is a complete failure in terms of city planning.
@@NimelrianSC2 now that sounds interesting! And basically everybody just believes it like I do? What makes it so bad?
In the past few years I'm also actually really impressed by Cologne's progress. I wouldn't say that it's good right now, but it feels like a lot of progress in a somewhat short amount of time, so let's just hope!
Upvote at 1:22 to show appreciation for NBJ's Patience and Good Timing!
Upvote! Thanks Jason ❤
I love grassy tram tracks too.
Nice to see my hometown on this channel - if someone has any questions I am happy to help.
I implore you, look at my home city of Ostrava, large expansive tram, trolley and bus service, whilst car heavy and the centre being commercially gutted. The city of less than 300k transports more people on public transit (by ridership) then the entire uk light rail/ trams not including london underground but including overground does.
I just moved to Bremen from the a decent sized city in the Midwest. I really enjoy not needing a car here. I can bike or take public transport basically anywhere I want to go, definitely everywhere I need to go. This morning I had an appointment that was about 15 minutes away by bike and it was so quiet. I was late and in my rush I forgot my headphones, which I normally wear while biking, so it really stood out to me just how quiet this city is in the central parts. Especially compared to where I lived before, which was also basically downtown but since it was in the US, naturally there was a 10 lane interstate that I could see and hear from my house.
Wow I’m an American living in NL and have a new found love for cycling. Freiburg sounds like a dream! I would love to visit just to experience cycling in this quaint city. I hope I can rent a bike just to enjoy. Thanks for sharing 😊!
Visited Freiberg about a year ago and loved it. I had never rented a bike in a foreign city before but I had nothing to do one morning and I had an amazing time. The city's bike rental system works via an app on your phone and it's very easy. Didn't feel nervous cycling through the city at all
I APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE and GOOD TIMING!
Also what I think is pretty interesting and another point is, that all streets that run through the city are limited to 30 km/h. This leads to the cars being more quiet and the traffic run far more smooth and also leads to other transportation options be more attractive. And another point is, that Freiburg has a great car sharing program. So you really don't need to own your own car, as you can just rent one for the few occasions you need it. Overall great video. Loved it.
Holy shit I was born there. I was too young to remember, so I had no idea it had this beautiful pedestrianized infrastructure. I want to thank you so much for making this video, because apparently this kind of city has been a part of my life for much longer than I knew.
Went there earlier this year as a tourist by car.
Even the parking situation for cars was a lot better than in cities that are more car oriented. And once parked you can just enjoy the whole City by foot.
Edit:
Also parking fees are super low. At Westarkaden the first 2 hours were free which was enough for me to have a nice dinner nearby.
Parking fees are 2,20 to 2,50 EUR per hour in the centre. It's more expensive than Karlsruhe but less than Stuttgart or Berlin.
Freiburg is a lovely city that I have had the pleasure of visiting! Also witnessed a very minor tram derailment, but the system is fantastic. The water channels are great to go through too!
Wow, it's so nice to see the city I grew up in featured on this channel. It is a great city for kids, I remember just roaming around the streets with my friends and having fun. One of my best friends when I was a child lived in Vauban, so I spent a lot of afternoons in the neighborhood, and I can tell you that it is amazing. There were parks and green spaces everywhere and pretty much no car traffic. There are also a ton of playgrounds in the area, so we could just walk from playground to playground and have fun. I also remember there being a henhouse on one of the streets where you could go, take eggs, and then pay by putting some money in a box. We used to go there and just chill out with the chickens. It's really amazing that 6 year olds can just run around the neighborhood there.
The tram network is really amazing, but it can be annoying if you live a bit further outside the city where the trams don't reach, because the bus network is far less efficient compared to the trams (still pretty good though). What's really cool on the other hand is that you have pretty frequent trains to go into the black forest, which you can take to quickly get into nature.
The best way to get around Freiburg is by far the bicycle. Especially the Southern and Eastern part of the city are as bike friendly as any city I've ever visited, and you can get out to nature really quickly. From my home, it was a 15 minute bike ride to get to the center of the city, over 80% of it on a seperate bike path by the Dreisam river or on a Fahrradstraße. It is 100 times more convenient compared to taking a car, and you get exercise at the same time. If you take a turn on the Fahrradstraße, you get to some of Germany's best MTB downhill trails, and if you go the other way, away from the city, you're in the middle of fields after 5 minutes. The bike network is also really well connected with the other villages and small towns around, you can go to places which are 20 kilometers away, pretty much without having to leave the bike paths, and there are direction signs all around telling you which direction to go, and how far your destination is away. Even though I have a driver's licence, I always prefer to go by bike over going by car.
Again I can't stop grinning over your enthusiasm about all the little things. It is so fun to watch your videos!
And as a side note: although Freiburg definitely is a showcase example lots of other German cities I know are not too far off. The extent to which the city is walkable and car free is of course not the same but the ideas are there and wait to be applied to more parts of the cities.
Thank you!!
Will second how amazing Fribourg-im-Breisgau is. Stayed there last year and loved it. From Weingarten, I only ever used the tram or my feet to get around. Everything was accessible, the market amazing, and walking along and through the river (which has also been made into various swimming holes near the city centre) divine. Thanks for highlighting this wonderful city.
I grew up in Freiburg and after living in other cities for a few years I truly realized how lucky I am that I spent my childhood there! It’s truly a nice place with a high quality of life (though I don’t see myself moving back there anytime soon due to career options and it’s simply a bit too small and „slow“ for me rn if that makes sense).
My parent’s house is in a similar suburb to Vauban, so having only slow streets and/or designated „Spielstraßen“ (play streets) gave us a lot of safe areas to play as children and most of us started going to places by ourselves in kindergarten/first years of elementary school. I would argue a well planned area actually gives children a lot of freedom! Also taking the bike everywhere (the tram is pretty expensive imo and doesn’t run at night which is super annoying if you’re 18 and staying in clubs until 5am) made me so used to it that I kept this habit in the car dependent hell that is North Rhine-Westphalia.
However, I would argue that not every city can be designed like Freiburg, after all it’s a fairly small town (about 200k inhabitants) and pretty rich, even for the south of Germany which is known to be more wealthy
Thank you for this amazing video about my Home Town. It's really great that you mention the Importance of the Amazing Tram Network!
Freiburg was such a lovely place to study in. I would love to go back someday.
Modal filtering is so important. Chicago's lakefront trail is heavily modal filtered, but some of these barriers are removable to allow access for special events. One of the filters wasn't put back in my neighborhood after an event in about August and very quickly cars were parking in the park and along the trail. It was such a relief when the barrier was finally recovered and put back about a month later.
Your patience and timing is highly appreciated! Nice to see a good example for city development from Germany. Hopefully many others will learn from it.
I grew up 45minutes from Freiburg and my friends and I used to take the train there all the time as teenagers. I’ve been back earlier this month after a couple of years and boy did I fall right back in love with the city and buzzing and lively city centre 🥰😍
God, watching the footage from this video fills me with so much excitement and happiness. I know it was a joke in the video but I genuinely do appreciate the work you put into getting these clips, because its an absolute powerhouse to your videos. Coincidentally, I just spend this weekend looking at different towns and cities I could live in when I move to Germany, so this came just in time! I'll have to add Freiburg to my list now; it's a bit more expensive than my other options, but I just might be able to make it work if I play my cards right.
If you do try to move there, good luck! one of the downsides of the city is the absurd price for housing, which happens because we have a lot of students who need places, as well as young families trying to move there, as well as a lot of tourism, which means that airbnbs take up a lot of the flats as well. But if you do find something good its a great city to live in
Make sure to consider housing+transportation cost, when evaluating your options.
@@misscutenar2333 lmao that's exactly what I was worried about. thank you for the warning though, much appreciated :) My first choice (at least before this, looks like it still is) is Duisburg.
@@daisycarbonell Wow I'm surprised. What made you pick Duisburg? I think it's a good pick: The Ruhr area is a very interesting place to live, and Duisburg is very underrated in my opinion. But still not the first place people name when they want to move to Germany.
@@daisycarbonell Duisburg is very surprising because many in Germany view it as a "poor shabby industrial city" but I think Duisburg and the Ruhr area in general is super interesting. I actually prefer the socially and ethically diverse cities in the west and the "rough" cities in the north (excluding Hamburg) over the "fancy" ones in the south (+ Hamburg which is basically the north's Munich). So yeah, pretty good choice, if you are into cities like Duisburg you could also look into the other Ruhr cities as well as old industrial hubs in the north like Bremen or Kiel
Im from Oxford UK which is also a very bike heavy city (although not as much as this). I think there may be an element of University cities being expecially suited to bikes as the population is disproportionately young, healthy and doesn't necessarily have money for a car. At the same time recently the people who complained to me most about recently restrictions on cars in the city were business owners, thinking about goods deliveries. I think it is an issue that Universities are a very specific industry, not necessarily representative of the workforce as a whole. Small cities that don't grow much and have an entirely service based economy can definitely be pedestrian friendly. I think cities which are industrial heavy are going to be the biggest challenge for walkable infrastructure. These are vital for a ballenced economy though, University towns are not a good model for nations as whole.
Whattttttttt I am from Freiburg ❤ and this has been one of my favourite RUclips channels for a while now. Really cool to see my city through an outside perspective ✨✨
Worked in Freiburg for 3 years. Gosh I miss that city, even though i'm now way better off with a full-time remote job and no 60km one-way commute anymore. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and still come by to meet up with old colleagues fairly regular.
that's the thing I always find so cool about European cities, seeing futuristic trains and trams coinciding with historic castles and towns
finally Freiburg!
your video collection was missing something without it!
i am doing my masters of urban planning currently and have been thinking of what to do my thesis on and looking at this video (after spending months working out how to come up with a topic from all your other videos) i just found it! thank you!