So, I live near Katowice. There are some mistakes in the video. The system is still in an awful condition. The majority of the network hasn't had any refurbishments since the fall of communism, this was due to the state-run transportation company which ran the trams being liquidated, every city had to pay to run the trams themselves and the entire system almost went bankrupt due to this. This was only alleviated when all the cities around Katowice formed a metropolis, which led to a single transportation body. However, this didn't result in any new work being done, which meant that large amounts of the network being decommissioned due to the high price of refurbishing the track. The most notable being the city of Gliwice, which abandoned all the tram infrastructure in the city due to it being unprofitable. While the EU funds did help slightly with renovating track. There is still large parts that are in terrible condition. In addition to this, the area around Katowice isn't growing. Even if there has been large amounts of development, the population of the region has been steadily decreasing since the 1980's. This rate of decrease has only become more severe as time goes on. The area is also investing more in bus infrastructure than tram infrastructure. In the past few years, the region has been creating a network of express bus routes that do the same job as the interurbans. These are wildly popular. The trams are too slow due to the bad infrastructure and winding routes. People now just use the trains or buses to travel. In addition to this, the last point, which said that the trams will become a more local form of transport will not work for most places due to the trams running along stroads. Also, you need to work on your pronunciations of the polish cites, and the area is called the Upper Silesian metropolitan area, not Katowice.
Great feedback. How is the car situation also, in order to complete the overall mobility picture? (And indeed this is a EU-funded institute so take it with a mountain of salt)
@@etbadaboum Due to the large amounts of industry in the region, there is a very large amount of car infrastructure, the area has 2 major motorways that run around it. This gives the area the lowest traffic rates in Poland. However, there is also an urban motorway that runs through the center of a number of cities in the region, it's especially visible in Katowice. In fact, right next to where the video was filmed, there is a large motorway. It makes the city centre look rather unappealing in my opinion. In addition to this, I believe that the area is investing too much in car infrastructure, and it might encourage people to drive, which will cause congestion in the long term. The recent plans to improve the railways are promising, but only time will tell if these are effective in enticing commuters to not drive.
I think this is a little negative outlook on the network. While alot of it needs work, overall the quality cancels out to decent overall. There are definetely problems, like slower speeds caused by stupidly utilised traffic lights, aging rolling stock and couple very bad sections on the network. I feel like looking positively at the changes that are slowly but surely happening is healthy, the network needs work, but it does it's job well enough to make the area comfortable to live in.
Please please please know that Katowice is an agglomeration of many cities, called the Upper Silesian Agglomeration and that the tram network has many central points and doesn’t converge on Katowice (in fact there’s more tram lines in other cities like Sosnowiec). The whole region is still falling apart and the network is in a catastrophic state in many places to this day (tho it’s slowly getting better)
Frequency/Headways are a weakness of the entire GZM public transport system, not just the trams. There are many bus routes less than hourly frequencies, with headways of 75 and 90 minutes quite common, although most areas are served by several different low-frequency services such that there are 3-4 different combinations of bus/tram routes from point A to point B.
3:20 How To Pronounce Katowice and other cities for forgeins: - Cat-oh-vee-tse - Ho-Sh-oof - Sos-no-vye-ts - B(without "ee")-thom Also there's more cities where Silesian Trams are operating: - Będzin (B-eu-tch-yn. The have 1 out of 4 depots) - Czeladź (Tche-LA-chee) - Dąbrowa Górnicza (D-ohm-bro-va Goo-r-ni-tcha) - Gliwice (Gh-lee-vee-tse. Only to Border with Zabrze "Za-Psh-eh". They have 2 out of 4 Tram Depots) And many more other cities.
Some people just don't care about checking properly. I'm not a Pole but I know how to pronounce Polish nouns, I've enquired about the principles of Polish pronunciation - and yet I don't upload videos about Poland. It's beyond me how some people dare publish videos for the whole world to see and hear without giving it a proper check.
Interesting video but I don't think I agree with the premise that the Silesian tram system is an interurban. It does connect multiple cities indeed but it is not really centered on Katowice, the way a classical interurban system would. Instead (and this is the reason why it's losing ridership) these tram lines were build to shuttle workers from working-class housing estates to large workplaces like steelworks, coal mines and factories. Eventually they got connected between cities, too, but that was a secondary goal. As these workplaces disappeared after 1990, the system today finds itself in a precarious position where the network is connecting places that no longer need to be connected while not connecting housing estates to modern workplaces. It's best visible in Ruda Śląska and Zabrze, which used to have coal mines and steelworks but no longer do. These cities turned into bedroom communities to Katowice and Gliwice, respectively, yet the tram network in them is not oriented towards these two business districts but rather connects neighborhoods within the city.
The BC Hydro interurban in Greater Vancouver covered the largest area in North America. It was a victim of Big Auto in 1958. Twenty years later, the main interurban right-of-way became the start of a new S-bahn system called SkyTrain. Katowice's trams were lucky to survive the post-Stalinist shock treatment.
Skytrain is great - but it’s definitely not an S-bahn, it’s an automated light metro. It runs on dedicated tracks, not mainlines, doesn’t really interline like an S-bahn, has very small trains, is automated, and runs at frequencies more like a metro
Here in the UK, I'm struggling to think of many examples. In Wales, there was the Swansea & Mumbles (legally a 'railway' and a very early one at that), in England, the Grimsby & Immingham. Both are long gone. On the Isle of Man, there's the Manx Electric Railway (Douglas - Laxey - Ramsey), though that today is a distinctly heritage line with few concessions to modernity!
Hi, I'm from this city and I have some things to say, that need clarifying. First of all, we don't really know what's happening with the passenger numbers since 2010. We have statistics up until then, but not past 2010 and major renovations started in 2010. It might as well be on the rise or remaining still. Hard to tell, what can be told though is that the Silesian Railways are breaking record after record in the number of passengers since their creation in 2011. Secondly, as you said many cities merged into each other, but still remain separate cities. So if you took an existing tram network in, say Vienna, split the city in half, would it be an interurban? Not really. But are Silesian Trams and interurban? Maybe - they do travel in some not-so-city-center places. Thirdly, the shown new investment is a very short bypass on the Grundmann street. It's I think 700 meters long. There is a slow going plan for a new line to connect to the southern districts of the city and there is an idea floating around about building a new fast line between Katowice and Sosnowiec, which will have similar speeds to a car (due to, you know - traffic). Both lines are planned as a fast tram, with dedicated right of way. And that's not taking into account what is being build in other cities. Fourthly - as mentioned in the video the system is massive. Not long ago they made a bid to buy 75 new trams. Network in Częstochowa has 34 total, we're buying over twice as many (probably because we already have about 300 trams). All run not by a single entity, but until recently about a dozen cities.
Honestly, the analysis in the video is broad yet superficial and more applicable to North American urban issues. System in Katowice is a product of optimistic German industrialization (not a word on who built the network in then-German Kattowitz) and ineffective Soviet planning. The video also shows good interurbans being reborn in Germany and Japan, yet omits says that the idea itself is inherently flawed while not mentioning the consistently pro-car and pro-sprawl policies of the post-1989 Polish governments.
Kind of OK analysis - thanks - but I would recommend studying Polish for 10 seconds and pronouncing the name of Katowice with a 'ts' rather than a 'ch'!
I struggled to watch your video as you consistently mispronounce the name of the city which is the subject of your documentary. With you actually visiting the place and Google translate and other resources readily available it’s plainly disrespectful not to take care in this respect.
Even with the fairly recent trams shown, those operating as an "interurban" service do not appear to move very fast, not to mention an absence of on-board toilet facilities, as was common, especially those operated in North America over a century ago.
That just boils down to vehicle design, it usually doesn't take much more than an hour to finish the run between loops where the facilities are provided. The huge problem is some loops not having that capibility, which should be one of the reason to course the lines to loops that can support that
Do you realize how Americanized a version of history you're telling us is? In 1938, Poland had only 34,000 motor vehicles and was almost in last place behind all other countries in this respect. And there was no interstate highway system either. And there were no states either. lol
You didn't mention that at various times the area has been German, split between Poland and Germany, German again under Hitler and only all Polish since 1945. No wonder it's a mish-mash. I found tram systems to be better in Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw.
Well trams in Upper Silesia and Dąbrowa Basin Metropolis were 2 independent tram networks. The older one covered Silesian part of urban area connecting cities like Katowice, Chorzów, Bytom, Zabrze, Gliwice etc. The younger one covered Dąbrowa Basin part of urban area connecting cities like Sosnowiec, Będzin, Czeladź and Dąbrowa Górnicza. Two networks are connected by line number 15 from Katowice to Sosnowiec and by line from Mysłowice to Sosnowiec. In that video author made a huge mistake calling cities around Katowice as its suburbs. Katowice is the largest city in metropolis but no all services are located in Katowice, for example a main campus of Silesian Univeristy of Technology is located in Gliwice. Silesian Opera is located in Bytom. Silesian Stadium-the largest stadium in region with over 50k capacity is located in Chorzów. The system was built in order commute workers to industry, mainly coal mines and ironworks. The region is polycentric urban area so Katowice are one of a few centres of metropolis. Other ones are Sosnowiec, Zabrze, Gliwice and Bytom-> significant part of lines terminates at Plac Sikorskiego in Bytom
So, I live near Katowice. There are some mistakes in the video. The system is still in an awful condition. The majority of the network hasn't had any refurbishments since the fall of communism, this was due to the state-run transportation company which ran the trams being liquidated, every city had to pay to run the trams themselves and the entire system almost went bankrupt due to this. This was only alleviated when all the cities around Katowice formed a metropolis, which led to a single transportation body. However, this didn't result in any new work being done, which meant that large amounts of the network being decommissioned due to the high price of refurbishing the track. The most notable being the city of Gliwice, which abandoned all the tram infrastructure in the city due to it being unprofitable. While the EU funds did help slightly with renovating track. There is still large parts that are in terrible condition. In addition to this, the area around Katowice isn't growing. Even if there has been large amounts of development, the population of the region has been steadily decreasing since the 1980's. This rate of decrease has only become more severe as time goes on. The area is also investing more in bus infrastructure than tram infrastructure. In the past few years, the region has been creating a network of express bus routes that do the same job as the interurbans. These are wildly popular. The trams are too slow due to the bad infrastructure and winding routes. People now just use the trains or buses to travel. In addition to this, the last point, which said that the trams will become a more local form of transport will not work for most places due to the trams running along stroads. Also, you need to work on your pronunciations of the polish cites, and the area is called the Upper Silesian metropolitan area, not Katowice.
Great feedback. How is the car situation also, in order to complete the overall mobility picture? (And indeed this is a EU-funded institute so take it with a mountain of salt)
@@etbadaboum Due to the large amounts of industry in the region, there is a very large amount of car infrastructure, the area has 2 major motorways that run around it. This gives the area the lowest traffic rates in Poland. However, there is also an urban motorway that runs through the center of a number of cities in the region, it's especially visible in Katowice. In fact, right next to where the video was filmed, there is a large motorway. It makes the city centre look rather unappealing in my opinion. In addition to this, I believe that the area is investing too much in car infrastructure, and it might encourage people to drive, which will cause congestion in the long term. The recent plans to improve the railways are promising, but only time will tell if these are effective in enticing commuters to not drive.
@@musicbyimpulse Thank you for this detailed asnwer.
I think this is a little negative outlook on the network. While alot of it needs work, overall the quality cancels out to decent overall. There are definetely problems, like slower speeds caused by stupidly utilised traffic lights, aging rolling stock and couple very bad sections on the network.
I feel like looking positively at the changes that are slowly but surely happening is healthy, the network needs work, but it does it's job well enough to make the area comfortable to live in.
Please please please know that Katowice is an agglomeration of many cities, called the Upper Silesian Agglomeration and that the tram network has many central points and doesn’t converge on Katowice (in fact there’s more tram lines in other cities like Sosnowiec). The whole region is still falling apart and the network is in a catastrophic state in many places to this day (tho it’s slowly getting better)
Frequency/Headways are a weakness of the entire GZM public transport system, not just the trams. There are many bus routes less than hourly frequencies, with headways of 75 and 90 minutes quite common, although most areas are served by several different low-frequency services such that there are 3-4 different combinations of bus/tram routes from point A to point B.
How do you make a documentary about a city without bothering to check how to pronounce its name? Just... How?
Especially it’s not a difficult name to pronounce. Take German Kattowitz and put ‘e’ at the end. Plain sloppy not to take care of it.
3:20 How To Pronounce
Katowice and other cities for forgeins:
- Cat-oh-vee-tse
- Ho-Sh-oof
- Sos-no-vye-ts
- B(without "ee")-thom
Also there's more cities where Silesian Trams are operating:
- Będzin (B-eu-tch-yn. The have 1 out of 4 depots)
- Czeladź (Tche-LA-chee)
- Dąbrowa Górnicza (D-ohm-bro-va Goo-r-ni-tcha)
- Gliwice (Gh-lee-vee-tse. Only to Border with Zabrze "Za-Psh-eh". They have 2 out of 4 Tram Depots)
And many more other cities.
Thanks for pointing this out! We really appreciate your detailed feedback, it helps us improve 🙏🏽
Pronouncing every Polish city in the video in the wrong way is a talent. How could you prepare the whole video but not google it?
Some people just don't care about checking properly. I'm not a Pole but I know how to pronounce Polish nouns, I've enquired about the principles of Polish pronunciation - and yet I don't upload videos about Poland. It's beyond me how some people dare publish videos for the whole world to see and hear without giving it a proper check.
Interesting video but I don't think I agree with the premise that the Silesian tram system is an interurban. It does connect multiple cities indeed but it is not really centered on Katowice, the way a classical interurban system would.
Instead (and this is the reason why it's losing ridership) these tram lines were build to shuttle workers from working-class housing estates to large workplaces like steelworks, coal mines and factories. Eventually they got connected between cities, too, but that was a secondary goal. As these workplaces disappeared after 1990, the system today finds itself in a precarious position where the network is connecting places that no longer need to be connected while not connecting housing estates to modern workplaces. It's best visible in Ruda Śląska and Zabrze, which used to have coal mines and steelworks but no longer do. These cities turned into bedroom communities to Katowice and Gliwice, respectively, yet the tram network in them is not oriented towards these two business districts but rather connects neighborhoods within the city.
The BC Hydro interurban in Greater Vancouver covered the largest area in North America. It was a victim of Big Auto in 1958. Twenty years later, the main interurban right-of-way became the start of a new S-bahn system called SkyTrain. Katowice's trams were lucky to survive the post-Stalinist shock treatment.
Skytrain is great - but it’s definitely not an S-bahn, it’s an automated light metro.
It runs on dedicated tracks, not mainlines, doesn’t really interline like an S-bahn, has very small trains, is automated, and runs at frequencies more like a metro
Would like to visit Katowice again one day, learning about the history was like looking at a mirror of my home city. I enjoyed it.
Here in the UK, I'm struggling to think of many examples. In Wales, there was the Swansea & Mumbles (legally a 'railway' and a very early one at that), in England, the Grimsby & Immingham. Both are long gone. On the Isle of Man, there's the Manx Electric Railway (Douglas - Laxey - Ramsey), though that today is a distinctly heritage line with few concessions to modernity!
Hi, I'm from this city and I have some things to say, that need clarifying.
First of all, we don't really know what's happening with the passenger numbers since 2010. We have statistics up until then, but not past 2010 and major renovations started in 2010. It might as well be on the rise or remaining still. Hard to tell, what can be told though is that the Silesian Railways are breaking record after record in the number of passengers since their creation in 2011.
Secondly, as you said many cities merged into each other, but still remain separate cities. So if you took an existing tram network in, say Vienna, split the city in half, would it be an interurban? Not really. But are Silesian Trams and interurban? Maybe - they do travel in some not-so-city-center places.
Thirdly, the shown new investment is a very short bypass on the Grundmann street. It's I think 700 meters long. There is a slow going plan for a new line to connect to the southern districts of the city and there is an idea floating around about building a new fast line between Katowice and Sosnowiec, which will have similar speeds to a car (due to, you know - traffic). Both lines are planned as a fast tram, with dedicated right of way. And that's not taking into account what is being build in other cities.
Fourthly - as mentioned in the video the system is massive. Not long ago they made a bid to buy 75 new trams. Network in Częstochowa has 34 total, we're buying over twice as many (probably because we already have about 300 trams). All run not by a single entity, but until recently about a dozen cities.
Honestly, the analysis in the video is broad yet superficial and more applicable to North American urban issues. System in Katowice is a product of optimistic German industrialization (not a word on who built the network in then-German Kattowitz) and ineffective Soviet planning. The video also shows good interurbans being reborn in Germany and Japan, yet omits says that the idea itself is inherently flawed while not mentioning the consistently pro-car and pro-sprawl policies of the post-1989 Polish governments.
Kind of OK analysis - thanks - but I would recommend studying Polish for 10 seconds and pronouncing the name of Katowice with a 'ts' rather than a 'ch'!
I struggled to watch your video as you consistently mispronounce the name of the city which is the subject of your documentary. With you actually visiting the place and Google translate and other resources readily available it’s plainly disrespectful not to take care in this respect.
Even with the fairly recent trams shown, those operating as an "interurban" service do not appear to move very fast, not to mention an absence of on-board toilet facilities, as was common, especially those operated in North America over a century ago.
For a journey of minutes there is no need for a toilet.
That just boils down to vehicle design, it usually doesn't take much more than an hour to finish the run between loops where the facilities are provided. The huge problem is some loops not having that capibility, which should be one of the reason to course the lines to loops that can support that
There's a lot of mistakes in this video
trying to apply US transport history to poland doesnt work, bad video
What communisme didn't achieve, Western liberalism almost did
Do you realize how Americanized a version of history you're telling us is? In 1938, Poland had only 34,000 motor vehicles and was almost in last place behind all other countries in this respect. And there was no interstate highway system either. And there were no states either. lol
You didn't mention that at various times the area has been German, split between Poland and Germany, German again under Hitler and only all Polish since 1945. No wonder it's a mish-mash. I found tram systems to be better in Warsaw, Krakow and Wroclaw.
Well trams in Upper Silesia and Dąbrowa Basin Metropolis were 2 independent tram networks. The older one covered Silesian part of urban area connecting cities like Katowice, Chorzów, Bytom, Zabrze, Gliwice etc. The younger one covered Dąbrowa Basin part of urban area connecting cities like Sosnowiec, Będzin, Czeladź and Dąbrowa Górnicza. Two networks are connected by line number 15 from Katowice to Sosnowiec and by line from Mysłowice to Sosnowiec. In that video author made a huge mistake calling cities around Katowice as its suburbs. Katowice is the largest city in metropolis but no all services are located in Katowice, for example a main campus of Silesian Univeristy of Technology is located in Gliwice. Silesian Opera is located in Bytom. Silesian Stadium-the largest stadium in region with over 50k capacity is located in Chorzów. The system was built in order commute workers to industry, mainly coal mines and ironworks. The region is polycentric urban area so Katowice are one of a few centres of metropolis. Other ones are Sosnowiec, Zabrze, Gliwice and Bytom-> significant part of lines terminates at Plac Sikorskiego in Bytom
I suggest you look at the tram network in Krakow or Poznan. Katowice is not the best example.
catovicce