The 10 Worst Transit Cities: US Metro Areas Where Taking the Bus or Rail May Just Crush Your Soul
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- What are the worst cities in America in 2022 for public transportation? In a previous video we looked at the ten US urbanized areas under a million with the highest transit ridership (Small Cities, Big Transit), and today we flip the script: it's the ten US urbanized areas over a million population with the lowest transit ridership.
Our journey today mostly focuses on workhorse bus systems, but we'll also look at new bus rapid transit lines, light rail, modern streetcars (urban circulators), water taxis, people movers, and incredibly illegible bus stops -- and we'll even do a side trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico to look at Publicos and the Tren Urbano.
It's a lot of transit modes...and not much ridership. Fun times!
Other CityNerd videos referenced in this video:
- North America's Best Public Markets: • Top 10 Public Markets/...
- Top 10 Cities for Ferry Travel: • Transit On the Water: ...
- Top 10 North American Cities for BRT: • Top 10 Cities for Bus ...
- Top 10 Small Cities with Big Transit Ridership: • Smaller Cities With Gr...
- 10 Biggest Freeway Interchanges: • Top 10 GINORMOUS Freew...
- 10 Most Freeway Heavy Downtowns: • The Most Freeway-Heavy...
- 10 Best Existing Freeway Lids: • Freeway Lids / Caps / ...
- 10 Best Place to Build New Freeway Lids: • Freeway Lids: The 10 B...
- 10 Most Urbanist NBA/NHL Arenas: • 10 Arenas That Fit The...
- 10 Walkable Neighborhoods in Unwalkable Cities: • 10 Surprisingly Pedest...
Transit Agencies referenced in this video:
- Sacramento Regional Transit District: www.sacrt.com/
- TECO Streetcar: www.tecolinestr...
- Hillsborough Transit Authority: www.gohart.org/
- Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority: www.psta.net/
- Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority: www.go-metro.com/
- Jacksonville Transportation Authority: www.jtafla.com/
- JTA Ultimate Urban Circulator: u2c.jtafla.com/
- Kansas City Regional Transit: ridekc.org/
- San Bernardino County OmniTrans: omnitrans.org/
- sbX Green Line: omnitrans.org/...
- Riverside Transit Agency: www.riversidet...
- Detroit Department of Transportation: detroitmi.gov/...
- Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation: www.smartbus.org/
- Hampton Roads Transit: gohrt.com/
- IndyGo: www.indygo.net/
- Dallas Area Rapid Transit: www.dart.org/m...
- Memphis Area Transit Authority: www.matatransi...
Other Resources:
- "Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S." by Jonathan English for Bloomberg City Lab, available at www.bloomberg....
- UITP (international transit data): www.uitp.org/d...
National Transit Database: www.transit.do...
Urbanized Area (UZA) definition: "An area defined by the U. S. Census Bureau that includes:
- One or more incorporated cities, villages, and towns (central place)
- The adjacent densely settled surrounding territory (urban fringe) that together has a minimum of 50,000 persons
The urban fringe generally consists of contiguous territory having a density of at least 1,000 persons per square mile. Urbanized areas do not conform to congressional districts or any other political boundaries."
Wikipedia page on Metropolitan Statistical Areas: en.wikipedia.o...
Photo/Video Credits:
- Cincinnati Race Street Subway Station By Jonathan Warren - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikime...
- Jacksonville Skyway By Aaron Clausen - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikime...
Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (RUclips music library)
Twitter: @nerd4cities
Instagram: @nerd4cities
Contact: nerd4cities@gmail.com
As someone from KC, the streetcar really has made a huge difference, and is a lot more than just a tourist attraction. It's had double the estimated riders and increased city-wide transit ridership by 30%. If you did a list of top ridership increases in the past few years (with very recent data) KC would probably be pretty high due to the streetcar and it and the buses being free now
agreed, the streetcar is also being extended.
You really saved the kicker for the end of your comment, huh
@@CityNerd definitely didn’t hurt ridership, eh? lol
@@CityNerd My city, Longmont, has free bus fares, but having 4 routes at hour intervals makes it borderline unusable.
glad they're extending the streetcar to the plaza and UMKC
Im a civil engineering student in Norfolk VA, I’ve done a project regarding the light rail here and it crushes my soul. Im working on other transit related projects in the area and Hampton Roads (Norfolk, Portsmouth, VA beach, etc) is easily the most disjointed political nightmare for any civil engineer to work in. Thank you for talking about my shitty swamp town.
(update) - now working as an engineer here, its just as bad as i thought.
Personally much of it has to do to be the last springboard for republican politicians in Virginia,: especially Virginia beach the term toxic city is an understatement mostly having to do with people who definitely know the benefits of transit living all over the world(but do not know how to implement it) locked in a battle with Donors and strategists who fear that if Southeastern Virginia densifies like European and Asian cities or even something like what Austin wants to do its game over for the republican party in its current state because in their minds'' dencity=more Dems and that will destroy the morally defaulting majority''. GOYO only won because of them only be 56,000 mostly coming from VB Chesapeake. Nimby groups here are some of the most bizarre cheapskates claiming that 250 million dollar projects which are cheap by the US standards cost too much to build. Making up poppycockrys that make even the Cato institute blush, that you cant build unified light rail in a different municipality that didn't build at the same time. Hampton roads represent the crux of American transit woes: Where projects are opposed not for the good of the people but because of a dying corporate bases myopic view based on Niesen nuts and Popcorn policies often to keep them with a springboard to exploit. This HRBT expansion Needs to be the last time such con artery takes place to prevent it from turning into the East coasts version of Houston. We can start by looking into how to get the tide to NSN and build up an effective Commuter network that someday in the somewhat distant future dig under the James to our heart's content. But that plan at the moment is bone dry like NAS Fallon in a drought so until then we must unite like Prussia and just get on with it.
@@erikgustafson9319 The Tidewater core votes shockingly reliably blue, but the outer burbs of Chesapeake and Suffolk swung more for Youngkin. But so did Chesterfield County, for example. Prince William and Loudon were more competitive than they should have been.
All in all, Youngkin latched onto CRT lies that resonated with parents, and McAuliffe ran a pretty anemic campaign.
@@LoveStallion Same GoYo fears the voter base of Nova and Richmond and a big swing in Chesapeake so he has to placate both and not let the VGOP completely embrace MAGA or else there toast
I also think that Virginia should have a more robust regional rail service for rural areas much like DB regio runs its branch line services.
Did CityNerd's pronunciation of Norfolk bother you?
I was totally expecting Texas cities to dominate the list. Anytime any suggestion of a public transit investment comes up, all the oversized pickup truck driving rancher cosplay folks show up to scream "socialism!" and it goes nowhere.
Yeah, Dallas was #13. Houston was more like 18...I'd have to check Austin and SA.
@@CityNerd yeah I’m honestly shocked SA isn’t on this list. Largest city in the US with no rail infrastructure whatsoever. But we do have lots of bus ridership.
Seriously. Austin has no problem spending billions on tolled freeways, massive flyovers, and pavement as far as the eye can see. But if you ask for a light rail line to the airport, everybody flips out like Karl Marx is being recited in the kindergartens.
I mean Houston isn't so bad if you're inside loop 610, it's the biggest nightmare when you're inside beltway 8 and outside loop 610, and nonexistent outside beltway 8.
@@dan_air_houston kinda same with sa. Inner sa like inside of 410 is generally better for walking and bus frequency. Not the best at all but much better than that “visitors entrance to sa” live oak 35. Heil naw!
I'd like to see a video on cities that were built as suburbs but have been taking steps to truly urbanize. Aurora, CO is in some of the early steps for this and it would be interesting to see areas that have been able to make the switch.
Don’t they have excellent regional rail service
Top fastest growing areas
I like this idea. Is it gonna be almost all sun belt or do NE suburbs (which probably have small town bones already) work better? I guess there are just so many types of suburban municipalities, and the criteria chosen affect this list tremendously.
@@gregfargo9325 Yeah, it's tricky but I'm up for it.
This is similar to a suggestion I made a couple weeks back about looking at "invisible" cities - basically suburbs big enough that on their own geographically could/would be considered significant places. Funny enough, it's Aurora that got me thinking about this (I'm from Mass but I lived there for two years after college).
You have it right with Cincinnati: a beautiful urban fabric with sub-par (sub-sub-par?) public transit. What exists of the streetcar is great, there’s just not nearly enough of it.
I wish every day that there was a metro system here lol. Would've made my life so much easier. Parking in OTR or by the Banks is horrendous when it's busy on a gameday or just a nice day. So frustrating.
@@CUB3Jsg22 They tried to build one in the early 1900's, but the engineer was a moron: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnati_Subway
The buses are mostly fine, depending on where you are and where you want to go. I take them regularly downtown - zero complaints. Getting across town is another matter… At least they’re finally investing and expanding service.
@@bengriffin9830 Yes and that's actually MORE of an issue with rail-based transit, not less.
Cincinnati has been a victim of every bad Moses-era urban planner and corrupt Ohio Republican politician decision you can think of. I think we're on the up and up, the city itself is majority Democratic and the current mayor Aftab Pureval is pro-YIMBY and transit. We just need to end our NIMBY housing policies to accomodate all you coastal types moving here and jacking up rent. Don't get me wrong, i'm no "we're full get out" type, i want you guys to come here and make our city cool. We just gotta build the housing first!
This video is just another reminder of how much money is being devoted to the automobile. The crazy urban planning, or lack there of, which encourages people to depend primarily on autos is quite sad. Although I live in a big city (Atlanta) that didn’t make any of your lists I came from a city that had decent mass transit (Chicago). There’s just too must resistance to building in good transit into new developments. And then people complain about gas prices - geez.
People like complaining and if everything is good theres nothing to complain about so they block transit and complain about gas prices
@Zaydan Naufal What's a speed-unlimited motorbike? Is it like a moped with the 50kph limit removed?
I think a big factor are super wealthy and upper income people who wish to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Easier to do that with personal cars and gated communities than denser developments and public transit. Also, if you look at urban areas that started their growth phase after WW2, there seems to be a trend towards more car-focused development (pretty much all of florida, texas, las vegas, and phoenix)
I also stay in the Metro Atlanta Area. Currently working on ways to advocate and change the narrative so we can actually get something done because while there are efforts to make transit more viable and include different types of transportation, the suburban sprawl developments are being built at large and plague both Atlanta and the Metro Atlanta areas.
@@blacklozy5826 Stay add it, the world needs more people like you
Arlington TX, located between Dallas and Ft Worth, population 300k, be like: what's a bus??
Pathetic
You can blame Jerry Jones for this. He wants no public transportation near AT&T Stadium. Even when I attended a U2 concert, my hotel shuttle had to drop us off a mile from the stadium.
arlington texas is the largest US city without public transit. which is ridiculous at this point, because its growth rate is rising like crazy. its set to become the new dallas.
@@ilta222 Not just Jerry. Residents voted against public transport.
Isn't it something they pride themselves on?
I’d love to see a video about the worst and most expensive highway projects in large cities. The Texas Department of Transportation has been pursuing a $7B I45 expansion through the middle of Houston and has completely ignored data collected by the city government and local groups about the project’s economic, environmental, and equity impacts on the city.
TDOT gonna TDOT
The Federal Government already has very specific requirements for addressing economic, environmental and equity impacts in freeway projects that have existed since the Nixon Administration. I'm not saying the process works, but when you are already required to answer the 1500 page document of the Federal Government on the subject matter (that generally results in really strange, inefficient and expensive routes from new freeways, often in the shape of a giant U), you're neither going to have the time, the political/legal liberty nor the inclination to consider a similar written debate from community groups.
Houston has horrible sprawl! !!!!! Took forever to drive through it and really depressing looking at the endless sprawl and suburbs and so many new apartments so ugly with so many gigantic parking lots and big box stores. Of course no mom and pop stores less it’s in downtown.
Houston is a terrible place.
@@aygwmonly if you don’t live here.
I always love how economists and environmentalists are arch nemesis, but urban planning issues are probably the only area they all agreed on. Urban cities that have dense, walkable, AND affordable housing are always most optimal. It is always better to have cheap houses in cities than cheap houses in suburbs, and the best thing to protect nature is to stay the hell away from it.
Actually helping the environment is good business, too. Both short and long term.
Cheap apartments/condos
Just the land is too expensive to have cheap houses
Idk. The university I went to had an environmental economics department and there was no antagonism between economics and the harder sciences. I think there's a pretty big difference between practicing economists and the political shill "economists" that the public gets exposed to through mass media.
How do you have cheap houses in the cities though? It seems to me that the only way it's possible is with a monumental amount of economic decline.
@@angrydragonslayer Yes, however once you get above about 4 stories or so, the land becomes cheaper than an additional story of building. The Metabolists in Japan tried to address this shortcoming of the system in the 1970's, but sadly, their ideas never really caught on, and the megadeflation of Japans Lost Decade obliterated what was left of their commercial position: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolism_(architecture)
I will say that here in Cincinnati, we did have a ballot measure pass to increase service for METRO, there are now some 24 hr lines that run with 15 20 minute headways. Unfortunally back in the early 2000s we voted down 2 to 1 a plan for more transit (Metro Moves if you want to look it up) so thats sad
Woah
Imagine if they actually finally finished the subway
Yeah that’s sad especially because I know someone there who depends on the bus to go everywhere because they cannot drive because of medical reasons and they’re not that old
Very sad. The building of I-75 on top of the subway right of way, pushed by the highway lobby was a disaster. Cincinnati could stand out as having excellent transit, instead they have highway lobby induced freeways. A good starter would be a pay parking garage at the end of the present Central Parkway tunnel with trains in to the city which would really be helpful for Reds and Bengal games as well.
@@wrestlersandiego The Cincinnati subway was constructed by draining the Miami and Erie Canal and building stations within the canal bed and Central Parkway on top. You can see the original portals on the east side of I-75, just south of Hopple St. It would be a piece of cake to extend tracks out of the tunnel and have the trains continue to run in the I-75 right-of-way. Unfortunately, a number of other circumstances make rehabilitation of the tunnels an expensive proposition.
While cycling, nothing scares me more than large trucks, trailers or busses. Shared bike & bus and it's painted lane sounds like a horror movie plot for me.
Yes, cycling in front of a bus would really be scary (ask me how I know). Nobody would WANT it to be the best solution, but that doesn't mean that there aren't situations where it is. If you think about it logically, there are a lot of reasons why it should work; And I'd love to hear from people who have actually cycled on one if I'm wrong about the following:
A: The average speed of buses that stop at stations and bikes (okay, my only data point is MY cycling speed) are very similar (except on hills). That means if a bike falls into a good gap between buses, you'd be able to go pretty far before one mode catches up to the other.
B: The largest danger from long vehicles might be the situation when they do a right turn and a cyclist is to the rear right of them. By putting both the most threatened and the threat (one of the threats) in the same lane, you can guarantee that they are going through intersections behind each other, instead of besides each other. For the second threat (trucks), the priority signaling from point C2 would alleviate that (partially).
C: The bus lane is mainly there to [1: ensure that they don't get hindered by slow traffic] and/or [2: to be able to provide an early green at intersections]. 2 is the same you'll want to do for bikes too. I thought for a moment that after the intersection, you'd need some length of separate bike and bus lanes to make buses not immediately lose that head start over cars, but in fact, the bus should be able to pull out into the car lanes (unless there's a car that has turned onto that road in the perpendicular phase and is doing something unusual).
And 1 works as long as EITHER the traffic is slow enough that being caught behind a bike is an improvement over being caught in traffic OR the traffic flows well enough that the bus can pull out into the car lanes to pass any bikes.
I'd insist on these 2 rules, though: Buses have to pull out FULLY to overtake bikes and Buses must not irritate cyclist by following too closely.
D: If buses travel on combined lanes, their schedule should really be forgiving enough that being caught behind a reasonably slow bike wouldn't screw up their schedule (unless they're already late). So IDEALLY buses on such a lane wouldn't usually be in very much of a rush.
E: Roads that these are put on are not an environment that would be very pleasant to be in on a bike, even in a separate bike lane. (Keep in mind that those roads would have at least 2 car lanes + 2 bus/bike lanes, enough traffic volume to warrant the bus lanes, and usually not slow-moving traffic.)
E.1: A good network of cycle lanes would be dense enough and give you enough options that you don't have to go very long distances on such a major road. Then again, a good bike lane network would provide physically separated bike lanes on all major roads, so you really can't assume a city that deems the combined lanes viable has one. But for a city that DOES have a dense network, the combined lanes can be a good option for roads/streets that are too space-constrained for both bus and bike lanes.
F: If you have both a bus lane and a bike lane they conflict anyways:
If the bike lane is on the asphalt, the bus pulls into bus bays that are in the way of the bike lane. Or the bike lanes are on the pavement and pass on the outside of the bus shelters*, but in that case you have to rely on pedestrians to not make a sudden hook from the sidewalk to the the bus shelter* without looking. Or, worst case, the bike lane is on the pavement but crosses between the bus bay and the shelter*. In that case any cyclist that passes a bus with open doors is guaranteed to eventually run into an exiting passenger that wasn't visible until they were fully in the path of the bike. (*if your stop doesn't have a shelter, the same applies to the area of the pavement where most passengers wait.)
When you see a bus coming behind you, just pause and let it pass. Small price to pay for having a 11 foot wide bike lane.
@@trainluvr couldn’t agree more.
@@Pystro actually in Berlin Bus lanes are shared with bicycles. And bus drivers learnt to deal with it
What you're forgetting though is most bus lanes are not 2nd Avenue in NYC. Most buses only come once every 30 minutes or so, so most times you are in the shared lane, there will not be a bus sharing the lane with you. You won't get a ticket if you do decide to share the lane with the bus, but you could honestly just wait a few minutes and start your trip after the bus is gone.
Thank you for naming Tampa. As a resident I hate how bad public transit is. I have tried many times to influence public policy to improve transit to no avail
They’ve been talking about it for over 20 years and still nothing
CityNerd can not only do snark, (lotsa fun!), he can be gentle too! Highly enjoyable.
I think a video on transit oriented development would be interesting - though I'm not sure how you could find a metric for this. I still think it definitely has video potential. Great video as always!
The “The Tide” light rail is being extending to Military Circle Redevelopment but it originally it was going to Virginia Beach which got voted down by locals, Greenbrier which had commitments pulled after VB vote, and Naval Station Norfolk which was two expensive at a billion dollars which made them switch to a BRT.
The 2011 transit plan for “after 2035” had it going from Huntington point in York County 50 miles down to Greenbrier with a Branches to Downtown Hampton and BRT to Suffolk. The whole area of South Hampton roads is scarred with Urban Renewal, immense sprawl, and Car dependency especially in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake.
I highly recommend Virginia Places article “Streetcars and Light Rail in Virginia” on the topic.
Give up build monorail lines
@@qjtvaddict Monorails are extremely expensive and require service lock in. Check out RMtransits video on it “Monorails are bad... Or are they?”
A Primer on Pronunciation - "Norfolk"
Although in the colonial era Norfolk may have meant the 'The Folk of the North'; north bank of the Elizabeth River of the established ship building and major port industries in the mid-Atlantic coast; or it may have been a nostalgic reminisce of a people's home in England. The pronunciation, by the natives.
The poem most often recited to share it's correct pronunciation:
We don't smoke,
We don't drink,
Nor f*ck,
Nor f*ck!
@@oldbikeguy411 or just nawfick
In the UK even rural buses are more frequent than ones in Memphis
Interesting list!
With Detroit, there is also the segregated bus service; there's still Detroit Transit (which serves the city) - DT. SMART is mainly for suburbs. So that is an issue.
The People Mover was an early demonstrator 'gadgetbahn' if I recall correctly.
Just about to mention most of this. Also, there are plenty of issues with it, but I’ve made a ton of use of the QLine.
Yes, the people mover is a gadgetbahn, but it's also the same system that most of Vancouver's SkyTrain uses, and Vancouver would be up at the top of the list of most transit friendly cities. I think its success (or lack thereof) just comes down to a combination of poor urban planning and urban decay. Good transit was always going to be a hard sell in Motor City though I think.
The other thing about SMART is that the suburbs within the system pay for continued coverage. If any of them choose to pull out of the system (like what Auburn Hills and Macomb Township are trying to do) service to them will stop. And SMART already has disjointed coverage and low frequency as it is.
The Q Line really has performance issues due to being built on the shoulder as opposed to the center of Woodward. You have a car accident, a lazy driver or an ambulance that has to stop on Woodward, it's blocking the line. SMART or NOT SO SMART is sporadic at best and suburbs are allowed to drop out if they so choose to do (Auburn Hills just did that.) This leaves an already poor system with spotty service that can ultimately be useless if the place you live/work is in a community without bus service.
i was surprised when i got on DDOT buses while visiting Detroit (as a white guy) and everyone looked at me like i was from another planet. one guy even said “i didn’t know white people still rode DDOT”… like people gotta get where they gotta go, right?
Cincinnati being on these lists always feels weird. While the existing infrastructure is overwhelmingly geared towards cars, a fifth of Cincinnati households don't even own a car, which is remarkable and shows that the city itself is at least somewhat walkable.
With some smart transit investments (and the bell connector is a great start) I think Cincinnati could become a great transit city.
Situations like this make me wonder if “highest percent of trips by car” would be a better metric for evaluating poor urban fabric. This video is specifically about transit so I can’t fault it, but I personally find cities with the highest percentage of walking/biking commuters even more desirable than those with high transit ridership.
Agreed. Cincinnati was the BEST city I've lived in car-free. It was so easy to get anywhere because it's so walkable and the few bus lines connect to strong urban neighborhood centers across the region.
Cincinnati is very walkable, there just is no transit to connect the many very walkable nodes the city has.
Hate visiting Cincinnati suburbs. Yes it sorta has buses, but it not even one bus an hours. I don't have a driver's license because I don't need one in Europe. My sister can't understand how an adult doesn't have or want a driver's licence.
Lived in Cincinnati for a year before the bell connector was completed. It was a total pain in the ass to use buses there, no matter regular or express buses.
I love the positive spin you put on this list!
It would've been too depressing otherwise
I am from a city of 450k in a Central European country. Seven universities, tons of research and science institutions, etc. We have 11 tram lines and a few dozen bus lines that run, on a weekday, every 5-10 minutes.
Cincinnati might not have the most expansive transit but there are efforts to make the best of what we have. The downtown core is surrounded by steep hills and cliffs that used to have streetcar inclines in the before GM times. SORTA has chosen to focus on completing trips in as few transfers as possible. Local nimbys are particularly well funded though
I grew up in Norfolk! That's the closest to a central city in the Hampton Roads area - Virginia Beach has nearly twice the population but is just massive suburban sprawl. As you noted, the light rail isn't all that useful. They've looked at extensions but rejected them for various reasons (service to the oceanfront in VB was planned but their residents rejected the funding for it in a referendum, so that's not happening, and others were too expensive) so right now it doesn't go much of anywhere.
10:53 - Norfolk, Hampton Roads, Tidewater, Virginia
Norfolk Tide Light-rail, built about 10 years ago : ruclips.net/video/OZvSIJj9lvw/видео.html
Why can’t residents just be ignored? We ignored em to build highways why not just build the damn lines and let ridership speak
@@qjtvaddict because these are wealthy white suburbanites, i.e. the only people who matter in this country
Yeah, I think that's what I get tripped up on -- Norfolk is clearly more central, but VA Beach is bigger. What other metro area in the US is like that? SF-San Jose, but they're different metros, right?
True. But VB is the economic engine of the region. Especially the summers. THE BEACH and the development there is incredible.
I really think you undersold the KC Streetcar. It’s been wildly successful on a ridership front, and the city is dabbling with free transit.
Yeah I've heard! It is a good route -- they did a nice job on selecting alignment!
No , really it has raised sales taxes more and only has ridership because it’s free
I used to live in Jax, FL. Went to college at the campus across the street from the main bus terminal downtown. The low capacity of the skyway is a legit complaint but I found the bigger issue was that it just doesn't go anywhere. If you need to get from Rosa Parks to the convention center, it is relatively quick and completely free, but otherwise it's kinda worthless.
Moved to Ames, IA from abroad for college, and just assumed that the vigor of the CyRide bus system there was a normal sight throughout the country.
I soon realized how wrong I was..
Being a college town, the buses run for free at night around the weekends till the bars close, so people don't drive drunk.
On school days, the buses broadcast messages on their LED boards. My favorite being "Call Mom, Call Dad, Send Love, Ask for Money".
Growing up in Amsterdam, where the tram-system is so dense we could call one of our teams the TramDodgers, I have a biased view on public transit. Knowing how much our city benefits from public transit make your videos painful to watch. The quality is great, it's just sad to see a rich and developed nation rely on car ownership and care so little about the people less fortunate.
That's how the Brooklyn Dodgers got their name. Dodging street cars in early 20th century Brooklyn before moving to Los Angeles.
@@RBzee112 😉
Actually, the freeway-oriented development of the US has tended to help the less fortunate. More freeway-oriented cities tend to have significantly lower living costs overall, mostly because it tends to lead to more land to expand upon (which, given the small size of the Netherlands and the tremendous value of rural areas as highly productive farmland there, is, understandably, something the Dutch don't really have as an option). Yeah you don't have to pay for car expenses in a transit-oriented American city, but the increase in rent (from around $1000 a month in a not-transit-oriented place, to about $3000-$4000 a month in a transit-oriented place) is larger than the car expenses. It basically costs the less fortunate $2000-$3000 a month to live somewhere with transit, as opposed to around $1000 a month to own a car, and that's because the downside of upward development is you're always having to demolish something else to put up the taller building, which leads to both monumental (pardon the pun) expenses for the property developer, and significant legal and political pushback from the community being redeveloped for a larger number of people, whereas to put up a suburb, you're literally just buying one farm and putting in houses or low-rise apartments. Suburbs are separate governments because the land usually didn't even have a city government before you bought the farm.
@@alexanderfretheim5720 I'm no expert in this field, but to me it sounds like you are merely looking at the positive sides of non-transit-oriented development. Neglecting the fact that freeways cut communities in half, reducing the nearby opportunities of its populations and turning walkable/cyclable commutes into car commutes. There's the environmental impact it has on cities, which influences healthcare costs and carbon footprint reducing costs (some mandatory). And, as you did mention, it saves a lot of space which we Dutch don't have, though we rarely build higher than 5 stories except for offices.
Next to that: no one is paying $4000 p/month on rent. Amsterdam is going for $25 per m2 on avg. Nobody in the city lives in a 160m2 house without owning it. And for these kinds of houses that's only an option for the richest 1-3%. Cut your estimates in half and you'd be closer to realism.
As our living standards aren't worse than most US cities, I feel affordable transit-orientation is a choice. Though not owning multiple cars might sound like a distopian, communist hellhole to some of your countrymen. 😉
@@royvandermarel3953 That's not a fair assessment. I actually don't support an excessive focus on freeway-oriented development, but the fact is that the expansion of non-transit-oriented development in the 1950's led to a TREMENDOUS increase in middle class prosperity and a huge DROP in poverty rates. Many misinterpretations of that history are the product of redlining and racism, rather than cars. This doesn't mean we should build Levittowns everywhere, only that any consideration of transit-oriented development needs to be balanced by the fact that transit-oriented development can result in a certain amount of economic elitism and a colossal SURGE in poverty rates, as it has in California.
In other words, we should support transit-friendly development for reasons that have nothing to do with the poor, and balance it with a concern for the poor that requires us to still have non-transit-friendly development in places. My argument against you is in your false belief that mass-transit is for the poor, or necessary for the poor. Your argument is sophistry, and in recent times, such bad arguments have ruined perfectly good democracies and served as a collective cancer on the brains of the masses.
"Neglecting the fact that freeways cut communities in half, reducing the nearby opportunities of its populations and turning walkable/cyclable commutes into car commutes." Freeways only cut communities in half if you build the freeway through the center of the community. If you build freeways on the edges of communities, while retaining the more traditional roads as transit-friendly walkable thoroughfares with DECREASED speed limits, as we did with US-20/I-90 east of Wyoming, they don't cut anything in half.
"There's the environmental impact it has on cities, which influences healthcare costs and carbon footprint reducing costs (some mandatory)" Poverty tends to increase poor health more than air pollution.
"And, as you did mention, it saves a lot of space which we Dutch don't have, though we rarely build higher than 5 stories except for offices." Indeed. The whole point of that parenthetical statement was to say that I wouldn't actually recommend it for your country, but for America, Russia, India, China, even Turkey? It has a place. The Dutch are making a very logical decision for the Netherlands, but you should not misinterpret the intentions or outcomes of other countries, as you clearly have with the United States.
Take a European city, like say Vienna, it has about 2.8-3.0 million people, about the same size as St Louis, Denver or San Diego. Vienna's public transportation is SOOOoooo much better than any of those cities. Metro, Trams, Buses... Metro trains arrive every 3 or 4 minutes, trams come every 7 to 10 minutes, there are so many lines, the whole place is covered. You absolutely do not need a car to get anywhere within Vienna. US public transportation is a joke, it is just terrible. I'm not even sure you could say NYC is as good as Vienna.
Show/series idea: what might a concrete plan look like to improve transit on specific city archetypes, big city, small city, growing moderately sized city. And since this was my idea, I think you should start with Spokane, WA. Home of the Zags.
I think a lot of people are on board with improving transit, but have no idea what might create a transit improvement positive feedback loop.
With the abysmal state that some transit systems are in, I wonder if you could have an agency (either government agency or a subsidized company) on the national level that comes into cities that want to improve and puts temporary measures into place:
* know-how gathered from previous transit improvement projects where best to add capacity,
* giving a massive temporary boost of capacity by lending buses and providing bus drivers who are willing to move to a new city every quarter,
* planning, and mobile signage for temporary bus lanes and bike lanes,
* mobile license-plate-scanning toll bridges to charge people for driving into downtown,
* possibly even signage (and temporary speed bumps) for speed reduction and signage and barricades/street furniture for temporary road pedestrianization,
* agreement by all municipalities in the metro area to not oppose any of the temporary measures (Locals shouldn't be allowed any "we don't want poor people to be able to ride buses into our suburb" or "we can't afford to pay the road toll for a whole quarter" nimby-ism, until you've seen what the benefits would be.)
* and most importantly, the ability to take some losses if their measures don't end up increasing the transit agency's profitability (or - let's be real - reducing their losses).
And then at the end of that "trial period" the city or transit agency they came to could see which measures were successful and decide which of them they want to make permanent (by training their own bus drivers, upgrading a temporary dedicated bus lane to a trolleybus or streetcar line, ...).
And then afterwards, that agency might even be able to market their know how by helping cities stay on a more "European" budget for their transit projects (looking at you, Minneapolis' "4 years late and 3 billion over budget" green line extension).
I mean, if it's a virtuous cycle in one direction (and a vicious cycle in the other), the best you can do is give a good kick-start to the dynamics.
Extend the aerial tram. There, I did it. JK. Go Zags BTW.
@@matthays7800 Honestly, having that actually connect to Kendall Yards would be kind of cool.
I think you need more than three archetypes. Actually, in terms of the traffic flow and transit potential, Charleston, SC has more in common with NYC than Phoenix or LA.
"Someone explain this [SacRT development] to me"
Me, a Sacramento area resident for 15 years who doesn't have a car and who has worked in city government: "I can't"
And it doesn't even go to Roseville/Rockin/Loomis.
You hit the nail on the head with Memphis being number 1. Its transportation or lack thereof and its frequency was one of the reasons why I moved away. It's ridiculous. Looks like it got a lot worse since I moved with those times. 30 minutes between buses? I made the right call.
No argument from me on Cincinnati’s historic fabric. I was blown away by it last time I was there. Underrated for sure
My city made the small cities with good transit list, and my brother's city made the list of big cities with bad transit.
Big win for me.
After your comments about streetcars in this video, I feel like you HAVE to address this in more detail now. In particular the statement about streetcars being the "lowest ridership per capital dollar of investment you can make". This deserves it's own video. I would like to see a comparison of ridership per capital dollar of investment between a bunch of different transit modes. including cars too (for context). It would be interesting to see walking, biking, cars, buses, BRT, metro, light rail, streetcars and maybe regional rail (although that may not be fair if we're talking about travelling between cities). I'm thinking more like suburban rail within a very large city. I also wonder if the comparison would differ if you compared North America to Europe or Asia, where the culture of transit use is quite different and the land use/urban fabric is less car orientated to start with.
Cincinnati specifically OTR is such a hidden gem. And maybe one of the cleanest urban areas…. What about a list in regard's to cleanest urban cities? Cindy Still needs to work on that public transit though FOR SURE. Such a nice compliment thank you
Not surprised to see San Juan making it to this video lol. El Tren Urbano is not great or really even useful unless you live in the heart of the city. Even so, I think you’d need to drive or catch a bus to the main station. I grew up there for several years of my childhood, but then my family moved to the west coast of the island. Even when we lived there, we never used the transit system because it was dangerous in certain areas and I was quite young. I’m sure it’s gotten better now. Unfortunately, San Juan is the only city in the entire island with a “functioning” rail system. Puerto Rico used to have an amazing railway that circled the entire island. It was called el Ferrocarril and began 19th century, but it was taken down in the 1950s and we just never looked back. The younger generations now including myself truly long for a system like that to be reinstated, but it doesn’t seem possible with the current economic interests leaning more towards replicating US infrastructure.
I kinda feel bad for Indy go, they did a really smart redesign and improvement of their bus network… in 2019 :(. They got like one year of improved service before the pandemic caused the transitpocalypse
Not to mention they’ve dealt with nonstop meddling in the transit plan by the state government.
I’m surprised Columbus isn’t included in this list. 2.1 million metro population and the only public transportation available is bus. We did have a free bus that ran a large stretch of the popular downtown area but that was discontinued due to Covid and won’t be coming back.
I would love to see a top 10 bike ways/green ways in North America.
Well my city wouldn’t make the list since it seems hell bent on making them cross a 6 lane stroad every 3 miles...
Los Angeles has a great system of river levee top bike paths. One is over 45 miles long with no interaction with cars. Completely isolated.
Cincinnati literally made me an urbanist - it taught me how a city could have so much and do so little to make it all work. Cincy's urban fabric is designed for way better than it has.
Totally agree with the Florida mentions. For as many large metro areas they have, only Miami has respectable transit services, in my opinion.
Orlando is getting there, but not close enough.
I’d have to think it’s a mixture of reasons, one main one being that you can’t have tunnel systems because the water table is so close to the surface (most Florida homes don’t even have basements). I think it’s also because Florida was very underdeveloped until the second half of the 20th century, and of course by then it was all about cars.
You also mentioned that some areas like Jax are investing in autonomous transport, which is cool- I guess. But it’s not going to take cars off the road in the way that good train and bus services do.
Yeah Orlando built a lightrail, but it goes to exactly nowhere, like the airport or downtown or the parks. The Brightline may be the saving grace in a few yrs. I relied on it for years but it was a terrible transit city that could easily fit on this list. No surprise that Tampa/Jacksonville beat it
I researched the Jax people mover system once, since I was bored. What really puzzled me on that system, was the limited hours it runs for. Which is only on weekdays till like about 9pm, and no weekend service! The people mover in Detroit has much greater hours, in comparison.
I used to used the city bus in Oahu Hawaii as my primary mode for transportation. This was over a decade ago but I don’t think it has changed much since. I remember that if I was coming home from Downtown Honolulu to my home neighborhood, I would need to transfer to another bus in Waipahu transit station. At night the bus home would come every hour and the bus I took from town was an “express” bus so it just skips some stops making it marginally faster than a normal bus. The biggest problem was it was rarely synced with the bus going to my home neighborhood meaning I would have to wait a whole hour for the next bus. I can’t count how many times I arrive at the Transit center and seeing the bus route home leave just before the express bus stops. If the waiting wasn’t bad enough, I had my share of run ins with young punks that call you out for fights, I nearly got highjacked by a group of young punks but fortunately there was a convenience store nearby where the clerk called the cops, who came a full 6 minutes later. The punks were long gone by then. The most recent experience with my home states “wonderful” transit system was a ride from Aiea to my home neighborhood during a normal work day with light traffic. I had my car stereo system being upgraded at a Best Buy (the worst place to do that, I could make a whole rant on how the moronic workers screwed up the install). Instead of waiting their for hours for my car I decided to take the bus home. I caught the first bus that arrived that stopped at the Waipahu Transit center. It was a normal bus so it stopped at all the stops. It took a whopping 45 minutes to get to Waipahu, and another 20 something minutes to take the transfer bus home. I was lucky the transfer bus comes every 30 minutes during the day or the trip would have been 2 hour long. The same trip takes only 20 minutes by car. It’s beyond ridiculous.
Most people where I live just accept that this is how mass transit works and they absolutely need a car, but this is not true if we really had good mass transit. I visited my brother in Japan 3 times and I absolutely love riding the train there, well except for when it is crammed tighter than a sardine can. I never thought about needing a car while I was there. In our mass transit stations there is nothing around to do or see, just big empty parking lots. I have been to massive Japanese train stations that put many airports to shame, and they are filled with countless restaurants and shops all within walking distance. It’s a place where people want to go outside of just for transportation to and from work.
I was pleasantly surprised by Cincinnati Bus System, they ran on time and you find out when you bus comes down to the minute on the APP (something SEPTA can't do, they can't tell if a bus is canceled or just untracked). The AC on buses are ICE COLD which is a good thing.
I lived in Hampton Roads for a few years about half in Hampton and half in Virginia Beach. Transit in this area consists of sitting in soul crushing traffic and hoping nobody crashes and shuts down the bridge tunnels.
Regarding Detroit:
- The QLine was privately built, owned, and operated. The city doesn't have anything to do with it.
- The People Mover was built with federal funds with the state providing the local match. The city didn't pay anything to build it. The People Mover's operating costs are 0.3% of the city's budget, while a majority of the city's tax revenue comes from downtown. If you quantify the benefits of the People Mover it's definitely worth the investment.
- DDOT's bus service is not ideal but it isn't that bad. Major routes are 24/7, 12-15 minute peak headways (better than a lot of the light rail lines around the country), other routes have 20-30 minute headways. Most of the other main routes are 20 minutes. Unfortunately the pandemic has exacerbated the driver shortage and so service had been cut back.
- The problem with Detroit's transit is that other than a handful of good routes the suburbs have incredibly sparse and infrequent service. Which unfortunately is also common among American cities.
Thanks for calling out Cincinnati's dismal public transit. I have just moved back after decades away, and there are just no good bus lines from my house to our ever-improving downtown. Yuck.
It used to be really good in the 1980s and early 90s when I was in high school and college, so I was surprised to hear this. They need to continue building light rail and bring back the historic inclines.
As someone from sacramento, yes the lightrail constantly yeilds to traffic, and it has a whopping ONE LINE. The bus system is ruined by our rampant homelessness issues. and yes the zoning is an absolute nightmare, more suburban R1 than ive seen anywhere else. It really sucks because we have some walkable onclaves, roseville fountains, HoweBoutArden, and DOCO come to mind. but each of those areas are 20 mi apart with no public transit link between, only our like seven highways and freeways.
also davis, which made the top 10 small cities, is only 30 miles away from our nightmare.
Fun fact, Indianapolis used to have one of the, if not the, largest light rail networks in the world with its interurban network. Then they ripped it all up. Just look up an indiana interurban map to see it.
Only issue with this is it doesn't really account for quality of transit, just how many people are desperate enough to take it. My city gets fairly high traffic on transit but it's still awful. Buses and trains are always late or early, trains have only like 6 stops a day, 3 in each direction and so on. The price is fairly high at about 3.25 at peak hours and so on. Basically you only take transit if you have to in my area and always expect to either be an hour early or an hour late to where ever your going.
Thus I think dense but low income cities tend to have higher transit than their systems really justify. We have lousy weather, expensive in city parking and nearly no bike lanes or other options. Thus people often take the bus despite how bad they are.
As someone who just moved from metro Detroit to Atlanta, not surprised Detroit made the list. I know you didn't mention SMART since you're looking at cities, but god is SMART awful. One of the big issues is that SMART allows counties to opt out of SMART buses but those same counties get a vote when SMART tries to raise funding for public transportation. If I had the chance to redo it today, I would either not let counties opt out, or if they opted out, you would also give up your right to vote on public transportation funding, at least for SMART.
Also from my personal experiences, I lived in a suburb and at the time I still didn't have my own car, so I wanted to go visit a friend in Novi. I spend a day or two before the date researching the SMART website and making sure it was possible, even if it would take more time. My route I researched was I would take the bus south along woodward, get to somewhere like 8 mile or something, take a bus from there that goes east west and then take it about an hour or so and then still walk another 2 miles. I got to the 8 mile bus stop, waited for like half an hour or an hour before realizing that east west buses don't run on weekends! The only time I actually managed to ride a bus like maybe 30% of the way there and still had to walk another 2 miles or uber or something was when I took an uber from my home to the stop and then take the bus. At that point, I was almost doing it out of spite, just to prove to myself that there was no serious public transportation in metro Detroit.
I don't have any experience with DDOT though, so I can't speak to that. The PeopleMover definitely is far from real public transportation, but it's kind of useful if you want to use it to go from the RenCen to Cobo or something, I know that Youmacon, a local anime convention, is?/was split across those two buildings so many convention goers would use it for that purpose. The QLine is one of those new American/US streetcars where it isn't sold as a serious means of public transportation, but rather something to "increase land values". Which explains why it doesn't have dedicated right of way, cars used to and might still block the QLine lane because of that, and it's mostly just used by people who come into town for an event or sporting event as a novelty, if even that. I feel like it almost feels less serious as a means of public transportation than even the PeopleMover.
Adding another comment about the “Hampton Roads” area in Virginia. I used to live in Newport News and yeah- navigating around there is a mess. I’d say Norfolk and Virginia Beach are the two larger cities that function as the ‘main’ cities. There’s a good handful of colleges down there, and the area is heavily populated because of the naval base and the beach.
There’s a huge missed opportunity for transit to connect those cities, but the state of VA itself seems to prioritize northern Virginia in the DC metro area- “NOVA”.
Hi, I live in the Midtown area of the worst city on your list: Detroit. While I would agree that overall, the transit situation is pretty much as bad as you made it out to be, I would say other than buses just being way behind schedule, transit IN THE CITY(not the suburbs) is kind of adequate. Between bicycling or walking short distances and the buses, you can get pretty much anywhere in The City of Detroit that you want in a reasonable amount of time with public transit. However, one thing you didn't mention is ultimate deficiency in public transit in the Metro Detroit area: public transit to/from the airport, or lack thereof. If you are living in the City of Detroit, there is exactly 1 bus route to the airport. It's run by suburban bus system and will take 1 hour from downtown to the airport. If you have to make a connection to get to that bus, it's of course even longer. Even worse, the hours of this route are only from 5:30 am to 11pm. If you have a flight before 8pm, you either get a friend to drive, get an uber, lyft, or taxi(which are rippoff right now), or believe it or not take the bus to the airport the night before and just sleep in the terminal. I have actually done the latter, and yes, that's a disgrace.
As a Kansas Citian, I agree with you on KC. As cool as the streetcar is, it's still very limited (as you pointed out). It is getting a couple of extensions in coming years, going north to the Riverfront Park area and south to the UMKC campus. Still limited. It's much, much worse when you get out to the suburbs, where even the buses aren't all that reliable.
Unreliable, or nonexistent? That is the bigger problem of KC, the island metro and detached suburbs (unless, of course, you own a car). I feel like the majority of jobs jump around the town down area, and just hug along 435
Your video title makes me think of Space Ice's RUclips channel:
" "Maximum Delta Force" is the Steven Seagal megablockbuster hit movie that is so bad it will crush your soul."
Lmao love the reaction to the bus station in Tampa being next to the cemetery I had that same reaction IRL. Waiting for the bus there is so weird you're either looking at a cemetery or looking at 55+ apartments. There's a weird before and after thing going on. It kinda gives me the willies.
I live in Sacramento and I ride the light rail. One thing that SUCKS about the light rail here is that the train cars have a set of 3-4 stairs on the inside that you need to climb in order to board. I'm a 20 minute bike ride from University/65th Street (that development you pointed out is student housing for Sac State, which is in the opposite direction of the station) and after hauling my bike up those stairs for a year whenever I go to the office, I can see why some people might get deterred from using the light rail. Also, some of the trains are old and don't really have adequate bike storage. SacRT is currently prepping their stations to accommodate for a new fleet of low floor cars in the future. Hopefully this is just the beginning because Midtown/Downtown, East Sac, Oak Park, and Land Park are all super walkable/bikeable and I pretty much never drove my car when I lived in Midtown (which might be another reason for low ridership... bikes and scooters are everywhere on the grid and if you live in Midtown it's easier to get around on those!).
I am surprised Birmingham, where I live, wasn't on the list. I think our metro does have over a million people.
I agree that Cincinnati has more really old buildings than any other American city I have seen. I think there are entire areas of it that predate the Civil War. I really like Over the Rhine and Mt. Adams.
Virginia Beach resident here! Norfolk is essentially the downtown of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake. Newport News and Hampton could be considered their own city culturally but a lot of people commute in from VB and Chesapeake to work at shipyards there. Portsmouth is sort of it's own city culturally but largely a weird hanger on to Norfolk on the other side of the water economically, also because of the military and shipyards. You could think of Suffolk as a suburb of it, but most people will commute in to Norfolk or VB if they want to go into "the city." The Tide light rail was intended to connect Norfolk's largest university, a military base, a shipyard, and downtown Norfolk to VB's Towncenter downtown and Oceanfront along with a number of neighborhoods along the way. VB voted via referendum to stop the light rail at the city line because of "crime." Public transportation also doesn't connect the Peninsula (Hampton and NN) to the Southside (everything else) and your only option is to take a greyhound intended to connect you to the Hampton Amtrack station.
PSTA sounds about right. I lived there for years, never once thought about taking the bus. Even now, it looks like it'd take forever to get from A to B using that. Florida Man ain't got time for that.
I stayed at the home of a Jacksonville resident. His luxury waterfront building was about a block from one of the skyway terminals. He never rode the thing, which does not even operate on weekends. If you stand in downtown Jacksonville it kind of makes sense to have the miniature el system as there is little surface parking visible and it is pleasantly walkable. The people mover is useful to help motorists stay out of downtown while not forcing them to ride a bus, heaven forbid.
Oof. Hampton Roads, where to start? (I was stationed there in the Navy for a few years.)
Yes, it's a collection of cities, with major populations from 97k for Portsmouth, 99k for Suffolk, 137k for Hampton, 186k for Newport News, 238k for Norfolk, 249k for Chesapeake, and 459k in Virginia Beach. (Many smaller cities fall within the Metro area, as well)
There's a huge military concentration here, with 20-something military facilities including the largest Naval Station in the world, NAVSTA Norfolk. Big industriy, and shipping facilities, plus NASA, DoT, DoE, and other Federal agengies have large presence as well, so non-military employment is rather distributed, rather than concentrated in one or even six downtown areas. .
It all adds up to over 1.6 million people, (over 2 million in the CSA) and a rush hour that occurs on about 9 different axes. Major chokepoints are everywhere due to the expansive natural harbors and rivers.
Besides all of the bridges and tunnels, I think one of the other bigger transit challenges is that so many of the area trips start or end in a military base, but transit can almost never be routed onto a military facility Many of these are just really, really large, meaning you kind of need to drive to work. .
As a Memphian who moved to Portland, and now Denver, I feel so vindicated by finally seeing it on this channel
The colloquial way of referring to that part of Virginia is “the 757”, “Hampton roads” or just Norfolk works sometimes as well
I never heard 757. Why Roads? Is it a military reference?
@@CityNerd It's the area code.
@@CityNerd A "roadstead" or "roads" is a body of water close to the shore that's sheltered from rip currents and the like and safe for ships to drop anchor. Hampton Roads refers to where the James, Elizabeth, and Nansemond Rivers meet the Chesapeake Bay in the middle of the metro area.
This might be my first ever RUclips comment. Love your work. For years I have wanted to see a “top ten places to get off the subway” list for essentially every city with a subway system, which is shockingly impossible to find. You would think Fodor’s or someone would handle that. Alternatively, this could take the form of “top ten cities to visit using only the subway”, where number one would be the city with the most “good” subway stations (presumably based on some sort of adjacent land use “coolness” metric). (Not asking for “top ten fanciest subway stations,” which ok fine, some people might also like that.) In Europe it’s pretty easy to fly in somewhere (say Madrid, for instance) and only use the metro system to get around, because there are so many great places to hop off. Less so in the US. Anyway, there’s my video idea and thanks for all you do.
That would be the coolest guidebook!
Would love to see a video of the top 10 car death cities (or streets)
That is a depressing topic, but $10 says they're all stroads.
I've thought about it -- but that's pretty dark. We all know (or are) people who have lost loved ones to crashes, so it's hard to make it funny/entertaining.
I heard some years ago that Seattle actually tops that list. Seattle has relatively high transit usage for a US city, although you would still find the number of transit commuters to be insignificant in comparison to the total number of commuters, but the main reason is that most of the roads are very old, very steep and weren't really designed for cars. Lots of crazy turns, lots of cliffs, lots of blind alleys and super-steep hills that you will slide you back down uncontrollably if you attempt to drive up them in the ice... Even some state highways, like the Lake Forest Park section of 522, are put in places that are really too narrow and small for the kind of traffic they handle.
The oddest thing I remember from the light rail in Sacramento is that one stop lets riders off onto the tracks of the train going in the other direction. The driver had to wait for the other train to pass before opening the doors.
Thanks as always for the video! I would be interested to see a video about the proposed "tramway" line in Québec City (I'm not sure if it's closer to a streetcar or LRT). The idea is to make the alignment travel along what is currently the busiest bus artery in the city. Travelling this bus line pretty often, there seems to be quite a bit of mid-density housing development along the proposed alignment, so my guess is they've been planning it that way. Would love to hear about anything you might know! (Most of the information I've found online is in French, so that might be a barrier to online research).
I’m excited, even though I’m from Ontario. Quebec City feels like the type of city that would have a tramway.
Ja Morant is definitely electrifying. I'm thankful that Portland's Tri-Met will never be on this list.
I was excited to see this list because I knew Hampton Roads (Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Hampton, etc) would be on the list. So the central city is TECHNICALLY Norfolk, but Virginia Beach is by and far the most populace of all of the cities. One of the main reason the public transit is so in effective is bureaucracy. VB refuses to extend the light rail thru the Town Center and to the beach, even though it would promote tourism. Alternative, I don't know why there have not been expansions into other cities but cost and interests, especially after low ridership of the tide probably aren't helping
So much fun to watch a video where you had do go to galicia in the north-west of spain to find a stadium small enough - and now you‘ve given up on finding one that‘s big enough! Well done as always, I admire your google-maps-streetview-skills!
When I'm afraid of cars while cycling, I'm definitely thinking "Yeah, put me with the buses. I'd much prefer to get hit by one of those".
I suppose that at least with buses they are driven by professional drivers with higher levels of training than your typical motorist and have their livelihoods at stake if something tragic would happen
@@tonywalters7298 Maybe, but they have to drive large vehicles with large blind spots. That's not something someone on a bike would want to worry about.
Yeah, I just don't want to be going 15mph in front of a bus that's trying to go 25mph in its dedicated lane. Seems fraught and totally counterproductive.
The thing though about buses is in most places they don't come that often.
Surprised that Phoenix, Houston, and Las Vegas didn't make the list.
I'd love to see a video about good/bad tourism transportation.
Regarding Cincinnati, the city barely managed to pass a levy that drastically gave them more money. They're going through a "Reinventing Metro" phase and their system has gotten SO much better. Some routes didn't even have Sunday service!
Wow! Both my boyhood home metro area (San Bernardino) and my current metro area (Hampton Roads) made the list. Regarding the central city for Hampton Roads, it should be Norfolk, but Virginia Beach has built a competing downtown area. We live in Smithfield (Ham Capital of the World), which does have bus service to Newport News, but it only operates a few times per day to carry workers to Newport News Shipbuilding and the Smithfield Foods packing plant.
The Ham Capital?!?!?! NEW VIDEO IDEA ALERT!!! And thanks for not shaming me for my San B. pronunciation.
@@CityNerd Thank you for not saying "San Berdoo"!
I'm not sure if I wanted to enjoy the video, or if this particularly improved my quality of life, but it did make my day better and made me feel less bad about living in LA.
10:16 Yyyyyyyyup. The Amtrak connecting bus dropped me off there and I didn't believe them at first.
Woo finally made the list at #10! I live on the grid in Sac and can confirm that that segment of K street is mostly mixed traffic except between 7th and 8th streets, where it's just light rail and walking (if you don't count the walking section through Doco (by the Golden 1 Center where the Kings play). They've talked about banning cars on that street for years it feels like. We've got new Siemens low floor lrt coming soonish (fall 2023?), but the system is mostly slow and inconvenient unfortunately. Transit/biking infrastructure here needs ALOT of work.
It's weird to see those ADA boarding lifts at the stations. I'm like, is this Portland 1999??
@@CityNerd seriously…. Though I think those are all going away with the low floor trains some day
So your telling me Jacksonville is actively trying to make the skyway worse?! They should see if they can upgrade it to a VAL system (seems like the least difficult to do) as those are probably the highest capacity people movers and have been used as full on metros rather successfully.
Yes, they are. Same old same old. The original skyway was just a vanity project meant to show how “futuristic” Jax is, this one is the same way. I swear we have the most incompetent city leaders here. But I guess most people in the US could say that!
San Jose has a combined bus/bike lane. Awesome, particularly in the late evening when the bus frequency is reduced and hordes of bikers (including me & my friends) race down the lane lights blazing, music blasting & fixie acrobats tripping). Fun.
Can confirm the IE has absolutely pitiful public transit, especially outside of the actual city centers of Riverside and San Bernardino. Was surprised to see my hometown featured but then remembered what list this is and then wasn’t surprised at all lol
Hahaha sorry
I am excited for the new arrow line. I use Metrolink and SBX to go to school at cal state and with the new arrow line I can get to work too without a car. I won’t ride the new line but I’ll use the extended Metrolink SB line that ends at downtown Redlands. Doesn’t change the fact that public transit still sucks here but it’s a personal win for me and at least it’s better than nothing
I'm from Louisville, and I love Cincy. Beautiful topography and architecture. Most of the downtown and adjacent Over the Rhine are very walkable.
Dallas has the best rail transit systems (177 miles) in the US Sunbelt. Houston has about 40 miles of light rail, Phoenix is comparably short, and so is Atlanta. The Sunbelt will not support rail transit due to its auto-centric development. But DFW is an exception.
For a Sunbelt metro, Dallas Fort Worth has made a heavy investment in rail transit. The DART rail system is 95 miles, with 60 stations. The TRE commuter rail line has 34 miles of rail with 10 stations. The Denton County A-Train has 21 miles of rail, 5 stations, and the TexRail line has 27 miles and 9 stations. The DART Silver line, 27 miles, with 9 stations, is under construction, connecting the Dallas northern suburbs to DFW airport.
In addition, Dallas has two streetcar lines, one connecting downtown to Uptown Dallas, running antique trolley cars, and another connecting downtown with Bishop Arts district to the south.
Want to live in the Sunbelt without a car? Dallas is arguably the best place you can do it, with its extensive mixed use development next to rail stations. You cannot reach 80% of the metro by rail, but the 20% you can access has everything you need.
No one:
Absolutely no one:
Jacksonville: Sky-train for ants :D
A shared bus/bike lane only works when there are few busses which isn't really what you want, you want a lot of transit. Bicycles and vehicles don't mix. It doesn't matter if it being driven by a "normal" driver or a "professional".
Im glad the DART busses in dallas got a mention. I have yet to actually catch one in a reasonable amount of time
Clicking on the video, I immediately thought of Detroit.
SMART bus system is mediocre, the Detroit People Mover is a joke (and frustrates me because it was supposed to be the downtown-only component of a massive subway metro system.)
And the city is INSANELY spread out.
All side effects of being tied to the Big 3 automakers.
#4 seems kinda low.
Yea I was surprised to not see it in the top 3. We have to be the largest metro area in America without commuter rail to the suburbs. Unacceptable.
Cosplay being construction workers.
The best description of truck posers I've heard in a while.
Looking forward to the "streetcar suburbs" episode!
Fantastic channel! I hope you have already or will cover a city issue/problem/deception that I have noticed in my Fresno/Clovis, California metropolitan area. I heard that Fresno/Clovis ranks 6th in the US for bicycle paths, but I believe this is deceptive. Yes, the cities have the designated bicycle paths, but they do not sweep them, particularly in Fresno. It seems Fresno intentionally does not sweep the bicycle lanes or even only sweeps the main road directing the rocks, glass, and metal into the bicycle lane. It is not uncommon to see 1"-3" size chunks of the pavement from the main road ending up and staying in the bicycle path.
The city only uses the metric of how many miles of bike infrastructure, not how much of that bike infrastructure has active maintenance like cleaning. I wonder if you have information that other cities are doing the same deceptive tactic.
We've got a lot of new bike lanes in San Diego, and they're covered with gravel because the actual streets are still disintegrating. I believe it was all funded by TransNet taxes, but the upkeep is still on the City.
For hampton roads there is no core city. It’s 7 independent cities in one huge metro area. I wish the transportation infrastructure was much better.
I went on a trip to Tampa once and the public transit is just awful. The frequencies are usually only once an hour with very few buses running twice an hour. I always was on a bus in downtown and I asked for a stop and the bus driver didn’t stop
Interesting video, but as you were going through all these "preliminaries," my brain was screaming, "GET ON WITH IT ALREADY."
The Tampa trolley is always packed. Often have to wait for another trolley since they're so full. They need to add some more trolley cars to increase capacity.
Dallas' light rail "isn't very extensive?" I'm experiencing a comprehension error. It's literally the longest LRT system in North America at more than 93 miles (in a metroplex that also has three different commuter rail lines, two different streetcar lines, and two different rail links directly to DFW Airport, as well as a third indirect link). If you're going to dis a Texas city for inadequate rail, take shots at Austin's dinky little commuter rail line (we know, we know), El Paso's short-line heritage streetcar, or San Antonio's nothing-whatsoever.
its literally just freight tracks repurposed iirc
The problem w/ DART is that it misses a lot of the high-density activity centers in the metro area beyond downtown Dallas, that already existed before its construction & have only grown since. Fixing that will require both extensive retrofits of existing lines & a *lot* more new lines built.
For example, I've got family in Plano who live in a high-density block that's geographically closer to the Green Line than to the DART station called "Downtown Plano." It's also not along the planned Silver Line ROW. Closest transit of any kind is the Northwest Plano Park & Ride, which is only served by a handful of infrequent buses.
DART is a gigantic system, but it would need to be a LOT bigger still to capture the kind of transit ridership fraction that systems in smaller cities already serve.
@@applesyrupgaming Only a relatively small part of it. Even if it were all of it, so what? It sure beats replacing the RR ROW with a freeway!
@@jmchristoph You are not wrong. It isn't even close to Legacy Town Center, for one thing. However, considering the size of the metro area and their late start compared to other cities, they've accomplished an impressive feat and funded a great deal of it locally.
DART alone has more rail transit than every other city in Texas combined.
Our state capitol, for example, has ONE 32-mile commuter rail line that offers nine round trips daily. San Antonio has ZERO miles offering ZERO trips.
Dart is hopeless
Detroit checking in here, the people mover is mostly used to avoid paying for absurdly overpriced garage or surface parking downtown, park for free in the Greektown casino garage and pay $2.50 to get wherever you need to go via the people mover instead of paying a slumlord $30 to park in a surface lot closer to your destination.
SMART is actually the Oakland/Macomb county bus line that does have limited service into Detroit along Woodward and Gratiot, Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park are all serviced by DDOT.
Neither service is very good at showing up on time unfortunately, and a lot of lines stop running fairly early in the evening
Q-Line is basically a tourist trap the Illitches conned the tax payers into subsidizing
Ugh, Kansas City's MAX BUS, bad planning, it took away the nearby stop placement for many, and in some cases makes you walk 4 blocks for a bus, talk about exhausting for a person who can walk limited distances. The Streetcar is frequent. But also a joke, you get near River Market end and you have to ride a long way to avoid extra walking. Transit networks here are so bad one hope's to qualify for door to door transportation at double the cost. Then. It's a scheduled by day ahead appointment with no guarantee of being on time,
I lived in Memphis, TN until late 1990. Their bus system was horrible. It consisted of dozens of busses that primarily went to the poorer neighborhoods and brought them to the downtown shopping district. Then there were the busses that returned to the neighborhoods. If you lived on the south side of the city and had a job on the southeast side, you had to catch a bus downtown and transfer onto a bus the went from downtown to the southeast, which meant a two hour commute both morning and evening. There were good east west streets on the southside including Shelby drive and Winchester that could have made the trip in twenty minutes. They had enough streets to make an excellent grid based system but never tried it.
First of all, I LOVE your videos. Second, a few pronunciation tips: 1. the "r" in San Bernardino is silent, and 2. not that I've ever been there, but I'm pretty sure Norfolk is pronounced "nor-fuk"
I don't agree with your statement about Dallas not having an extensive light rail system. It's very extensive, 93 miles. The problem is that it's only super useful for commutes from suburbs to downtown. The trains actually get very crowded during rush hour (pre-pandemic).
As more transit oriented development happens along some of the stations, that is starting to change. Of course the pandemic hurt ridership though. The real issue is that DART expanded super deep into the suburbs and that isn't where you get the most riders for your money... Not to mention a lot of stations have poor land use, and while that is changing it should have been done decades ago. But the system is extensive, it goes all over the place. They launched a new bus network too, designed by Jarret Walker's firm so I'm interested to see how that improves bus ridership.
I agree Connor. I used the TRE to the Green Line for years. A lot of the issues come from gaps from non-Member cities.
So suburb-to-downtown. What about people living in the city (and associated neighbourhoods at/near downtown) - what do they have? Have they been ignored?
@@terrygelinas4593 No, not completely, but the light rail system does miss a lot of the denser parts of Dallas. Not all the dense areas were missed, just some. You still got bus, those denser areas tend to have more frequent buses. To be honest, I don't know if there even is enough room for their light rail in a lot of these areas. Maybe I just don't have a good enough imagination.
They mostly built DART on existing rail right of way, with hopes that economic development would come in areas with a station. So it wasn't about building to the denser areas that exist today, they wanted to build to the dense areas of the future. That has happened where cities have allowed it. They've been slow to update the zoning codes near train stations to encourage mixed use walkable areas. So a lot of the dense areas people live in are appearing near the light rail. Some light rail stations are really close to highways, which sucks because that means there's this barrier that prevents you from walking. It shrinks the amount destinations that can be within walking distance of the station.
If you look at the orange line, they put some stations in empty fields basically. And to be fair, there is some development happening by those stations, but until more of it is finished the orange line will continue to have abysmal ridership. And in the meantime, areas like lower Greenville, West Dallas, North Central Dallas, and East Dallas don't have light rail even though those areas are very dense today. Not 10 years from now, those areas have density right now. And no light rail, just buses
@@connor5890 It begs the question - why do the denser parts have bus and no higher capacity rail or light rail?
@@terrygelinas4593 my only guess is right of way and costs. Right of way would need to be acquired, and these denser areas near Downtown Dallas have the highest land values in the area. DART hasn't deviated from their right of way. Basically, any dense area either that's to already exist along rail right of way or be built.
My guess is that they will serve these denser areas with BRT, given the new CEO's history at other transit agencies that's what I expect. And also, light rail is just really expensive and TxDot just funds highway expansions
I’m surprised Milwaukee didn’t show up. They got a bunch of federal money and decided to build a street car downtown. Cool, but… not useful. The ridership is super low and it’s free to ride, so it’s kind of…how do I say this…stupid.