On the Right Track: The 10 Most Improved Cities In the U.S. for Transit, Walking, and Biking
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- Опубліковано 20 гру 2022
- Today we're looking at the United States' most improved cities when it comes to reducing car dependency. I used census data (American Community Survey) to identify the cities that had improved the most in the percentage of people walking, biking, and taking transit between 2010 and 2019 -- and some of the winners (and LOTS and LOTS of dishonorable mentions) may surprise you!
And, I dig into a bit of research and theorize about what changed over 10-15 years to propel the behavior change in each of the ten cities I identified. The video includes plenty of before-and-after time slider imagery to help illustrate the changes -- and in a lot of cases, we're talking about new density, apartments and condos, and general YIMBY-NIMBY dynamics around walkability and transit-oriented development.
I had a lot of fun making this one -- hope you enjoy!
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- Good Suburbs: • The Best Suburbs In No...
- North America's Best Airport/Rail Connections: • North America's Best A...
- 100K Livestream (top cities where CityNerd viewership originates from!): • 100K Livestream Q&A Wi...
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Resources:
- data.census.gov/table?q=commu...
- www.strava.com/heatmap#12.65/...
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...
- Seattle Subway: www.seattlesubway.org/regiona...
- The Urbanist: www.theurbanist.org/
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Images
- 7 extension opening By Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York - 7 Line Extension Ceremonia Ride, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Second Avenue Subway By PrecipiceofDuck - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- A Red Line train at 5600 West in South Jordan By Garrett - Flickr: 5600 West TRAX station, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Utah Transit Authority UTA TRAX station at the Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA By Ricardo630 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Bluebikes By Edward Orde - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Link LRT at Pioneer Square Station By SounderBruce - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Link LRT at Westlake Station By Sound Transit Special Selection - WE5_Link_2people_0609, CC BY 2.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
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Music:
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I've lived in Seattle since 1984, before the Downtown Transit Tunnel opened. I used to sit on busses stuck in traffic on 3rd Avenue, taking 20-30 minutes to get from James Street to Pike Street. Now, light rail gets me from Pioneer Square to Capitol Hill in 8 minutes. Seeing that kind of transit improvement makes me a fan of urbanism.
I lived in Seattle in 2017. 3rd avenue is never going to change. I've given up.
@@MatthewStidham I forget, was that before or after 3rd Ave was converted to bus-only?
@@pauld2810 after. Buses still get stuck on 3rd avenue because they just don’t have close to enough capacity to carry the demand.
@@MatthewStidham Huh
When they opened the light rail's Roosevelt station...and having a quick trip by a bike lane to it...made a lot more seattle incredibly accessible
As a lifelong Chicagoan, I can say that over the years, our public transportation has improved. Not only by access but by hosting events like the Holiday train and bus. Decorating the buses and trains, Santa driving, elves with gifts, and Christmas music, the kids loved it.
That's such a cool thing to do that can make public transportation a little more enjoyable
Take the redpill, adopt to the values. Of Democratic Republicans
I grew up in chicago and the cta made me realize Santa isn't real because why would he be stuck with rails when santa sleigh can fly.
Even the countless kids for whom those are not the default traditions? I suspect they felt Othered. Again.
As an adult, I lose my shit on the holiday train. It’s so nice and fun!!
Friendly neighborhood Seattle tech bro here. What made me care about urbanism so much was simply moving to Seattle. I realized how much better life could be by not being car dependent. Seattle is good but has a long way to go. the strides they have made should be commended and I think myself and others just REALLY want to see the momentum continue. it behooves us to be active and keep the pressure up.
I think a lot of people are in the same boat as you; they need to move somewhere with good transit in order to appreciate and have a desire for it. People here in Texas always get so mad when I talk about how I hate cars and I think it’s simply because they don’t understand and can’t relate.
@@austinw5622to them its like saying you hate food because you need one to survive. I live in a city where most people use public transit and opinions on cars are a lot less positive here
The first place I went carless was in Seattle and my stress levels dropped immediately - I did bounce around Ballard, West Seattle, and Green Lake though, so I wasn't too far from downtown.
I was also carless in New York (of course), and I'm trying to go carless now in Cincinnati, though this may be a bigger challenge.
And BTW, I got nothing against cars. I loved having one in Montana, for example. Having a car in a bustling city though is just a big effing hassle - parking, insurance, fender benders, road rage, car break-ins, TRAFFIC. It's just not fun, and I don't see how anyone prefers that lifestyle.
Living in Seattle for almost the entirety of my life I think what helps push this need for transit and walkability is that there's no room for an I-5 expansion and we've watched traffic get more and more horrendous so really our only option is to improve our transit system since we can't just build more freeways like places in California and TX.
A lot of the traffic is due to incompetent road construction. Rather than going transit first, they decided to try to force people out of there cars and onto bikes and buses. Traffic was always going to get worse, what with the increase in population and no room for more roads, but city planning policy made it worse than it needed to be.
one more lane!!!
As someone who moved from Houston to the Seattle area this past year, I’d say migration is a not inconsequential part of this. My wife and I made a conscious decision to move to our area from Texas. Since coming here I’ve talked with a fair few people (fellow teachers) who have mentioned that they’ve noticed people leaving Washington for places like Idaho and Texas for political reasons but also people coming from those states to Washington. And for those wondering, I don’t miss Houston for a second. My wife and I joke about, “Wow, there are actually sidewalks here.”
I visited Huston 20 years ago and stayed with a friend. I ended up getting stuck on the buses for 8 hours because none of the drivers had a clue even the general direction of where I wanted to go.
At one point I got off the bus in a black neighborhood, and everyone started spitting on the ground at the sight of me.
This was before I had a cell phone, so had to wait until I could get to a pay phone and my friend could pick me up after work from some random street corner.
My friend said he knew an amazing Italian spot for dinner, and when we pulled up, it was the Olive Garden.
For lunch one day, I went to a Korean takeout spot across the street from his apartment and got chicken & pepper (literally just plain chicken with green peppers and sauce on rice) and my friend's reaction was, "what is THAT??"
I haven't been back or talked to the guy since.
@@AB-wf8ek you never talked to this friend again because they lived in Houston?
@@impyrobot Although I knew the guy from my home town, I realized how ignorant he was, and subtly racist in general (there were other instances in the past where he expressed disgust for the simplest Asian foods, for context I'm Asian American). At the same time he lives in a horrible city to travel to, so I had no interest in maintaining communication. It was mutual though because he never reached out to me after that time either.
I was on a bus and a visitor from Texas was saying how impressed they were that cars actually stopped at crosswalks 🤦♂️
Would be interesting to analyze changes in WA and ID over a similar time frame. If people are self-sorting between the two states, it should definitely show up in the data!
List of Cities:
10: New York City 4:30
9: Salt Lake City 5:13
8: Boston 5:52
7: Portland 6:25
6: Jersey City 7:20
5: Fremont, CA 8:05
4: Chicago 8:48
3: San Francisco 9:45
2: Oakland, CA 13:20
1: Seattle 14:40
Oakland is so fun to bike!🥰🥰🥰
Missing Raleigh NC. Amazing transformation in the last 25 years.
Thank you
SPOILERS
@@TheMisterGriswold No.
I was biking into Boston for most of your study period. The changes have been dramatic. I remember listening incredulously when Mayor Menino said he was going to turn Boston into a bike friendly city. But 15 years later… It’s made a huge difference. The T on the other hand, has taken a real hit due to the debt it took on due to the big dig.
The big dig was necessary to get the cars off the surface. It freed up a lot of space on the city surface that is used by pedestrians and cyclists.
@@JohnFromAccounting What you called out is an improvement, yes, but it was not *necessary*. Investing the ludicrous amount of money piped into the Big Dig into the MBTA instead would have been much better bang for buck.
super grateful to the highway protests in the 70s
@@notstarboardIt was pretty necessary to move the city forward. It was just horribly mismanaged and a complete embarrassment on behalf of the logistics.
Went from a two car Texas suburbanite to a zero car urban dweller thanks to your channel (and a couple others)…never going back to that kind of sprawl.
As a Seattliete, I was not surprised at all by this! We've made great improvements throughout all and many are still along the way. Urbanism is embedded within the culture here. Seattle has many walkable neighborhoods even outside of the downtown core which helps solidify the cities views on urbanism.
I have a friend that lives by the fremont troll and I always love visiting because there so much to see/do nearby, even though it’s a few miles north of downtown. Same goes for my friend in Roosevelt.
I was surprised when I came to Seattle from NY, while it’s not perfect the piers, Fremont, even areas like Queen Anne have decent walkability.
I tried to get shots from different parts of the city but there are just so many great neighborhoods to choose from!
@@CityNerd On the off chance you ever do another video of Seattle I’m more than willing to take some pics and videos and send them to you to use.
I moved into one of the neighborhoods with one of the new light rail stops prior to its opening and it's really incredible how much growth we've had in just a few years. I'm able to get just about anywhere north or south by light rail or bus, though I do prefer my e-bike since transfers can be hit or miss. Going east/west is still a bit of a challenge sometimes, but has gotten a lot better by bus. I'm really loathe to go back to more car-dependent areas of the country now that I'm graduating grad school. It's nice to be among people who also care about improving the city and making it nicer and more equitable to live in.
So about 1% of Seattle's total population watched at least one of your videos.. considering the size of the city that's impressive
I think one factor is that a local publication, The Urbanist, (of which a bit is shown in the video when talking about Seattle) often shares youtube videos, including from this channel. I have no idea how many people read The Urbanist, but that must help steer seattleites here
Something like that! Or it was my family members watching my videos over and over
@@patjohbra that definitely sounds like a factor, if a local news organization regularly shares videos then its logical that any videos it shared would get a disproportionate viewership bump. (Obviously scaled by its audience size and general interest of its audience in the topic)
@@CityNerd I’m from seattle and I love your videos!
As someone who lives in Seattle (and is one of the aforementioned tech workers), I think Seattle has really gotten a lot right with transit. They are certainly not perfect in many ways, but prioritizing transit efforts and allowing for extensive development in the central urban zones has really helped a ton. Also, I know the reputation of tech workers is that they are rich and kind of out of touch with a lot of the more general needs, but in my experience everyone I work with is hugely in favor of the transit changes. Most people walk or bike to work (and are massively opposed to changes that would require us to drive), and people in general love living in dense, lively urban environments. I for one own a car, but I mostly bike or walk to places within the city (weather permitting), and use transit if going to big events, downtown, etc. I previously lived in Phoenix and then Houston, so this is the first walkable city I've ever lived in and I absolutely love it.
As I guy who grew up in a mid size Northeastern city , the first time I went down South to major "cities" like Houston, Miami, Atlanta and Charlotte and noticed dozens of neighborhoods with no sidewalks, even on the major streets, I couldn't believe it 😮
I think that a lot of it has to do with Jarret Walker. He's not the only genius in the world, but he is pretty much the only person trumpeting freedom and opportunities. Commenters, like Not Just Bikes and the guy from Calgary, and other planners, tend to focus on technology and following rules.
We can see the rules mindset with the current Surrey BC short term plans, where the goal is to paint as many lines as possible to encourage cycling. On principal, this sounds good, but as a driver, this makes me want to move further away and then drive in. I don't want to cycle on bike paths on busy roads. I want to cycle on traffic calmed streets to connect to park paths that take me to traffic calmed town centres.
This might sound counter intuitive, but I think that the trick is to allow parking on both sides for most places, and then allows cars and bikes to share a calmed single lane. There would need to be space for passing.
how is everything with fentanyl and homeless crisis? Is seattle doing a good work to solve it ?
@@nicedoppy2077 Stay on topic, You want to talk about drugs, plenty of other videos to comment oc.
@@tomfields3682 .....its not one social issue that affects the urbanism and development of the cities all the epidemic fentanyl issue that destroy the public parks, parking zones, sidewalks and streets....
Dear Sir, I am writing from India and I wholeheartedly agree with almost all your ideas. I also enjoy your easygoing deadpan humour. I lived in Seattle without a car from the mid 1980's for nearly three decades. I can say with confidence that one of the main reasons that I could retire in India (albeit with a limited income) was due to the simple fact that I never gave into the temptation of buying an automobile. I also participated actively with other transit oriented citizens in advocating for Sound Transit light rail, which faced a lot of headwind from powerful real estate lobby, both within the city and especially in the wealthier eastside suburbs. But due to the vision of the citizens and the firmness of some of the local elected officials, the light rail has became a reality. I rejoice when I see from afar that how things are changing for the better in Seattle. Keep up the good work.
Thank you for your selfless service sir. Wish more people thought like you.
Thank you!
stop calling people sir.
Moving to Seattle is what got me interested in this topic and how I found your channel. Living my entire life in a CA suburb, I never understood how important a car free lifestyle was until I made the move and sold my car.
Why is a "car free lifestyle" important? I much prefer living in a more open area then a jam-packed, crowded city with everyone living on top of each other. Spending more money for less living space and less privacy doesn't sound particularly attractive.
@@icy1007 to each their own. For me, I just like the idea of not being stuck in traffic for a decent part of my day. Doing errands when I'm walking or biking is much more pleasant and faster (of course assuming the city is built for it)
@@icy1007 this is only the case if the city isn't built for walkability.
Only reason why cities feel so cramped is because so much of it is dedicated to cars (wide streets and ludicrous amounts of parking lots that are vacant for 60% of their life).
It is still a valid desire to want a home to yourself but you have to realize that we do not have the freedom to choose between a wide variety of housings because of our zoning laws forcing only single family homes to be build able in a wide area.
@@giraoshaw If the zoning laws where you live aren't acceptable then people should lobby to get them changed and/or elect people who will make them better.
@@icy1007 we do. It's just that something that is objectively better for everyone has gotten politicized to the point where you're seen as a [insert far left wing boogeyman word] by those who are aligned with parties funded by oil and gas
Wake up babe, new CityNerd video just dropped
Wake up babe let’s lake the metro to the cool new brunch place in the pedestrian street
@@MagicjavaGames or we could walk or bike
I live in Seattle and once I bought an E-bike, it really changed my life. Even if you have a car and are commuting intra-city, an E-bike is superior. It's just faster in all cases and much less stressful than driving. I own a car but my bike is my primary mode of transportation. My car is mainly for traveling out of town to go hiking and roam around the state.
Happy to see that Chicago is 3rd on your list in per capita viewership. Hopefully it means that the desire here for dense, walkable, carfree communities is bigger than it feels. Really stung when our mayor last year claimed that Chicago is a “car city”. Hopefully we can turn it around
@Ryan Tripple Mayor Lightfoot is clueless she's from Ohio.
you don't want to completely push cars out of Chicago
@@StayFreshMyFriends we took all the street parking out of the loop and it's been amazing, so yeah we do. Suburbanites can park at their Metro stations.
I can’t wait till she’s out, she is gonna ruin the city if she gets re-elected a second term.
@@annapavfan4680 good news!
I'm both thrilled that Seattle's metrics are on the rise and a little horrified that we topped this list, given the below-expectations execution on high-impact projects (City Connector trolley downtown, constant escalator breakdowns on light rail, and surface freeway where the viaduct was). That said, credit to our new Director of Transportation - Greg Spotts seems motivated to steer the city in a positive direction.
Strange how people talk about a "surface highway". Have you seen what's been constructed? Its 4 lanes with a turn pocket for the majority of the corridor, it's only the last 4 blocks by the ferry dock that has ferry-holding lanes and transit only lanes where the roadway is large, but it has signals every block, so hardly a "freeway".
@@absea7918 Yeah, I think the project will be a lot more popular once people understand it, including the fact that the entire old Alaskan ROW is basically being rebuilt as public space right now, for much of that length.
@@absea7918 While certainly not a freeway, four lanes with a turn pocket is still more capacity than is necessary for Alaskan Way. Two of those lanes are unnecessary.
@@absea7918 I think the objections generally center around the idea that we dug a tunnel to remove the viaduct, but still have a 4+ lane roadway with bike/pedestrian routing that is de-prioritized over cars (and has to cross the street twice). Lots of improvements over the viaduct era, but still some places where we're baking in cars as top priority for decades to come.
My thoughts exactly. Glad that we're improving, kinda shocked that we topped the list.
It'd be really cool to see some deep dive videos. Take a city that's trying but failing to be less car dependent, see what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. Like you mentioned, LA is trying, but it's failing badly. It would be fascinating to see more detail of how and where they could conceivably improve.
7:55 I believe has the essence of the answer: Allowing higher density in the places that are served by transit. They are building out their transit now, so they just have to make sure the land uses next to the stations encourage alternative means (and probably impose anti-parking measures, similar to Seattle creating parking maximums near their light rail stations).
As someone who lived in LA for 2 years until the pandemic, I saw the good and the bad. I took the E line almost daily. The transit network is decent, and there are a lot of walkable neighborhoods. But ridership was falling even before COVID and the recovery is still being stymied by crime and homelessness. Seeing a situation that feels unsafe is a weekly occurrence, and if you're on the B line, or in some stations, it feels super sketchy. There's drug use everywhere. LA's transit agency is trying but the rest of the city needs to crack down and commit to making transit feel safe.
Honestly 78% personal car share is a lot better than a lot of places that are 90% or higher personal car modal share
I'd like to see a comparison between two cities, an american one and a european one, like Portland Or, vs Stuttgard Ge I think are pretty similar city sizes. things like Comparison of mass transport, biking, walkability, housing density, miles driven per household, % incomes spent on transportation, % income spent on housing etc.
@@Jack-fw4mw California just passed a bill to eliminate minimum parking requirements for developments near transit centers so I’m hoping that will help!
I think there are a number of different reasons why Seattle is on the top of this list:
1) We've always had a strong appreciation for the outdoors, and this has translated into bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
2) Like a lot of West Coast cities, we grew up after the automobile. There isn't that much that is urban and old. Thus we care a lot about urban issues because we have to (in contrast, folks in Boston may yawn about some of things we are building).
3) We got in the middle of an urban/transit cycle. A few things happened at roughly the same time. First, there was a big increase in housing within the city itself (instead of the suburbs). Amazon had a lot to do with it, because unlike Microsoft, they are located right in the city. But there has been a move towards the city for a while, and Seattle just got caught up in it. Second, our subway finally connects the piece they should have started with (downtown to the UW). The buses still carry most of the transit riders, but this greatly sped up trips, and allowed the bike service to be redirected to other areas, increasing frequency. Bus service also got better. For reasons I won't go into, they had a proposal to significantly increase bus funding, and it passed by a large margin. Seattle (and Washington State) has a terrible tax structure, so this was just happenstance -- a rare opportunity to invest in things that people really want.
4) We are a fairly nerdy city, and a lot of the urbanist issues are nerdy.
10. New York 4:25
9. Salt Lake City 5:15
8. Boston 5:56
7. Portland 6:28
6. Jersey City 7:33
5. Fremont 8:13
4. Chicago 9:00
3. San Francisco 9:45
2. Oakland 13:28
1. Seattle 14:46
Thanks. Introduction is too long.
Thanks 😊
Thank U!!
I went to Seattle this summer. I'm from Chicago and you can tell, they're on their A game. Huge props to them for all they've done and are looking to complete.
@Seth Deegan Seattle transit system is light years behind Chicago's.
Man, (from Seattle), I love Chicago. Only having our cute lil' light rail, I love Chicago trains
Seattlelite here, Chicago is pretty nice but those trains made me nauseous
@@ralphjohnson3202 I think it's only because the light rail's expansions and developments are recent and still underway, whereas Chicago's main L system has been in existence for a long time now and there aren't really going to be any dramatic changes other than the red line improvements. Bus system I can't really compare since I mostly take trains but I find both cities very competent with their buses.
@@CarsoroniAndCheese Walking down 3rd Avenue in downtown Seattle makes me nauseous.
It's exciting living in Seattle and seeing transit and bike infrastructure spring up before my very eyes.
This is the perfect palate cleanser for that lifestyle center video....
"Palate cleanser," haha. Just wait til next Wednesday!
And cost of living skyrocketing as well there to go along with it.
@@icy1007 crazy, people want to live in cities with improving infrastructure
@@personncfdhbhbv - Sure and also price out a huge percentage of the existing population by increasing the cost of living by 3x+. Gentrification is great, right?
We live in Charlotte, NC but are moving to Seattle in the spring so we can be in a city with better biking infrastructure, better transit, and more walkable neighborhoods. Whenever we visit, we are in awe of how many cyclists there are commuting to and from work. It's awesome 👏
As a Charlotte native, it's sad to see you go, but it's completely understandable, the NCDOT just wants to keep expanding 77 and 85 and do nothing about transit, plus the NIMBYs in Lake Norman and South Charlotte.
The people up there kinda suck. Don't you let them get you down. Tell 'em so shove it.
@@peterjv8748 how?
You don’t want to move to Seattle.
@@Hat65 little late for that but thanks for the heads up. I hope you don’t hate it that much or find the right place for you :)
As a Seattle resident for the past 20 years, I was really hoping we'd show up on this list but started off thinking we weren't going to make the cut. Like many Seattleites, I've always been cynical about our "commitment" to improving our city - we tend to be loud with our opinions, protests, and political campaigns, but then we show our hypocritical reluctance to vote for change and reduce our dependence on cars (although to be fair, our numerous hills really do make walking and biking challenging for anyone with even a slight lack of athleticism or physical disability). So I was pleasantly surprised to see us at #1 and glad to see that the recent investment in infrastructure is actually having an impact beyond political posturing. Makes me want to continue supporting the expanding light rail (which will soon open new east and north branches) and sheltered bike lanes! Thanks for putting together this great analysis!
I am honestly shocked that Minneapolis didn't make the list. So much has gone into all three modes and the wayfinding is excellent. Also, kudos to my favorite city, Chicago. They've done so much for bicyclists over the past decade, largely lead by my old professor at UIC 🙂
I would be interested in the stats. Like he says it's not about building bike lanes but more about getting people out of cars.
I feel like if the comparison was 2000 and 2019, not 2010 and 2019, Minneapolis would definitely be on the list. I think the turning point was when the first light rail line opened in 2004. Maybe it's just my own perspective though, given that I rode the light rail daily from 2004 to 2008 and have been mostly working from home or within walking distance ever since. I know a lot has happened in the past decade though with the addition of the Green Line plus the rapid bus transit lines, and of course a lot more bike lanes.
There is a lot of new bike infra here in Minneapolis, but actual mode share numbers have barely budged. We still massively privilege driving, especially in the downtown.
@@randompersonontheinternet8790 The data are the data. I linked it in the description. Minneapolis is down a bit on transit over the study period, up a bit on walking and biking. Austin down over a point on transit, up a tiny bit on walking and biking. Like I say in the video, does it really matter that you spent billions on infrastructure if it doesn't change people's behavior?
I'm from St. Paul, and I was an avid transit user when I lived in the area not too long ago. Most people I knew were not. And for good reason. The frequency on almost all buses is miserable. Despite striking down single family zoning, we have these vast residential neighborhoods within city limits (which are charming to me, but they aren't the urbanist ideal). The Green Line is not safe, I've had some pretty harrowing experiences there that don't compare to anything I've experienced on any other transit line in any other city and I have a lot of friends with similar stories. I do think our bike culture is pretty noteworthy but transit and walkability are meh. They are moving in the right direction but I don't think we are gonna see it show up in the data for another 5-10 years tbh
are you in Mexico? Because that yellow tint be looking strong!
he's in breaking bad season 4 episode 8
@@Zx-hy9ys it’s even worse in Sodeebergs Traffic. Mexico is really yellow and DC is blue
Chicago's bike infrastructure - at least along the Milwaukee blue line corodor - got so much better in my 5-8 years living along that line. The 606 was a very nice addition. Rarely bike in the loop but there are biking corodors that work pretty well. It feels remarkably more bike friendly than when I first moved to the city around 10 years ago.
I've lived in Seattle for 22 years now - basically moved here because I thought this city had the best growth prospects for the next 50 years and would adapt the best to climate change. Given the number of people moving to Seattle, the growth in car traffic could not be sustained. Light rail, ok'ish bus service really helped. But I think allowing more building in areas served by light rail through out the city and in the downtown, South Lake Union area is the biggest contributor to increasing urbanism. Another factor is that a lot of the people moving to Seattle are from even larger cities (especially the Indian and Chinese tech workers) who seem to prefer living in livelier urban areas. Increasing transit, walking, and biking is the only way for the city to grow sustainably. Next year, I'm moving into a house one block from a light rail station in a very walkable neighborhood - very excited for that. In good weather I still plan to bike to work to the SLU area since it would only be 20-25 minutes each way - the same as the light rail. With all the new bike trails, I'm biking more than ever before 350-500 miles a month late spring to early fall. I'm hoping more cities follow Seattle's example in this trend of densification.
Hopefully they’re gonna pass that state law allowing building duplexes triplexes etc. in all single family only zones.
@@genrum4803 same. especially considering that single family housing was made in part because of racism. if seattle wants to become the diverse haven that it strives to be known for, getting rid of single family zoning will definitely have to be a start
How is it like living in Seattle these days? When I was a child/toddler back in the late 2000s or so, people talked about it like it's the best city in USA or something? But now, I hear lots of complaints and lots of negativity about the city (something about being LA or SF 2.o).
Just a curious question.
I visited the Seattle area recently and I loved that I didn't need to rent a car. You can just take Link light rail to and from the airport right into downtown. The bus system is extensive and very frequent, with 3rd avenue in the heart of the city now exclusively bus traffic. I felt safe walking around (as long as you have some common sense situational awareness) despite the bad reputation the city gets on the news. I love visiting transit friendly cities because I feel like I can really get a feel for the city's culture and dynamic that you cannot get by renting a car, and Seattle really impressed me with its public transit infrastructure. Plus you save a lot of money not renting a car when visiting these transit-friendly cities.
Local news massively overplays how unsafe it is here. Yes, you do need to keep your wits around you just like in any major city, but it's really not that bad. I have worked as a stagehand who commutes in and out of Seattle into multiple areas in Seattle for over 20 years now. I've seen the changes, and it's just not that bad for those of us who actually go into these places.
Don't get me wrong, there are places where if it's late at night I will walk to a different bus stop and stay away from certain places as a woman, but the news absolutely overblows everything. Especially lately, where for a supposedly liberal city, it sure is extremely hand wringing about crime and not having enough cops according to the news.
@@Cherijo78 Yeah it's a fairly similar story in Portland too. I recently traveled there and used a bike/transit/walking all around the city with no real issues. The homeless situation is tragic to see though, but not unsafe. They just ask for food or cigarettes.
that works as long as you don't leave Seattle proper and are only going to the most popular places.
I moved to the Seattle area partially to be surrounded by people who value walkability, bike-ability, transit, and environmental awareness - and it's awesome to see that represented here in the data!
I live in NYC. I haven’t owned a car in 12 years. I skate bike walk and take the subway
One thing I love about this channel is that it’s not just a typical “top ten” video. It gives such great commentary not just about the city he’s talking about at the moment, but typically he contrasts it with honorable and/or dishonorable mentions. The semi-frequent Cheesecake Factory jokes also help!
I think you mean fine dining establishments!
I have never actually seen a cheesecake factory and assumed it was a fake restaurant for the big bang theory until i watched this channel. (I'm from NY state if that explains it)
@@jasonreed7522 I thought Cheesecake Factory was everywhere!
I think people in Seattle care so much about transit and urbanism at least partially because traffic is so incredibly awful, and has been for decades. This seems especially true to me since, unlike many places, freeway expansion is basically impossible due to the limitations of geography.
I mean they voted for the monorail what, four times?
All it takes is sitting at the same gridlocked streetlight for over an hour to understand why driving in a bottleneck shaped city isn't the best option. I think almost all of us have experienced that exact situation. We've known a subway is going to be required for an actual functioning city since at least the early 90s when traffic really got critically bad.
Correct. And if you look at the massive 8 lane stroad which. they built across their waterfront, which is hostile to pedestrians and bicyclists, it becomes very clear that Seattle is only doing this because the traffic in that city is on par with 405 in LA (as someone who grew up in Washington State with my great grandparents in LA, that's my experience driving in both cities). Then compare the waterfront stroad with the Embarcadero changes in San Francisco, and the capacity of Link with the new transit options in the other cities on this list, and that's everything you need to know.
@@MatthewStidham Are you talking about Alaskan way? Seems like it's still under construction, and has four lanes for cars, not eight, plus broad pedestrian boulevard on the waterfront, and they're building a protected bike lane. I haven't lived in Seattle for years, but this sure doesn't sound like an 8 lane stroad.
@@bjf10 guess it is only 4. When I walked across it felt like 8 because of all the continued removal of the old viaduct which still separates downtown from the waterfront.
Nah. Not partially. Seattle cares about transit and urbanism. /
My thoughts on why Seattle is so represented on your channel is that people who live around urbanist ideas like what you find in Seattle are more aware of urban design by exposure, versus more car-dependent locations in the U.S. where many people are completely unaware of urbanist principles.
Hello! I am a military spouse and a mom to 3 young kids. Our family has lived around the world for the past 19 years. However, my husband is nearing the end of his career and pretty much everyday I wonder where we're going to settle down. Your videos have been very helpful. I appreciate all of the time and energy you put into making them and I find them very valuable. Thank you so much:)
I’m currently in my third year perusing a BLA in Landscape Architecture at Penn State and the Seattle grass-roots effort for urbanism shines through my professors. Many of them are from or worked in Seattle on projects in the 2010’s to increase density and walkability of the city.
I've lived in Seattle all of my life and I'm incredibly happy about us ranking 1st. I'm also elated to hear the amazing experiences people have had in my city that I've called home since, well, forever. Seattle wasn't always the walkable city it is now and I do remember that fondly. I'd visit the waterfront very frequently as a kid and I hated the viaduct (this was around 2009-2011). The streets were also far more crowded from what I can recall. Now as a young adult I love taking the Sounder from Auburn (near where I live) and catching a ride into the city with not having a car. I love walking thru my city in the summer because just comes alive and you cannot grasp the beauty of Seattle when your crammed in a car.
Here's to another decade of improvements to Seattle. Super excited for the expansions of the Light Rail and much, much more.
I love taking the light rail up to Seattle and wandering during the summer on those super long sunny days. Can't be beat!
Here in Denver, e-scooters have become, since their introduction in 2018, a really popular mode of transportation. On average, 17,000 rides are taken daily. The city's micro-mobility dashboard estimates electric scooters have replaced about 4.2 million automobile trips on Denver’s busiest streets. But we're so spread out as an urban center that the car still rules.
mode share for walking and biking have increased quite a bit, but unfortunately transit mode share in Denver actually peaked in 2014. As the city has continued to grow, RTD hasn’t been able attract and/or keep new riders due mostly to frequency and reliability problems (but also because they don’t operate late enough service)
@@ianmcleod48 And, I'd add, they're obsession with park n' ride instead of TOD...though that is slowly getting better.
As a Chicagoan I can confirm that although there’s a LONG way to go, compared to 2015 when I first moved here 1) more people are now living downtown including myself; 2) there are now a bike lane network which wasn’t the case and many more are biking; 3) the CTA (“L” and bus) has made some good improvements. The most noticeable difference is definitely the number of people biking. And bikers are increasingly vocal about the safety of bike lanes. Our genius of a mayor Lori Lightfoot recently parked her car on a bike lane to get donuts and caused quite a stir, “let them eat cake” style. I couldn’t imagine this would’ve even made the news back in 2015.
We definitely are getting there, but all the suburban people like myself would love to see a train that connects the suburbs. Especially with the Bears moving to Arlington Park, the CTA should capitalize and make a semicircle shaped line of some kind.
As someone who has lived in Chicago, I do agree that I have been seeing a lot of recent improvements. Unfortunately though, the blue line has gotten so much worse. The trains are far and few in between and the signs are never correct for when the lines are coming, especially going into the Loop on the south end.
Lightfoot is most likely a one term mayor, amazing how she's managed to anger every single constituency in the city.
To be fair to Lori, she's done such a terrible job as mayor that anything she does could make the news because nobody on any side of any issue likes her
@@Grant-dx3qt Amen.
4:26 - New York
5:20 - Salt Lake City
5:54 - Boston
6:27 - Portland
7:20 - Jersey City
8:04 - Fremont
8:50 - Chicago
9:43 - San Francisco
10:42 - Dishonorable mentions
13:22 - Oakland
14:30 - Seattle
Great video! You’ve earned my sub, thanks!
Anecdotally witnessing changes in Jersey City over the last ten years has been wild. I remember some of those towers you showed going up and the change in land use has been wild.
I've been going to Jersey City a lot lately because I've made new friends out there (I presently live in Brooklyn). I will say--there is so little character in the area around Newport PATH station going south toward Grove Street PATH station. The developers tore down all the 19th century warehouses that had some character and put up these very deracinated, bland towers that remind me too much of China (lived there for a while). There's no character. It's all suburban bland. It's only when you walk west of Grove Street PATH station that neighborhoods start to get a bit more character.
I just read something about the river restoration going on there too, seems to be a lot happening.
@@todddammit4628 lots of bike infrastructure additions in the downtown too. The big issue at the minute is what's looking to be a battle with the state over turnpike expansion. I don't know what's possessed the state to toy with the idea but they want to expand the turnpike where it feeds into the Holland Tunnel in the middle of downtown. The mayors in the area are going ballistic.
@@evilgenius919 Everyone should be. 10 billion is insane to spend on making the tunnels the bottleneck even moreso than they are. That money could vastly improve NJtransit rail services, and expanding bus service.
@@Joesolo13 agreed it really is an absolutely nuts choice
I've lived in the Puget Sound region (south King County) for the last 44 years. The changes in transportation infrastructure towards non-automotive modes have been rather remarkable and become more so the closer you get to Seattle proper. As an avid road cyclist, it's been beyond welcome. What's interesting is the carping by many people about the "war on cars" being waged by local governments. Give me a break, already.
I feel like this explains how the last few years of my life have went since moving to Seattle. I'm from Philly and grew up around amazing rail transit, so I've always loved it, but something about moving to Seattle right before the pandemic really got me invested in urbanism. It's awesome to be in a city where people are passionate about transit, and despite my regrets about how bus-based our system is rather than rail, the buses are much more frequent, clean, and pleasant than buses in Philly were. Being comfortable with taking the bus regularly here gives me a feeling of freedom I haven't experienced before. I no longer feel this barrier towards going anywhere, thinking about traffic, parking, etc. Not to mention I can go out for drinks without worrying about how to get home. I'm greatly looking forward to more trains and RapidRide buses in the future, and hoping for more widespread bike infrastructure too.
How come you aren't using light rail more? It now connects Downtown, Capitol Hil, UW, the U District, Roosevelt and Northgate via subway. I think it's a great rail system plan and I can't wait for it to expand.
Urban Planning consultant who works for the city of Chicago here: Thanks for the shout out! Big things are coming!
Great video. My thoughts on Seattle is that it has a high tech sector that attracts younger motivated people that like the urban living without a car. I also wonder if proximity to Vancouver BC has an effect. Seattle does look to vancouver for inspiration. When I was in planning school on Vancouver we hosted students from UW and they wanted to see the urbanism and transit infrastructure. They hosted us a year later.
I just wish Seattle would have looked to Vancouver for inspiration for the waterfront, but no.
@@jazzcatjohn Also SkyTrain. Seattle really needs proper grade-separated rapid transit instead of streetcars.
Yeah, I think there's something to this.
@@HNLTransit Other than the five miles through Rainier Valley, the light rail is either above or below ground. They did at least learn from that section and have been building the rest of it out as grade separated. I'll give them that. The two streetcar lines however are more for short trips and moving tourists around Downtown/ID/Capitol Hill and needs to be connected, but they screwed that up.
BC and Washington should look into a high-speed rail line connecting these 2 cities. It would make the best walkable west coast cities better connected.
Would love to see a discussion about Portland's approach to planning and how one can promote pro-urbanism at the local level! But I'm not biased at all as a bike commuter living in PDX
i love visiting portland! the only major concern i’d have about moving there is infrastructure resilience. my understanding is that basically any large structure built before the mid90s is likely to collapse when the big one hits 😳
Haha. It's boring but important stuff -- would be challenging to make a video out of it!
@@CityNerd I think there's a craving for exactly this kind of thing, specific actions one can take that can move the needle towards urbanist ideals and YIMBYism.
@@Arc125 I definitely would like to see it, as someone who moved to Portland with a top priority of it being carless living. I live on sw 4th and want to see him talk about the plan he said he personally contributed to on 4th
Long term Portland resident who had to move to Austin for family matters. One thing that drives urbanism in Portland is the hellscape that is the Portland traffic. I was returning to Austin last month and sat next to a guy who was returning to LA after a week working in Beaverton; he said he was overjoyed to go home to where the traffic was normal.
I moved just recently from riverside county area in ca to Worcester MA I've noticed the east coast is pushing for a walkable cities more then I ever saw in ca . I think that one of the reason why i love living out here .
I miss walkable cities. I live in the LA area and hate it. Despite wise sidewalks in a lot of areas, the area isn't what I'd consider walkable.
I really miss new england man, like the bay area is just so dry and desolate and lifeless. That entire area is designed and owned by sociopaths. It's like if you asked Patrick Bateman to design you his ideal city, that's what san Jose would be. A fraudulent, perfectly sunny, never rainy, chokingly dry expanse of lifeless sterile concrete. It has everything you would ever need to escape the human experience entirely. To refine yourself into a capital maximizing machine indifferent to human connection and desires.
Watching this video on a Seattle bus while feeling good about the #1 spot.
While I have only lived in Boston since 2016, I did periodically visit during my childhood. As for improvements to the bicycle network, many streets saw the introduction of painted bicycle gutters in the '00s and early '10s, and these gutters were slowly transformed into protected cycle lanes.
Also, the burying of I-93 probably also helped a bit.
As for specific improvements during the time I'vs lived in Boston,
*Columbus Ave by Northeastern University went from four car lanes to three, and got protected bicycle lanes
*Longfellow bridge went from four car lanes to two, and got protected bicycle lanes
*Massachusetts Ave near the Christian Science Center lost onstreet parking on the northbound side, in exchange for a protected cycle lane
*Massachusetts Ave near Berklee moved its onstreet parking to the road side of the cycle lane (thus, allowing for those lanes to be protected)
*Tremont St got a protected cycle lane thru downtown (from Government Center to the pass over I-90), tho, this was done during the pandemic. Tremont was all sharrows in 2019.
*Atlantic Ave got a protected cycle lane from South Station to the North End
*Beacon St and Arlington St got protected cycle lanes for the portion of the streets running alongside Boston Public Gardens
*Commonwealth Ave was given protected cycle lanes from Kenmore Sq to Packard's Corner (tho these were not in place until 2019).
*And most recently, the Mass Ave bridge was reduced from four car lanes to two, allowing protected cycle lanes to be implemented. This was completed in October of 2022.
In addition to all these specific improvements, a bunch of dense mixed-use neighborhoods have further densified, including the Seaport, Fenway/Kenmore, the North End, and Kendall Sq (even tho Kendall is in Cambridge, it is immediately across the river from downtown Boston, and thus, has a significant effect on Bostonians). This brought new young residents into the city who may be more inclined to cycling.
Also, driving in Boston FUCKING SUCKS, and that alone was enough incentive for me to sell my car ahen I moved here
Last time I was driving in Boston I was stopped in traffic waiting for a light and a cab went flying around me down the bike lane.
Boston’s bike infrastructure is honestly outshined by Cambridge but they’ve done a lot of work with temporary bike lanes throughout the pandemic that have or are being made permanent. Huntington Avenue around Northeastern just got made into one lane (from two) for traffic in each direction with the outer lanes for bikes and busses. The intersection of Mass Ave and Huntington got protected bike lanes but only after a cyclist got struck and killed there over the summer. The Orange Line shutdown was a bit of a hiccup in car use but the push to finish rail imporovements (to finally use the new trains) and get 5 years worth of service done in one month shows the commitment to trying to provide more reliable service. Additionally, there’s a lot of improvements in Roxbury for upgraded bus stations along Washington St. Commonwealth Avenue along BU now has separated and dedicated bike lanes and station improvements along the B line. Many B stops have also been consolidated to try to speed up service as well. BlueBike use nowadays is really high- I’ve been using it to commute to work since Fall 2021 and have noticed almost a shortage in bikes this past summer that was addressed partially by new bikes added over the summer.
This wasn’t as organized as the original commenter but I wanted to add some more recent infrastructure changes I’ve noticed as another cyclist/car-free Boston resident!
@@xmyusernamegoesherex I definitely agree with you on Cambridge being way better for bicycles than Boston (esp seeing the protected cycle lanes the entire stretch of Mass Ave from the Charles to Porter Sq).
I live in the South End and work in Kendall Sq, so my ride to work involves traveling on Mass Ave. The intersections with both Huntington and Comm Aves were (and still are) the scariest parts of my commute. I have almost been struck by cars turning right onto Huntington Ave multiple times, and I'm glad they added in the traffic calming features. However, I wish that the posts were concrete instead of plastic flexposts, as cars have continued to corner-cut and ended up completely destroying the flexposts. I *have* been struck by a car turning left onto Comm Ave. Thankfully, I'm alrite, and my bicycle is just a little scraped up.
I've lived in Boston (Roxbury right now) since 2019 and there's been so many public transit and biking infrastructure improvements in 2022. I don't bike, since I'm a little afraid of it, but I've considered it especially since the new bike lanes implemented this past summer, but I love not having to own a car. I'm most likely moving to a midwest college town for graduate school this year and I'm not looking forward to having to drive everywhere :(
One thing worth mentioning about Boston is that they just opened their Green Line Extension project a couple of weeks ago. That's obviously not reflected in numbers up to 2019, but it will be interesting to see how that affects ridership.
It will be huge. I just wish they could make strides on making other green line services fast (looking at you B and C lines)
@@greenwave5799 extend orange line up to Melrose plz Jamey Tesler
@@chrisgonzales3524 Got to go to reading, if the MBTA will extend it they better go the whole way.
Another big change in Boston that would not be reflected here has been improvements to the Commuter Rail. Between 2010 and 2019, nearly all Commuter Rail lines saw significant improvement, especially in the form of accessibility.
I visited Seattle in November 2022 and I loved that we were able to do all of our tourism without renting a car! We did have to ride hail once or twice, but over a few days visiting several parts of the downtown scene as well as getting to and from the airport, I loved it!
That’s so true about Seattle. The fact it is squeezed between all the bodies of water into isthmus makes it so easily accessible by micro mobility and all the hills make all-dimensions travel on e-bike or scooter a pure joy to me.
From Greater Seattle. Link light rail opened 13 years ago, and expanded a ton in Seattle. Expect to see this trend for the next few decades in the greater Seattle area.
I'm glad Chicago was so high on the list. I lived in Chicago for a short while in the mid 2000s without a car and even then it was impressive how easy it was to get around without one. Overall it's probably the best citiy I've ever lived in. It's crazy how certain cable news stations demonize the city and people who have never been there jump on the hate.
Woot I'm a Seattle resident and totally agree. This city has a very strong push towards transit ridership and affordable housing. Love this city.
Was in Seattle for a 3 month internship. Transit, both bus, and rail were very reliable. I didn't need a personal vehicle at all.
I have commuted to or lived in Jersey City for most of the last 25 years, and over that time the increase in people getting on AM rush trains at Grove Street in particular is really pretty amazing. Lately I find I have to elbow my way out of the train there every morning because the sheer volume of people getting on leads the hivemind to assume no one is getting off the trains, and the huge increase in density around that station definitely accounts for all of it. Meanwhile PATH's signaling improvements have made for shorter headways and more reliable service during rush hours, but the Port Authority almost impressively manages to make off-peak service worse and worse by the year. It's construction-related in this case, but the most recent insult has been 20-minute headways Newark to WTC during middays, which is insane.
Concerning BART, yes there is a concrete plan in place to fill the park-and-rides with housing and office development. In fact, there was a BART-specific state law that enabled BART to build dense town centers/transit villages around its stations. Some of these transit villages are already fully filled in with housing, some are being built right now, and some are in the planning stages.
Some of the newest stations, the ones that opened before 2020, started planning about a decade ago and before that new law. So they were planned like traditional park-and-ride stations and are now planning their redevelopments. But all the new BART stations that began planning activities after the new law are already planned as transit villages from the outset! Some even have significant footprints with pretty significant amounts of both housing and office development, enough to accommodate up to 10,000k people. It's actually pretty incredible what BART has been able to accomplish here.
Also, how did Oakland not score higher than Seattle? It had a much, much larger improvement in a metric that was already far higher. So it had a bigger increase starting form a higher point. Was this just some "major city" vs regionally-important city bias?
He just added together the transit/walk/bike percentages. Oakland was +6.9, Seattle +7.1
@@nickbates5028 Yes, what I am talking about is the weighting of the percentages. It's always true that more people commute by transit than walking, sometimes by an order of magnitude. In effect, just blindly adding together the percentage growth of vastly disproportional modes without weighting it by population share ignores the actual numbers of commuters that have switched from cars to other modes.
A much larger percentage of the population of Oakland switched away from cars to other modes. In effect, what Oakland is doing works better than whatever Seattle is doing in terms of promoting non-car commuting, but this is not reflected in this rating.
If the goal was to show which city has actually shifted a larger proportion of its population from cars to other modes, then this rating is an inappropriate measure.
@@TohaBgood2 If I understand it correctly, the denominator of all of the percentages here is the total (surveyed) population. So it's already weighted how you describe :). e.g. a 1% change may be from 2% to 3% for walkers or from 20% to 21% for transit riders. Bottom line is both cities are doing a great job at reducing car dependency.
It would be really interesting doing this same thing for smaller cities! We hear about San Francisco and Seattle and LA a lot, so it would be neat to explore lesser known or smaller places in the US that push for urbanism
I'm interested in how San Antonio would rank.
Would love to see a video on your view of Portland-style planning! I lived there for 7 years, studied urban sociology there with the PDX Metro region as my petri dish for my thesis and two graduate research assistantships, and I worked for the City of Portland & the City of Beaverton, so I'd be stoked to see how your research compares to my experiences (and my research I guess, but that's from 2015-2016 so pretty outdated at this point).
I'm not surprised it doesn't show up in the mode split data, but SLC has made dramatic improvements in bike infrastructure in the past 10 years, especially around protected bike lanes and multi-use paths. I've been a bike commuter here for 20 years and we've gone from wild west to feeling safe with my kid on my bike downtown (on specific routes) in that time. Still a lot of work to do, but it's all going in the right direction.
Agreed. I am a lifelong SLC resident and a civil engineer. SLC is doing very well on this front, and I can only hope the rest of the county and wasatch front as a whole takes after them. 300 South and 900 South have been greatly transformed in recent years, in particular. I hope 700 East's fast, stroad nature is addressed in the coming years. 2100 South in sugarhouse is likely to get a much needed road diet in the next few years.
@@thatoneotherotherguy 700 east has so much potential as a boulevard. Room for BRT or rail and should be upzoned at least to I80 for density to connect downtown to 9th and 9th and Sugar House.
Yeah, there was a gain, just not enough for me to dwell on it. Acknowledged, though!
Gotta shout out the efforts to make the city denser too. Unfortunately I'm feeling less than enthusiastic about Utah's trajectory with this I-80 expansion proposal. Incentivising developers to create more sprawl in anticipation of population growth when they could be doubling down on the density and walkability they've been trying to encourage like downtown and near the gateway, while at the same time eliminating some of the city's most affordable housing, this feels like a giant step back
@@aishbalev agreed. The way that the city has become simultaneously denser and less affordable in the past decade is a major miss. We need much better incentives and regulation to preserve our existing affordable apartments. Also would love to see them complete the Frontrunner double track and increase service before they even consider widening I-15 again.
So proud to see Oakland at #2! Our walk/bike/transit situation is improving every day. We’re planning and building major protected bike and bus lane infra across the city, and many roads and intersections are getting major diets.
Absolutely. Oakland is up and coming. Hopefully that doesn't mean it prices out current residents, but the only direction the Bay Area going is up in terms of quality of life, urbanism, and accessibility. just seeing the massive increases in Oakland shows just how many people want to move to the Bay Area given how prices continue to stay high. I guess that's just what happens when you are in the metro area which is the home of most of the most innovative tech companies in the world, and the home of all three major CPU manufacturers...
@@MatthewStidham Oakland has been up and coming since the western railroad terminus was completed in the late 19th century. It’s always suffered from some unattainable horizon, bounded by ambitions to surpass San Francisco or on its own terms. After every boom period (railroad, canneries, WWII economy, car manufacturing), Oakland has had to revise its expectations and chart a new course (economically, socially and/or politically). It may indeed be true that an oncoming biotech boom will keep the current momentum, however this is all speculation. Folks are coming and going constantly and commonly not on their terms. We don’t have a political system that can truly advocate for workers and families. Plenty of residents are priced out. Some cash out (or not) and head for the suburbs. It’s hard to imagine this place really suffering a downward swing but I always imagine these cities like Detroit and St. Louis after the auto industry crashes.
@@MatthewStidham There is nothing decent about Oakland. Leaving is the only move.
It helps that Oakland, Emeryville and Berkeley are building bike boulevards that can get a biker not only around their city, (I don't go that way, but I think El Cerrito and Richmond are also in the mix) but throughout the bay area. Yes, I know it is way out there, but the bike extension over the Bay Bridge will bring SF into the mix. A better world for all of us.
@@boho6458 Biking is nice exercise for under forty year olds.
Hello! I found your channel this year through notjustbikes mentioning it on his community tab. Well either that or my recommendations. I can't remember which, but regardless, I've enjoyed these videos. Thanks for making my 2022 more informative!
I just watched this video and it was so inspiring! The way the speaker presents the information is engaging and thought-provoking. I love how they provide real-life examples and practical tips that can be applied to everyday situations. This is definitely a video that I will be returning to for motivation and guidance in the future. Thank you for sharing!
chicago represent. Wish I lived closer to the city. Things could be a whole lot better :I
I live in Seattle and get around only on Public Transport or Biking Lanes. It's not perfect, but I really do see how it bests so many cities in the US, having living in Los Angeles area and New York myself. I do think that people here have a lot more Urbanist ideas floating around in their heads, and the proof is in the pudding. I do hope it continues, the light rail improves, and more bike trails and pathways open up for us all to use.
Just found your channel today and I am, sure enough, watching from Seattle! Despite your poor taste in schools judging by your sweatshirt... I'm enjoying the content! Love to see this city at the top of the list and I'm really excited for all the progress to come that's still years away.
One of the problems with LA specifically is they built the infrastructure, but the areas around train stops are just now being built up with things you want to do. Culver for instance, has seen an magical transformation in just 2 or 3 years.
Agreed. And that's the normal progression. Development around transit stations takes several years to happen after the stations open.
Yeah, Culver City used to be Santa Monica's lame brother, but a lot of tech money and those weird Ed Owen Moss buildings seem to have made the place hip. Unfortunately, some troglodyte on the city council just axed a needed bike line. It's VERY hard to get people out of their cars. California is toying with taxing drivers by how much they travel and maybe that will help.
@@EdDunkle I agree with your overall assessment, but LA Metro is coming up with programs to entice people to use public transit. One promising program is making LA Metro free for students including Community College students. Focusing on young people is a great idea. And the continuing expansion of the LA Metro system will help to change people's minds too. They opening of the Regional Connector has already made a difference. I've noticed a lot more people from the SGV using it, especially younger people. Metro also needs to continue to make the system safer and keeping it clean.
I live halfway between Oakland and Fremont. In the period you surveyed, neither city really added much in the way of transit options, but both had LARGE increases in the amount of high density housing which while often not really close to BART was close enough to use it with a short walk/drive/busride. For Oakland, there was also a large increase in commuting to San Francisco, often outside rush hour. Had you pulled back farther at the Warm Springs BART station, you would have seen lots of vacant land in 2010 and much less today.
And the Tesla Factory is at Warm Springs. 10,000 people work there and a huge chunk of them take BART because there isn’t enough parking for all of them to drive.
Yeah, this is what I suspect. The bay area is wild!
@@CityNerd I'm also from the Bay Area, and the BART VTA phase 1 came online recently, which extends BART down to North San Jose, and the VTA connection at milpitas completes the rail loop around the Bay since it connects to Caltrain at Mountain View
Small shoutout to Thurston County in Washington State. This includes Olympia, the states capitol, where I used to live. Pretty solid little public transit system they have with their bus lines. As of 2020 all the busses in Thurston County are FREE! How incredible is that!
The reason I moved to Seattle is because of their focus on transit. ( also food, culture, sports, parks, and much more). I watch your channel because of my interest in following other cities' progress. - I am happy to see the top ten list and the cities that are working toward a better future. Note:- Southern CA has wasted opportunity after opportunity to become a better city. (I am also a former LA resident)
In salt lake city there has been a big push for free fare on all the public transit. It is free for select days and months as well as in SLC proper which has led many people (myself included) to use it more often. Its still not that perfect but it has been quite useful for my friends and I. Very hopeful for further improvements. Great video!
I'm hoping other cities in Utah, including Logan and it's outlying areas, are watching SLC (along with the others on this list) closely for transportation planning.
Generally the problem with this, is the money has to be made up elsewhere. They need the money for repair and expansion. At the same time I love that ad a college student I can ride free.
Logan actually has free fare for its bus system, which is surprisingly good for a city its size! CVTD my beloved
Also, as RM Transit pointed out on his video about Salt Lake, the trains are really nice in that they are easy to board and are ground level, so if you board with a stroller or a bike, it makes it not too bad to get on (this is apparently not common on North American trains for some reason)
This is very interesting. I'm a US citizen moving back to the US after many years in Asia, and I'm deadset on an urban walkable city. I work remote and I've been jumping around many many cities considering price and weather and walkability/transit. I just started deciding on Seattle and looking into long term leases... and then this video came out :).
Thoughts on why people in Seattle care: Highly educated population. Also highly international: a lot of people coming from places that are built dense. Very close to Vancouver, which itself is on the path towards urbanism and is exceptionally international. And finally, just land use. Seattle's core is on a weird, vertical piece of land and that likely forces them to need to consider urbanism.
All interesting rationales for Seattle being the way it is.
You should also consider the rampant crime and homelessness.....Seattle and Portland are a mess. There is ZERO leadership, accountability or police.
@@safromnc8616 This is a point I hear a lot about from people who do not live in Seattle. I am living in Seattle now and it's fine. There are homeless people in the downtown core, but that's standard for every downtown core in the US (and a point we should work to improve). There are areas that are better or worse than others, and this is also consistent with all cities.
Overall, I am literally living in downtown Seattle and it is far better than most places I've seen in the US.
@@smitty7326 although I agree with homeless being in all american downtowns, west coast cities are just atrocious. Portland was one of my favorites cities until recently. I visited again on September 2022 and I was horrified about how bad it is now. Although the city is beautiful. Man it is dirty and rude people everywhere, the area around Union Station is just atrocious. West coast tent cities are unacceptable for a country like the US.
@@robertofernandez7773 yes, it is a point we should work to improve
It’s not surprising that we Seattleites watch your stuff. Your humor is 100% Seattle nerd, and I’m here for it. We share very similar values, not least being A-level dry snark. You could be mayor, not that you would want to.
Gotta agree. Every rueful, sarcastic tangent sounds like something one of my local nerd friends would say.
Seattle-ite here, sustainable safe and efficient transportation is the foremost thing on my mind in terms of who I vote for locally
RE Boston: there's a guy in city hall, Jascha Franklin Hodge, in charge of incrementally improving Boston, and he is sweating the small stuff to enough of an extent that it's adding up. Nothing major has opened since he took charge, but every day there's a crew out in Boston changing a lane here or a lane there, or tinkering with the traffic lights.
the self-selection theory and the little sidetrack i to how urban planning is a political marker was really intersting! i think the viewership numbers support it
Bart has tons of TOD planned and with new state laws allowing up to 18 stories irrespective of local zoning based on percent of low or middle income housing. Default is 12 stories
Tempo opened and has quite good ridership while AC transit has been overall struggling for operational funding and cutting or reducing frequency on less used lines.
Oxnard and all of Ventura county has an incredible fractured transit network with cities or groups of cities each running their own instead of the region wide org running local transit. They support metro link and longer distance buses.
BART also redid their schedules recently, in concert with other transit agencies like AC Transit. It’s the start of a planned state-wide pulsed network that should greatly increase the reliability of transfers.
What examples are there for the TODs planned or where can I read more about this?
@@OcaOca Berkeley has some planned. San Leandro has an older plan which needs to get updated with new state laws.
compare the new Fremont BART station to the Macarthur BART and you'll see that those parking lots in Fremont will be re-developed by BART in future for high density infill via towers. Check out the BART site for their discussion of transit-oriented development.
SLC here! that was the correct summary of our transport here. But, Have 30 min wait times on weekend destroys any progress. Utah is planning on make the system fare free.
grew up in southern california driving everywhere my whole life. i now live car free in Seattle and absolutely love it!!!
Using Strava data, this channel never fails to deliver.
I started writing up an answer for Boston, but then I realized this was 2019! It’s going to be pretty neat to see Mayor Wu’s impact in future census surveys with all of the new bus lanes, expanded transit that stayed after the orange line broke down, and all that jazz.
I would love to hear more about Portland style planning! It’s the city I’m closest to, and the one I could most reasonably live in at some point in the future, and I feel like it has always tried to be walkable compared to most US cities.
I work closely with cities in Washington state, and mostly with Seattle, and I'm so happy most cities are moving towards multimodal streets in their city transportation system plans!
Anecdotally your self selection makes sense to me. I moved to many different cities in my twenties trying to find a place whose urbanism fit me. I finally settled on Seattle as the only city in the U.S. that made sense to me.
I am also a tech worker though, so sorry 😔
You would have been better going to New York or Chicago.
Was on Boston this year. You can speed an entire vacation in a overwhelmingly urban context (Boston, Cambridge and a day trip to Salem) and never "miss" the car, which is something you can't say about anywhere in Florida. Those New Engalnd and big city prices make it a luxury and it is still a little too touristy. Also, if you do miss the car, Portland, Portsmouth, and most Vermont cities are exquisite by American standards
Also born and raised Floridian. I just get so jealous of the Northeast's train system to travel between big cities easily enough. Whenever I'm in the region, I never feel the need for a car. I felt trapped in my city growing up in Florida.
South Florida and especially Miami is making great strides toward walkability. Brightline just opened two more stations in SF and soon will open to Orlando and begin construction to Tampa. Florida is rapidly changing and no one has really noticed yet.
@Alec Hansen Any private train, like Brightline, is a great competitor to the existing cheaper TriRail running nearly the same route from Miami to West Palm Beach. Brightline is trying to be a classier, more comfortable train for intercity travel with premium lounge areas, snacks, etc. On average, they charge 2-3x more than TriRail. I would say it's reasonable for the quality of service. IMO the expansion to Orlando (and Tampa soon enough) will be the real "launch" for Brightline, allowing tons of tourists to travel between Miami beaches and Orlando theme parks without a car.
Seaside, FL is a nice bikeable town.
@@AssBlasster Lmao they will still need a car. Brightline will stop at Orlando airport which has absolutely zero public transit access.
Enjoying the content/conversations about city planning....keeep them coming
Great video. Thank you for taking the time to research this for us!
I remember learning about how Doc Maynard and Arthur Denny (two of Seattle’s founders) disagreed on how to orient the city’s grid back in elementary school (in the 80s) and being fascinated by city planning topics ever since.
Same!
I know it's a touchy subject, but I'd love to see some discussion on the channel dealing with issues of gentrification. I've lived in several small-to-medium sized cities which retain much of their pre-automobile urban fabric. These neighborhoods would be great for transit or car-free oriented development, yet are very much over-looked because they are the 'poor' and/or 'unsafe' areas of town. Then, when development does take place in these area, it's aimed at drawing in the more affluent at the expense of the long-time residents
I was pretty aware when I was putting this together that my before/afters were featuring new-ish (maybe even "luxury," cringe) apartment and condo buildings, and there's a whole part of the story about "densifying" that doesn't get addressed. I do have a topic idea in the pipeline around gentrification.
There is a big problem with how we discuss gentrification and displacement, even in academic circles. Displacement is the enemy. Gentrification is a cultural and demographic change that can be good or bad depending on how you feel about the group moving in. In other words, gentrification is not what most people seem to think it is. A lot of the times these two happen simultaneously and they are in many ways related in our more modern history. Somehow gentrification basically became conflated with displacement, but one does not need to beget the other. In fact, it should not and would not if we had sane zoning policies.
It seems that you're referring to displacement here but you're calling it gentrification.
Dishonorable mention is spot on! Loved the opening shot of Dodger Stadium 😂
Just got back from Yosemite and the drive through these mega towns in the Central Valley was dispiriting. Mega roads and interchanges past shopping centers and parking lots with HUGE trucks everywhere
Honestly, I wish people were aware of how bad the situation is in Michigan. All of our cities are EXTREMELY car dependent with little public transit - but not because we don't want change. We are the home of many major car companies and they bring in much of the money coming into the state, employing a lot of people. If cities like Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, or Lansing start to embrace people going car free there's potential for these companies to strike back. We're essentially held hostage...
I'm glad to see that NYC has enough room around the scaffolding to create bike and bus lanes.
As a long time resident, the Utah Transit Authority has done a great job keeping much of the valley accessible by bus and train. The west side and far south ends of the area could still use major work though.
And it needs to be free. It's quite expensive as it stands.
@@travisdejong2354 I think the price for tickets is very reasonable, especially compared to other US systems. I also can't recall the last time there was a raise in fare.
I agree that the price is good for UTA, but it still has a LONG way to go. Buses to the canyons have been cut in half. I-15 is adding more lanes. Pedestrian fatalities seem to be occurring more frequently.
Definitely, I hope the red line can get an extension into Herriman. But what we have right now is really good compared to most US cities so i'm not complaining.
@@quiet451 pedestrian fatalities are up, and bicycle related deaths were up to 15 in 2022 which is twice the average of years past
Great topic! Love seeing Seattle and Portland on the list. Bikeability in both of these cities along with San Francisco and Oakland are among the most challenging with substantially more hilly areas that increase riding difficulty. Personally happy to see some of our west coast cities getting serious about better urban transportation. Twitter hiatus...:))). I totally deleted it.
I just moved from one of Seattle's most walkable neighborhoods (Roosevelt & 64th) where I lived for 6 years, to one of Oakland's most walkable neighborhoods (next to Piedmont Ave) in August.
I was living the DREAM in Roosevelt. Virtually everything I needed was within a 3 block radius. Including the new light rail station. I had two beautiful parks (greenlake & ravenna) a short walk away as well as a dozen bars, cafes, restaurants, two grocery stores, two pharmacies, a vet, a dentist, etc etc... even a high school! I had gotten so used to simply walking to wholefoods if i ever needed a single tomato for something. Now though, in oakland, the nearest grocery store is almost double the price of others in the area so i need to drive five minutes to get to safeway or grocery outlet. I have a 20 minute commute to berkeley every day for school/work because buying tickets for the BART every day would effectively cost me the same amount but take much longer --- and it gets WAY too dark at night to safely walk or bike home because for some reason the East Bay doesn't invest in more than two streetlights every block. While I can see biking being somewhat comparable to Seattle (other than the absolute lack of streetlights) but walking in Seattle is streets ahead of Oakland.
I'm grateful to be in the area I am and still take walks around my neighborhood every day but there's nowhere near the 'seamless convenience' I once had in Roosevelt. I think it's partly because Seattle has been very intentional about the locations of its light rail stations whereas the BART just seems to be placed wherever is cheapest in the East Bay (and also charges WAY too much for tickets)
aw i lived not too far from roosevelt a few years ago- im back in connecticut now but it truly is a great place in seattle
I worked in Oakland from 2017-2019 (you actually show a google map image of my office). Every abandoned building or surface lot near a Bart station got a high rise put on it. You could also see it was new people moving into those areas. So that improvement was due to TOD + gentrification.
Oakland sucks. I hope you got out with your life. Merry Christmas!
@@davidjackson7281 I loved it there. I'd live there now if life didn't take me elsewhere.
I've lived and/or worked in downtown Oakland since 2011. I recently moved into one of the high rises you mentioned, and I agree completely - its the addition of new housing near BART stations that is driving Oakland's score. It helps that we're the only major city in the Bay Area that has a very pro-housing city council.
@@davidjackson7281, I still have my life, and it's pretty great. Merry Christmas to you too.
@@AniruddhaGupta0 The only question on that is how much of that housing was in place by 2019, which the statistics are for. Before the pandemic, both BART ridership and AC Transit Transbay bus ridership was increasing.In the decennial census it’s possible to separate bus and rail ridership, but I don’t know if that’s available in the ACS. It’s a shorter ride from Downtown Oakland to Downtown San Francisco than from many parts of San Francisco.
AC Transit opened the TEMPO BRT line from Downtown Oakland to East Oakland and San Leandro, but that was in 2020. It has gotten good ridership.
Your point regarding polarizing cities investing in transit versus car-centric infrastructure being due to self selection may be spot on. I live in Chicago, and I extremely value being able to take public to and from a show downtown without worrying about driving. I value taking the bus to my hair salon, hopping off 15 minutes early to grab a cup of coffee and walk the rest. This is why I live here. But, whilst you describe the opposing viewpoints of zero bike and transit infrastructure, I envision so many folks in those areas who want or value nothing of transit oriented cities. They want to hop in their car, drive 15 minutes or less, and easily park to get groceries. They don't want to get out of their cars to get a quick bite to eat. They don't want to watch for bicyclists and pedestrians while driving. Most like how those towns and cities are set up. I wish we had more options than Boston, Chicago, NYC, San Francisco, and Philly, but it is what it is I guess. I'm grateful for what we do have in the US.
I think Seattle has been successful recently because first, there is a lot of money and a growing population, and second, because there are physical limits on sprawl in the region - the Sound, the Cascades, and so on, that force a focus on what is in the city rather than what's beyond the edge of development. Most great cities American cities do have a lake, river, mountain range or coast to push up against - NYC, Chicago, SF, Seattle.
Boston student here! Although there’s still a ton of problems with it, the city continues to make big improvements to the T! Extending lines, revamping existing ones, is making it a lot more safe and accessible feeling.