One thing you should know about the rise in suburbs is that it has a lot to do with the beginnings of the cold war and moving everything out of cities they could in fear of cities becoming targets for nukes. this was known as "defense via dispersion"
One thing not mentioned in this video is the "last mile" problem with public transit. Even if you have a reliable, fast train, if you live more than a mile from the station, it can be a pain to get to the station. A 20 minute walk at either end of a transit commute adds a lot of time onto a journey. That's why density around transit stations is super important
True but it's also why virtually any train station in the netherlands has bicycles you can rent. It will easily change that 1 hour walk into 20 mins or even less by bike.
@@MisakaMikotoDesu Unfortunately for most people in US, even living in a mid sized or large city, the bus stop (if a bus even exists at all) may be a long walk away and only comes every 30 or 40 minutes. You're considered lucky if you're on a route with 20 minute frequencies. Busses are so inconvenient and frequently cancelled or late that in my city they are only used by people with no other options. Not because they are a convenient or fast way to get around.
I love trains. Like as a hobby. I wish we had better public transit in the US, I do. But I live in a rural, low population area. There is no bus coming to take me to a train. Ever. And in the terrain I live in bikes are near impossible to ride. Unfortunately, I would have to use my car to get to a train or bus. And by then I'm already in my car that I am still paying for, so I might as well take it all the way. It's the same issue with China's "trains to nowhere" that they keep paying for with taxpayer dollars so they don't have to admit they were a really misguided idea.
The thing about public transit is that the more of it you have, the better it is. If the network is denser, you can go alternate routes. If the network is used, frequency of vehicles increases... You should be at the point where getting to the stop means at most five minutes of a pleasant walk (because more trams, less cars), then a short wait for a tram and then a short walk to the destination... In other words, it's effective at scale, whereas cars are the exact opposite.
whether a walk is pleasant or not depends on the weather. even 30 seconds in pouring rain will make wet for a long time, and cities like Chicago get to 100 degrees in the summer and down to less than 0 in the winter.
@@perfectallycromulent And yet the Chicagoans continue to use it,,, The train is not a bad place to be, even if it's raining, snowing or 90 degrees out. Many of the stops are heated in the winters, and it's still better than sitting in traffic or driving in hazardous conditions with everyone else (also, umbrellas and coats are a thing. People are used to weather existing, and not everyone owns a garage. (The Dibs system is proof of that))
As someone from Hong Kong, one of the world’s most densely populated cities and home to one of the greatest public transit systems in the world, this video taught me A LOT. So thank you for enlightening me! It’s very true that trust in the system is important for the success of public transit. If a system is not reliable, nobody will take it to get to where they want to go. It’s importance and impacts are clearly reflected in Hong Kong, because the trains here (the most popular mode of public transit available) arrive at stations punctually 99.99% of the time, and if it isn’t, the corporation pays a huge fine. That’s how you ensure accountability and reliability. Everyone knows the metro is reliable, and thus they like taking it.
Something that so many people forget when it comes to transport is that no single form of transport is one-size-fits all because they all serve different types of journeys. An infrastructure system isn't just trains or buses or planes or cars or public footpaths but the *collection* of all methods of transport. When people find it easy to get around, it's not because the trains or buses are good but because all the different forms of infrastructure work to complement each other. That's what's missing in most American cities.
This is what I miss about European transit systems (my experience is mostly Belgian, mind): stations are hubs for both trains and busses/trams, which effectively turns nearly all bus/tram lines into collectors for the trains. Meanwhile, in my experience in North America, you often need a car to get to the train stations where they exist to begin with, at which point you might as well keep on driving.
And nit forget the bike. You can ride a Train with it. Sometomes with an extra Ticket. You are nearly as flexible as by walking and most of the time as fast as a car in the city.
To bad most North American cities are way to sprawling for public transit. No point of a bus or train if you have to walk/drive over an hour away. With every single person having an acre of land.
Hey, I'm an Austrian watching this video and your transit system is shockingly confusing I'm not even surprised that no one's using it when it's basically "take a guess and if you're wrong you messed up good" In Europe it is a lot more streamlined - Google Maps always tells you where to go and screens all over the stations (and ticket stations where you buy your ticket) tell you where to go If you don't want to look up you can even download specific apps (in Austria it's the "ÖBB" app) that not only tell you the place but also the exact spot you have to stand at - you can also buy tickets through the app and that's not even going into the prices - a daily pass is 11 bucks?! that's nuts - one daily pass in Austria is like 4-5 Also - there are A LOT of choices - so if you don't want to go by train just take the bus or vice versa - or if you miss one it isn't going to take long for the next to arrive/take an alternative
I just got a job and they asked me if I could into Orleans and I said "I would prefer not to because I don't have a car" and they told me that people bus in all the time. HOW Anyways I was born in regina and the transit in Ottawa is better. I was shocked to see it ran on Sundays and past 8pm Also Google maps will give me such obscure paths with 5 transfers and then all of a sudden I realize I can just reduce transfers to walk 10 minutes by taking away 2 stops at the end. But still. Way better than Regina
One thing I value about being able to take the train to work rather than driving, is that driving can be stressful, and requires focus. Whereas on the train I can read or play on my phone until my stop.
yes; that is a very good reason. driving is a bigger mental load than work (for me); I'd rather chill in the subway than being honked for failing to move one nanosecond after the light got to green.
Exactly. When I went to ASU it was about a 15 minute drive from my house or a 40 minute drive by bus. If I wasn’t in a hurry or rushing I usually didn’t care how slow it was because I could study or zone out for 40 minutes. It still would have been nice if it was faster and more reliable though.
For me it is the other way arround. In the netherlands trains and metro's are delayed fairly often or dont stick to their schedule. The defects and delays arent always listed on their website. The metro rides in 10 minute intervals the train in 30 minutes. Meaning that i get delayed 10 minutes at the minimum if the track has a defect it can rise to half an hour. In my experience people in the netherlands are more lenient when coming to late because of a traffic jam because those are fairly consistent here they usually cause a 5 to 15 minute delay. When coming half an hour to late because of pt they say "should have planned better". Only reason why i use it is because the government made it free for students (you do built up a debt but it gets removed if you get your diploma within 10 years otherwise you get to pay) and it is hell to find parking spots in rotterdam.
Just to clarify, pt is more stresfull for me because i cant depend on it to get me on time. I can read or play on my phone but that would end it up draining my phone to much. I usually study a bit in the metro but most of the time I dont have anything to do in the metro as i ride it for 2 hours a day.
"Just because there's a place I CAN walk, doesn't mean it's walkable" THIS SO MUCH!!! Also the fear of getting hit by a car, I've literally walked somewhere, waited like 5 minutes for a car to actually pull out of a driveway, and the moment they finally decide to move? I WAS LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR BUMPER!
If the car was an SUV, they literally may not have been able to see you. SUVs have a big frontal blind spot that blocks the view directly in front of the car.
The great thing about public transit is you can condition the new generation, at an early age, to have a taste of freedom without having to rely of their parents to go around the city. As you start in early age, you will tend to be more supportive of projects to improve infrastructure and innovation.
I kinda disagree. I grew up in an area in germany that had pretty good public transport. Even now living in a bigger city with a even better and more dense public transport area i prefer taking the electric car. Because I'm way more flexible, can reach more specific points and have a way higher comfort (i'm looking at you Bus 6 in a hot summer). So my friends and I always had a good public transport system around us but still after all that years... i wouldn't take if. It's even more expensive (in my case).
@@gudeandi Right but you're an adult, they were talking about kids being able to just go places, without needing a license or car or anything. Just a ticket:)
As an American, the lack of public transit options is dismaying to me. It was never really something I thought about until I was trying to find a way to visit my grandparents without a car. I finally found a rail connection, and it really impressed me. The train was so much cheaper, comfortable, and convenient compared to taking a plane, only at the expense of time it took to reach my destination. A total overhaul of our transit system is absolutely necessary.
As someone who has been living in Ireland for over 10 years, I recently had a short trip to Reus, Tarragona Barcelona, and Madrid. Coming from Ireland that has completely dysfunctional trains, the frequency of regional trains felt like luxury. In the city, it was the first time in my life riding the metro. Missed one? No worries, the next one will be in 3 minutes. And to go from Barcelona to Madrid, it was also the first time in my life riding a high speed train. The journey from Barcelona to Madrid was ~600 km and it took ~2 hrs at an average speed of just under 300 km/h. Then when I returned to Ireland, it took me 2 hrs 30 minutes to travel a distance of ~200 km by bus. Now you see why even a simple regional train felt like such luxury to me.
As an American, it's nice having a good public transit (I grew up in NY), but even there you sometimes wanted a car unless you lived in Manhattan and didn't leave the city much. Of course, the train is cheaper because it's subsidized. In cities, it's often subsidized by the cars (like NY, where the Transit Authority gets a lot of money from bridge and road tolls which are for more then needed to maintain them). I'm curious though what train you took that is much cheaper then a plane, as Amtrak can be quite expensive.
@@stevefl7175 just a small correction, usually car infrastructure is much more expensive in terms of maintenance and due to the number of cars people drive in this country we also federally subsidize cars far more than any other form of transportation. additionally places that don't have good transit and walkability usually suffer from insolvency as things are too sparse and the land use is too inefficient for businesses to pay enough taxes for small towns to keep up with the maintenance of car infrastructure that was likely paid for by the federal government decades ago when no one was thinking about who would be repairing all the potholes and side streets in the future.
@@bobbirdsong6825 most of the maintenance needed on roads isn’t because of cars. It’s because of trucks. Trucks cause far more wear and tear on roads then cars do. This is how most goods are shipped outside of long distances. The second part is the weather, particularly the freezing and thawing cycle which cracks the roads and caused potholes. Small towns generally don’t have public transit anyway. You need a certain density to make Publix transit work. Sure there may be a bus that runs down the main route but that’s about it. Name one Publix transportation that pays for itself with its fares. It’s zero, none of them do. Heck in some places it’s free. The entire Publix transit in some places are subsidized. For cars, the federal gas tax pays for some of it. In large cities tolls, taxes and fees pay for a portion of it. Public transit is only for the commuter, while roads are vital for commercial goods to be moved around as well.
@@stevefl7175 Of course public transit doesn't pay for itself, it's a public service. If anything the ideal transit service is free, as access to transportation is the most important factor in income mobility. And I'm not just saying that keeping highways up is expensive. Those need to be there. It's all of the sidestreets and parking lots that make modern suburbia a sea of asphalt that's expensive, because like you said, it deteriorates with weather. Meanwhile when I was living in Japan I could get to downtown Tokyo in an hour for less than $7. I don't think you can travel 50 kilometers that fast and cheap anywhere in the US using transit. And Japan has truck reliant goods shipping too! Go figure.
I cannot believe how incredibly well-produced and well-paced this video is - Sabrina is so clever and funny! The method used to demonstrate the various pros and cons with each transport mode was genuinely enlightening and fun to watch. It also had the perfect amount of history and background context. Thank you for putting the time and effort to make such an outstanding piece of work, from a public transport fanatic in Aotearoa New Zealand :)
One of the best things about public transit for me is the ability to take advantage of transit time. You can’t get anything done while you’re walking or driving, but you can totally finish that one late assignment on a long bus route or train ride. It just makes me feel more productive and even if I don’t work it allows me time to just wake up or otherwise relax without having to think too much
You dont even have to be really productive. Even just reading news or playing sudoku is still much better use of time than being fully focused on road.
true, i always commute with (e-jeepneys), they're like minibuses. my travel time is actually 1 hour and 30 minutes up to 2 hours and they are airconditioned. And if you're lucky you can choose to sit on the good seat (i prefer to be near steel handles for support). i mostly use my transit time for catching up for reviewers and tutorials whenever our exams are near. it's also really good for the brain when you can be able to process incoming information while on a busy platform (commuters come and go from point to point). I also take that transit time to good use to sleep whenever i'm pulling off all nighters. it's a real game changer for all types of passengers and mostly students. it's cheap, it's reliable, and it doesn't take too much of your energy (all you have to do is walk between stops)
So many American cities would just fail the walking test because highways literally block off paths. It’s also notable that places that have reliable public transport are also the most walkable, so it’s always a choice between one mode (driving) and multiple modes (walking, biking, trains, buses, subways)
I don't think it's necessarily a choice between the two. It's just that when you have proper public transport, it leads to fewer people using cars, which results in less space being required by roads, which in turn leads to denser cities which are easier to walk/bike/etc. This leads to fewer people using public transport for everything, reducing the load on it, which again makes it possible to build denser cities. You can still have cars and you need roads for emergency services anyways.
thats what i was thinking the entire time, if you drive you cant really do anything else its just cars and maybe a bit of walking. but all other forms of transit work together, you can bike walk and use public transit together. improving one usually improves the others aswell or atlesast it doesnt cause problems, but supporting cars always supresses other forms of transit.
@@philnik777 it’s a big picture city planning choice that is the difference between NYC and Dallas. People will do whatever is most convenient, but there are places where walking is not a reasonable choice and there are places where public transport simply doesn’t exist in any meaningful at that eliminates the need to have a car.
Coming from the Netherlands and now living in Stockholm I can confidently say that public transport is at its best when its frequent. Even when busses or subways aren't on time, it doesn't really matter if you know another is going to be there within 5 to 10 minutes. Most of the time when I choose to take public transport I don't even check departure times because of this. Combine this with walkability and good bicycle infrastructure and you don't need a car. There are times when cars are simply more convenient (e.g. when going to more remote places), but being able to choose not to have a car, and not being limited by that choice, is adding to my quality of life. Side point: I visited South Korea last year and it felt like they perfected public transport. I didn't speak Korean, and never got lost due to how standardized the design of the infrastructure is (at least in the subways). Hell, I never even took the wrong exit - something that does still happen to me here in Stockholm after living here for over two years.
Was in South Korea last month and I have opposit opinion. You never now, on some lines, on which metro station you will end up, because metro lines have forks and it isn't marked for foreigners in any way if train is gonna turn left or right. Yu have only information about next station not the end station. Every second day, i had to use uber because train turned left on the fork instead of right.
Great point, frequency and understandability allow you to make a transit trip happen on a whim and with no planning. Being able to do so without planning is key to staying competitive with driving and walking
While living in and travelling in Japan, one thing I LOVED about the subway stations was that the exits were numbered! So when using Google Maps to go somewhere, it would tell me to go to the station, take this and this line, then get out from exit 4, and I wouldn't have to cross any intersections! Also very convenient when meeting up with friends, to meet at that station's exit X
I love his struggle. In Austria we have a app that lets us enter your destination and it just spits out every line you have to use and when it drives. It's awesome honestly, public transport here is just awesome in comparison....
I can do that in Finland just with Google maps. It's pretty fast at noticing delays and things too. My only issue with it is that it prioritises route time, rather than ease. Personally, I'd rather add 10 mins to my journey if it means I can take one bus over two.
I'd like to think that most major cities have that these days. I know that Montreal had a pretty good website for planning a trip by public transit as far back as 2000. And as matthewstarkie4254 says, Google Maps is pretty good for that too.
There's an app just called "Transit" that has live tracking data for hundreds of cities and also people can share the bus/train with their phone if the agency tracker is unreliable
Lmao, as an Ottawa public transit user who regularly had two hour commutes, I CACKLED throughout the entire public transit section. Our system is truly hell and breaks more often than it runs.
Another ottawa native here, and I was SO surprised to see ottawa and line q specifically mentioned. Personally I love it, and moved from orleans to old ottawa south. We still have some good neighbourhoods yet.
Some more things to consider: 1. Another option: bikes with safe infrastructure! Just look towards the Netherlands for inspiration. 2. When you're driving in a car, you can only drive (and maybe listen to music). On a train, you can write on a computer, read a book, read textbooks, watch videos, etc. Imagine if you could be on trains for 2 hours rather than in your car driving!
Another Netherlands worshiper...... You aware Netherlands have 588 car per 1000 people? And Singapore and Hong Kong have 140 and 100? You want to lessen car dependancy but chooses to follow the country that fail to do so..... TOD and public transport always the answer... Please if you want to follow Netherlands at least they the best country for biking in Europe? Ups no it's Denmark...... 😂 So they fail on reducing their car dependancy aside from downtown core, fail to build excellent public transport, and even fail to become the best cyclist country.... In flat tiny country with 3 of their big city next to each other...... What a country to follow. 😂
As soon as they said they were going to Ottawa I laughed and texted all my friends... THEN THEY SAID IT WAS THE DAY THAT BIDEN WAS IN TOWN AND I ROFLMAO
Having spent all of my life living in small towns or small "cities," where the closest thing you'll find to public transit is a very limited bus schedule, this whole video was such an alien concept to me. Like I'm learning about a new culture. 😆
Same here. My town and it's neighbor just got a grant and started their public bus route about 6 years ago. (I use the singular in a literal manner - each town has one bus and a single route with one shared stop at the hospital so you can change between them.) Being legaly blind, I will never drive again, but said bus route's closest stop is almost a mile from my home and there is no sidewalk between here and there. I desperately wish public transport was an option, as I have to inconvenience friends to get anywhere.
Me too. The town I live in used to have a train running through it and to the big city that’s like 30 miles away for decades until they closed it when cars became really popular. Now I have to drive my car for a stupid amount of time everyday because the only public transportation that comes in is at a bus stop a 40 minute walk from my house where the bus comes maybe 4 times a day. And I live in a fairly big town too (a population of like 5000)
As someone who took public transportation for 12 years the #1 biggest problem with public transportation in the US is travel time. It took me 2 1/2 hours to get to work by bus which was a 12 minute drive away. I am absolutely not joking. To get to work I would walk to the bus stop which was 10 minutes away, get there 5 minutes early so I don't miss the bus! 20 minutes in the wrong direction to the transfer station. Wait at the transfer station for 20 minutes for the bus I need to arrive. Take the bus for half an hour up to another town. Get off the bus, cross the street and wait 15 minutes for the next bus. Take that bus for 20 minutes to work. Get off and walk for 15 minutes. All because I didn't own a car. This is ludicrous. Public transportation is not a solution when we build our cities against the idea.
What the hell. Those frequencies are insanely bad, especially for a country that is a member of the G7. Many developing countries do not have wait times that long. Buses and trains arrive every 10 minutes, sometimes every 3 minutes during rush hour.
I feel you, public transportation is practically non existent where I live. It would take me 3 hours for a 30 minute trip so I'd have to stay on campus all day because it wasn't practical to go back and forth between classes.
@@ReineGalena When I was in uni, I lived close enough to campus that I'd go home even if I had a one-hour break between classes, it was close, but I'd usually have a few minutes between arriving and having to get back to the bus-stop (it was a ~30-min bus ride). (I just checked Google Maps and apparently it's just a 15-minute bike-ride. 😲 I could have biked there and back the whole time I was in uni. Hell, it's just a one-hour walk. 🤦)
essentially same for me. I work in Boston and i got an apartment which is exactly 7 minutes walking from a commuter rail stop. The rail takes 1 hour to get to the subway. Another 10 minutes to my stop and 5 minute walk. This doesn't count waiting around for the trains and making sure to get there early so you don't miss them. The commuter rail comes once per hour during peak hours or once per 2 hours in non-peak hours. At BEST the trip is 1 hr 30 min. Driving it's easily 45 minutes because i stagger my workday to be offset from rush hour. If i try to arrive to work at 8AM it can usually take an entire extra hour driving due to traffic. I used to take the rail in and do work on the train but because so many people started working from home after covid, i am allowed to park at work any day i want now. The story i always tell people is that one day i got so sick of the absurd delays that the train can cause so i just stopped. I was at work and needed 5 more minutes to finish something. If i stay the 5 minutes it saves a full day of production time due to the way something works. However if i stay the 5 minutes i can't make my commuter rail train. I decided to stay the 5 minutes which meant i would miss my train so i went to my office and just decided to sit around for 1.5 hrs to kill time before the next train would come. Because i had to wait the 5 minutes i could not catch the 7:30 train so i waited in my office to catch the 9PM train. I leave with plenty of time to spare and get on the subway and wait. And wait and wait and wait. The conductor keeps telling us we will move shortly. After about 30 minutes they finally come on and tell us that there is an electrical issue at south station & instead of letting the trains move around on our end of the line the pause all trains that could pass through south station. Because i had gotten on so early, i could have easily done the 20-30 minute walk to the commuter rail station but they never fking communicate what the problem is or how long you will sit there on the tracks. Eventually we move and i get to the commuter rail station. I thought i i were lucky the train there might also be late but nope because that train is based out of north station so that one left on time. I missed the 7:30 train because i had to spend another 5 minutes at work. I missed the 9PM train because of an issue on the subway. Now the next train comes at 11PM and this is the LAST train of the day. I think about going back to work so i can wait the 2 hours in my office but after the last issue i am not going to risk missing the last train so now i have to sit there watching rats fighting on the track until 11. Luckily that train comes and i get to my stop at 12:15. The reliability is awful. If it were just 1 train it would be 1 thing but the issue is that you need to make multiple jumps and each of those lag of the journey has some percent chance of having a delay. If any of those trains goes down for any reason, you are suddenly caught in hours long waits trying to get back in on the next cycle. I do work in a chemistry lab and sometimes i need to get in for a time sensitive procedure or i need to get to a meeting at a certain time. Public transit is just so untenable because there are zero personal benefits EXCEPT that i can get the ticket reimbursed where they will not pay for my gas. It just isn't worth my sanity though to have nights where i should have gotten home and making dinner by 8 only to get stuck in a loop of delays where i can't get home till 1.
another thing is just. bad timing too. the previous place i lived i’d take a bus to the grocery store. that bus came once every 3 hours. had somewhere to be but missed your bus by A Minute? bad luck! wait another 3 hours :)
Having just visited Paris, I think the biggest thing is at 18:25 "If I get off the bus, it's now like another 15 - 20 minutes before the next one." I experienced that trying to commute in Utah where the Frontrunner train would only come every 45 minutes. That means if you're 1 minute late leaving the house, you're now 45 minutes late for work. In a well-serviced city like Paris, that's 2 to 4 minutes, so you can absolutely hop on and hop off. Also, if the concept of making it to your train "on time" disappears because it's always a minute or two wait tops.
THIS ^ I take the bus, RN, but it really doesn't save me time on walking my 3/3-mile commute, because if I miss it I have to rush to work because the next bus is 30-60 minutes away.
Finally more pro walkability content. This is the most important crisis in American society. Obesity? Cars. Climate change? Cars. Social isolation and corporate consolidation? Cars.
Lol yes, having the freedom of movement means isolation. Go ride on an NYC subway and you can have a Michael Jackson impersonator push you onto the tracks.
also the housing crisis is fundamentally being driven by car dependency as parking lots and roadways chew up so much of the public space that it becomes difficult to build more houses and the amount of housing that is within a short distance of jobs and amenities is very limited because of exclusionary zoning.
Watching your videos lifts my mood so much, thank you. I'd still argue there is an uncomfortable thing about driving - the psychological stress of being on the road. Other drivers creating unexpected situations, traffic jams, trying to squeeze the car into the line every time you can and not to break the rules at the same time... I personally think it's a big problem.
I'm in the U.S. Army & i was stationed in Camp Humphreys South Korea, & the Public transit(Trains,buses) were excellent they were on time & clean, also i went to Japan,Thailand & Malaysia & had the same experience. I thought multiple times " why America doesn't invest in their public Transit like this?"
Honestly? They probably can’t afford it. Between intervening in pointless wars and bringing “freedom” to other countries and paying their politicians a shitload, they probably can’t afford it. A good portion of Americans will tell you they can though… because ‘murica better and richer than Europe or Asia… It’s honestly frightening just HOW many things the US could do better by JUST following what their other allies do. I suppose it’s a Fahrenheit-Celsius situation though, in the fact that they just wanna be different.
Kinda a silly comparison to make. Ya, public transport in Japan is great IF you are staying only in the cities or moving between them. Anywhere else? You're gonna have to take a car anyway. Most of the US isn't urban centers, so...
@@Nevir202 US couldn't even manage city transit or inter city transit. Most people in US work in city but their only option is to drive 90minutes t their work place every day.
Earlier this year, I (a Brit, who lives near London, does not drive and is very used to getting public transport) was in Dallas, and I wanted to use public transit the best I could. This resulted in a lot of giving up in frustration and ordering a Lyft instead, but my favourite was when I was trying to get back to the airport to go home, triple-checked the bus route, waited at the bus stop for 10 mins... and watched the bus I was supposed to take drive right past me at about 40MPH, two lanes over, with clearly zero intention of stopping. America pls ;___;
Travelling in the US is really shocking. You're forced to rent a car otherwise you're completely stranded. Luckily I only travel there for work so I don't have to pay those expenses myself.
One disadvantage if you move around with your car is, that you have to take it everywhere you go. When I move through Hamburg, Germany, I often decide from case to case. Some examples: - I walk 30 minutes to visit a friends house, but when I go back it's dark and I'm tired, so I wait 10 minutes for the next Bus and it drives me home. - In the morning I used the train to work, but in the afternoon the sun is shining and I'm feeling good, so I rent a bicycle and ride home. - As team event at work we decided to walk 20 min to a restaurant in the evening. If I would have a car, I had to drive there alone or walk 20 min back afterwards, but now I can just hop into the next train. - I had dates, where we decided to do a walk through the city and we ended up on a different spot where we started. With a car I would have to walk back to it, now I could just take the next train. - Sometimes to discover a city I walk around, get out 2 stations earlier, etc. With a car If I park it 20 min away, I have to walk that distance on the way back. The flexibility with public transport that wherever I go in this city, whether I drink alcohol or not, how tiered I am, I can always just walk a few minutes to the next station and drive home with it, is something a car can not provide, currently. Well, the city needs to have decent public transport for that.
Absolutely agree with this! And oftentimes if you took the car initially but want to go somewhere else, that results in you not doing the walk back, and instead just take the car everywhere instead. Using the car at ANY step basically encourages you to use the car for EVERY step, whereas as you said, with public transport you can decide to just take a different mode of transport.
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This is why car sharing services are such a great idea. (and bike and scooter sharing ones too). Gives you a lot of the benefits, without the drawback of lugging around the car/bike/scooter.
Absolutely. I do this all the time in Japan. You go to a shopping district by train, walk through it, then get another train one or two stations away from where you started. You don’t have to constantly double back on yourself just to get back to your car.
I once got hit by three bus cancelations in a row for an hourly bus service and I still love public transport because that was the only place in the city I couldn't get on a train.
It just occurred to me: when the city's trains or buses break down, the city has to pay for those repairs. When a private citizen's car breaks down, that citizen has to pay for it. The costs being pushed onto consumers instead of cities may be why so few cities stick with public transportation. (or at least another contributing factor)
Not to mention, when a city has to pay for it, it comes from tax dollars. People don't want to pay for that out of their taxes, they'd rather pay for it out of their own pocket, for...whatever reason ("I don't use public transit, so why am I paying for it?" "I can afford car repairs, everyone else should, too," etc.) On a similar note - how often does the average consumer replace their car vs. how often does the average city replace public transit vehicles? I remember thinking touch screens were terrible based on my experience in retail stores who install touch screens and never go back to update the infrastructure, so the touch screen eventually becomes borderline unusable, but since it's still usable, it's still there. Meanwhile, I get a new smart phone every 3-5 years, so I don't have problems with that particular touch screen.
Sure but the way cities, public transport, and really all places in NA are designed, most people wouldn't ride public transit even if it cost nothing. And since cars are mandatory in NA, any cost of public transport is on top of paying for a car that you decided not to use.
I mean, the city still has to somewhat take care of the highways, even when parts of the system are maintained by private companies. Seems highly unlikely that the money saved from not repairing citizen's cars would outweigh the money coming from ticket revenue and on-station commerce. Plus wouldn't the ticket fares take that into account already?
The city I grew up in had a decent public transit system. Proximity to bus stops was a selling point for a lot of homes. My childhood home was about a block away from a bus stop and as a result, during summer vacations, my sister and I were able to go anywhere in the city we wanted to (provided that we let our parents know, ofc). Then, the city hired some contractors from Portland (Oregon) to come in and "improve" the bus system. They turned it into more of a park and ride system, pulling the bus stops out of neighborhoods and instead putting them near businesses and at park and ride places. In other words, they optimized it for people who already have cars, but find it problematic to park near their workplace. For everyone else, it was a giant middle finger. Now to get to the bus stop, I would have to walk much further and cross 2 very busy roads. That makes riding the bus so much more of a hassle and less safe (crossing those roads, even in a crosswalk, is dangerous because drivers just don't look for pedestrians...I've had my share of close calls where I've had to jump out of the way of idiots rolling right through the crosswalk against the light and then getting mad at me for daring to be in their path).
As someone who works in government ... the hardest thing that delays a project is infighting and assuming we think our project or solution will work without connecting to communities and the people who use them first.
I live in Oslo, Norway - and here we have the absolute *best* public transit. We have the metro (subway) that goes practically everywhere, and buses that goes everywhere else and we also have trams in the inner city if neither the bus nor the metro takes you where you want to go. Then we have ferries that can take you to the islands outside of Oslo, and all of this fantastic transportation is included in a card you can buy either for a day, a week, a month or a year. And if you need to go outside of Oslo, the trains goes all the time and basically everywhere (and if the train doesn't go where you want to end up, take the train to the closest town and then you can *always* take a bus or a ferry to the spot you want to go). It's FANTASTIC! I truly don't see any reason at all to have a car when you live in this city. I get it if you live far out in the countryside or in the northern parts of Norway, but otherwise... No, a car isn't necessary _(I say this as a single woman without children, a car could of course be _*_very_*_ helpful if you have a family, but you could absolutely live without it)._
I loved the transit in Oslo! I also found the addition of e-bike rental options around the city awesome, it meant that if I wasn’t going far I could just hop on a bike too :) I would love to move back to Oslo!
Even if you ever needed a car like one day a week you could just rent it for those days and it would be cheaper than owning one all year. Cars are expensive.
I'm originally from America, my first real exposure to public transportation was when I moved to Norway. It was earth-shattering that I could just find accessible, reliable public transportation practically everywhere all the time. It spoiled me, and now no other transit I've used has lived up to it.
As a resident of Ottawa and frequent public transit user who recently wrote a research paper on the LRT fiasco in Ottawa (which is SO MUCH WORSE than this video could possibly convey)....I CACKLED when I realized you guys were coming here of all places to test out the use of public transit. I do think that you overlooked something really important, which is that for many people, "shelter" isn't a hotel in a high-density area, it's a house or apartment in an area that's not at all well serviced by public transit (particularly here in Ottawa). That can either make your commute especially miserable or even borderline impossible, OR it can severely limit where you're able to live. I'm absolutely SHOCKED that public transit ended up being OVER AN HOUR FASTER than going by car. There's no way that's the case for the average person on the average day, not in this city, anyway. I do think you're right, though, that transit is worth the investment, and overall this was a fantastic video. Awesome job, and kudos for doing this in the snow and slush.
@@mmacmartinyour comment sorta made me realize how passable the LRT is for "tourists" in Ottawa (unless you flew in, that’s a different story). Which I guess is something…
I think the same thing, in that for a person living in a city, one of the nice things of a car if you have to go quite a distance is your home is an end point (or start point). Plus the comfort of not having to worry about rain or bad weather (for the most part). I would love to know what happened to the driver, who took 2 hours to get to the hospital. Ottawa is just not that big. From a map it looks like it was just 4-5km, in 2 hours? Call me skeptical. I grew up in NYC and it wouldn't take me that long to cross the city on a regular day and it's far larger. Choosing places on the public transit system, I give sort of a pass on, if the experiment was to try and see what it would be like for a place with a large transit system where most places are near a transit station. (Still, you do need to get from your house, to public transit, to location, and then back. Where car is a straight route). I'm trying to look at it as a test of being in the inner city and getting around within it.
@@Dexter037S4 Yes but unfortunately the fact that you need to transfer twice to get downtown (Line 4 to South Keys, then Line 2 to Bayview, then Line 1 to downtown) will probably scare off many potential riders even though the transfers themselsves are actually quite easy.
I remember a big debacle when the American ambassador* made a comment about how people in my country must be poor because not everyone owns a car. But a substantial part of us simply find biking and public transport both cheaper, healthier and more convenient because the systems to support those styles of transportation are robust, and I think the only thing that gets in the way of similar adoption in America and Canada is the lack of solid infrastructure. Many cities have been built to be straight up hostile towards any form of transportation other than cars. *former
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 The country is Denmark. The ambassador in question is Carla Sands. She was pretty much publicly ridiculed for her insanely narrowminded commentary.
man I wish I could get back every sent I spend on cars, car maintenance, insurance, fuel, tires, storage, and parking. I could probably buy a bus pass for everyone in my town with the money.
@@actual_nonsense this. I'm sure there are plenty of people in north America who genuinely love their cars, but for me owning a car has always been a necessary evil - like some outrageously expensive pet that no one actually wants around 😅
I live in the USA and just got back from a 2.5 week trip to Japan (where we used nothing but public transit). The public transit was amazing and I wish we had more around us so we could use it. As she said, when it works it works.
When it works it works is a mindless tautology. One can just as easily say when it doesn't work it doesn't work. It's like these people saying it is what it is. What is that? It is what it is. See how we are no further along than we were at the start?
Women in trains get groped and molested there, also it's packed like a tuna can. IT's stupid to use trains instead of drive, if I used there I'd drive everywhere instead of being in a place with potential molestors and creeps of all genders.
Not to throw shade but it definitely feels like Sabrina cares more about this channel than anyone else, they're who I think about when I think about this channel, the best videos star them, you get the point.
I find it worrying that walking for a couple hours is considered an extreme challenge... I get how it's not a good experience with the roads but the actual walking part really shouldn't be an issue.
I've had to move to a different city for a summer internship and couldn't take my car with me so I had to take public transportation. Honestly, I love it surprisingly. It has its downsides and being in America, it does suck in terms of connectivity and it is usually slower than driving. Still, being able to zone out, read a book, browse the internet, or whatever was a plus. I just wish we had a better public transportation system that is cheaper and faster. Definitely plan on using it more often when I get back to my own home city.
Living in Europe I hate taking public transport even when I lived in a big city during my studies. I hate to hate to have to rely on somebody else, no matter being the streetcar driver or the schedule. Most often I take my bicycle (for commuting, groceries and meeting people). When I don’t have the time to bike, I use the car.
@Sebastian R I rarely used it in my home country too but in NA, you don't have any option rather than a car. Car will eat up your significant chunk of income. And forget about biking in NA if you want to live, you'll die soon in the world of cars It's way better to have multiple options even if you don't use it.
i'm a college student in richmond and let me FUCKING TELL YOU. the bus system here (we don't have trains unfortunately) is so FUCKING UNRELIABLE 😭 the website is jank, the buses are never on time, and the stations are never in convenient places (at least for me). my classes are between a 6-8 minute walk down a smaller street (good) and a 20 minute walk down the busiest fucking street in the city (bad). it makes me appreciate me appreciate places like dc because while they're not the cleanest, AT LEAST THEY WORK AND THEY'RE RELIABLE 😭
Always found DC transit to be quite clean (bus, train, or Circulator) in the 15 years I’ve been traveling there yearly. But perhaps I’m just not taking the routes in question.
I love public transit, mainly because I can't drive. The biggest drawback of public transit I notice, is scheduling. When walking or driving if you want to go somewhere you just go there. With transit you may want to go now but there isn't a bus now. The bus was 5 minutes ago or 25 minutes from now. Then you take your bus or train somewhere and you repeat that process. With transit there ends up being a lot of time spent not moving while the trip time just ticks up.
Anything less than every 15 minutes is hostile to riders. Because even with that schedule, if one bus is early and the next one late, which often happens, you’re standing there for 20-25 min. If a bus is skipped entirely (a bus broke down or a driver called in sick), you could be standing there for 30 minutes. So with a schedule that’s any less frequent, you’re looking at even longer wait times than that. I speak from experience! Time is money, unless you’re a person who takes public transport, in which case they’re happy to waste your time like it has no value.
If you live in a city with a proper metro like Barcelona or Madrid, a metro arrives every 3 minutes, so as long as you know the route, you don't need to plan for time.
… and then the transit commission changes the routes and schedules to allow the college-students who pay $100 for an unlimited year-long pass to be able to sleep in an extra few minutes before they get up for their afternoon class, while residents of the city who have to pay $100 every month have to now take one or two EXTRA buses to get to the grocery-store, wasting an extra 30-90 minutes, having to walk a lot more, and stand in the sun/snow/rain more. 😠
@@I.____.....__...__ One or two buses to go to the grocery store ??? You live in suburbia ? I can see my closest grocery store from my window. Having to take a bus to run basic errands is simply bonkers...
Scheduling in Toronto/GTA is the main reason why I drive. There's a train connecting the downtown core to my suburb. While the train itself beats the traffic, it arrives in 30 to 60 min intervals. And those intervals never match the additional public transportations' schedules required to arrive to the train station. The station is at the Southern point of the suburb, so you'll need a bus to get to and from the station. Anytime I'm coming back from Toronto, there is a minimum wait time of 20-30 minutes for a bus to take me North/home. The lack of synergy between all the modes of transports makes it so that the total time it takes ends up being slower than driving in traffic. It's truly a frustrating affair. Specially when you consider that often times the bus starting point is at it these stations. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to schedule a bus departure time 5 minutes after the train arrives, instead of 5 minutes before it arrives (not exaggerating, the busses I need are all scheduled to depart 5-10 minutes before the train arrives!!).
I’m in the Orlando area. Driving to/from work takes about 25 minutes. The best transit option would take at least 3 to 4 hours and would involve walking or biking about four to five miles to the nearest bus stop. To just bike the entire way is estimated to take about 1.75 hours, fyi.
I was doing an exchange semester at University of Waterloo back in 2020. Coming from The Netherlands it was so precious to see how proud they were of their single previously built LRT line 🥺 That said public buses get stuck in traffic which kinda defeats the purpose, so Waterloo get a D for that. Without a car I felt like a second class citizen taking public transport which NEVER happened to me in Europe.
Lived in KW (Kitchener-Waterloo) for a couple years while they were still finishing the single LRT line. Biked most of the time, but it's definitely a car city. Now I'm in Montreal, which is 8 times bigger, thinking of the way I biked passed all the cars stuck in traffic earlier today...as well as how tough it was to pass everyone in the bike lane. I'm definitely jealous of cycling in the Netherlands.
@@northbytrain I presume it's the one north of Kitchener, Ontario in Canada since it just got its LRT. The are often called KW or Kitchener-Waterloo since they act like one city. The LRT services both areas.
@@northbytrain And here I was confusing it with actual Waterloo in Belgium (which, by nature of being a small town, has zero public transport beyond a couple of buses)
In my opinion when public transports are not too crowded, they're more comfortable than driving because you can do other things like watching series or reading whereas when driving you have to stay focused
Indeed. Sabrina said there's not much about driving that's uncomfortable other than looking for a parking-spot, but that's just because she's not a driver, most drivers know how nerve-wracking it is to to drive, worrying about laws and cops, about other drivers, about pedestrians cyclists and animals, about the car itself, and so on. You can (usually) even watch videos while walking, but you can't do _anything_ while driving, not even look at the sights. 🤦
@@LaZarusXtnct I have a car, I drive daily. if i could reliably switch to public transport - I would do that in a freaking heartbeat. 2 hours driving is 2 hours lost AND far more exhausting (why 2 hours, because that's how long the round trip for my daily commute takes right now, and its not even slightly unusual number for USA commute). 2 hours in public transit are 2 hours spend studying, or reading or engaging in multitude of other portable hobbies. and before you say anything about listening to audiobooks while driving, maybe you are such an amazing multitasker that you can stay focused on the road AND the book, but I'm not. I can do one or the other, not both. drivers in my parts of USA are too damn insane.
@@Forgefaerie 2 hours on public transit is 2 hours of living like a homeless person. A 2 hour ride on a bus would be like 15 mins in a car. The bus wont take you through an Arbys drive through either.
As a Dutch person, it's just really weird that bicycles aren't even mentioned in a video on transit (I watch Not Just Bikes though, so don't worry I get it). Bicycles are (I think) the best kind of transportation ever invented: they're space-efficient, they're simple to maintain and repair, easy to adapt for people with mobility issues or even light cargo transport, and best of all: even a simple 1-speed bike, while still being completely human-powered, can very easily go 4-5 times as fast as a person walking while using much less energy.
@@svenjorgensenn8418 Well, the video is about the modes of transit in city. If they replaced walking with biking, I would consider it a more useful comparison.
Well for one thing bikes still aren’t adaptable to all disabilities. And I’m not talking about more advanced ones. Using me as an example only a helmet that perfectly protects the head in 100% of instances from concussion and damage or a bike that is 100% crash proof. So trains are actually more accessible in terms of many disabilities.
Here in Norway the buses are pretty reliable, but the thing I love the most about it is the people you meet! Sometimes I meet multiple old friends on just a fifteen minute trip. Then I can have a little chat with them about how it's going and where they're going. It feels so great to have left the house to meet some friends and meet an extra friend unexpectedly on the way there. Public transport just brings people closer.
When I ride public transit I mostly just encounter really dirty homeless people and low income working class people dreaming of the day they get ahead enough to buy a car.
The problem with public transit is that it ONLY functions with STOLEN money. I understand you are going to deny that TAXATION EQUALS THEFT. Most people do. But there is no way around it. The government is taking my money, without my permission, under threat of violence. If ANY other party would do that, it would be called theft or robbery, but somehow, when the government is doing it, it is somehow okay and we call it tax instead... It's NOT ok. It's theft! The government is stealing my money and then spending it on something you want. Which makes you support it stealing my money. Which makes it impossible for me to resist it because there are so many like you that support government's ability to steal from its citizens. I like trains, but ignoring the fact that all of them are paid for with stolen money is too much for me. We will never be free as long as we permit government to structurally and methodically steal our money and call that taxation. And without taxes, public transport can not exist. It is wholly reliant on stolen money.
I think this excellent video is missing one fundamental point, which is the role that land use plays on transportation modes. You touched on it a bit, but walking, biking and public transit only make sense when your city is densely built and populated. Train stations need to be surrounded by businesses and housing, not parking lots. That's the only way to have a sustainable ridership
THIS. This is exactly why even at the height of the COVID lockdowns, the transit networks in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore remained insanely profitable. When they plan new communities, new transit networks and extensions are ALWAYS included in the masterplan. Plus, the lands around railway stations are destinations in their own right - schools, malls, hotels, conference centers, connection to local bus and subway networks - everything within walking distance
CYCLING should have been included in your study. i've been living/working in riyadh for 7 years. riyadh is a car oriented city (as are most cities in the middle east). i have been living here car-free, just cycling everywhere i need to go. and it's so easy and convenient!
Lol. You can capitalize it all you want. Americans aren’t gonna start riding bikes on a 10-20 mile commute on these dangerous roads. I’m sure it works for you in the Middle East but there’s nothing easy or practical about that in the US. We just drive and get there quickly in air conditioning while carrying all the supplies we need
@@everydaytenor8862I have a family and ride my bike year round, to work and shops, down to -20 C... When I worked in Stockholm all my colleagues came to work on bikes in the winter... It's just a question of dressing right and equipping your bike...
@@everydaytenor8862 it’s not as hard as you might think, the exercise keeps you warm…. And actually -10 and lower is better than say 0 C (32 F) because it’s dry, usually sunny, cleaner…. and living in a place where they keep the streets and sidewalks plowed helps too…
I fell in love with channels like this one because of how informative and optimistic they are. I highly recommend watching both this channel and RM transit. And if you want to watch optimistic tech/science news, I highly recommend watching Cleo Abrams.
I live in the Netherlands, and let me tell you... Public transit here in Europe is amazing, you can get anywhere by either bus, train, tram or metro. Here in mayor cities a lot of people don't even own cars since they decide to use the public transit system to get everywhere, it works pretty well for them.
@@nickchapman3199ve visited Berlin both by a car and using subway. The problem with the car in the center is that there is nowhere to park it, all the parking spaces are occupied making you drive for 1 hour looking for anything. Meteo is definitely faster and cheaper. Overall, Germany is a country that is still quite car-friendly but you can also live well here without the car at least in cities
@@Pacjonek I've driven coast to coast in the US multiple times and I've never been to a city that was harder to find parking in than Frankfurt. The Autobahn was pretty cool though
yeah, in america we've been building around cars for a while so what public transit we have has to work around that instead of being itself a framework.
I live in Frankfurt, Germany. I have used bikes, public transport and cars to move around. The city's bike routes and public transport are so well made that using a car is discouraged: clear routes for bikes, easy access to public transport, easy to understand thanks to map and Google and it works almost flawlessly. As she said, when the system works, IT WORKS. The only issue we have now is that public transport fares have increased A LOT, but tbh so has fuel. At least I can bike to places easily.
I think one of the things you might have missed in the comparative analysis when saying that cars are the "natural choice": For many people, any stores for food etc. are quite a ways away, to the point it doesn't make sense to go more often in little batches - so instead you do big shopping trips every week. And to transport that much stuff? You need the car. Stuff like this is why a car is often a necessity in NA, after which the irrational mind kicks in like "If I already have a car why would I not use it to go work?" etc.
yup, once you need a car regularly for 1 thing, it becomes the dominant option for many other things. the issue with mass transit being unfavorable in US/Can is deep and structural, so a few prestige projects are not going to fix all of that.
awattO (meme for Ottawa) do be a Costco town... There's no other choice, Lob grocers are everywhere, but dang are they expensive. Shelter is stupid and starting at 500k, condo buildings bought out by blackrock or foreign money and renting out for 3k+ per month. Ottawa sucks...
@@happyguy2k Like the country I live in, Switzerland? It's great, I don't need a car, my Dad doesn't need one anymore either. I don't think I'll be getting a Driver's license anytime soon either.
What you just said: If there aint good public transport you need a car and once you have a car you prefer it over bad public transport. Couple problems with that. First there is no need for stores to be built that far away from residential areas, in fact it used to be different in the US and is different all over the world. Second, if no one uses public transport, there is no investment in it and it gets worse so even less people will use it. Third: Cars are convenient up to a point. If you wanna go just get into your car and go. No timetables, not walking to a station just point A to point B. Its a luxury thing. At least in theory. But if everyone takes the car, you get congestion and everyone is slower and it becomes quite inconvenient. So if you improve public transport and the living space to the point where it is more convenient not to use a car, people will not use the car.
@@_aullikThat is in fact not what I said. What I said was, by the fact that general stores and such currently are not close to people's homes, even if public transport was better than it is, using it to shop that long distance away would be less efficient than by car due to the volume you can transport. I don't know how you construed my "this is another sad reason many people see a need to use cars" argument as some kind of defense of cars/attack on public transport.
I take public transport everywhere and everyone around me seems shocked when they realise that I actually like it - I really hope I can make it through life without ever needing to own a car.
I don’t live in a city right now with good public transport, but I’m planning on moving somewhere that does next year. Every time I go on a trip to a larger city with public transport I always appreciate it and use it. Apple and google maps generally are really good at helping with the public transit navigation and I’ve always had pretty positive experiences any time and place I’ve used it. I don’t like driving and I’m hoping I can get rid of my car and solely rely on public transport when I move!
I think what gets me is in countries with effective public transport these problems disappear almost. In Tokyo the trains are on time, clean, easy to navigate and widely used. When I visited it didn’t make sense to drive. Using the train fulfilled all your needs! It’s no longer a humbling experiences when it’s effective and everyone uses it. Then people are willing to take care of it and maintain it
I would imagine the part about trains being clean and widely used in Japan has way more to do with much more respectable Culture. Good luck getting that to happen in US cities.
@@RocketkidDesignsthere are lots of places that aren't Japan where public transport is widely used and clean. The US also has lots of social problems that if it received investment and resources, it wouldn't be a common issue and there would be less ppl having a mental health crisis in public or rough sleeping.
@@fargsrgasdgerg492 Oh, no one is saying the US doesn't have resources. The issue isn't that we don't have them. The issue is that our governments at almost all levels categorically refuse to use them (except in the most token, half-gesture amounts) for anything other than the military or cops. Now, one of our two main parties is certainly worse about this than the other, but this is absolutely a bipartisan problem. If our government(s) could ever be arm-twisted back into spending our abundant resources on things that actually benefit the public (adequate affordable housing, single-payer healthcare like literally every industrialized nation has, unemployment insurance, laws to keep wages in line with costs of living), we'd more than likely see these problems lessen or disappear. But our society has been totally eaten by capitalism, so things in the public interest don't get done without sufficient profit motive for private entities. You can hear it really illustratively when people talk about how the Postal Service in the US "loses money." In countries that are run with an eye to actually meeting the needs of the populace, things like public transit and postal service and healthcare simply "have costs" that are, for the most part, considered worthwhile for the service they provide to the public. There isn't an expectation that any of those things are going to generate a profit: any fees or costs assigned are simply there to offset some of the costs, with the understanding that the majority of it gets funded through taxation. Meanwhile, you will never once hear a politician here talk about how much money our military, by far the world's most-expensive, loses every year. It's all about priorities, and our country's priorities fucking suck.
@@fanboy50 You seem to be ill informed about how much USG actually spends. Whatever issue you think USG should spend more money on, I guarantee you the US spends more per capita then any other country (yes, this includes healthcare). Americas problems aren't caused by lack of funding, they are caused by gross incompetence and corruption at the systemic level. These aren't problems that can be solved by spending more money. You mentioned the US postal service. Did you actually bother looking at how other countries do it? I looked at Canada, France, Germany, the UK and Sweden. Of these countries, the postal service in France and Germany is entirely private (and is operating at a profit). Canada has a government run postal service that earns 144M$ a year with 8.2B$ in revenue. The other countries have a private postal service that is partially owned by the government. The Swedish postal company (which is also partially owned by Denemark) makes about 200m$ a year. The English Royal mail is the only one of those countries that loses money (losing about half a billion pounds a year). From looking at this, I don't think it is unreasonable to be be unhappy with the USPS for losing almost 10B$ a year. If other countries can make the post work, why can't the US?
2:41 just an added information that many urbanists missed. These trams are built by suburb developers to make it more attractive to live there, which is a great model and basically how Hong Kong and Japan got to their first-class mass transit systems. US and Canada made the ultimate wrong decision by only determining mass transit's decision by fare-box revenues. Mass transit's benefits are referred to as "externalities" which have great knock-on effects but not fully captured by the fares. I suspect that if local governments allow private developers to fully use mixed-use zonings around stations, they will be more than happy to fund mass transit itself. Same thing happened with parking requirements, some cities in the US eliminated these requirements and private developers started increasing housing units that are more affordable and mixed-use. Remember, private developers want people living in their properties, not cars, so they are not always the enemy.
Such an underrated comment. This is one of the main reasons Hong Kong's transit is so successful and actually makes money as a result of leasing surrounding land back to developers.
In some cases, private developers that built things like the NYC subway got people mad that they dared to increase fares. So the city took it over and expansion and new lines has stagnated. But hey at least the government is willing to spend tax dollars on roads, further discourging private rail investment due to the economics of sunk cost.
It feels like a chicken and egg situation though. If I didn't have a guaranteed parking spot I could trust, I would not want to live there because it would be a constant game of trying to figure out if I can even park after I'm done going somewhere. And the truth of the matter is there I simply need to be able to drive places to do anything in the suburb I live in.
i feel genuinely surry for Sabrina that she put ENORMOUS amount of effort in making this video. Like, this should get at least 30 million views because it's produced perfectly and so thoroughly
as a Canadian, I've always wondered the same thing. I'm glad you're shedding light on this issue, I'd love to see more public transit across the country.
(Making light of an issue means they aren't taking it seriously, that they aren't giving it the weight it deserves. Shedding light on something or illuminating it is exposing it, or giving more visibility. ✌)
I'm so happy you are covering the absolutely terrible Otrain. It's been such a sham in my city and is why our last mayor didn't run in the last election
@@sanityisrelative My friend, I assure you: the stupid name is but a glimpse into the shallow end of the raw, undiluted corruption and stupidity that has been the entire O-Train project. SNC-Lavalin is genuinely pure corruption with a light top-note of maple flavour.
The only thing wrong with it was how it was launched through the east segment without a full network. Launch issues are normal, but not the way it was launched. It is a reliable system. The bus system never was, but frequency lied to you making it appear that it was.
0:10 and also public transit makes it so less ppl drive cars so commuting is faster for everyone, it is technically slightly more morale to chopse public transit if you can
This video opens my mind a lot about public transport and as someone who grew up in a society whose public infrastructures are designed for cars (Philippines yey) and got to live in a place where everything is walkable and has better public transportation for quite a time (Spain), i fully understand the sentiments in this video. We all want and hope for a better public transportation to solve this crisis. Cheers for this vid AIP!
The video overlooked one important thing. Cost. Sure public transit has issues but that's mostly self inflicted from the auto industry lobbying against good infrastructure for public transit. What most car owners can however relate to is the ridiculous cost to maintain cars, insurance, recalls, accidents. You could save so much money wasted on cars. So much for the freedom they were told cars would offer
Devil's advocate here ( I think Public Transportation is great): What about the cost to expand rail systems? The light rail near me will cost over 1 Billion for just over 5 miles!
@@JohnSmith-qe6fb Highway expansion projects for autos can be extremely expensive as well. The real cost winner is active transit, better walkability and bikeabilty. A billion dollar investment in a bike network would get you a world class, safe, protected bike/multiuse trail network. Plus for individuals the cost of walking is effectively 0 and biking is immensely cheaper than owning a car.
@@seantroy3172 In a high density metro area I completely agree. Putting in infrastructure for EV, biking, and other forms of clean transportation, including busing would be a well worth the funding . We need to look at options for more rural areas as well.
@JohnSmith-qe6fb Public transit is expensive but to have a system where everyone has their own vehicle is even more expensive. If I'm not mistaken a large portion of funds go into maintenance of current road infrastructure alone.
I remember planning to go to the beach with my friends and thinking "I wonder if we could take a train near there". I looked it up and it woulda taken 7 hours compared to an hour drive.
This. My commute to work by car is 45 minutes one way, if I took the train, it would be 2 hours and 15 minutes one way. I also live in northern NJ in the United States where most of our public transit is directed to NYC. There are times you have to make a stop in NYC to go back into other parts of NJ. It’s very time consuming.
I take the bus for quick visits among a major road or on a long trip. Might take me 15-20-30 minutes more to get there but it saves me gas and wear-n-tear on my car.
Interesting! I live in France, where public transportation is well developed, so it's almost always faster to take a combination of trams/the subway/trains/buses. Particularly in a city I used to live in (Montpellier), since the local government there is actively trying to make driving harder so that people take public transportation instead (which is completely free for residents).
I'm Dutch, and when I go to visit another city, I _always_ take the train. I don't even need to check if one's available because they're so frequent. But a major reason I'll always prefer trains over cars is because cars are so stressful. I don't think I could stand driving from one province to the next at night, tired out of my mind, while bright lights and loud cars are whizzing by at 120km/h. With trains, the only thing you have to pay attention to is when you're at your destination so you don't miss it - and when that's your train's final stop, even that is not really an issue.
Some people find driving relaxing or fun, though. Or both, especially on intercity road trips. I don't know if this applies in your case, but for many, gaining driving experience goes a long way to reducing the stress of driving. When I was a new driver, I found driving in downtown Toronto really stressful. But after a few years it was a piece of cake. Driving long distances at night when you're tired really sucks though--and can be very dangerous--so I avoid it whenever possible.
@@ceruleanstone i'm an outside sales rep for a company, I drive 75 to 100 miles a day. it's just normal for me around the Chicago suburbs and into parts of the city. I honestly can't fathom being stressed from driving at this point lol. I also love the flexibility a car has, do you need to get 2 weeks of food? easy. Do you need to transport any decent amount of equipment for your hobby? easy. There is no way I could go to the rifle range, or airsoft field on public transit, too much gear to carry easily and it all takes up a good bit of space.
@@ceruleanstoneSo why are you promoting cars on the streets again? People who like cars or driving them can always go to a circuit or participate in auto events
@@lsfornells The point of my comment was to illustrate just how wide the range of human experiences around driving can be, and that the way we experience it can change over time in response to the things we learn (or unlearn). Even if you're aggressively anti-car, this would be something you need to understand in order to effect the changes you want to see. Personally, I would rather have a wide range of transportation options available, including driving when I need to or when it's more convenient. And I'm fortunate to live somewhere that's highly walkable, and is pretty good for cycling, transit, and driving too. You might prefer to live in a car-free neighbourhood, which I could understand. Different people want different things.
I'm from Europe and I can say how cool public transport is when it's well established. I tried it in Quebec and the experience was terrible, but it was still worth it compared to driving (which is very expensive). Great video, by the way!
@@ianhomerpura8937"one of the best in North America" doesn't seem to mean much for a whole lot of things in the modern world, at least it seems that way to me
BINGO! I currently live in Vancouver (previous in NYC and Chicago). The Sky Train is sketchy and security sucks. Nothing like having a guy going from dancing to wanting to slash you after being released from jail for the 20th time.
@@MatthijsvanDuin From a French perspective, I find Montreal public transit to be kind of ok... close to what we could expect for a city this size. The thing is that I currently stay in the center so I might be biased. May be the suburbs are far worse than what we could expect from a European city this size. One of the reasons for this and now that I am here, I really see it, is that north American cities sprawl A LOT, they are far less dense than their European counterparts (and I know Montreal is far from being the worst in this). It's then more expensive to build PT to reach fewer people.
I want better, more robust public transit!! I hate driving!! Having a car is nice for when you have to travel long distances or moving stuff (like grocery shopping), but the semester I lived in London really opened my eyes to how nice it is to have the option to do things while being in transit. Everyone can text to their heart’s desire without endangering lives! You can work/study/scroll mindlessly all you want 😊
I want better, more robust public transit, Because LOVE driving!! less congestion, more people off the roads makes cars an even better option. But also I wont be joining any time soon, because no matter how quick or reliable they make it, that doesn't solve the people problem. I don't wanna get stabbed for being trans on my way to work.
@@Paintbullits > that doesn't solve the people problem That's not entirely true. Transit tends to be subject to the broken window theory - that is, there's a perception problem. As long as transit is perceived to be dangerous, it will be more dangerous as there will be less pressure to change the expectation of danger. But as more affluent people adopt public transportation, that perception changes. You might (rightfully) worry about your safety on the subways of New York or Toronto, but if you go to Amsterdam or Tokyo your risk of being assaulted is pretty minimal - at least no greater than in any other public setting. Transit in those locales is not seen as "how poor people get around", its "how everyone gets around". Being perceived better makes it better. Of course, that just turns it into a chicken-and-egg problem: Middle class folk don't want to adopt transit while its still perceived as "for poor people", but that perception won't change until middle class folk start using it. That's a problem transit advocates across North America are fighting with constantly. But I can definitely see why a trans person wouldn't be too eager to be one of the trailblazers for public transit in North America these days.
23:20 That's the thing. When public transit works. It works. Reason why many politicians secretly involved with energy and automobile lobbies in industrialized countries are doing what it needs to ruin it...
So funny seeing you guys cover the train line in Ottawa. It honestly became a meme while in university, "maybe if I take a few more degrees I'll finally get a chance to use it"
I loved using public transit when I lived in South Korea and Japan. There were only a handful of times I thought it would be better to have a car. Usually that was when I was on vacation, and left the city that had robust public transportation. It was often faster than driving, it was definitely cheaper than driving, and I loved that I could read, watch a movie, or even sleep. Also, If I was tired or buzzed (sometimes completely drunk) I could still get home safely by taking public transport.
I feel like you skipped over one major step in the planning stage: lawsuits and protests. Building anything these days brings out multiple special interest and community groups that either don't want what you're building, or want it done differently, or just don't want to pay for it. It's such a huge stumbling block that a lot of projects never get past it.
Even just giving people mobility has turned into a political alignment debate in the US. The amount of ppl calling public transport "socialism" is insane
@@cooltwittertag nobody call that socialism if it can sustain itself, aka enough people want to use it, and if not at the same time the government want to get rid off people's car for the name of climate change god.
@@AAAAAA-qs1bv not a bad thing if public transit truely reflect what the public need. had you took public transit? I took it when I was working in seattle area, they are not bad, but either certain route is too full or other route is too empty, which means the design of the system is not based on demand.
I think it is uniquely a US problem. If you can't agree that a public Healthcare system is good because taxes, then you are not going to get very far socially.
I'm not surprised at all. It's another story in rural areas, of course, but in cities with proper infrastructure, you can't go significantly faster than by public transit or by bike (with neither one of the two being consistently faster than the other, except for maybe in the middle of the night).
@@lonestarr1490yep. I just moved from the city proper to the burbs. In the city I could get from home to work in roughly the same amount of time, faster even if traffic is trash but the bus lanes are clear (transfers willing). But now it takes 30-45 minutes to drive and at least twice as long by bus. The issue is the local level transit near my house. The land of once-an-hour buses. Once I get to a transit center and can catch a commuter bus to the city everything is gravy.
Depends on where you live. In my city, which is small but definitely a city, the public transit is so lackluster that it's almost always slower to take the bus than to drive. The only concern here with driving is parking on the university campus, which is super expensive.
@@YoshiAsk That's why I said that the city should have "proper infrastructure". If busses get stuck in traffic, then that's not proper infrastructure, but deliberately designed to be garbage. Because people won't use it if it sucks, and when nobody's using it the city is justified to cut costs. Bicycle infrastructure is very often deliberately made to suck balls in pretty much the same way and for the very same reasons. They do their best to induce as little demand as possible so that when anyone asks them to build more they can just point out that nobody is using what's already there.
In my city in the UK, a train takes 15 minutes maximum to cross the city, but it would take you at least 40 minutes to drive. The train can just go in a big straight line in a way that cars cannot
I feel like the "Pros vs Cons" breezes over the adjective "good". If you don't have *good* public transit, commute times can be as much as 6 or 7 times as long using public transit as driving in a place with crappy public transit, like Atlanta. If you can spend 45 minutes driving in traffic or 2.5 hours using public transit, if you can afford the car, getting back that three hours out of your day is worth it.
Let us not forget what it would take to construct good transit. Trains, ok. whose house will they run by, under or even lead to the demolition of? Buses... buses need roads so all the issues of cars. Trams same issue as trains whose house goes down for them? Also will there be one transport every 15 minutes to the least populated areas of a town? What about people who live in rural or far suburban areas?
@@HontasFarmer80 Your comment highlights a major issue but maybe not in the way you think. Public misconceptions about the consequences of transit. Highways take up way more space than rail, especially when considering adding lanes. IE more houses demolished. Cars have way more noise pollution than trains, and I'm pretty sure there's virtually no noise pollution if a train runs under your house. Suburbanites get a commuter rail line, rural people probably will drive. Maybe in a perfect world rural towns would have a regional rail hub close by. These are the tradeoffs of living far away from the city.
You'd think a place like southern California would embrace transit solutions but all they've done is put in a bare minimum, do a crappy job of it, and then blame the public for not using it. I had two kids attending a jr college that was a 10-minute drive from here and I had to drive them because the bus system is so unreliable. The app gave inaccurate times and my daughter even sat with a friend and watched her bus drive past the stop and away. I had to come out and take them both. What happens to people who have no other means of getting anywhere? And we once tried the trains to get to Santa Monica Pier, just to see how practical it was. They were filthy and slow and we had to take multiple different ones and someone tried to sell us stuff (fortunately just trinkets). We took an Uber back. And again, I wonder... we have a choice but what happens to people who are dependent on public transportation? Who have to travel alone? We need to do better.
@@HontasFarmer80 People have already corrected you on the rail argument so I'll talk about the busses instead. Busses do not have the same problems as cars for the simple reason that every person in the bus is a car off the road. cars usually have 1 or maybe 2 people in them while busses can have 30 or probably more if it's rush hour and take up barely more space on the road leading to less traffic. And a good bus system is still fast during traffic because they have bus lanes.
Was surprised you chose Ottawa as someone whos lived here my whole life. Its a shame the transit sucks so much here. It seems like it's in a death spiral right now. The less funding it gets (thanks Jim Watson and Mark Sutcliffe) the less reliable it is, the less people use it, the less funding it gets, etc. As someone who exclusively uses transit it's sad living here when this city has so much potential for great transit.
The "reliability" issues started long before both Mayors, btw. You can only do so much when you're promoting suburban growth with a transit service coverage policy that limits how much bus service hours can be provided. And it was increasingly inefficient and more unreliable since 2003 to be running every bus through the same downtown central corridor while deadheading buses 30 km to run express runs, so, the 2006-2010 Council chose LRT technology as the way forward to move to higher capacity vehicles on the central corridor. Watson with Deans implemented that Chiarelli-era (2005) service coverage policy, throttling the budget on what service can actually be available.
In my area, there's minimal public transit (we just have a bus or a streetcar that's more of a touristy thing). The buses are not super reliable bc (in my opinion) there's not enough funding to make sure enough buses are running as often. As a result, driving my own car is more convenient. To get from my apartment in college to my job by bus, I would need to take the very first bus in the morning (like 5 AM) in order to get to work on time at 8. Driving my own car, I can wake up at 7:30 and be at work by 8. I recently discovered this channel and I am obsessed with the work you all do!! The production value does a great job of educating while also entertaining. Very well done! 😊
To be clear, I am very pro public transit (such as in Chicago, it's pretty amazing). I just wish more cities invested more in public transit so they were on the same level as places like Chicago!
As a European, I can say, that when you are not traveling huge distances, public transit easily wins the freedom contest. It runs - at least where I live - 24/7, so I can use it to go home even after a long party. If something comes up and plans change I don't have to worry about where I left my car, I can just use a different line instead. It is so convinient.
As an American, it’s an impractical solution for most of the US landmass. It’s only viable in major cities, which are all unbelievably corrupt, and yet not at all efficient as a result. At least bribery gets things done in Europe.
yes, same here, sometimes, specially if you are going somewhere alone or with a friend, and not taking family, kids or old people, taking public transport is just SO much more convenient, its cheaper, you don't need to worry about finding a parking spot, you avoid the stress of driving, depending on the time or the lane you can even take a nap.
16:25 "Just because there is a place I can walk, doesn't mean it's walkable." I have the same issue with biking: just because there is technically a bike lane, doesn't mean it's bikeable.
I think the biggest piece you weren't able to cover here is how various disabilities interact with all of the means of transport. Because I'm a disabled person who can drive, I prefer it because I'm not going to be walking too much or chasing after anything/straining myself to get there on time. I just have my transportation
Same! Chronic pain makes walking unreliable for me, even for relatively short distances. And ADHD makes the time management required to keep track of bus and train schedules a nightmare
Relatable, even with my cane cutting down on the spoons required to walk, car use really saves me a ton of effort! I'll take transit if I know the lines and am not in a hurry, but the moment I gotta go fast, I'll be using my car!
True, but I think it would differ too much to be a single "factor", because for example people with disability who can't drive, usually prefer public transport, because "private transport" would be meaning depending on a familiar/friend in many cases. Edit: For this reason, I think that the argument would be worth a entire video
There are also people with disabilities who cannot drive. Children can't drive and there are lots of elderly drivers who shouldn't be behind the wheel. For the folks who absolutely have to drive, getting more people on transit and bikes helps you because there's less congestion and more people who shouldn't be behind the wheel on a bus, train, bike, scooter, etc. There's a great video from Mobycon about accessible cities and it focuses on an area in the Netherlands from the perspective of a woman who uses a power chair to get around. Just like disabilities are not a monolith, cities shouldn't just be designed for people in cars. Also, designing just for cars puts destinations far from each other. In a more walkable or even bikeable area destinations are closer together. In my walkable neighborhood a half mile walk allows me to access medical care, a major transit station, a supermarket, bike share, a park, coffee shop, etc. I find walking too slow and prefer to bike. More of my neighbors would bike if they didn't have to fear being harassed by drivers who feel entitled to go as fast as they want and think of people on bike and foot as nuisances
I’m so late but I would love to see you do this video again and explore somewhere like Taiwan’s public transport! I’m biased because I did a study abroad there but their transport system, coming from the US at least, was such a refreshing change of pace. It felt like now where was unreachable at any point from anywhere and was such a nice feeling and made exploring so much easier and fulfilling! This isn’t going into the environment of their public transport and the timeliness+professionalism from their public transport workers!
personally, i think cycling is the best way of transport. it’s really good for the environment, good for the body and great for getting cars off the streets and bringing cities back to the hands of people.
I can't bike, but I was wondering why that wasn't covered in the video. Her walking 4 hours would have been cut drastically on a bike. Combined with public transit, such a good solution. Even in cold Canada.
@@bntansah cycling is much more enjoyable in the country (just like driving really) the only I don’t like about it where I live is that there are no bike paths on the roads so when cars come by it’s quite dangerous
Yeah, pretty much. But there is still people who can't drive a bike due a health reasons. And it's not really working with some weather conditions. So at actuality the best option at my opinion is public transport as a blood vessels of a city and bike roads following them and extending or something. It should be as accessible as possible and also comfortable. But the problem here is that the cities are already built. You can't just plan a city from scratch... and even if you could it costs. It costs too much. Trying to put a rails or a bike road and "brutally steal" space that belongs to cars at the moment is also very hard to do due to unwilling people and *drums* money. Im so confused with this difficult situation. As well as the people who responsible for that, i guess.
Cycling is great, but it NEEDS to be given proper infrastructure. The existing bike lanes next to roads in America are not sufficient if mass amounts of people started commuting by bike. We need bike lights and a stronger respect for biking traffic etiquette.
I live in France where public transit is fairly developped, and you can go to basically any point A to point B with it, it might take longer than a car and you need to take a bus for really remote places but if I can go from a random mountain to a random corn field 300km away I consider public transit as very much usable
Thank you about giving some nuance. It is easy to say “just build public transportation”. Working as a laborer and in office, just the planning can take years. Absolutely love taking the metro.
I remember taking the public transit in Wisconsin in a moderate city for university. I was surprised by how empty it was yet the system was so simple, the only people who used it were old people and there was barely any to begin with. It took me around the entire city from top to bottom. Yea it was a hassle to wait but it was the only time i ever used a city bus until i went back to my hometown
As someone who lived in downtown Ottawa for six years I am CACKLING at everyone’s efforts to successfully navigate the city. I’ve never lived in another place that seems to REJECT NAVIGATION like Ottawa 😂😂😂 Also you should have done this challenge in the -30 C winter to really get the local experience 🥶
right?! as a dutchy I was thinking, oh they're gonna go here cuz we have all types of navigation that's quality.. then like wait.. what, this city is.. special?
When I went to Singapore the public transport is absolutely perfect. Trains and subways running all the time everywhere you need to go and it's really nice. Cars there are basically a luxury, so everybody just uses public transport and there is no reason to be late. If you're using public transport, the subways show up every like 4 minutes.
This is another thing North Americans do not get: increasing frequencies means increased reliability, which leads more people will use the transit network.
@@nuclearpancake3683 there's plenty wrong in Singapore but when it comes to public infrastructure and transport they're some of the best. I haven't been but I'm told Switzerland is the best.
The problem with this is that they were all pretty popular locations to travel to but didn't account for where people actually live. I live on the edge of Ottawa and what is a 20-30 minute commute by car to downtown becomes an hour as soon as you introduce a connection into the transit trip.
This is just because the way North American cities are built. I live in a 4800 people village south of Turin, northwestern Italy and to get in the exact center of Turin I need 25 minutes by train and 50 minutes by car. And Yes There's a train station in a 4800 people tiny village.
The biggest hurdle for public transit in a lot of places is that people don't demand it, because Americans like their freedoms. Relying on public transit is a very limiting thing. We want to be able to go where and when we want. Not an option with trains or bussing.
I'm from Germany but I recently visited Toronto and I was honestly amazed how slow the street cars are lol. On certain routes it was genuinely faster to walk than get a street car. And apparently the tube system really doesn't go very far out, which I avoided by staying closer to the expensive centre, but like,,, that's a huge issue for a transit system!!
the one thing that that is always missed about walking and public transportation is not only the good envirnment and social impact but also economic impact. Foot traffic is sooo important for bussinesses.
I'm from Venice (Italy) and I find really interesting to see these contents about public transits and how to improve them! Thank you so much for such an insightful video! Since probably it is not common knowledge, I'd like to share a little of how public transits work in Venice. We have to start by saying that as "Venice city" in this context we do not only refer to to the historical island in the city center, but to many other islands nearby, and to some areas located in the mainland. There is a unified transport card that for a monthly fee lets you take as many buses, and waterbuses, as you'd like. All of them continue to work even during night time (even though there are not as many as during daytime). There are waterbuses that would take you around the historical city center, waterbuses that take you to locations in the city center AND other islands, and buses that would transport you either from the historical Venice island to the mainland, or even just going around the in the mainland areas without ever the need to go back to the "real Venice island". The specific route I like the most about it is the bus that would bring you from Lido Island (the one where every year the Venice Film Festival is held) to Pellestrina island (right South of Lido, but very close to it). The bus would cross the whole island, during various stops on the way, to then get on a small ferryboat, bring you to the second island, proceed to reach the very South of it during several stops on the way, and then going all the way back to the starting point. AS a city it has been designed in a way to be great for the various public transports, and you never feel stranded or in need to have your own boat or car while living there. For someone studying city planning it is a wonder to see. I apologize for this little monologue, I just feel it is something that is often overlooked and I wanted to make some justice to the hybrid public transit system of Venice ahah
I live in Lahore, Pakistan. It takes four to six hours of commuting to go back and forth from one corner of the city to another. Also the nearest bus station is one hour walk away from my home. So time is the biggest hurdle in my personal experience using public transport.
I visited 3 different countries in Europe this month during 3 weeks and the public transportation was amazing. Only in Brussels I had some problems, but it was because nobody worked at the train station and the instructions were in French! In Paris the situation was crazy, only 2-4 minutes between metros, and you can get any spot of the city using the subway, train or bus! Another great point about europe, is how easy and fast you can go from one city to another, even if they are not in the same country. Perhaps isn't cheap (Spain 1.7 Euros, Belgium and France 2.5-3.0 Euro per trip) but I think is more expensive to have a car (taking into account all the regulations in Europe about its use). Conclusion: Europe is well designed
"Europe is well designed" Well designed? Maybe... It depends on how you look at it. Most cities in Europe were built before the time of the car, so they have very narrow roads and very few areas for parking. So it was essential that they have good public transit because they don't have much of a choice. Japan has similar problems, which is why their public transit is among the best, if not the best in the world. North America didn't start getting big cities until much later on, so it could be designed with cars in mind... Which turns out may be a mistake in retrospect!
@@TheSeanUhTron there is a great channel "not just bikes" that dives very deep in that argument, but long story short, no, NA wasn't build with cars in mind, it was build with and around trains and later was buldozed for cars europe in 20th certury had pretty much the same car infestation problems america has today, but they made en effort to change their way of looking at the problem and they are building new infrustructure with people in mind while america builds it's infrustructure for cars edit: spellings
As a student in Toronto I use the TTC every day! It is pretty good, but could definitely be improved. I didn’t miss it when they quietly raised my fare this year! I go to a school that’s specialized and mid-city, so everyone who goes there takes the subway. I’ve been eligible to get a drivers license for a while now, but me and most of my peers haven’t even started the process of getting one. This is because we all know how to navigate transit. I think this is really important for me and other people my age. I’m hopeful for the future of the TTC and hope that I can be improved with plans like you discussed here :)
Hey, Brazilian guy here. One point that was not mentioned, and I think is really important for this discussion, is safety. I believe people here are much more prone to driving if their financial status allows it because it's very common to see pickpockets, robbery, and even sexual harassment inside public transportation (mainly busses). Walking can also be dangerous for these same reasons, depending on location and time of day.
That's a big part of the problem, and here in the USA as well. One thing they have to do if they want people to take public transportation is to get the pickpockets and creeps off the trains. Government never wants to make it attractive so people will choose to use it. They make it inefficient, poorly routed, populated with weirdos then try to force people to take it through laws and tax structures. Insane. It's the tail wagging the dog.
Visiting Brasília, I noticed driving friends usually did not stop at stop-signs. They explained to me that while stopped, you’re vulnerable to car-jacking. Brasília is not built for pedestrians. The Niemeyer architecture and the planned city’s unique-ness make the capital a place foreigners visit on purpose. But, maybe the city planners forgot that poor people exist ? I taught English to government functionaries at their different offices all day long, and I did not want to give up, because I love the friendliness and the human-to-human open-ness of Brazilian culture. Month #1 of me taking the metro to the rodaviaria and then walking to offices, I did alright. But after 5 months, I was looking like a caipira, and that is inappropriate for entering professional and government offices. The red dirt of the earth had discolored the cuffs and shins of all my pants. I was often sweaty (I was walking in a place with sun & heat 🤷♀️). I lost a LOT of weight, because while some government buildings (like the Correiros building) have a cafeteria, many do not. When I told a friend’s family that usually I only have enough time to eat a couple coxinhas at the rodaviaria, I could see from their reaction that there was a negative perception of eating at the bus / metro terminus. I was skinny not because of a secret drug addiction, I was skinny because the Esplinade dos Ministérios did not have places to eat. The hotel district is closer to the broadcast tower (y’know: it looks like a miniature Eiffel Tower) [too far to walk and then return-walk all the way back for my next class / client]. The shopping mall: also far: close enough to the Correiros building, but too far if the next class was to be given at the Tribunal Court. Weight-loss, frayed pants, shirts wrinkled (how could I passa-feiro 1.5 hours away from where I slept ?) I was becoming um caipira. I want to know the magic secret all you Brazilians have: You ALL somehow look beautiful or handsome AND well-groomed and polished all day long. Some people (more like me in economic status) started small favela-esque communities in unfinished parts of Brasilia (not inside Plano Piloto exactly) because Ceilândia & Taguatinga & Águas Claras and the other satélite cities are a little bit too distant from the obligations that must be done near Palácio PlanoAlto. It’s the Capital City of the most important country in South America, but the plans for the construction of the city didn’t take into consideration all the people necessary to cook, to clean, to teach, and assist the government functionaries. I only had a short bit of time available to me in São Paulo. There, a metro-system exists (a good thing in my opinion). But there: There your comment regarding safety becomes cogent. Luckily, I had / have friends to help me navigate 🙏 even though I could read directional signs (tô ainda aprendendo o idioma), the potential to cause one’s self problems was evident. Public transportation or no, I still want to return there: perhaps permanently. The climate, the musics, good conversation, the freedom to have emotions AND show them… Taipei has the near-perfect public transportation, but in Brasil people give hugs. 🙏🇧🇷🙌
I live at Lake Samish, Bellingham, Washington and my children live in Maltby and Kirkland, also in Washington. It takes me about 1 hour 15 minutes to get to either place. To take public transportation, well…. I’ve heard you can call and a bus will come the 10 miles from Bellingham, but in the 40 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen it. An Amtrak train goes from Bellingham to Seattle (an aside is that car gas taxes subsidize passenger each ticket $20). The train ticket is expensive and takes much longer than driving. From Seattle train station, I could probably get a bus to Kirkland, but not Maltby. Then I’d have to get a taxi or Uber for the last 5-15 miles. Probable time 4 or more hours and expense probably more than $100. So, you were asking about the advantages of cars over public transportation? Lots of time and money!
@@kathygann7632 Well for example in Europe you'd get one month of public city transport for $15, it's 3x faster than by car and you don't have to wait since the tram and buses go every 5 - 10 minutes. If you go by inter regional train or bus you'd pay $8 for going between the 2 major cities like around 150 miles away and it would be 30 minutes faster not considering traffic jams that are quite common. Unless you're going to some natural reserves, mushroom foraging or to a different country you never use a car here since it has no benefits. Actually trains are even more comfortable than car and much more safe since I haven't heard anyone getting pick-pocketed nor harassed in the past 5 years or so. But yeah I guess that in the USA you cannot really use public transport rellyably.
Indonesian here, we had that problem on public transit as well, what we've done is doubling security guards and cctv on public transit, it doesn't eliminate the problem, but it does decrease them significantly.
I live in a small city in Italy (in Sardinia which is an island) and I spend a lot of time complaining about public transport, but watching this video I realized that our public transport (at least inside my city) is AMAZING. We have busses AND trains, I can get almost anywhere in the city and the suburban areas aren't connected too badly. On the other hand we often have delays and broken busses and route changes, but most of the lines have a 10 minute frequency and only the ones that go in the adjacent towns there's like maybe 30 minutes between each bus
The main problem with Transit in North America is frequency. In Ottawa (since you made your video there), the train, though unreliable, at least has a decent frequency of about 5 minutes. The buses are horrible... 30 minutes is NOT an acceptable. You just miss a bus, and the next one is cancelled (a depressingly common scenario) and that 30 minutes (already not OK) becomes 60 minutes of waiting. If you have bus intervals of 10 minutes (at max, 15), then you don't need to organize your day and action based on the bus schedule. Suddenly freedom is not much of an issue anymore. But 30 minutes is depressingly frequently considered a "good" interval in North America. RM Transit mentionned once that "the best predictor of transit usage is frequency" (heavily paraphrased). And it really makes a difference. If I don't have to look up the next bus, transit can easily become a habit. At 10 minutes or so, I won't bother checking when the next bus is coming. If one is cancelled it's not a huge deal. At 30 minutes none of those statements are true. If I have a car, the odds are I will use that car.
I hope you liked that video! Ignore the snow in the background! This video totally didn't take 3 months to make!
I LOVE CARCENTRIC INFRASTRUCTURE!!!
@@ogmghb1797 i know me too. helps sell my yellow "SLOW" signs you put on your street. nobody outside america buys them from me tho:/
Did it
One thing you should know about the rise in suburbs is that it has a lot to do with the beginnings of the cold war and moving everything out of cities they could in fear of cities becoming targets for nukes. this was known as "defense via dispersion"
now try it in the netherlands
As someone from Ottawa, when you said Ottawa was your test city my heart sank on your behalf. No one deserves Ottawa public transit.
Nor how spread out it is as a walker.
Agreed….
I clicked on the video because I saw what looked like the LRT and had to see how much they struggled
@@PhaythGaming 15 minutes by car, 1 hour 15 minutes on foot, at least in the suburbs where I'm from 😂
@@Mir-gw6kj same lmao. I can get to work in 5 minutes by car, 20 minutes by bus, 45 on foot ahaha
One thing not mentioned in this video is the "last mile" problem with public transit. Even if you have a reliable, fast train, if you live more than a mile from the station, it can be a pain to get to the station. A 20 minute walk at either end of a transit commute adds a lot of time onto a journey. That's why density around transit stations is super important
True but it's also why virtually any train station in the netherlands has bicycles you can rent. It will easily change that 1 hour walk into 20 mins or even less by bike.
That's why busses exist. In Europe you just wait at a stop and get one to the station every 5-10 minutes.
That is what bus for. Altenatively you can bring something like e-scooter with you.
@@MisakaMikotoDesu Unfortunately for most people in US, even living in a mid sized or large city, the bus stop (if a bus even exists at all) may be a long walk away and only comes every 30 or 40 minutes. You're considered lucky if you're on a route with 20 minute frequencies. Busses are so inconvenient and frequently cancelled or late that in my city they are only used by people with no other options. Not because they are a convenient or fast way to get around.
I love trains. Like as a hobby. I wish we had better public transit in the US, I do. But I live in a rural, low population area. There is no bus coming to take me to a train. Ever. And in the terrain I live in bikes are near impossible to ride. Unfortunately, I would have to use my car to get to a train or bus. And by then I'm already in my car that I am still paying for, so I might as well take it all the way. It's the same issue with China's "trains to nowhere" that they keep paying for with taxpayer dollars so they don't have to admit they were a really misguided idea.
The thing about public transit is that the more of it you have, the better it is. If the network is denser, you can go alternate routes. If the network is used, frequency of vehicles increases... You should be at the point where getting to the stop means at most five minutes of a pleasant walk (because more trams, less cars), then a short wait for a tram and then a short walk to the destination...
In other words, it's effective at scale, whereas cars are the exact opposite.
whether a walk is pleasant or not depends on the weather. even 30 seconds in pouring rain will make wet for a long time, and cities like Chicago get to 100 degrees in the summer and down to less than 0 in the winter.
@@perfectallycromulent And yet the Chicagoans continue to use it,,, The train is not a bad place to be, even if it's raining, snowing or 90 degrees out. Many of the stops are heated in the winters, and it's still better than sitting in traffic or driving in hazardous conditions with everyone else (also, umbrellas and coats are a thing. People are used to weather existing, and not everyone owns a garage. (The Dibs system is proof of that))
@@QualityGarbage yes a lot of benefits for some minor inconveniences. People in the US act so privileged that even rain makes them feel humbled
Betcha they enforce open drug use on trains. Come to Seattle and experience local drug users and rabble rousers on just about every ride!
People are free to move to live in a pod, talk is cheap on progressive channels, revealed preferences say otherwise.
As someone from Hong Kong, one of the world’s most densely populated cities and home to one of the greatest public transit systems in the world, this video taught me A LOT. So thank you for enlightening me!
It’s very true that trust in the system is important for the success of public transit. If a system is not reliable, nobody will take it to get to where they want to go. It’s importance and impacts are clearly reflected in Hong Kong, because the trains here (the most popular mode of public transit available) arrive at stations punctually 99.99% of the time, and if it isn’t, the corporation pays a huge fine. That’s how you ensure accountability and reliability. Everyone knows the metro is reliable, and thus they like taking it.
we love the mtr here 😍😍
I can always get behind more public transit content! 🎉
Reece, love your channel! was surprised to see you on here!
There’s no way
They must have the noti bell on
Glad to see your cameo in here!
YOU'RE HERE! I WAS GONNA SAY THEY SHOULD COLLAB WITH RMTRANSIT.
I'm actually gonna watch the video now haha brb
Something that so many people forget when it comes to transport is that no single form of transport is one-size-fits all because they all serve different types of journeys. An infrastructure system isn't just trains or buses or planes or cars or public footpaths but the *collection* of all methods of transport.
When people find it easy to get around, it's not because the trains or buses are good but because all the different forms of infrastructure work to complement each other. That's what's missing in most American cities.
This is what I miss about European transit systems (my experience is mostly Belgian, mind): stations are hubs for both trains and busses/trams, which effectively turns nearly all bus/tram lines into collectors for the trains. Meanwhile, in my experience in North America, you often need a car to get to the train stations where they exist to begin with, at which point you might as well keep on driving.
Generally less cars means more everything good and less everything bad is the thing
And nit forget the bike. You can ride a Train with it. Sometomes with an extra Ticket. You are nearly as flexible as by walking and most of the time as fast as a car in the city.
To bad most North American cities are way to sprawling for public transit. No point of a bus or train if you have to walk/drive over an hour away. With every single person having an acre of land.
@@felidae1975please I just want to bike/scooter everywhere but the bike lanes 😭
I love how Sabrina went through all the same stages and realizations about how awful our transit system is in Ottawa. I was giggling the entire time.
Hey, I'm an Austrian watching this video and your transit system is shockingly confusing
I'm not even surprised that no one's using it when it's basically "take a guess and if you're wrong you messed up good"
In Europe it is a lot more streamlined - Google Maps always tells you where to go and screens all over the stations (and ticket stations where you buy your ticket) tell you where to go
If you don't want to look up you can even download specific apps (in Austria it's the "ÖBB" app) that not only tell you the place but also the exact spot you have to stand at - you can also buy tickets through the app
and that's not even going into the prices - a daily pass is 11 bucks?! that's nuts - one daily pass in Austria is like 4-5
Also - there are A LOT of choices - so if you don't want to go by train just take the bus or vice versa - or if you miss one it isn't going to take long for the next to arrive/take an alternative
I just got a job and they asked me if I could into Orleans and I said "I would prefer not to because I don't have a car" and they told me that people bus in all the time. HOW
Anyways I was born in regina and the transit in Ottawa is better. I was shocked to see it ran on Sundays and past 8pm
Also Google maps will give me such obscure paths with 5 transfers and then all of a sudden I realize I can just reduce transfers to walk 10 minutes by taking away 2 stops at the end. But still. Way better than Regina
One thing I value about being able to take the train to work rather than driving, is that driving can be stressful, and requires focus. Whereas on the train I can read or play on my phone until my stop.
yes; that is a very good reason. driving is a bigger mental load than work (for me); I'd rather chill in the subway than being honked for failing to move one nanosecond after the light got to green.
yes you point out
Exactly. When I went to ASU it was about a 15 minute drive from my house or a 40 minute drive by bus. If I wasn’t in a hurry or rushing I usually didn’t care how slow it was because I could study or zone out for 40 minutes. It still would have been nice if it was faster and more reliable though.
For me it is the other way arround. In the netherlands trains and metro's are delayed fairly often or dont stick to their schedule. The defects and delays arent always listed on their website.
The metro rides in 10 minute intervals the train in 30 minutes. Meaning that i get delayed 10 minutes at the minimum if the track has a defect it can rise to half an hour.
In my experience people in the netherlands are more lenient when coming to late because of a traffic jam because those are fairly consistent here they usually cause a 5 to 15 minute delay. When coming half an hour to late because of pt they say "should have planned better".
Only reason why i use it is because the government made it free for students (you do built up a debt but it gets removed if you get your diploma within 10 years otherwise you get to pay) and it is hell to find parking spots in rotterdam.
Just to clarify, pt is more stresfull for me because i cant depend on it to get me on time. I can read or play on my phone but that would end it up draining my phone to much.
I usually study a bit in the metro but most of the time I dont have anything to do in the metro as i ride it for 2 hours a day.
"Just because there's a place I CAN walk, doesn't mean it's walkable" THIS SO MUCH!!! Also the fear of getting hit by a car, I've literally walked somewhere, waited like 5 minutes for a car to actually pull out of a driveway, and the moment they finally decide to move? I WAS LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR BUMPER!
Same! I've been almost hit by parked cars that go in reverse. I'm like dude, aren't you supposed to pay attention to everything?
If the car was an SUV, they literally may not have been able to see you. SUVs have a big frontal blind spot that blocks the view directly in front of the car.
Same
Try getting hit by a train. That happens a lot.
@@KB-ke3fiTry getting hit by a car. It happens next to trains a lot.
The great thing about public transit is you can condition the new generation, at an early age, to have a taste of freedom without having to rely of their parents to go around the city. As you start in early age, you will tend to be more supportive of projects to improve infrastructure and innovation.
"you can condition the new generation, at an early age, to have a taste of freedom "
@@CvnDqnrUthat's what they said.
Exactly. My eldest is 11, and he's absolutely empowered by the fact that he can get to places on his own.
I kinda disagree. I grew up in an area in germany that had pretty good public transport. Even now living in a bigger city with a even better and more dense public transport area i prefer taking the electric car. Because I'm way more flexible, can reach more specific points and have a way higher comfort (i'm looking at you Bus 6 in a hot summer).
So my friends and I always had a good public transport system around us but still after all that years... i wouldn't take if.
It's even more expensive (in my case).
@@gudeandi
Right but you're an adult, they were talking about kids being able to just go places, without needing a license or car or anything. Just a ticket:)
As an American, the lack of public transit options is dismaying to me. It was never really something I thought about until I was trying to find a way to visit my grandparents without a car. I finally found a rail connection, and it really impressed me. The train was so much cheaper, comfortable, and convenient compared to taking a plane, only at the expense of time it took to reach my destination. A total overhaul of our transit system is absolutely necessary.
As someone who has been living in Ireland for over 10 years, I recently had a short trip to Reus, Tarragona Barcelona, and Madrid. Coming from Ireland that has completely dysfunctional trains, the frequency of regional trains felt like luxury. In the city, it was the first time in my life riding the metro. Missed one? No worries, the next one will be in 3 minutes.
And to go from Barcelona to Madrid, it was also the first time in my life riding a high speed train. The journey from Barcelona to Madrid was ~600 km and it took ~2 hrs at an average speed of just under 300 km/h. Then when I returned to Ireland, it took me 2 hrs 30 minutes to travel a distance of ~200 km by bus.
Now you see why even a simple regional train felt like such luxury to me.
As an American, it's nice having a good public transit (I grew up in NY), but even there you sometimes wanted a car unless you lived in Manhattan and didn't leave the city much. Of course, the train is cheaper because it's subsidized. In cities, it's often subsidized by the cars (like NY, where the Transit Authority gets a lot of money from bridge and road tolls which are for more then needed to maintain them). I'm curious though what train you took that is much cheaper then a plane, as Amtrak can be quite expensive.
@@stevefl7175 just a small correction, usually car infrastructure is much more expensive in terms of maintenance and due to the number of cars people drive in this country we also federally subsidize cars far more than any other form of transportation. additionally places that don't have good transit and walkability usually suffer from insolvency as things are too sparse and the land use is too inefficient for businesses to pay enough taxes for small towns to keep up with the maintenance of car infrastructure that was likely paid for by the federal government decades ago when no one was thinking about who would be repairing all the potholes and side streets in the future.
@@bobbirdsong6825 most of the maintenance needed on roads isn’t because of cars. It’s because of trucks. Trucks cause far more wear and tear on roads then cars do. This is how most goods are shipped outside of long distances. The second part is the weather, particularly the freezing and thawing cycle which cracks the roads and caused potholes. Small towns generally don’t have public transit anyway. You need a certain density to make Publix transit work. Sure there may be a bus that runs down the main route but that’s about it. Name one Publix transportation that pays for itself with its fares. It’s zero, none of them do. Heck in some places it’s free. The entire Publix transit in some places are subsidized. For cars, the federal gas tax pays for some of it. In large cities tolls, taxes and fees pay for a portion of it. Public transit is only for the commuter, while roads are vital for commercial goods to be moved around as well.
@@stevefl7175 Of course public transit doesn't pay for itself, it's a public service. If anything the ideal transit service is free, as access to transportation is the most important factor in income mobility. And I'm not just saying that keeping highways up is expensive. Those need to be there. It's all of the sidestreets and parking lots that make modern suburbia a sea of asphalt that's expensive, because like you said, it deteriorates with weather. Meanwhile when I was living in Japan I could get to downtown Tokyo in an hour for less than $7. I don't think you can travel 50 kilometers that fast and cheap anywhere in the US using transit. And Japan has truck reliant goods shipping too! Go figure.
I cannot believe how incredibly well-produced and well-paced this video is - Sabrina is so clever and funny! The method used to demonstrate the various pros and cons with each transport mode was genuinely enlightening and fun to watch. It also had the perfect amount of history and background context.
Thank you for putting the time and effort to make such an outstanding piece of work, from a public transport fanatic in Aotearoa New Zealand :)
One of the best things about public transit for me is the ability to take advantage of transit time. You can’t get anything done while you’re walking or driving, but you can totally finish that one late assignment on a long bus route or train ride. It just makes me feel more productive and even if I don’t work it allows me time to just wake up or otherwise relax without having to think too much
You dont even have to be really productive. Even just reading news or playing sudoku is still much better use of time than being fully focused on road.
Literally. More time being brain dead for me every day!
So true, I’ve read so much more since taking public transit for my work commute.
true, i always commute with (e-jeepneys), they're like minibuses. my travel time is actually 1 hour and 30 minutes up to 2 hours and they are airconditioned. And if you're lucky you can choose to sit on the good seat (i prefer to be near steel handles for support). i mostly use my transit time for catching up for reviewers and tutorials whenever our exams are near. it's also really good for the brain when you can be able to process incoming information while on a busy platform (commuters come and go from point to point). I also take that transit time to good use to sleep whenever i'm pulling off all nighters. it's a real game changer for all types of passengers and mostly students. it's cheap, it's reliable, and it doesn't take too much of your energy (all you have to do is walk between stops)
walking is a great exercise though
So many American cities would just fail the walking test because highways literally block off paths. It’s also notable that places that have reliable public transport are also the most walkable, so it’s always a choice between one mode (driving) and multiple modes (walking, biking, trains, buses, subways)
I don't think it's necessarily a choice between the two. It's just that when you have proper public transport, it leads to fewer people using cars, which results in less space being required by roads, which in turn leads to denser cities which are easier to walk/bike/etc. This leads to fewer people using public transport for everything, reducing the load on it, which again makes it possible to build denser cities. You can still have cars and you need roads for emergency services anyways.
do highways literally block off paths, or do highways block off paths?
thats what i was thinking the entire time, if you drive you cant really do anything else its just cars and maybe a bit of walking. but all other forms of transit work together, you can bike walk and use public transit together. improving one usually improves the others aswell or atlesast it doesnt cause problems, but supporting cars always supresses other forms of transit.
@@philnik777 I mean the choice is in how you plan the city. Money that doesn't go to transit and instead to highways is a choice being made here
@@philnik777 it’s a big picture city planning choice that is the difference between NYC and Dallas. People will do whatever is most convenient, but there are places where walking is not a reasonable choice and there are places where public transport simply doesn’t exist in any meaningful at that eliminates the need to have a car.
Coming from the Netherlands and now living in Stockholm I can confidently say that public transport is at its best when its frequent. Even when busses or subways aren't on time, it doesn't really matter if you know another is going to be there within 5 to 10 minutes. Most of the time when I choose to take public transport I don't even check departure times because of this. Combine this with walkability and good bicycle infrastructure and you don't need a car. There are times when cars are simply more convenient (e.g. when going to more remote places), but being able to choose not to have a car, and not being limited by that choice, is adding to my quality of life.
Side point: I visited South Korea last year and it felt like they perfected public transport. I didn't speak Korean, and never got lost due to how standardized the design of the infrastructure is (at least in the subways). Hell, I never even took the wrong exit - something that does still happen to me here in Stockholm after living here for over two years.
Was in South Korea last month and I have opposit opinion. You never now, on some lines, on which metro station you will end up, because metro lines have forks and it isn't marked for foreigners in any way if train is gonna turn left or right. Yu have only information about next station not the end station. Every second day, i had to use uber because train turned left on the fork instead of right.
Great point, frequency and understandability allow you to make a transit trip happen on a whim and with no planning. Being able to do so without planning is key to staying competitive with driving and walking
While living in and travelling in Japan, one thing I LOVED about the subway stations was that the exits were numbered! So when using Google Maps to go somewhere, it would tell me to go to the station, take this and this line, then get out from exit 4, and I wouldn't have to cross any intersections! Also very convenient when meeting up with friends, to meet at that station's exit X
I think for going to remote places trains are more convenient.
@@SaplinGuySame for Moscow. Exits are numbered.
I love his struggle. In Austria we have a app that lets us enter your destination and it just spits out every line you have to use and when it drives. It's awesome honestly, public transport here is just awesome in comparison....
I can do that in Finland just with Google maps. It's pretty fast at noticing delays and things too.
My only issue with it is that it prioritises route time, rather than ease. Personally, I'd rather add 10 mins to my journey if it means I can take one bus over two.
I'd like to think that most major cities have that these days. I know that Montreal had a pretty good website for planning a trip by public transit as far back as 2000. And as matthewstarkie4254 says, Google Maps is pretty good for that too.
@@matthewstarkie4254you can choose the “fewest changes” option on google maps 😊
There's an app just called "Transit" that has live tracking data for hundreds of cities and also people can share the bus/train with their phone if the agency tracker is unreliable
Lmao, as an Ottawa public transit user who regularly had two hour commutes, I CACKLED throughout the entire public transit section. Our system is truly hell and breaks more often than it runs.
After watching the video I feel so sorry for you.
That just isnt true. Its had some very high profile breakdowns, but its runtime is still well over 90%. Hardly good enough still
The busses are shit but the train is legitimately excellent. A few high profile issues pales in contrast to the 99.9% of uptime the train has
I'm an Ottawa native and I revel in your suffering from our absolutely terrible transit and walkability.
Another ottawa native here, and I was SO surprised to see ottawa and line q specifically mentioned. Personally I love it, and moved from orleans to old ottawa south. We still have some good neighbourhoods yet.
Me too, especially since I ride a bike! 😂 BTW, excellent brief summary of Ottawa's LRT failures.
Lol was looking for this comment. Also an Ottawa resident, born and raised. Kinda depressing, honestly.
Ottawa may suck, but like, it is one of the best in North America.
such a low bar to clear.
Some more things to consider:
1. Another option: bikes with safe infrastructure! Just look towards the Netherlands for inspiration.
2. When you're driving in a car, you can only drive (and maybe listen to music). On a train, you can write on a computer, read a book, read textbooks, watch videos, etc. Imagine if you could be on trains for 2 hours rather than in your car driving!
If you are Canadian, you should look at Finland's bike infrastructure. Climate does (not) matter!
Average dutch person trying to flex their public transit system.
Another Netherlands worshiper...... You aware Netherlands have 588 car per 1000 people? And Singapore and Hong Kong have 140 and 100?
You want to lessen car dependancy but chooses to follow the country that fail to do so.....
TOD and public transport always the answer...
Please if you want to follow Netherlands at least they the best country for biking in Europe? Ups no it's Denmark...... 😂
So they fail on reducing their car dependancy aside from downtown core, fail to build excellent public transport, and even fail to become the best cyclist country.... In flat tiny country with 3 of their big city next to each other...... What a country to follow. 😂
As soon as they said they were going to Ottawa I laughed and texted all my friends... THEN THEY SAID IT WAS THE DAY THAT BIDEN WAS IN TOWN AND I ROFLMAO
Bikes may be great for some people but they don't work for the disabled. It also still forces you to be out in the elements.
Having spent all of my life living in small towns or small "cities," where the closest thing you'll find to public transit is a very limited bus schedule, this whole video was such an alien concept to me. Like I'm learning about a new culture. 😆
Same here. My town and it's neighbor just got a grant and started their public bus route about 6 years ago. (I use the singular in a literal manner - each town has one bus and a single route with one shared stop at the hospital so you can change between them.) Being legaly blind, I will never drive again, but said bus route's closest stop is almost a mile from my home and there is no sidewalk between here and there. I desperately wish public transport was an option, as I have to inconvenience friends to get anywhere.
Some time ago, my dad described to me the streetcars of Des Moines, Iowa.
_Des Moines._
DES MOINES HAD FUNCTIONING STREETCARS UNTIL THE '50s!
Me too. The town I live in used to have a train running through it and to the big city that’s like 30 miles away for decades until they closed it when cars became really popular. Now I have to drive my car for a stupid amount of time everyday because the only public transportation that comes in is at a bus stop a 40 minute walk from my house where the bus comes maybe 4 times a day. And I live in a fairly big town too (a population of like 5000)
As someone who took public transportation for 12 years the #1 biggest problem with public transportation in the US is travel time. It took me 2 1/2 hours to get to work by bus which was a 12 minute drive away. I am absolutely not joking.
To get to work I would walk to the bus stop which was 10 minutes away, get there 5 minutes early so I don't miss the bus! 20 minutes in the wrong direction to the transfer station. Wait at the transfer station for 20 minutes for the bus I need to arrive. Take the bus for half an hour up to another town. Get off the bus, cross the street and wait 15 minutes for the next bus. Take that bus for 20 minutes to work. Get off and walk for 15 minutes. All because I didn't own a car. This is ludicrous. Public transportation is not a solution when we build our cities against the idea.
What the hell. Those frequencies are insanely bad, especially for a country that is a member of the G7.
Many developing countries do not have wait times that long. Buses and trains arrive every 10 minutes, sometimes every 3 minutes during rush hour.
I feel you, public transportation is practically non existent where I live. It would take me 3 hours for a 30 minute trip so I'd have to stay on campus all day because it wasn't practical to go back and forth between classes.
@@ReineGalena When I was in uni, I lived close enough to campus that I'd go home even if I had a one-hour break between classes, it was close, but I'd usually have a few minutes between arriving and having to get back to the bus-stop (it was a ~30-min bus ride). (I just checked Google Maps and apparently it's just a 15-minute bike-ride. 😲 I could have biked there and back the whole time I was in uni. Hell, it's just a one-hour walk. 🤦)
essentially same for me. I work in Boston and i got an apartment which is exactly 7 minutes walking from a commuter rail stop. The rail takes 1 hour to get to the subway. Another 10 minutes to my stop and 5 minute walk. This doesn't count waiting around for the trains and making sure to get there early so you don't miss them. The commuter rail comes once per hour during peak hours or once per 2 hours in non-peak hours. At BEST the trip is 1 hr 30 min.
Driving it's easily 45 minutes because i stagger my workday to be offset from rush hour. If i try to arrive to work at 8AM it can usually take an entire extra hour driving due to traffic.
I used to take the rail in and do work on the train but because so many people started working from home after covid, i am allowed to park at work any day i want now. The story i always tell people is that one day i got so sick of the absurd delays that the train can cause so i just stopped. I was at work and needed 5 more minutes to finish something. If i stay the 5 minutes it saves a full day of production time due to the way something works. However if i stay the 5 minutes i can't make my commuter rail train. I decided to stay the 5 minutes which meant i would miss my train so i went to my office and just decided to sit around for 1.5 hrs to kill time before the next train would come. Because i had to wait the 5 minutes i could not catch the 7:30 train so i waited in my office to catch the 9PM train. I leave with plenty of time to spare and get on the subway and wait. And wait and wait and wait. The conductor keeps telling us we will move shortly. After about 30 minutes they finally come on and tell us that there is an electrical issue at south station & instead of letting the trains move around on our end of the line the pause all trains that could pass through south station. Because i had gotten on so early, i could have easily done the 20-30 minute walk to the commuter rail station but they never fking communicate what the problem is or how long you will sit there on the tracks. Eventually we move and i get to the commuter rail station. I thought i i were lucky the train there might also be late but nope because that train is based out of north station so that one left on time.
I missed the 7:30 train because i had to spend another 5 minutes at work. I missed the 9PM train because of an issue on the subway. Now the next train comes at 11PM and this is the LAST train of the day. I think about going back to work so i can wait the 2 hours in my office but after the last issue i am not going to risk missing the last train so now i have to sit there watching rats fighting on the track until 11. Luckily that train comes and i get to my stop at 12:15.
The reliability is awful. If it were just 1 train it would be 1 thing but the issue is that you need to make multiple jumps and each of those lag of the journey has some percent chance of having a delay. If any of those trains goes down for any reason, you are suddenly caught in hours long waits trying to get back in on the next cycle. I do work in a chemistry lab and sometimes i need to get in for a time sensitive procedure or i need to get to a meeting at a certain time. Public transit is just so untenable because there are zero personal benefits EXCEPT that i can get the ticket reimbursed where they will not pay for my gas. It just isn't worth my sanity though to have nights where i should have gotten home and making dinner by 8 only to get stuck in a loop of delays where i can't get home till 1.
another thing is just. bad timing too. the previous place i lived i’d take a bus to the grocery store. that bus came once every 3 hours. had somewhere to be but missed your bus by A Minute? bad luck! wait another 3 hours :)
Having just visited Paris, I think the biggest thing is at 18:25 "If I get off the bus, it's now like another 15 - 20 minutes before the next one." I experienced that trying to commute in Utah where the Frontrunner train would only come every 45 minutes. That means if you're 1 minute late leaving the house, you're now 45 minutes late for work.
In a well-serviced city like Paris, that's 2 to 4 minutes, so you can absolutely hop on and hop off. Also, if the concept of making it to your train "on time" disappears because it's always a minute or two wait tops.
THIS ^ I take the bus, RN, but it really doesn't save me time on walking my 3/3-mile commute, because if I miss it I have to rush to work because the next bus is 30-60 minutes away.
This! Frequency is freedom
Finally more pro walkability content. This is the most important crisis in American society. Obesity? Cars. Climate change? Cars. Social isolation and corporate consolidation? Cars.
Lol yes, having the freedom of movement means isolation. Go ride on an NYC subway and you can have a Michael Jackson impersonator push you onto the tracks.
Even economic and racial inequality can be linked to car dependency
also the housing crisis is fundamentally being driven by car dependency as parking lots and roadways chew up so much of the public space that it becomes difficult to build more houses and the amount of housing that is within a short distance of jobs and amenities is very limited because of exclusionary zoning.
@@MC-wh3xmyou can just ride a bike in nyc, and they only show the crazy cars, nobody uploads the normal ones
@@Purplesquigglystripe my first car cost me 600 dollars. You people are beyond parody.
Watching your videos lifts my mood so much, thank you. I'd still argue there is an uncomfortable thing about driving - the psychological stress of being on the road. Other drivers creating unexpected situations, traffic jams, trying to squeeze the car into the line every time you can and not to break the rules at the same time... I personally think it's a big problem.
I'm in the U.S. Army & i was stationed in Camp Humphreys South Korea, & the Public transit(Trains,buses) were excellent they were on time & clean, also i went to Japan,Thailand & Malaysia & had the same experience. I thought multiple times " why America doesn't invest in their public Transit like this?"
Lived in South Korea as well. The public transit is the bees knees!
Honestly? They probably can’t afford it. Between intervening in pointless wars and bringing “freedom” to other countries and paying their politicians a shitload, they probably can’t afford it.
A good portion of Americans will tell you they can though… because ‘murica better and richer than Europe or Asia…
It’s honestly frightening just HOW many things the US could do better by JUST following what their other allies do. I suppose it’s a Fahrenheit-Celsius situation though, in the fact that they just wanna be different.
Maybe to maintain a dynamic economy, the economy of SK is pathetic it's the same for all the public transit countries
Kinda a silly comparison to make. Ya, public transport in Japan is great IF you are staying only in the cities or moving between them.
Anywhere else? You're gonna have to take a car anyway.
Most of the US isn't urban centers, so...
@@Nevir202
US couldn't even manage city transit or inter city transit.
Most people in US work in city but their only option is to drive 90minutes t their work place every day.
Earlier this year, I (a Brit, who lives near London, does not drive and is very used to getting public transport) was in Dallas, and I wanted to use public transit the best I could. This resulted in a lot of giving up in frustration and ordering a Lyft instead, but my favourite was when I was trying to get back to the airport to go home, triple-checked the bus route, waited at the bus stop for 10 mins... and watched the bus I was supposed to take drive right past me at about 40MPH, two lanes over, with clearly zero intention of stopping.
America pls ;___;
Travelling in the US is really shocking. You're forced to rent a car otherwise you're completely stranded. Luckily I only travel there for work so I don't have to pay those expenses myself.
You try to cross the street here and get flattened by a Ford F-150 😭
Oof come to the California bay area next time!! Much better public transit than Texas and prettier than New York City
@@Free-g8rgod i love freedom amirite
The bus driver was like: "Ew, a passenger?? I don't wanna pull over, I'll just pretend that's not my route" lol
One disadvantage if you move around with your car is, that you have to take it everywhere you go. When I move through Hamburg, Germany, I often decide from case to case. Some examples:
- I walk 30 minutes to visit a friends house, but when I go back it's dark and I'm tired, so I wait 10 minutes for the next Bus and it drives me home.
- In the morning I used the train to work, but in the afternoon the sun is shining and I'm feeling good, so I rent a bicycle and ride home.
- As team event at work we decided to walk 20 min to a restaurant in the evening. If I would have a car, I had to drive there alone or walk 20 min back afterwards, but now I can just hop into the next train.
- I had dates, where we decided to do a walk through the city and we ended up on a different spot where we started. With a car I would have to walk back to it, now I could just take the next train.
- Sometimes to discover a city I walk around, get out 2 stations earlier, etc. With a car If I park it 20 min away, I have to walk that distance on the way back.
The flexibility with public transport that wherever I go in this city, whether I drink alcohol or not, how tiered I am, I can always just walk a few minutes to the next station and drive home with it, is something a car can not provide, currently. Well, the city needs to have decent public transport for that.
Totally agree, same in Shanghai! I hate driving and bringing my car with me everywhere when I lived in the US
Absolutely agree with this! And oftentimes if you took the car initially but want to go somewhere else, that results in you not doing the walk back, and instead just take the car everywhere instead. Using the car at ANY step basically encourages you to use the car for EVERY step, whereas as you said, with public transport you can decide to just take a different mode of transport.
This is why car sharing services are such a great idea. (and bike and scooter sharing ones too). Gives you a lot of the benefits, without the drawback of lugging around the car/bike/scooter.
Enjoy huffing farts daily.
Absolutely. I do this all the time in Japan. You go to a shopping district by train, walk through it, then get another train one or two stations away from where you started. You don’t have to constantly double back on yourself just to get back to your car.
I once got hit by three bus cancelations in a row for an hourly bus service and I still love public transport because that was the only place in the city I couldn't get on a train.
it's always fun to play "ohhhhh so THIS is what Sabrina was tweeting about" when AIP releases a new video
It just occurred to me: when the city's trains or buses break down, the city has to pay for those repairs. When a private citizen's car breaks down, that citizen has to pay for it. The costs being pushed onto consumers instead of cities may be why so few cities stick with public transportation. (or at least another contributing factor)
Not to mention, when a city has to pay for it, it comes from tax dollars. People don't want to pay for that out of their taxes, they'd rather pay for it out of their own pocket, for...whatever reason ("I don't use public transit, so why am I paying for it?" "I can afford car repairs, everyone else should, too," etc.)
On a similar note - how often does the average consumer replace their car vs. how often does the average city replace public transit vehicles? I remember thinking touch screens were terrible based on my experience in retail stores who install touch screens and never go back to update the infrastructure, so the touch screen eventually becomes borderline unusable, but since it's still usable, it's still there. Meanwhile, I get a new smart phone every 3-5 years, so I don't have problems with that particular touch screen.
@Reishadowen: Absolutely correct and I agree 100%
Sure but the way cities, public transport, and really all places in NA are designed, most people wouldn't ride public transit even if it cost nothing. And since cars are mandatory in NA, any cost of public transport is on top of paying for a car that you decided not to use.
I mean, the city still has to somewhat take care of the highways, even when parts of the system are maintained by private companies. Seems highly unlikely that the money saved from not repairing citizen's cars would outweigh the money coming from ticket revenue and on-station commerce. Plus wouldn't the ticket fares take that into account already?
It's for the same reason that Home Owner Associations exist. The city doesn't have to pay for repairs, the HOA does
The city I grew up in had a decent public transit system. Proximity to bus stops was a selling point for a lot of homes. My childhood home was about a block away from a bus stop and as a result, during summer vacations, my sister and I were able to go anywhere in the city we wanted to (provided that we let our parents know, ofc). Then, the city hired some contractors from Portland (Oregon) to come in and "improve" the bus system. They turned it into more of a park and ride system, pulling the bus stops out of neighborhoods and instead putting them near businesses and at park and ride places. In other words, they optimized it for people who already have cars, but find it problematic to park near their workplace. For everyone else, it was a giant middle finger. Now to get to the bus stop, I would have to walk much further and cross 2 very busy roads. That makes riding the bus so much more of a hassle and less safe (crossing those roads, even in a crosswalk, is dangerous because drivers just don't look for pedestrians...I've had my share of close calls where I've had to jump out of the way of idiots rolling right through the crosswalk against the light and then getting mad at me for daring to be in their path).
Throw something at their car
As someone who works in government ... the hardest thing that delays a project is infighting and assuming we think our project or solution will work without connecting to communities and the people who use them first.
I live in Oslo, Norway - and here we have the absolute *best* public transit. We have the metro (subway) that goes practically everywhere, and buses that goes everywhere else and we also have trams in the inner city if neither the bus nor the metro takes you where you want to go. Then we have ferries that can take you to the islands outside of Oslo, and all of this fantastic transportation is included in a card you can buy either for a day, a week, a month or a year. And if you need to go outside of Oslo, the trains goes all the time and basically everywhere (and if the train doesn't go where you want to end up, take the train to the closest town and then you can *always* take a bus or a ferry to the spot you want to go). It's FANTASTIC! I truly don't see any reason at all to have a car when you live in this city. I get it if you live far out in the countryside or in the northern parts of Norway, but otherwise... No, a car isn't necessary _(I say this as a single woman without children, a car could of course be _*_very_*_ helpful if you have a family, but you could absolutely live without it)._
I loved the transit in Oslo! I also found the addition of e-bike rental options around the city awesome, it meant that if I wasn’t going far I could just hop on a bike too :) I would love to move back to Oslo!
Suuure, rub it in, why don't you 😭😭😭
Even if you ever needed a car like one day a week you could just rent it for those days and it would be cheaper than owning one all year. Cars are expensive.
Would be cool to see a part two of this. But in... let's say Oslo
I'm originally from America, my first real exposure to public transportation was when I moved to Norway.
It was earth-shattering that I could just find accessible, reliable public transportation practically everywhere all the time.
It spoiled me, and now no other transit I've used has lived up to it.
As a resident of Ottawa and frequent public transit user who recently wrote a research paper on the LRT fiasco in Ottawa (which is SO MUCH WORSE than this video could possibly convey)....I CACKLED when I realized you guys were coming here of all places to test out the use of public transit. I do think that you overlooked something really important, which is that for many people, "shelter" isn't a hotel in a high-density area, it's a house or apartment in an area that's not at all well serviced by public transit (particularly here in Ottawa). That can either make your commute especially miserable or even borderline impossible, OR it can severely limit where you're able to live. I'm absolutely SHOCKED that public transit ended up being OVER AN HOUR FASTER than going by car. There's no way that's the case for the average person on the average day, not in this city, anyway. I do think you're right, though, that transit is worth the investment, and overall this was a fantastic video. Awesome job, and kudos for doing this in the snow and slush.
well, their targets were basically on the LRT, so that had to help the result...
@@mmacmartinyour comment sorta made me realize how passable the LRT is for "tourists" in Ottawa (unless you flew in, that’s a different story). Which I guess is something…
I think the same thing, in that for a person living in a city, one of the nice things of a car if you have to go quite a distance is your home is an end point (or start point). Plus the comfort of not having to worry about rain or bad weather (for the most part). I would love to know what happened to the driver, who took 2 hours to get to the hospital. Ottawa is just not that big. From a map it looks like it was just 4-5km, in 2 hours? Call me skeptical. I grew up in NYC and it wouldn't take me that long to cross the city on a regular day and it's far larger.
Choosing places on the public transit system, I give sort of a pass on, if the experiment was to try and see what it would be like for a place with a large transit system where most places are near a transit station. (Still, you do need to get from your house, to public transit, to location, and then back. Where car is a straight route). I'm trying to look at it as a test of being in the inner city and getting around within it.
@@joshhsoj1902 Soon enough even for flying in it'll be useful due to the Airport Spur.
@@Dexter037S4 Yes but unfortunately the fact that you need to transfer twice to get downtown (Line 4 to South Keys, then Line 2 to Bayview, then Line 1 to downtown) will probably scare off many potential riders even though the transfers themselsves are actually quite easy.
I remember a big debacle when the American ambassador* made a comment about how people in my country must be poor because not everyone owns a car. But a substantial part of us simply find biking and public transport both cheaper, healthier and more convenient because the systems to support those styles of transportation are robust, and I think the only thing that gets in the way of similar adoption in America and Canada is the lack of solid infrastructure. Many cities have been built to be straight up hostile towards any form of transportation other than cars.
*former
“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation.”
― Gustavo Petro
Which country was this?
@@sirsurnamethefirstofhisnam7986 The country is Denmark. The ambassador in question is Carla Sands. She was pretty much publicly ridiculed for her insanely narrowminded commentary.
man I wish I could get back every sent I spend on cars, car maintenance, insurance, fuel, tires, storage, and parking. I could probably buy a bus pass for everyone in my town with the money.
@@actual_nonsense this. I'm sure there are plenty of people in north America who genuinely love their cars, but for me owning a car has always been a necessary evil - like some outrageously expensive pet that no one actually wants around 😅
This rules, keep it coming 😍
I live in the USA and just got back from a 2.5 week trip to Japan (where we used nothing but public transit). The public transit was amazing and I wish we had more around us so we could use it. As she said, when it works it works.
When it works it works is a mindless tautology. One can just as easily say when it doesn't work it doesn't work. It's like these people saying it is what it is. What is that? It is what it is. See how we are no further along than we were at the start?
Women in trains get groped and molested there, also it's packed like a tuna can. IT's stupid to use trains instead of drive, if I used there I'd drive everywhere instead of being in a place with potential molestors and creeps of all genders.
Japan also doesn't get reports of subway violent attacks on the hourly basis.
@@Pepe-dq2ib school shootings aren't a reason to not have schools
@@aa4a-a4 school shootings dont happen multiple times a day and my parents took us out of inner city schools long ago.
Sabrina is always the one in the group who is inadvertently chosen to do the extreme challenges... that long walk! applaud the resilience! 👏
It's fully her own fault, though, which is why we love her!
Because she is the one that comes up with the scenario and her doing the hardest part makes it easier for her friends to buy in.
Not to throw shade but it definitely feels like Sabrina cares more about this channel than anyone else, they're who I think about when I think about this channel, the best videos star them, you get the point.
@@tacocravryeah fr like don’t get me wrong, i love melissa and taha, but sabrina’s videos are the ones that truly feel like answer in progress
I find it worrying that walking for a couple hours is considered an extreme challenge... I get how it's not a good experience with the roads but the actual walking part really shouldn't be an issue.
I've had to move to a different city for a summer internship and couldn't take my car with me so I had to take public transportation. Honestly, I love it surprisingly. It has its downsides and being in America, it does suck in terms of connectivity and it is usually slower than driving. Still, being able to zone out, read a book, browse the internet, or whatever was a plus. I just wish we had a better public transportation system that is cheaper and faster. Definitely plan on using it more often when I get back to my own home city.
Living in Europe I hate taking public transport even when I lived in a big city during my studies. I hate to hate to have to rely on somebody else, no matter being the streetcar driver or the schedule. Most often I take my bicycle (for commuting, groceries and meeting people). When I don’t have the time to bike, I use the car.
Living in a "big" Norwegian city, the public transport is amazing!!! Whereever I'm going I can count on the public transport system!
i looove reading on the bus!!
@Sebastian R I rarely used it in my home country too but in NA, you don't have any option rather than a car. Car will eat up your significant chunk of income. And forget about biking in NA if you want to live, you'll die soon in the world of cars
It's way better to have multiple options even if you don't use it.
@@victai163 definitely better than staring at cars the whole time
i'm a college student in richmond and let me FUCKING TELL YOU. the bus system here (we don't have trains unfortunately) is so FUCKING UNRELIABLE 😭 the website is jank, the buses are never on time, and the stations are never in convenient places (at least for me). my classes are between a 6-8 minute walk down a smaller street (good) and a 20 minute walk down the busiest fucking street in the city (bad). it makes me appreciate me appreciate places like dc because while they're not the cleanest, AT LEAST THEY WORK AND THEY'RE RELIABLE 😭
Always found DC transit to be quite clean (bus, train, or Circulator) in the 15 years I’ve been traveling there yearly.
But perhaps I’m just not taking the routes in question.
I love public transit, mainly because I can't drive. The biggest drawback of public transit I notice, is scheduling. When walking or driving if you want to go somewhere you just go there. With transit you may want to go now but there isn't a bus now. The bus was 5 minutes ago or 25 minutes from now. Then you take your bus or train somewhere and you repeat that process. With transit there ends up being a lot of time spent not moving while the trip time just ticks up.
Anything less than every 15 minutes is hostile to riders. Because even with that schedule, if one bus is early and the next one late, which often happens, you’re standing there for 20-25 min. If a bus is skipped entirely (a bus broke down or a driver called in sick), you could be standing there for 30 minutes. So with a schedule that’s any less frequent, you’re looking at even longer wait times than that. I speak from experience!
Time is money, unless you’re a person who takes public transport, in which case they’re happy to waste your time like it has no value.
If you live in a city with a proper metro like Barcelona or Madrid, a metro arrives every 3 minutes, so as long as you know the route, you don't need to plan for time.
… and then the transit commission changes the routes and schedules to allow the college-students who pay $100 for an unlimited year-long pass to be able to sleep in an extra few minutes before they get up for their afternoon class, while residents of the city who have to pay $100 every month have to now take one or two EXTRA buses to get to the grocery-store, wasting an extra 30-90 minutes, having to walk a lot more, and stand in the sun/snow/rain more. 😠
@@I.____.....__...__ One or two buses to go to the grocery store ??? You live in suburbia ?
I can see my closest grocery store from my window. Having to take a bus to run basic errands is simply bonkers...
Scheduling in Toronto/GTA is the main reason why I drive. There's a train connecting the downtown core to my suburb. While the train itself beats the traffic, it arrives in 30 to 60 min intervals. And those intervals never match the additional public transportations' schedules required to arrive to the train station. The station is at the Southern point of the suburb, so you'll need a bus to get to and from the station. Anytime I'm coming back from Toronto, there is a minimum wait time of 20-30 minutes for a bus to take me North/home. The lack of synergy between all the modes of transports makes it so that the total time it takes ends up being slower than driving in traffic. It's truly a frustrating affair. Specially when you consider that often times the bus starting point is at it these stations. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist to schedule a bus departure time 5 minutes after the train arrives, instead of 5 minutes before it arrives (not exaggerating, the busses I need are all scheduled to depart 5-10 minutes before the train arrives!!).
I’m in the Orlando area. Driving to/from work takes about 25 minutes. The best transit option would take at least 3 to 4 hours and would involve walking or biking about four to five miles to the nearest bus stop.
To just bike the entire way is estimated to take about 1.75 hours, fyi.
This is because Orlando is atrociously designed.
I was doing an exchange semester at University of Waterloo back in 2020. Coming from The Netherlands it was so precious to see how proud they were of their single previously built LRT line 🥺
That said public buses get stuck in traffic which kinda defeats the purpose, so Waterloo get a D for that.
Without a car I felt like a second class citizen taking public transport which NEVER happened to me in Europe.
Lived in KW (Kitchener-Waterloo) for a couple years while they were still finishing the single LRT line. Biked most of the time, but it's definitely a car city. Now I'm in Montreal, which is 8 times bigger, thinking of the way I biked passed all the cars stuck in traffic earlier today...as well as how tough it was to pass everyone in the bike lane. I'm definitely jealous of cycling in the Netherlands.
By Waterloo I guess you mean the one in America and not the district in London? I got a bit confused until I saw the LRT 😂
@@northbytrain I presume it's the one north of Kitchener, Ontario in Canada since it just got its LRT. The are often called KW or Kitchener-Waterloo since they act like one city. The LRT services both areas.
@@northbytrain And here I was confusing it with actual Waterloo in Belgium (which, by nature of being a small town, has zero public transport beyond a couple of buses)
I didn't know Belgium was so bad..
In my opinion when public transports are not too crowded, they're more comfortable than driving because you can do other things like watching series or reading whereas when driving you have to stay focused
Indeed. Sabrina said there's not much about driving that's uncomfortable other than looking for a parking-spot, but that's just because she's not a driver, most drivers know how nerve-wracking it is to to drive, worrying about laws and cops, about other drivers, about pedestrians cyclists and animals, about the car itself, and so on. You can (usually) even watch videos while walking, but you can't do _anything_ while driving, not even look at the sights. 🤦
This is something somebody who cant afford a car says
@@LaZarusXtnct no i live in Paris and the Subway is faster than car, I use my bike tho that's even faster. Having a car in Paris is a nightmare
@@LaZarusXtnct I have a car, I drive daily. if i could reliably switch to public transport - I would do that in a freaking heartbeat. 2 hours driving is 2 hours lost AND far more exhausting (why 2 hours, because that's how long the round trip for my daily commute takes right now, and its not even slightly unusual number for USA commute). 2 hours in public transit are 2 hours spend studying, or reading or engaging in multitude of other portable hobbies. and before you say anything about listening to audiobooks while driving, maybe you are such an amazing multitasker that you can stay focused on the road AND the book, but I'm not. I can do one or the other, not both. drivers in my parts of USA are too damn insane.
@@Forgefaerie 2 hours on public transit is 2 hours of living like a homeless person. A 2 hour ride on a bus would be like 15 mins in a car. The bus wont take you through an Arbys drive through either.
As a Dutch person, it's just really weird that bicycles aren't even mentioned in a video on transit (I watch Not Just Bikes though, so don't worry I get it). Bicycles are (I think) the best kind of transportation ever invented: they're space-efficient, they're simple to maintain and repair, easy to adapt for people with mobility issues or even light cargo transport, and best of all: even a simple 1-speed bike, while still being completely human-powered, can very easily go 4-5 times as fast as a person walking while using much less energy.
Your country isn't even the size of my state. Bike from North Houston to South and tell me how you feel
Seeing how the sidewalk isn't really walking-friendly, riding bicycle might be more dangerous since it would need to stay on the road with cars
@@svenjorgensenn8418 Well, the video is about the modes of transit in city. If they replaced walking with biking, I would consider it a more useful comparison.
Well for one thing bikes still aren’t adaptable to all disabilities. And I’m not talking about more advanced ones. Using me as an example only a helmet that perfectly protects the head in 100% of instances from concussion and damage or a bike that is 100% crash proof. So trains are actually more accessible in terms of many disabilities.
@@svenjorgensenn8418 So sorry that you have to travel between states every single day. That must be painful.
I grew up watching James Burke's 'Connections', now I have Tom Scott and today I discovered you - and I gotta say...
You are really GOOD at this!
Here in Norway the buses are pretty reliable, but the thing I love the most about it is the people you meet! Sometimes I meet multiple old friends on just a fifteen minute trip. Then I can have a little chat with them about how it's going and where they're going. It feels so great to have left the house to meet some friends and meet an extra friend unexpectedly on the way there. Public transport just brings people closer.
Really? I thought Scandinavians had a reputation for keeping themselves? Or is that the Swedish and or the Finns...help a brother out.
When I ride public transit I mostly just encounter really dirty homeless people and low income working class people dreaming of the day they get ahead enough to buy a car.
The problem with public transit is that it ONLY functions with STOLEN money.
I understand you are going to deny that TAXATION EQUALS THEFT. Most people do. But there is no way around it. The government is taking my money, without my permission, under threat of violence. If ANY other party would do that, it would be called theft or robbery, but somehow, when the government is doing it, it is somehow okay and we call it tax instead... It's NOT ok. It's theft!
The government is stealing my money and then spending it on something you want. Which makes you support it stealing my money. Which makes it impossible for me to resist it because there are so many like you that support government's ability to steal from its citizens.
I like trains, but ignoring the fact that all of them are paid for with stolen money is too much for me. We will never be free as long as we permit government to structurally and methodically steal our money and call that taxation. And without taxes, public transport can not exist. It is wholly reliant on stolen money.
@@bishop51807Just us Finns mate. The Norweigan's story about meeting lots of people on public transit sounds like a fairy tale to me...
Difference is in Norway people are civilized(Like say Japan)
I think this excellent video is missing one fundamental point, which is the role that land use plays on transportation modes. You touched on it a bit, but walking, biking and public transit only make sense when your city is densely built and populated. Train stations need to be surrounded by businesses and housing, not parking lots. That's the only way to have a sustainable ridership
THIS. This is exactly why even at the height of the COVID lockdowns, the transit networks in Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore remained insanely profitable. When they plan new communities, new transit networks and extensions are ALWAYS included in the masterplan. Plus, the lands around railway stations are destinations in their own right - schools, malls, hotels, conference centers, connection to local bus and subway networks - everything within walking distance
CYCLING should have been included in your study. i've been living/working in riyadh for 7 years. riyadh is a car oriented city (as are most cities in the middle east). i have been living here car-free, just cycling everywhere i need to go. and it's so easy and convenient!
Lol. You can capitalize it all you want. Americans aren’t gonna start riding bikes on a 10-20 mile commute on these dangerous roads. I’m sure it works for you in the Middle East but there’s nothing easy or practical about that in the US. We just drive and get there quickly in air conditioning while carrying all the supplies we need
cute
Bikes > Cars almost any day! These replies genuinely do not get it.
@@everydaytenor8862I have a family and ride my bike year round, to work and shops, down to -20 C... When I worked in Stockholm all my colleagues came to work on bikes in the winter... It's just a question of dressing right and equipping your bike...
@@everydaytenor8862 it’s not as hard as you might think, the exercise keeps you warm…. And actually -10 and lower is better than say 0 C (32 F) because it’s dry, usually sunny, cleaner…. and living in a place where they keep the streets and sidewalks plowed helps too…
I fell in love with channels like this one because of how informative and optimistic they are. I highly recommend watching both this channel and RM transit. And if you want to watch optimistic tech/science news, I highly recommend watching Cleo Abrams.
I live in the Netherlands, and let me tell you... Public transit here in Europe is amazing, you can get anywhere by either bus, train, tram or metro.
Here in mayor cities a lot of people don't even own cars since they decide to use the public transit system to get everywhere, it works pretty well for them.
I was just in Frankfurt and wasn't impressed. Driving is way better.
@@nickchapman3199 your in the wrong place 😅
@@nickchapman3199ve visited Berlin both by a car and using subway.
The problem with the car in the center is that there is nowhere to park it, all the parking spaces are occupied making you drive for 1 hour looking for anything. Meteo is definitely faster and cheaper.
Overall, Germany is a country that is still quite car-friendly but you can also live well here without the car at least in cities
@@Pacjonek I've driven coast to coast in the US multiple times and I've never been to a city that was harder to find parking in than Frankfurt. The Autobahn was pretty cool though
yeah, in america we've been building around cars for a while so what public transit we have has to work around that instead of being itself a framework.
I live in Frankfurt, Germany. I have used bikes, public transport and cars to move around. The city's bike routes and public transport are so well made that using a car is discouraged: clear routes for bikes, easy access to public transport, easy to understand thanks to map and Google and it works almost flawlessly. As she said, when the system works, IT WORKS.
The only issue we have now is that public transport fares have increased A LOT, but tbh so has fuel. At least I can bike to places easily.
I think one of the things you might have missed in the comparative analysis when saying that cars are the "natural choice": For many people, any stores for food etc. are quite a ways away, to the point it doesn't make sense to go more often in little batches - so instead you do big shopping trips every week. And to transport that much stuff? You need the car. Stuff like this is why a car is often a necessity in NA, after which the irrational mind kicks in like "If I already have a car why would I not use it to go work?" etc.
yup, once you need a car regularly for 1 thing, it becomes the dominant option for many other things. the issue with mass transit being unfavorable in US/Can is deep and structural, so a few prestige projects are not going to fix all of that.
awattO (meme for Ottawa) do be a Costco town... There's no other choice, Lob grocers are everywhere, but dang are they expensive. Shelter is stupid and starting at 500k, condo buildings bought out by blackrock or foreign money and renting out for 3k+ per month. Ottawa sucks...
@@happyguy2k Like the country I live in, Switzerland? It's great, I don't need a car, my Dad doesn't need one anymore either. I don't think I'll be getting a Driver's license anytime soon either.
What you just said: If there aint good public transport you need a car and once you have a car you prefer it over bad public transport.
Couple problems with that.
First there is no need for stores to be built that far away from residential areas, in fact it used to be different in the US and is different all over the world.
Second, if no one uses public transport, there is no investment in it and it gets worse so even less people will use it.
Third: Cars are convenient up to a point. If you wanna go just get into your car and go. No timetables, not walking to a station just point A to point B. Its a luxury thing. At least in theory. But if everyone takes the car, you get congestion and everyone is slower and it becomes quite inconvenient.
So if you improve public transport and the living space to the point where it is more convenient not to use a car, people will not use the car.
@@_aullikThat is in fact not what I said.
What I said was, by the fact that general stores and such currently are not close to people's homes, even if public transport was better than it is, using it to shop that long distance away would be less efficient than by car due to the volume you can transport.
I don't know how you construed my "this is another sad reason many people see a need to use cars" argument as some kind of defense of cars/attack on public transport.
25:23 „a metaphorical hill“ at first I thought „how couldn’t it be a real hill?“ then I remembered Römerberg in Frankfurt - not a mountain at all.
I take public transport everywhere and everyone around me seems shocked when they realise that I actually like it - I really hope I can make it through life without ever needing to own a car.
I don’t live in a city right now with good public transport, but I’m planning on moving somewhere that does next year. Every time I go on a trip to a larger city with public transport I always appreciate it and use it. Apple and google maps generally are really good at helping with the public transit navigation and I’ve always had pretty positive experiences any time and place I’ve used it. I don’t like driving and I’m hoping I can get rid of my car and solely rely on public transport when I move!
I think what gets me is in countries with effective public transport these problems disappear almost. In Tokyo the trains are on time, clean, easy to navigate and widely used. When I visited it didn’t make sense to drive. Using the train fulfilled all your needs!
It’s no longer a humbling experiences when it’s effective and everyone uses it. Then people are willing to take care of it and maintain it
I would imagine the part about trains being clean and widely used in Japan has way more to do with much more respectable Culture. Good luck getting that to happen in US cities.
@@RocketkidDesignsthere are lots of places that aren't Japan where public transport is widely used and clean.
The US also has lots of social problems that if it received investment and resources, it wouldn't be a common issue and there would be less ppl having a mental health crisis in public or rough sleeping.
@@Nottiy Yes, the US is famously a very poor country with no resources🙄 Not every problem can be solved by money.
@@fargsrgasdgerg492 Oh, no one is saying the US doesn't have resources. The issue isn't that we don't have them. The issue is that our governments at almost all levels categorically refuse to use them (except in the most token, half-gesture amounts) for anything other than the military or cops. Now, one of our two main parties is certainly worse about this than the other, but this is absolutely a bipartisan problem.
If our government(s) could ever be arm-twisted back into spending our abundant resources on things that actually benefit the public (adequate affordable housing, single-payer healthcare like literally every industrialized nation has, unemployment insurance, laws to keep wages in line with costs of living), we'd more than likely see these problems lessen or disappear. But our society has been totally eaten by capitalism, so things in the public interest don't get done without sufficient profit motive for private entities.
You can hear it really illustratively when people talk about how the Postal Service in the US "loses money." In countries that are run with an eye to actually meeting the needs of the populace, things like public transit and postal service and healthcare simply "have costs" that are, for the most part, considered worthwhile for the service they provide to the public. There isn't an expectation that any of those things are going to generate a profit: any fees or costs assigned are simply there to offset some of the costs, with the understanding that the majority of it gets funded through taxation. Meanwhile, you will never once hear a politician here talk about how much money our military, by far the world's most-expensive, loses every year. It's all about priorities, and our country's priorities fucking suck.
@@fanboy50 You seem to be ill informed about how much USG actually spends. Whatever issue you think USG should spend more money on, I guarantee you the US spends more per capita then any other country (yes, this includes healthcare). Americas problems aren't caused by lack of funding, they are caused by gross incompetence and corruption at the systemic level. These aren't problems that can be solved by spending more money.
You mentioned the US postal service. Did you actually bother looking at how other countries do it? I looked at Canada, France, Germany, the UK and Sweden. Of these countries, the postal service in France and Germany is entirely private (and is operating at a profit). Canada has a government run postal service that earns 144M$ a year with 8.2B$ in revenue. The other countries have a private postal service that is partially owned by the government. The Swedish postal company (which is also partially owned by Denemark) makes about 200m$ a year. The English Royal mail is the only one of those countries that loses money (losing about half a billion pounds a year).
From looking at this, I don't think it is unreasonable to be be unhappy with the USPS for losing almost 10B$ a year. If other countries can make the post work, why can't the US?
2:41 just an added information that many urbanists missed. These trams are built by suburb developers to make it more attractive to live there, which is a great model and basically how Hong Kong and Japan got to their first-class mass transit systems. US and Canada made the ultimate wrong decision by only determining mass transit's decision by fare-box revenues. Mass transit's benefits are referred to as "externalities" which have great knock-on effects but not fully captured by the fares. I suspect that if local governments allow private developers to fully use mixed-use zonings around stations, they will be more than happy to fund mass transit itself.
Same thing happened with parking requirements, some cities in the US eliminated these requirements and private developers started increasing housing units that are more affordable and mixed-use. Remember, private developers want people living in their properties, not cars, so they are not always the enemy.
Thank you for this info. It’s great to hear this perspective as a newcomer to urbanist content
Such an underrated comment. This is one of the main reasons Hong Kong's transit is so successful and actually makes money as a result of leasing surrounding land back to developers.
In vancouver private developers have paid for portions of track and for new stations to be built on existing track
In some cases, private developers that built things like the NYC subway got people mad that they dared to increase fares.
So the city took it over and expansion and new lines has stagnated. But hey at least the government is willing to spend tax dollars on roads, further discourging private rail investment due to the economics of sunk cost.
It feels like a chicken and egg situation though. If I didn't have a guaranteed parking spot I could trust, I would not want to live there because it would be a constant game of trying to figure out if I can even park after I'm done going somewhere. And the truth of the matter is there I simply need to be able to drive places to do anything in the suburb I live in.
i feel genuinely surry for Sabrina that she put ENORMOUS amount of effort in making this video. Like, this should get at least 30 million views because it's produced perfectly and so thoroughly
as a Canadian, I've always wondered the same thing. I'm glad you're shedding light on this issue, I'd love to see more public transit across the country.
(Making light of an issue means they aren't taking it seriously, that they aren't giving it the weight it deserves. Shedding light on something or illuminating it is exposing it, or giving more visibility. ✌)
@@CounterfittXIII fixed. I didn't know that actually, thanks!
I'm so happy you are covering the absolutely terrible Otrain. It's been such a sham in my city and is why our last mayor didn't run in the last election
and yet it still won. we need MORE TRAM!
I wish it wasn’t taking so long cuz if it was done I’d be using it like crazy
Is that really what is called. Because damn they even suck on a naming level.
@@sanityisrelative My friend, I assure you: the stupid name is but a glimpse into the shallow end of the raw, undiluted corruption and stupidity that has been the entire O-Train project. SNC-Lavalin is genuinely pure corruption with a light top-note of maple flavour.
The only thing wrong with it was how it was launched through the east segment without a full network. Launch issues are normal, but not the way it was launched. It is a reliable system. The bus system never was, but frequency lied to you making it appear that it was.
As a french guy, I can't imagine not taking the subway or train to get to my job, it's literally faster than my car...
As an American, I couldn't care less what you think.
@@Anti-Taxxercopeeee lmaooo
@@Anti-Taxxer you don't have to tell us that you're American. The rest of your comment makes that very clear... ^^
Because your roads are fked
@@mori1bund *Laughs in WW2 hero
0:10 and also public transit makes it so less ppl drive cars so commuting is faster for everyone, it is technically slightly more morale to chopse public transit if you can
This video opens my mind a lot about public transport and as someone who grew up in a society whose public infrastructures are designed for cars (Philippines yey) and got to live in a place where everything is walkable and has better public transportation for quite a time (Spain), i fully understand the sentiments in this video. We all want and hope for a better public transportation to solve this crisis. Cheers for this vid AIP!
the filipino politicians just love adding one more lane and now we have way too many
@@vincentzzyand filipinos love their barangay road widenings
Trains > Metro Manila Skyway
@@TackKeyNack and when the road ain't broken, they break it 💀
I'm good. I'd rather have farms and power plants than massive cities with a never ending upkeep budget
The video overlooked one important thing. Cost. Sure public transit has issues but that's mostly self inflicted from the auto industry lobbying against good infrastructure for public transit. What most car owners can however relate to is the ridiculous cost to maintain cars, insurance, recalls, accidents. You could save so much money wasted on cars. So much for the freedom they were told cars would offer
Devil's advocate here ( I think Public Transportation is great): What about the cost to expand rail systems? The light rail near me will cost over 1 Billion for just over 5 miles!
@@JohnSmith-qe6fb expansions don't just go away after they're built, it's a one time cost.
@@JohnSmith-qe6fb Highway expansion projects for autos can be extremely expensive as well. The real cost winner is active transit, better walkability and bikeabilty. A billion dollar investment in a bike network would get you a world class, safe, protected bike/multiuse trail network. Plus for individuals the cost of walking is effectively 0 and biking is immensely cheaper than owning a car.
@@seantroy3172 In a high density metro area I completely agree. Putting in infrastructure for EV, biking, and other forms of clean transportation, including busing would be a well worth the funding . We need to look at options for more rural areas as well.
@JohnSmith-qe6fb Public transit is expensive but to have a system where everyone has their own vehicle is even more expensive. If I'm not mistaken a large portion of funds go into maintenance of current road infrastructure alone.
I remember planning to go to the beach with my friends and thinking "I wonder if we could take a train near there". I looked it up and it woulda taken 7 hours compared to an hour drive.
This. My commute to work by car is 45 minutes one way, if I took the train, it would be 2 hours and 15 minutes one way. I also live in northern NJ in the United States where most of our public transit is directed to NYC. There are times you have to make a stop in NYC to go back into other parts of NJ. It’s very time consuming.
You live in New York?
@@ethanjohnson2849 California
I take the bus for quick visits among a major road or on a long trip. Might take me 15-20-30 minutes more to get there but it saves me gas and wear-n-tear on my car.
Interesting! I live in France, where public transportation is well developed, so it's almost always faster to take a combination of trams/the subway/trains/buses. Particularly in a city I used to live in (Montpellier), since the local government there is actively trying to make driving harder so that people take public transportation instead (which is completely free for residents).
I agree - buses and trains are great. You get to just sit, relax, and watch the view and let somebody else deal with the driving and parking....
I'm Dutch, and when I go to visit another city, I _always_ take the train. I don't even need to check if one's available because they're so frequent. But a major reason I'll always prefer trains over cars is because cars are so stressful. I don't think I could stand driving from one province to the next at night, tired out of my mind, while bright lights and loud cars are whizzing by at 120km/h. With trains, the only thing you have to pay attention to is when you're at your destination so you don't miss it - and when that's your train's final stop, even that is not really an issue.
Some people find driving relaxing or fun, though. Or both, especially on intercity road trips. I don't know if this applies in your case, but for many, gaining driving experience goes a long way to reducing the stress of driving. When I was a new driver, I found driving in downtown Toronto really stressful. But after a few years it was a piece of cake. Driving long distances at night when you're tired really sucks though--and can be very dangerous--so I avoid it whenever possible.
@@ceruleanstone i'm an outside sales rep for a company, I drive 75 to 100 miles a day. it's just normal for me around the Chicago suburbs and into parts of the city. I honestly can't fathom being stressed from driving at this point lol.
I also love the flexibility a car has, do you need to get 2 weeks of food? easy. Do you need to transport any decent amount of equipment for your hobby? easy. There is no way I could go to the rifle range, or airsoft field on public transit, too much gear to carry easily and it all takes up a good bit of space.
@@ceruleanstoneSo why are you promoting cars on the streets again? People who like cars or driving them can always go to a circuit or participate in auto events
@@MrSolLeksYou obviously never experienced proper public transport. As I never experienced or seen a “rifle” or know exactly what its purpose is.
@@lsfornells The point of my comment was to illustrate just how wide the range of human experiences around driving can be, and that the way we experience it can change over time in response to the things we learn (or unlearn). Even if you're aggressively anti-car, this would be something you need to understand in order to effect the changes you want to see.
Personally, I would rather have a wide range of transportation options available, including driving when I need to or when it's more convenient. And I'm fortunate to live somewhere that's highly walkable, and is pretty good for cycling, transit, and driving too. You might prefer to live in a car-free neighbourhood, which I could understand. Different people want different things.
I'm from Europe and I can say how cool public transport is when it's well established. I tried it in Quebec and the experience was terrible, but it was still worth it compared to driving (which is very expensive). Great video, by the way!
Which is weird, because Montreal has one of the best transit networks in North America.
@@ianhomerpura8937 That just means the rest of North America is _even worse_ ;-)
@@ianhomerpura8937"one of the best in North America" doesn't seem to mean much for a whole lot of things in the modern world, at least it seems that way to me
BINGO! I currently live in Vancouver (previous in NYC and Chicago). The Sky Train is sketchy and security sucks. Nothing like having a guy going from dancing to wanting to slash you after being released from jail for the 20th time.
@@MatthijsvanDuin From a French perspective, I find Montreal public transit to be kind of ok... close to what we could expect for a city this size. The thing is that I currently stay in the center so I might be biased. May be the suburbs are far worse than what we could expect from a European city this size.
One of the reasons for this and now that I am here, I really see it, is that north American cities sprawl A LOT, they are far less dense than their European counterparts (and I know Montreal is far from being the worst in this). It's then more expensive to build PT to reach fewer people.
I want better, more robust public transit!! I hate driving!! Having a car is nice for when you have to travel long distances or moving stuff (like grocery shopping), but the semester I lived in London really opened my eyes to how nice it is to have the option to do things while being in transit. Everyone can text to their heart’s desire without endangering lives! You can work/study/scroll mindlessly all you want 😊
I want better, more robust public transit, Because LOVE driving!! less congestion, more people off the roads makes cars an even better option. But also I wont be joining any time soon, because no matter how quick or reliable they make it, that doesn't solve the people problem. I don't wanna get stabbed for being trans on my way to work.
@@Paintbullits > that doesn't solve the people problem
That's not entirely true. Transit tends to be subject to the broken window theory - that is, there's a perception problem. As long as transit is perceived to be dangerous, it will be more dangerous as there will be less pressure to change the expectation of danger.
But as more affluent people adopt public transportation, that perception changes. You might (rightfully) worry about your safety on the subways of New York or Toronto, but if you go to Amsterdam or Tokyo your risk of being assaulted is pretty minimal - at least no greater than in any other public setting. Transit in those locales is not seen as "how poor people get around", its "how everyone gets around". Being perceived better makes it better.
Of course, that just turns it into a chicken-and-egg problem: Middle class folk don't want to adopt transit while its still perceived as "for poor people", but that perception won't change until middle class folk start using it. That's a problem transit advocates across North America are fighting with constantly.
But I can definitely see why a trans person wouldn't be too eager to be one of the trailblazers for public transit in North America these days.
23:20 That's the thing. When public transit works. It works. Reason why many politicians secretly involved with energy and automobile lobbies in industrialized countries are doing what it needs to ruin it...
So funny seeing you guys cover the train line in Ottawa. It honestly became a meme while in university, "maybe if I take a few more degrees I'll finally get a chance to use it"
I started my bachelor's in 2015. I feel you. Did not get to ride it XD
honestly LOL
I loved using public transit when I lived in South Korea and Japan. There were only a handful of times I thought it would be better to have a car. Usually that was when I was on vacation, and left the city that had robust public transportation. It was often faster than driving, it was definitely cheaper than driving, and I loved that I could read, watch a movie, or even sleep. Also, If I was tired or buzzed (sometimes completely drunk) I could still get home safely by taking public transport.
Yes I live in korea and I can't imagine my life without subways or buses trains are really nice too
I feel like you skipped over one major step in the planning stage: lawsuits and protests. Building anything these days brings out multiple special interest and community groups that either don't want what you're building, or want it done differently, or just don't want to pay for it. It's such a huge stumbling block that a lot of projects never get past it.
Even just giving people mobility has turned into a political alignment debate in the US. The amount of ppl calling public transport "socialism" is insane
@@cooltwittertag I mean, if it's funded by tax then I guess it would be socialism, I don't see why that would be a bad thing though.
@@cooltwittertag nobody call that socialism if it can sustain itself, aka enough people want to use it, and if not at the same time the government want to get rid off people's car for the name of climate change god.
@@AAAAAA-qs1bv not a bad thing if public transit truely reflect what the public need. had you took public transit? I took it when I was working in seattle area, they are not bad, but either certain route is too full or other route is too empty, which means the design of the system is not based on demand.
I think it is uniquely a US problem. If you can't agree that a public Healthcare system is good because taxes, then you are not going to get very far socially.
I love you guys so much. As a budding urban planner, this video was great. Love the team too
I'm really surprised that even with all the turbulence, public transit was still WAY faster than the rest
I'm not surprised at all.
It's another story in rural areas, of course, but in cities with proper infrastructure, you can't go significantly faster than by public transit or by bike (with neither one of the two being consistently faster than the other, except for maybe in the middle of the night).
@@lonestarr1490yep. I just moved from the city proper to the burbs. In the city I could get from home to work in roughly the same amount of time, faster even if traffic is trash but the bus lanes are clear (transfers willing). But now it takes 30-45 minutes to drive and at least twice as long by bus. The issue is the local level transit near my house. The land of once-an-hour buses. Once I get to a transit center and can catch a commuter bus to the city everything is gravy.
Depends on where you live. In my city, which is small but definitely a city, the public transit is so lackluster that it's almost always slower to take the bus than to drive. The only concern here with driving is parking on the university campus, which is super expensive.
@@YoshiAsk That's why I said that the city should have "proper infrastructure". If busses get stuck in traffic, then that's not proper infrastructure, but deliberately designed to be garbage. Because people won't use it if it sucks, and when nobody's using it the city is justified to cut costs.
Bicycle infrastructure is very often deliberately made to suck balls in pretty much the same way and for the very same reasons. They do their best to induce as little demand as possible so that when anyone asks them to build more they can just point out that nobody is using what's already there.
In my city in the UK, a train takes 15 minutes maximum to cross the city, but it would take you at least 40 minutes to drive. The train can just go in a big straight line in a way that cars cannot
I feel like the "Pros vs Cons" breezes over the adjective "good". If you don't have *good* public transit, commute times can be as much as 6 or 7 times as long using public transit as driving in a place with crappy public transit, like Atlanta. If you can spend 45 minutes driving in traffic or 2.5 hours using public transit, if you can afford the car, getting back that three hours out of your day is worth it.
Let us not forget what it would take to construct good transit. Trains, ok. whose house will they run by, under or even lead to the demolition of? Buses... buses need roads so all the issues of cars. Trams same issue as trains whose house goes down for them? Also will there be one transport every 15 minutes to the least populated areas of a town? What about people who live in rural or far suburban areas?
@@HontasFarmer80 Your comment highlights a major issue but maybe not in the way you think. Public misconceptions about the consequences of transit. Highways take up way more space than rail, especially when considering adding lanes. IE more houses demolished. Cars have way more noise pollution than trains, and I'm pretty sure there's virtually no noise pollution if a train runs under your house. Suburbanites get a commuter rail line, rural people probably will drive. Maybe in a perfect world rural towns would have a regional rail hub close by. These are the tradeoffs of living far away from the city.
You'd think a place like southern California would embrace transit solutions but all they've done is put in a bare minimum, do a crappy job of it, and then blame the public for not using it. I had two kids attending a jr college that was a 10-minute drive from here and I had to drive them because the bus system is so unreliable. The app gave inaccurate times and my daughter even sat with a friend and watched her bus drive past the stop and away. I had to come out and take them both. What happens to people who have no other means of getting anywhere?
And we once tried the trains to get to Santa Monica Pier, just to see how practical it was. They were filthy and slow and we had to take multiple different ones and someone tried to sell us stuff (fortunately just trinkets). We took an Uber back. And again, I wonder... we have a choice but what happens to people who are dependent on public transportation? Who have to travel alone? We need to do better.
@@HontasFarmer80 People have already corrected you on the rail argument so I'll talk about the busses instead. Busses do not have the same problems as cars for the simple reason that every person in the bus is a car off the road. cars usually have 1 or maybe 2 people in them while busses can have 30 or probably more if it's rush hour and take up barely more space on the road leading to less traffic. And a good bus system is still fast during traffic because they have bus lanes.
What is MARTA even doing there?
Was surprised you chose Ottawa as someone whos lived here my whole life. Its a shame the transit sucks so much here. It seems like it's in a death spiral right now. The less funding it gets (thanks Jim Watson and Mark Sutcliffe) the less reliable it is, the less people use it, the less funding it gets, etc. As someone who exclusively uses transit it's sad living here when this city has so much potential for great transit.
The "reliability" issues started long before both Mayors, btw. You can only do so much when you're promoting suburban growth with a transit service coverage policy that limits how much bus service hours can be provided. And it was increasingly inefficient and more unreliable since 2003 to be running every bus through the same downtown central corridor while deadheading buses 30 km to run express runs, so, the 2006-2010 Council chose LRT technology as the way forward to move to higher capacity vehicles on the central corridor. Watson with Deans implemented that Chiarelli-era (2005) service coverage policy, throttling the budget on what service can actually be available.
OC Transpo regularly gets more and more funding year over year. What do you mean it gets less funding?
There is no sadder life than one in which you exclusively use mass transit. Are you actually proud of yourself for that?
They only had 8 cities in the whole country to choose from if they wanted to include commuter rail in their challenge.
yes, only 8.
@@pileofstuff it is a Country lower in population than California spread out over similar land area as the United States so that tracks pretty well.
In my area, there's minimal public transit (we just have a bus or a streetcar that's more of a touristy thing). The buses are not super reliable bc (in my opinion) there's not enough funding to make sure enough buses are running as often. As a result, driving my own car is more convenient. To get from my apartment in college to my job by bus, I would need to take the very first bus in the morning (like 5 AM) in order to get to work on time at 8. Driving my own car, I can wake up at 7:30 and be at work by 8.
I recently discovered this channel and I am obsessed with the work you all do!! The production value does a great job of educating while also entertaining. Very well done! 😊
To be clear, I am very pro public transit (such as in Chicago, it's pretty amazing). I just wish more cities invested more in public transit so they were on the same level as places like Chicago!
As a European, I can say, that when you are not traveling huge distances, public transit easily wins the freedom contest. It runs - at least where I live - 24/7, so I can use it to go home even after a long party. If something comes up and plans change I don't have to worry about where I left my car, I can just use a different line instead. It is so convinient.
As an American, it’s an impractical solution for most of the US landmass. It’s only viable in major cities, which are all unbelievably corrupt, and yet not at all efficient as a result. At least bribery gets things done in Europe.
Take the state of Texas and overlay it over Europe and you will see the problem with your idea.
Someone tell England this, please
yes, same here, sometimes, specially if you are going somewhere alone or with a friend, and not taking family, kids or old people, taking public transport is just SO much more convenient, its cheaper, you don't need to worry about finding a parking spot, you avoid the stress of driving, depending on the time or the lane you can even take a nap.
as an Eurpoean, I can say that only works if it isn't badly managed. hi from Rome
still better than the usa's situation
16:25 "Just because there is a place I can walk, doesn't mean it's walkable."
I have the same issue with biking: just because there is technically a bike lane, doesn't mean it's bikeable.
I think the biggest piece you weren't able to cover here is how various disabilities interact with all of the means of transport. Because I'm a disabled person who can drive, I prefer it because I'm not going to be walking too much or chasing after anything/straining myself to get there on time. I just have my transportation
Same! Chronic pain makes walking unreliable for me, even for relatively short distances. And ADHD makes the time management required to keep track of bus and train schedules a nightmare
Relatable, even with my cane cutting down on the spoons required to walk, car use really saves me a ton of effort! I'll take transit if I know the lines and am not in a hurry, but the moment I gotta go fast, I'll be using my car!
That’s true, but the rankings would change depending on the disability like vision for instance
True, but I think it would differ too much to be a single "factor", because for example people with disability who can't drive, usually prefer public transport, because "private transport" would be meaning depending on a familiar/friend in many cases.
Edit: For this reason, I think that the argument would be worth a entire video
There are also people with disabilities who cannot drive. Children can't drive and there are lots of elderly drivers who shouldn't be behind the wheel. For the folks who absolutely have to drive, getting more people on transit and bikes helps you because there's less congestion and more people who shouldn't be behind the wheel on a bus, train, bike, scooter, etc.
There's a great video from Mobycon about accessible cities and it focuses on an area in the Netherlands from the perspective of a woman who uses a power chair to get around.
Just like disabilities are not a monolith, cities shouldn't just be designed for people in cars. Also, designing just for cars puts destinations far from each other. In a more walkable or even bikeable area destinations are closer together. In my walkable neighborhood a half mile walk allows me to access medical care, a major transit station, a supermarket, bike share, a park, coffee shop, etc. I find walking too slow and prefer to bike. More of my neighbors would bike if they didn't have to fear being harassed by drivers who feel entitled to go as fast as they want and think of people on bike and foot as nuisances
I’m so late but I would love to see you do this video again and explore somewhere like Taiwan’s public transport! I’m biased because I did a study abroad there but their transport system, coming from the US at least, was such a refreshing change of pace. It felt like now where was unreachable at any point from anywhere and was such a nice feeling and made exploring so much easier and fulfilling! This isn’t going into the environment of their public transport and the timeliness+professionalism from their public transport workers!
personally, i think cycling is the best way of transport. it’s really good for the environment, good for the body and great for getting cars off the streets and bringing cities back to the hands of people.
That assumes you live in/can afford to live in the city
I can't bike, but I was wondering why that wasn't covered in the video. Her walking 4 hours would have been cut drastically on a bike. Combined with public transit, such a good solution. Even in cold Canada.
@@bntansah cycling is much more enjoyable in the country (just like driving really) the only I don’t like about it where I live is that there are no bike paths on the roads so when cars come by it’s quite dangerous
Yeah, pretty much. But there is still people who can't drive a bike due a health reasons. And it's not really working with some weather conditions.
So at actuality the best option at my opinion is public transport as a blood vessels of a city and bike roads following them and extending or something. It should be as accessible as possible and also comfortable.
But the problem here is that the cities are already built. You can't just plan a city from scratch... and even if you could it costs. It costs too much. Trying to put a rails or a bike road and "brutally steal" space that belongs to cars at the moment is also very hard to do due to unwilling people and *drums* money.
Im so confused with this difficult situation. As well as the people who responsible for that, i guess.
Cycling is great, but it NEEDS to be given proper infrastructure. The existing bike lanes next to roads in America are not sufficient if mass amounts of people started commuting by bike. We need bike lights and a stronger respect for biking traffic etiquette.
I live in France where public transit is fairly developped, and you can go to basically any point A to point B with it, it might take longer than a car and you need to take a bus for really remote places but if I can go from a random mountain to a random corn field 300km away I consider public transit as very much usable
as a german i was amazed at the quality of public transit in france, it was so much more punctual and so quick on the hsr routes
Thank you about giving some nuance. It is easy to say “just build public transportation”. Working as a laborer and in office, just the planning can take years. Absolutely love taking the metro.
Why is it taking a few years more than other countries though? Reducing that much bureaucratic paperwork would be very beneficial, tbh.
I remember taking the public transit in Wisconsin in a moderate city for university. I was surprised by how empty it was yet the system was so simple, the only people who used it were old people and there was barely any to begin with. It took me around the entire city from top to bottom. Yea it was a hassle to wait but it was the only time i ever used a city bus until i went back to my hometown
As someone who lived in downtown Ottawa for six years I am CACKLING at everyone’s efforts to successfully navigate the city. I’ve never lived in another place that seems to REJECT NAVIGATION like Ottawa 😂😂😂 Also you should have done this challenge in the -30 C winter to really get the local experience 🥶
right?! as a dutchy I was thinking, oh they're gonna go here cuz we have all types of navigation that's quality.. then like wait.. what, this city is.. special?
@@RayWasAlreadyTakenAs a lifelong Ottawa resident, “special” really is the best way to describe a lot of the nonsense that happens here
Ottawa isn't a grid city... that's already a major huge difference when trying to compare to any other major transit focused city.
@@mlmielkeI would still argue with that, it’s more like a bunch of grids in random spots and randomly rotated
@@mlmielke most European cities aren't grid at all but public transport works great
When I went to Singapore the public transport is absolutely perfect. Trains and subways running all the time everywhere you need to go and it's really nice. Cars there are basically a luxury, so everybody just uses public transport and there is no reason to be late. If you're using public transport, the subways show up every like 4 minutes.
This is another thing North Americans do not get: increasing frequencies means increased reliability, which leads more people will use the transit network.
I’ve went to Singapore at 2017 and i couldn’t agree more! I wish more countries are like that
@@nuclearpancake3683 there's plenty wrong in Singapore but when it comes to public infrastructure and transport they're some of the best. I haven't been but I'm told Switzerland is the best.
The problem with this is that they were all pretty popular locations to travel to but didn't account for where people actually live. I live on the edge of Ottawa and what is a 20-30 minute commute by car to downtown becomes an hour as soon as you introduce a connection into the transit trip.
This is just because the way North American cities are built. I live in a 4800 people village south of Turin, northwestern Italy and to get in the exact center of Turin I need 25 minutes by train and 50 minutes by car. And Yes There's a train station in a 4800 people tiny village.
Yeah that's just because North American cities are horribly designed.
The other problem is a comparison of cost.
The biggest hurdle for public transit in a lot of places is that people don't demand it, because Americans like their freedoms. Relying on public transit is a very limiting thing. We want to be able to go where and when we want. Not an option with trains or bussing.
I'm from Germany but I recently visited Toronto and I was honestly amazed how slow the street cars are lol. On certain routes it was genuinely faster to walk than get a street car. And apparently the tube system really doesn't go very far out, which I avoided by staying closer to the expensive centre, but like,,, that's a huge issue for a transit system!!
the one thing that that is always missed about walking and public transportation is not only the good envirnment and social impact but also economic impact. Foot traffic is sooo important for bussinesses.
I'm from Venice (Italy) and I find really interesting to see these contents about public transits and how to improve them! Thank you so much for such an insightful video!
Since probably it is not common knowledge, I'd like to share a little of how public transits work in Venice. We have to start by saying that as "Venice city" in this context we do not only refer to to the historical island in the city center, but to many other islands nearby, and to some areas located in the mainland.
There is a unified transport card that for a monthly fee lets you take as many buses, and waterbuses, as you'd like. All of them continue to work even during night time (even though there are not as many as during daytime). There are waterbuses that would take you around the historical city center, waterbuses that take you to locations in the city center AND other islands, and buses that would transport you either from the historical Venice island to the mainland, or even just going around the in the mainland areas without ever the need to go back to the "real Venice island".
The specific route I like the most about it is the bus that would bring you from Lido Island (the one where every year the Venice Film Festival is held) to Pellestrina island (right South of Lido, but very close to it). The bus would cross the whole island, during various stops on the way, to then get on a small ferryboat, bring you to the second island, proceed to reach the very South of it during several stops on the way, and then going all the way back to the starting point.
AS a city it has been designed in a way to be great for the various public transports, and you never feel stranded or in need to have your own boat or car while living there. For someone studying city planning it is a wonder to see.
I apologize for this little monologue, I just feel it is something that is often overlooked and I wanted to make some justice to the hybrid public transit system of Venice ahah
Super interesting! I should really visit Venice someday and check out the whole city
I live in Lahore, Pakistan. It takes four to six hours of commuting to go back and forth from one corner of the city to another.
Also the nearest bus station is one hour walk away from my home.
So time is the biggest hurdle in my personal experience using public transport.
I visited 3 different countries in Europe this month during 3 weeks and the public transportation was amazing. Only in Brussels I had some problems, but it was because nobody worked at the train station and the instructions were in French! In Paris the situation was crazy, only 2-4 minutes between metros, and you can get any spot of the city using the subway, train or bus! Another great point about europe, is how easy and fast you can go from one city to another, even if they are not in the same country. Perhaps isn't cheap (Spain 1.7 Euros, Belgium and France 2.5-3.0 Euro per trip) but I think is more expensive to have a car (taking into account all the regulations in Europe about its use). Conclusion: Europe is well designed
"Europe is well designed"
Well designed? Maybe... It depends on how you look at it. Most cities in Europe were built before the time of the car, so they have very narrow roads and very few areas for parking. So it was essential that they have good public transit because they don't have much of a choice. Japan has similar problems, which is why their public transit is among the best, if not the best in the world. North America didn't start getting big cities until much later on, so it could be designed with cars in mind... Which turns out may be a mistake in retrospect!
@@TheSeanUhTron there is a great channel "not just bikes" that dives very deep in that argument, but long story short, no, NA wasn't build with cars in mind, it was build with and around trains and later was buldozed for cars
europe in 20th certury had pretty much the same car infestation problems america has today, but they made en effort to change their way of looking at the problem and they are building new infrustructure with people in mind while america builds it's infrustructure for cars
edit: spellings
Europe is very good for public transport, somewhere like Singapore is next level crazy good.
As a student in Toronto I use the TTC every day! It is pretty good, but could definitely be improved. I didn’t miss it when they quietly raised my fare this year! I go to a school that’s specialized and mid-city, so everyone who goes there takes the subway. I’ve been eligible to get a drivers license for a while now, but me and most of my peers haven’t even started the process of getting one. This is because we all know how to navigate transit. I think this is really important for me and other people my age. I’m hopeful for the future of the TTC and hope that I can be improved with plans like you discussed here :)
Hey, Brazilian guy here. One point that was not mentioned, and I think is really important for this discussion, is safety. I believe people here are much more prone to driving if their financial status allows it because it's very common to see pickpockets, robbery, and even sexual harassment inside public transportation (mainly busses). Walking can also be dangerous for these same reasons, depending on location and time of day.
That's a big part of the problem, and here in the USA as well. One thing they have to do if they want people to take public transportation is to get the pickpockets and creeps off the trains. Government never wants to make it attractive so people will choose to use it. They make it inefficient, poorly routed, populated with weirdos then try to force people to take it through laws and tax structures. Insane. It's the tail wagging the dog.
Visiting Brasília, I noticed driving friends usually did not stop at stop-signs. They explained to me that while stopped, you’re vulnerable to car-jacking. Brasília is not built for pedestrians. The Niemeyer architecture and the planned city’s unique-ness make the capital a place foreigners visit on purpose. But, maybe the city planners forgot that poor people exist ? I taught English to government functionaries at their different offices all day long, and I did not want to give up, because I love the friendliness and the human-to-human open-ness of Brazilian culture. Month #1 of me taking the metro to the rodaviaria and then walking to offices, I did alright. But after 5 months, I was looking like a caipira, and that is inappropriate for entering professional and government offices. The red dirt of the earth had discolored the cuffs and shins of all my pants. I was often sweaty (I was walking in a place with sun & heat 🤷♀️). I lost a LOT of weight, because while some government buildings (like the Correiros building) have a cafeteria, many do not. When I told a friend’s family that usually I only have enough time to eat a couple coxinhas at the rodaviaria, I could see from their reaction that there was a negative perception of eating at the bus / metro terminus. I was skinny not because of a secret drug addiction, I was skinny because the Esplinade dos Ministérios did not have places to eat. The hotel district is closer to the broadcast tower (y’know: it looks like a miniature Eiffel Tower) [too far to walk and then return-walk all the way back for my next class / client]. The shopping mall: also far: close enough to the Correiros building, but too far if the next class was to be given at the Tribunal Court. Weight-loss, frayed pants, shirts wrinkled (how could I passa-feiro 1.5 hours away from where I slept ?) I was becoming um caipira. I want to know the magic secret all you Brazilians have: You ALL somehow look beautiful or handsome AND well-groomed and polished all day long. Some people (more like me in economic status) started small favela-esque communities in unfinished parts of Brasilia (not inside Plano Piloto exactly) because Ceilândia & Taguatinga & Águas Claras and the other satélite cities are a little bit too distant from the obligations that must be done near Palácio PlanoAlto. It’s the Capital City of the most important country in South America, but the plans for the construction of the city didn’t take into consideration all the people necessary to cook, to clean, to teach, and assist the government functionaries. I only had a short bit of time available to me in São Paulo. There, a metro-system exists (a good thing in my opinion). But there: There your comment regarding safety becomes cogent. Luckily, I had / have friends to help me navigate 🙏 even though I could read directional signs (tô ainda aprendendo o idioma), the potential to cause one’s self problems was evident. Public transportation or no, I still want to return there: perhaps permanently. The climate, the musics, good conversation, the freedom to have emotions AND show them… Taipei has the near-perfect public transportation, but in Brasil people give hugs. 🙏🇧🇷🙌
I live at Lake Samish, Bellingham, Washington and my children live in Maltby and Kirkland, also in Washington. It takes me about 1 hour 15 minutes to get to either place. To take public transportation, well…. I’ve heard you can call and a bus will come the 10 miles from Bellingham, but in the 40 years I’ve lived here, I’ve never seen it. An Amtrak train goes from Bellingham to Seattle (an aside is that car gas taxes subsidize passenger each ticket $20). The train ticket is expensive and takes much longer than driving. From Seattle train station, I could probably get a bus to Kirkland, but not Maltby. Then I’d have to get a taxi or Uber for the last 5-15 miles. Probable time 4 or more hours and expense probably more than $100. So, you were asking about the advantages of cars over public transportation? Lots of time and money!
@@kathygann7632 Well for example in Europe you'd get one month of public city transport for $15, it's 3x faster than by car and you don't have to wait since the tram and buses go every 5 - 10 minutes. If you go by inter regional train or bus you'd pay $8 for going between the 2 major cities like around 150 miles away and it would be 30 minutes faster not considering traffic jams that are quite common. Unless you're going to some natural reserves, mushroom foraging or to a different country you never use a car here since it has no benefits. Actually trains are even more comfortable than car and much more safe since I haven't heard anyone getting pick-pocketed nor harassed in the past 5 years or so.
But yeah I guess that in the USA you cannot really use public transport rellyably.
Indonesian here, we had that problem on public transit as well, what we've done is doubling security guards and cctv on public transit, it doesn't eliminate the problem, but it does decrease them significantly.
I live in a small city in Italy (in Sardinia which is an island) and I spend a lot of time complaining about public transport, but watching this video I realized that our public transport (at least inside my city) is AMAZING. We have busses AND trains, I can get almost anywhere in the city and the suburban areas aren't connected too badly. On the other hand we often have delays and broken busses and route changes, but most of the lines have a 10 minute frequency and only the ones that go in the adjacent towns there's like maybe 30 minutes between each bus
The main problem with Transit in North America is frequency. In Ottawa (since you made your video there), the train, though unreliable, at least has a decent frequency of about 5 minutes. The buses are horrible... 30 minutes is NOT an acceptable. You just miss a bus, and the next one is cancelled (a depressingly common scenario) and that 30 minutes (already not OK) becomes 60 minutes of waiting. If you have bus intervals of 10 minutes (at max, 15), then you don't need to organize your day and action based on the bus schedule. Suddenly freedom is not much of an issue anymore. But 30 minutes is depressingly frequently considered a "good" interval in North America. RM Transit mentionned once that "the best predictor of transit usage is frequency" (heavily paraphrased). And it really makes a difference. If I don't have to look up the next bus, transit can easily become a habit. At 10 minutes or so, I won't bother checking when the next bus is coming. If one is cancelled it's not a huge deal. At 30 minutes none of those statements are true. If I have a car, the odds are I will use that car.