The same "back to trams and trains" renaissance is happening in cities across Turkey as well. Istanbul removed its entire complex tram system in the 50s and 60s and now the lines are being rebuilt one by one.
I love that the they are definitely becoming more trendy once again, and the more major global cities that redesign to include such infrastructure, the easier it becomes to convince others to trickle that down into other cities as well.
Tram systems in France are fantastic, very quiet versus noisy cars, very comfortable and convenient. Ther is no backside to their reintroduction. You can really feel the cities going quieter and nicer once they've been introduced. To me we have the best public transport network in the world
Well as someone who lived in Bordeaux for 5 years I can tell you that there is one major backside to tramways; there are very VERY slow. Actually I used to spend 3h/day in tramways when I went to the University because I lived in the eastern side of the city and the University was on the western side. Both cities are separated by about 10km but it always took me 1h30 to go from one to the other. Except for that flaw there is also the terrible moment at 5pm where you literally have 0 space for yourself and have to be compressed between people. That is a flaw that concerns most public transportation systems though, but I think it stills needs to be pointed out. Spending around 3h/day with people all around you and having no space was really a bad experience
@@virgoh1124 Hm, i have other experience. Ich drive a tram through munich to my workplace from east to west like 16 kilometers and i only sit 45 minutes in it for one way. So for the hole day it is 1:30 which is okay, because i read a book or so in that time.
@@barlauch9292 I've been to Germany (Munich and other towns) and the public transportation there is on a whole other level. Always on time and very effective
I find the exemple of Montpellier really interesting. There’s a huge no car area downtown that is fed from all sides by currently 5 and soon 6 tram lines, making the center of this relatively large town feel like a small town center with absolutely no traffic noise, just the noise of people walking, talking, living… It’s actually one of the best town I’ve been to.
Correction : currently 4 and soon 5 tram lines. Also, trams are noisy. Very noisy, because the city center has narrow streets, which leads to high angled turns. Something trams don't like (lots of wear and tears and accelerated aging), and my ears even less. If you live along one of those lines, you just can't open your windows because of the noise. If I have one advice to city planners : trams are great, but they are much, much, much better if rubber-tyred if your city is and old european medieval one. I guess classic trams are very good for American style towns with grid-like map and wide streets.
Only one of the train stations is anywhere near the trams. Hopefully that gets solved fairly soon, because confused tourists like me would expect not to need to take a shuttle from the train station to a tram stop.
@@JonathonV The line 1 will be extended to the other train station "soon". I don't remember the exact date, and delays are always a possibility. The problem here was that train station build in the middle on nowhere.
As someone living in Grenoble thank you for the great images of the city! It has a reputation in France as an urban laboratory and so things are have progressively changed here. Really hope to see more videos on it's transit and urban planning.
My home, Glasgow, once had one of the largest tram networks in the world and we tore it all down for highways 😞 Hoping we can be inspired by France soon
Certainly DON'T take you inspiration from the omnishambolic Edinburgh Council's trams! (Is say tram(s) plural), it's only 1 line and not even a circle line like Glasgow's clockwork orange.
The city of nantes had trams since the 70's, and it's no wonder that it is now one of the easiest cities in france to move around using public transport. they also implemented electric buses here recently, and they're great! i'm 22 and never felt like needing to own a car ever so far. And to top it all off An unlimited pass for all the buses and trams in the city cost only 350€ a year, way less than just the car insurance haha
Nantes was the first of the French cities that opened a second generation tram network, 10 years before the goverment decision to reintroduce trams in 1975. Was the start of all... only three vintage networks survived the 50s. At present there are nearly 30 networks.
I live in Angers and it is the "1st big city in France where life is good". I'm sure trams made a big step on that and they're opening 2 new lines this summer ! It's beautiful ;)
As a Parisian, I was a long time resident of the northern part of the city hemmed in between Porte de Clignancourt and Porte de la Chapelle, the old northern "entries" to the city, a bit cut off from the rest of the city when it comes to transportation. Those are still pretty rough neighbourhoods up to now (poverty, drugs, violence and prostitution). Yet the tramways have had a very noticeable effect on my former neighbourhood : though those problems still exist, their intensity has been dialled down tenfold. People will say it's because of gentrification, and that is both true and untrue. I personaly think the simple fact of having a big tract of green lanes and less cars had a major effect : people started taking to the streets again, and people in my neighbourhood who felt they were condemned to stay at home after coming back from work began just walking and having coffee in the evening in their own neighbourhood, which they enjoyed more since they felt they weren't trapped in it anymore.
I take that line to porte d'aubervilliers every day (I don't even know how things look like west of there) and it always amuses me to see the homeless people sleeping all over the place, but as you said, it's not dangerous around the tram line.
You could have mentioned Bordeaux as well, which adopted the trams again in 2003 and is continuously expanding it. The oldest bridge in the city even banned private cars to prioritize trams, busses, cyclist and pedestrians. Another cool feature of the Bordeaux tram is that it does not need overhead power cables and instead is powered directly from the tracks. cool video tho!
They are powered from a third rail on the middle of the track. There are other cities that use that system in the city centre, but it increase costs of the system.
I’m also a huge fan of the segmented third rail trams! It bugs me that nobody seems to mention them, when they’re a huge esthetic improvement over the typical tram power system. I think more people would like trams if they didn’t require cables all over the place, so the segmented third rail systems, while higher cost upfront, would lead to lower costs over the long run.
it is capable of using both overhead lines and a third rail, allowing the network to be expanded for cheap and also preventing visual intrusions for overhead lines in the inner city
Shame you missed Montpellier, it has got a new tram network since 2000 and is now building it's 5th line. The trams are unique, as it is the only city in France to have line dependent liveries !
Yeah I concur! There must be a part 2 or short that features Montpellier's network, the upcoming line 5 and new electric BRT longer distance lines that complement and extend the trams to far flung suburban villages. Montpellier's transportation development around trams, BRT's and the "online" high-speed train station in the Southern outskirts of the city is really great and inspiring. A great subject for an "addendum video" to complement this one with another example. I'm sure several locals would provide footage and information.
@@cityforall Just make a video on Montpellier, and La Grande Motte, and La Gruissan Plage. Doesn't have to be about trams. The video can be about France having the best culture in the world with the most pleasant people and the most enjoyable atmosphere!! J'adore ❤❤❤❤(minus unleashed dogs and dog shit everywhere)
The French city where I am born, Saint-Étienne, kept its trams from 1890 to nowadays. I live now near Paris and I appreciate using the trams to discover areas in the suburbs which are very interesting to visit, like Saint-Cloud, Epinay-sur-Seine,...
@@tomasbeltran04050 His name was more like Clodoald, but it became Cloud through the centuries. There's a wonderful park in this posh city, it belong to a royal and imperial castle overlooking the Seine but this castle was destroyed unfortunately in 1871 during the franco-prussian war...
@@marcelcharbonnier297 Clodoald does sound like an expectable name for a king or noble in medieval France, specially from ðe years 400-1000. I'm sad ðe castle was lost, and really wanna visit ðe place in ðe future
@@tomasbeltran04050 Yes. Clodoald was the grandson of Clovis the First who baptised the French people into christianity. He became an ermit and was made a saint by the church and he passed away in a little village which became the town of Saint-Cloud.
Taken the Angers tram almost everyday in 2019, I really love the walkable streets around it. I can hardly recognize the city without the tram. It's great to see those familiar streets from your video!
this video is pretty amazing and well made. I never paid a visit to France and Europe yet, but studied abroad in Canada for 5yrs. It reminds me of Toronto tram streets which were wonderful and environment friendly. It's very interesting that France lately introduced its nation wide tram systems in 1990s and 2010s. In South Korea, Korean cities are starting to introduce nation wide tram systems around Greater Seoul Area. One construction has just started in Wirye city located and neighboring Songpa ,Seoul , Hanam, Gyeonggi and Seongnam, Gyeonggi regions. anyway they are planning to build tram systems that cross regioins where no metro is accessible... !
Seoul and Trams BHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA, don't follow Europe they have tiny and unpopulated City , Seoul have 5X the population than Paris, Trams in Seoul will be disaster, you need to wait for 3-4 Trams before even get any space during peak hour......
As someone from Toronto, Canada, this is interesting to me as people here often complain about our trams/streetcars, but maybe that would be different if more of our streetcars were on dedicated lanes away from cars. Personally, I love them & feel they serve a different purpose than subways (which we also have) - they're better for hop on-hop off shopping whereas subways are better for travelling longer distances in an efficient manner.
@@cityforall signal priority is actually 10x more important compared to having dedicated lanes, an example in Toronto is the Spadina avenue Where despite the fact that streetcars/trams have their own dedicated lanes you can still jog faster because it has to wait at intersections for quite some time and this is something that French cities generally avoid quite well
This is amazing. Thank you so much for this addition to the UA-cam-Urbanism-Universe. I'm always impressed how every channel is so valuable by having it's very own perspective and style on progressive, sustainable urbanism!
I'm living in Saint-Etienne. Our tramway is one of our two biggest pride with our football club. First french tram to be built, never ceased to function ! Gotta say it's particularly fitting to the city because oddly enough for an old european town, we have a main street (where the main tram line is built) that goes south to north all the way in a complete straight line. We opened our third line a few years ago !
The city of Rouen is a great example and I'm sad that it wasn't mentioned (mostly out of Normand pride tho). It was the second city to have re-inaugurated its tramway line, and also the most inventive. There was a growing demand for a subway system, and while there was also significant pressure for a tramway line, the already unpopular city government also didn't want their new line to be called a "tramway" because of the association with the fucked up old cars from a few decades prior. So what did they do ? They fused the two. It's a tramway line on the south bank, and transitions into an underground subway on the north bank. This way they could call it a "Metro" line and not a "Tramway" line. It's a genius idea and I love it.
I would have never thought the day would come where I'd see my city (Saint-Etienne) in one of your videos!! We were tramway precursors, then they dismantled the network and are now building new lines! Everyone here loves the tramway, it's electric, practically silent, and faster than buses! Loved the video!
Small updates concerning the Angers tram. Line B and C will open later this year, normally at the beginning of July. They also ordered new Alstom Citadis 305 sets last year.
The greening of tram tracks and managing rainwater runoff in what would otherwise be a paved area is something that needs to be emphasised especially when many local authorities are installing bus lanes as a cheap and short sighted alternative.
That return to the tram of these cities is a great thing, but as a French living in Prague, I see how much better and further are cities that actualy didn't destroy their tracks in the first place! Their network is flexible, goes everywhere, several types if tramways are used, and what they have to do is just expand the existing network for it to be even better and not start building one from scratch!
@@captainultraswagga Vote something else next time. You value freedom and individual rights. I do too. I've been to Prague, and your city could be so much better if you made it less car-centric. Look around you, man! You put a six-lane highway(?) and a ginormous parking lot outside your city's main train station. Your charming streets should be pedestrianized, but all these parking spots are bigger than the sidewalk. It's a horribly wasteful use of space. This car-centric culture makes everyone LESS free. When cities ditch the car, its inhabitants are healthier, more free and can spend more money on local goods and services. It's a win-win.
Surprised you didn't mention Reims, but there are so many great examples in France that I can absolutely forgive you. Great video! You earned a new subscriber from Oslo, Norway:-) Trams are great for business, great for the environment, and most importantly: great for getting around the city. Trams are probably the best indicator species of sensible urbanism. Their comeback is vital!
The modern French light rail is just a really good way of showing how to use trams to some of their best potential. In Denmark where I'm from we opened the Odense light rail a little under a year ago, which takes heavy design influence from French tram systems, and have had people experienced with work in Paris and Mulhouse onboard with the design process. The Odense light rail is not perfect, its poorly done foundations have lead to a lot of noise complaints, particularly in the city core. And though people still complain about it being "A waste of money" and only reaching half of the (frankly unreasonably high) ridership targets for now, it still carries 5 times more passengers than the bus lines it replaced and already suffers from overcrowding during rush hour
If that can reassure you, when the first tram line opened in Orléans in 2000, a lot of people complained about it being a waste of money, a ridiculous investment for such a small city (back then, the cities with new tram systems were in metro area close to 500 000 inhabitants, or even bigger ones, while Orléans' was around 270 000 inhabitants). The next municipal elections happened only a few months after the line opened, it was operating significantly behind the ridership targets and the mayor who had been behind the projet was beaten, his project of a second line and turning some car lanes along the first line into bike lanes were abandoned by the new mayor/city counsel, who was not a big fan of taking space away from cars. In the following years, the first lane did reach its target, a second line was built in 2014 (the one featured in the video), a couple of stations were added to the first line to provide access to new developments in 2019 and a car lane has been turned into a two-way bike path along a small part of the first lane in 2020, temporarily at first, during the lockdowns, and is now permanent. And even if there is still significant opposition to basically any new project, I'd say nowadays no one thinks having a tramway in a city that size is ridiculous and would never work, and I don't know many people who would want to go back, despite some of the issues with the first line (errors in the initial construction and maintenance require regular work on the rails, typically performed in the summer months).
@@filiaaut Yeah this is a great story. And though they just posted an annual loss of 12 million kroner or 1.7 million euros due to lower than planned passenger revenue, Im not so worried about Odense though, they're quite likely to expand their system. They have a phase 2 which theyll need to decide on soon and many developers are very interested in investing in the city, but their support hinges on the construction of the Phase 2. And if they dont build phase 2 well then Ill be back to tell I was an optimistic fool. Its more so the other Danish cities I'm worried about. Aarhus and Copenhagen. Aarhus is... weird. Their system opened in 2017 and still suffers from ridership less than half of the projections... though it is growing. And they suffer from very weird issues that should be easily fixable. Like not having ice protection on their pantographs despite being in Scandinavia. All of this and more has made Aarhus's system and its flaws turn much of the Danish public across the country against light rail. But the city has already cancelled 2 of its 3 proposed light rail extensions in its phase 2. And the final proposed extension is being studied alongside BRT for the same corridor. All the while the city is studying BRT for a completely different corridor, where the report just recently concluded that it'd cost twice what the city had expected. So they're looking for federal funding and there is a pool of funding allocated to Light rail and BRT projects which the final phase 2 LRT project is elligible... but they might try to downgrade it now to BRT to try and fund both. It also doesn't help that the public and populist politicians are spreading pipedream stories about BRT to tout it as a suitable replacement for light rail and claiming it'd fix any issue anyone has ever complained about with light rail. And as for Copenhagen its a big can of worms. The citys suburbs has a single orbital tram line along a ring road thats being built now and will open in 2025, finally giving a return to trams in the metropolitan area since 1972. But within the city proper support is weak. A few years ago there was a proposal for a phase 2 of the light rail that'd run in the north west of the city, linking the suburbs with the denser core at a transit hub, replacing part of the city's busiest bus line, the 5C (which also happens to be the 2nd busiest bus route in all of europe with over 17 million annual passengers or about 50k daily passengers pre-covid). The project even received state funding but the city hall's majority declined it on DAY ONE! They called it "The gift nobody wanted" and touted all sorts of fearmongering about trams and how they'd supposedly make the street dangerous to cross, would lead to unbearable noise for residents, and would kill all local businesses "Because everyone would be passing by on the train rather than be able to park and shop as they please". Politicians from the Conservative party and the Danish Liberal Party Venstre both even went as far as Comparing Tram tracks to THE BERLIN WALL!!! Plus some politicians, especially from the Social Democratic Party claimed that a light rail would crush their dream of building an underground metro to the areas it would serve, despite politicians from the very same party having been in power in the city for over 100 years and regularly ruled the government and have never done it despite proposals being put forth time and time again since the 1930's! Alas the city is now studying BRT on the corridor with Light rail as an unpopular alterative being studied in the same process. Though again the politicians massively favour BRT.
Fascinating. I'm English but used to live in France years ago before the reintroduction of trams and had no idea it was so widespread. They all look pretty stylish. I love the idea of grassing the tracks too. Several British cities have also introduced tram systems, the biggest and most successful being in Manchester. Great video! I'll even forgive your American vocabulary (sidewalks, elevators) as at least you called them trams rather than streetcars 😂Mind you, reading many of the comments written by French people in this thread I notice they are nearly all using American vocabulary and spelling something you actually see more and more even amongst young British people. American English has won, I think.
I love Grenoble, I've been living here for a couple months. The proximity to mountains is a personal requirement. Trams are great, having TGVs come right up to the city is incredible. Bike infrastructure is the best I've had in any city I've lived in. The most incredible thing that I discovered was that this place used to be a *dump*, especially the areas around the west of the main train station. Like the area around the Belle Electrique was a literal scrap yard. The city isn't perfect, there's a bunch of places in the outskirts that have inconsistent bike infrastructure, the regional trains can get pretty expensive for short jaunts (12 euros for 55km? In my home country of Greece it's 5 euros), the regional buses need Google Maps integration and e-tickets, but all those are far out from the centre. It's a bit lacking in night life, but it's 100k pop, so what do you expect. Compare all this to Glasgow, where I used to live, and Grenoble makes it look like a crack house toilet. Glasgow used to have 140km of tram lines and now has zero. There are no conversations or plans about reviving any of them. The buses are extremely expensive and run by multiple companies that use different ticketing systems. In my four years of living there, I never once stepped on a train or bus due to cost and restrictions on bikes.
This is excellent. One point of note is that these new systems have some important characteristics that the old ones did not, such as dedicated lanes, off board fare collection, and hopefully traffic signal priority. That all makes the trams much more efficient and effective than the old ones used to be.
i clicked to see what you had to say about Nantes, the first french city to reintroduce trams... in 1985, far before google streetview, so imagine my frustration! You can use your old postcards to cover these more recent eras too: for example the current core of Nantes' tram network is visible on postcards and easy to find photos from the 60s/70s, at a moment in time where it was an intersection between two 8 lanes boulevards. Streetview could provide pictures of the intermediate steps between the configuration from the 90s where cars still had a few lanes, and the recent redesign where they fully pedestrianized 1.5 hectares (and cut a few older trees, but new ones will grow!) concerning grass tracks, it's also to reduce vibration and noise. But it doesn't allow emergency vehicles to use the right of way, it makes pedestrian crossing less convenient, and if cars or motorcycles drive on them you have mud everywhere: not adequate in every street!
I live in Lyon a few blocks away from the street you showed. The two images show the same line just a few hundred meters apart. That Tram is super popular and it’s hard to imagine people lived without it!
When i went to Tours i was completely surprised and amazed by the looks of their trams, i just had to take a picture. Especially at night they look spectacular! I really wish that they added seperated bikelanes when they added the tramtracks. It seems almost like the French prefer to have a single mode of transport next to walking as opposed to have multiple types at once. It seems like cycling is perfect for many of these French cities. I think its the next big step to making the French streets even more efficient. Great video!
I've been travelling to Strasbourg for many years. It's my favorite French city, although France has so many great cities, it's not even fair to choose one...I have friends in Schiltigheim and I always take the tram or more and more, walk....Vive la France!
Nice video :) Caen, normandy would've been an interesting example : tram rebuilt in 2002 with a tire system, demolished and replaced with conventional tram in 2019. 3rd and 4th lines to open in 2026 !
I live in Melbourne Australia, and we currently have the biggest train network in the world. We never got rid of our trams in the 50s and 60s unlike Sydney, in Brisbane, and we are constantly evolving in developing our tram network. It's good to see that France is catching up!
I'm from Poland and trams never disappeared from our cities because we were just too poor to switch to cars 😂 now being modernised and expanded they give us the advantage over the West just as the rediscovered traditional vegetable-and-fruit-based diet of former poor peasantry made Poland recently one of the most vegan-friendly countries in the world 🥰
First read "I'm from Portland" and wondered - why is it poor?) May be it's not because of poorness but because you were aware of sustainability when it wasn't a mainstream?)
Hi, i'm from brest and right now the city is building a second tram line ! They just started working on the constructino of the new lane, which will make some places in the city way easier to acces (like the hospital). Also ''Why is everything so grey'' is something you can say about like 3/4 of the city, the nickname of brest is ''Brest la Grise'' PS : the square you mentionned (Place Starsbourg) has won a french contest for the ''ugliest monument'' lmao
@@w.k.7277 Same but one should accept the possibility our brains are just rotted. I saw a movie once that started with panoramic shots of the port of Le Havre and it occurred to me in retrospect that we were supposed to think it was bleak and ugly. I just thought "amazing views, looks like Brest, very inspiring start to this movie".
3:16 I have witnessed one of these Trams in Dijon while testing the new Dijon lines,they ordered the trams together for saving 25% of the bill.The color scheme is pistachio-silver & Cassis (black currant)-silver. In Mulhouse they have gone a step further- with the interchangeably usable Tram-Train to the nearby town of Thann via the city center of Mulhouse and the train line in the outskirts to Thann.
Hi from Grenoble! There are 65000 students here and the tram is a pillar of student life. The only reason we're not taking the tram is because we're on a bike! I wish we had public transportation at night, that would be great.
Hi, I'm from Leipzig, Germany. We have a similar situation here. The night traffic sucks, therefore in winter and for the people who can't or don't want to cycle at night the public transport offers little and bad options at night. In nearby Dresden though, they do it much better for people who go out.
I live in Florence, Italy, and our tram is very similar to these. Only a big section of one line has the green grass though, I think it would be nice to see it across the whole length of all the lines! Many people were opposed to the tram project before it was built, but now that everyone has seen how convenient and beneficial it is, everyone likes it. In fact they're building many new lines right now, so a lot of streets are under construction and I can't wait to see the result. What's crazy to me is that here too, there used to be a tram in the old days, connecting everything from the middle of the city center (there was a tram stop next to the main cathedral!) to even the little old town up the nearby hill.
I miss Grenoble so much. Though I prioritized riding my rented bike, I loved taking the tram once a while. It's so much easier to localize oneself focusing on the tracks. I really think trams should be a priority in urban planning
yup. a benefit people don't realize is that having a tram is a very powerful "path" to follow walking. I actually walk a lot more now that there's one in my city
Thank you for talking about my hometown of Angers ! Changes for a more car-free city have been slowly taking place the last 15 years, and it is for the best. And it even made things better for cars too.
A similar renaissance has occured in the UK (though not to the same extent) After the closure of the Glasgow Trams in 1962, the only functioning Tramway in the UK was the largely tourist utilised 'Blackpool Tram' From the 80s ideas to reintroduce trams have been floated and since the 90s we have seen new team systems in: Manchester Sheffield South London/Croydon Nottingham Birmingham (and surrounding 'West Midlands region) Edinburgh - there are also plans and aspirations for trams systems to link Kent with Essex; to serve the Wirral peninsula; to provide an 'underground' system for Bristol and; to link Hertfordshire with Essex. Personally? I live in Scotland and would love to see Edinburgh get a full network instead of the extant 1 line. I'd also like Dundee and Aberdeen to consider the reintroduction of trams as part of their urban transport development. Glasgow, I think, is big enough and dense enough that metro & light metro are feasible. But Edinburgh needs more trams (possibly light metro too, in future) and Dundee & Aberdeen need to consider reinstating trams too. I look at cities like Brest, Angers & Besançon as models for Dundee & Aberdeen.
Very interesting comment, I was recently wondering at how I couldn't think of any trams in the UK although you'd think they'd have some so thank you for fully answering my unasked questions.
The greenery in the middle of the street, along the tram tracks is a very nice touch, IMHO. And here in Grenoble, lots of dog owners take their doggos for a walk in the grass, when no trams are coming :)
@@retropaganda8442 not useless and definetely not costly. it helps with rain management, controls the noise the tram makes, helps with the urban heat island effect and also improves air quality and makes the street cooler and more visually appealing.
All of this despite france housing Renault and Peugeot, which are both huge car manufacturers. Grant power to the local governments, they won't care for lobbyists.
As someone who takes the tram in Paris to go to work every day, I really appreciate it. Especially now that part of the line is closed for 2 weeks and we have to take replacement buses. The replacement bus is a lot more frequent than the regular bus line, but oh boy is it slow with all that traffic and going around because it doesn't have its own dedicated shortcuts.
@@cityforall Well, I don't know any other tram system to compare, but they're fine enough to me. They sure stop a lot and riding a bike is faster, but it's still a lot better than taking the bus. 😅
Great research! But I’m surprised you didn’t mention the tram king, Montpellier. The entire city core is car-free and uses tram as the main mode of transport.
Very excited about the same kind of revival going on of suburban train systems in cities like bangalore and delhi in india along with enormous construction of new metro lines. India is undergoing a public transport revolution with focus on buses, trians and metro. Excited about the future!!
I live in Angers and what they have done here is really beautiful ! Everybody is happy to see those changes, and another line is opening this summer ! While doing it they replaced large parkings in neighbourhoods with small parks (we were already the city with the biggest surface of parks in France but now they are even more and they even enter our neighbourhoods). Great job from the city
I grew up in Nantes in the 70s and 80s where these new generation of trams started. I was a kid then but I remember discussion of the adults about the new trams projects and many people (especially the one not on the same political side than the city mayor) were saying "Tram is an old stuff...." It's stupid, we had tram in the past and we destroyed it...", "this is a non-sense" etc etc... 40 years later it has transformed the city for the good.
As someone from Winnipeg, Canada I absolutely envy the tram and subway system of Toronto. We have relatively solid bus options here. They go to every aspect of the city, although the farther out, the less frequently they run and will stop earlier, while the more major/main bus lines will run until 2am, shut down for four hours, and start again. Personally, our bus system needs to be 24 hours. Secondly, taking the bus is limited by the fact that they constantly get stuck in traffic and are a slower option in almost all but one set of buses and a very specific route. I wish that our city had been built with a subway system from the get go, especially considering how painfully cold Winnipeg is for so much of the year. - 40°, or worse, for a couple months, having more below ground that connects to things involving as little outside as possible would be a great service. Unfortunately, at this point, the chances of our city ever going through the process of developing a subway are, while not impossible, definitely improbable. As it is, our city struggles with funding and you won't convince Winnipegers to invest in anything. They'll support a project after its completed and see that it was a benefit, but taking a chance doesn't happen, and no one wants to fund anything. That and developing an entire subway network in our city at this point would be quite the process. I would gladly love to see trams partly replace our bus network. Being electrified is great, especially considering all of our energy comes from hydroelectric power, rather than from dirty sources of energy. So any switch to electrification would be a great benefit. All of our major roadlines are wide enough that you could have a dedicated tram line in each direction, while still leaving room for normal traffic. Add dedicated traffic lights to ensure that trams are always first priority (excluding emergency personnel, obviously) and often could dedicate a lane specifically for emergency vehicles only. The two big deciding factors for whether or not people use public transit are pretty simple. The first is whether or not its easier/more convenient. The second is the cost, but the cost is weighed against the convenience. I don't think public transit should be a pay at point of service type of service. It should absolutely be a public service to the entirety of the city. Whether you're talking about single parents struggling to make ends meet, poor people, homeless people, etc. There shouldn't be a barrier that locks anyone in their area. Of course that means that we have to change how we fund such projects, but the goal is also to get people who don't really need to drive to move toward public transit. It just needs to be available, safe, comfortable, easy, and affordable to all. Plus if adding grass wherever trams are, it makes the city streets look far more pleasant and peaceful, and it significantly helps reduce the way our concrete cities absorb and hold onto heat.
@@dalriada7554 we have in recent years started adding more dedicated bus lanes although they are largely toward the universities. I believe there are further plans to expand on this, which is necessary. I will gladly accept at least better improving our bus system. It isn't awful, but it isn't great because it can be stuck in awful traffic.
I live in a Dijon, one of the biggest cultural tourist spots but relatively small compared to the bigger Paris/Lyon/Marseille We have two tram lines and a dozen different bus lines, always was easy to move across the city and even to neighbouring cities (Quetigny, Chenove etc..) Public transportation is key to reduce vehicular dependency and carbon emissions
I'm from Tours and the tram helped a lot for transports .Now all the big places like the train station or schools are connected because of trams .We also have lot of bus so its really easy to moove around the city
I visited Tours last summer and enjoyed using the trams to get around, and especially Rue National in the city centre being restricted to trams, pedestrians and cyclists. Only complaint I had was the 1/2 km walk from the airport to the tram. The line should be extended to the airport terminal.
Some of the bigger cities in the south of the uk need these. Busses have too low capacity/get stuck in traffic and heavy rail has too few stops, usually only on one axis, either north south or east west. France is so much better than the uk where transit is concerned, they are like 40 years ahead of us. The conservative party only ever build the bare minimum to keep society functioning. Nothing that makes life comfortable, or more equal.
Here in Italy we are quite late to the idea of modern trams and we're still quite far behind, aside from large legacy networks like Milan and Turin the most successful French style modern tram city we have is Florence and they've recently received funding to start on doubling the system length to cover most of the city, another city that will soon reintroduce trams is Bologna which already has an excellent bus network (118 million passengers in 2019) so the goal for the first line is actually replacing the busiest bus route which is running at full capacity and it will feature weird short section with single track followed by a short section of street running, these awkward measures are taken because this section is only 2 car lanes wide so it's not always possible to give trams full priority but this is mostly fine since the relatively narrow road they are taking over is being downgraded to a local street that serves local traffic with through traffic rerouted on a parallel road. The modern tramway revolution is also spreading to countries like Spain Marocco and Algeria while countries like Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands have done a good job at upgrading their existing systems to modern standards. All of this wouldn't be possible without the first modern tramways in France showing that trams weren't an obsolete technology and could adapt with the times
Trams are amazing, they remove cars from city centers by making them dedicated to trams, bikes and pedestrians, making these city centers really enjoyable. It is also really simple to catch a tram and reach downtown in 10min, rather than taking a car, being stuck in traffic jam and struggling to find a parking spot. I cannot imagine my cities without a tram! And yes, Tours definitely has the most gorgeous one. Fun fact, it even sings little melodies at some stations ;)
I'm a month in Barcelone as an exchange student and I live in the nearby university, a bit remote from the center of Barcelone. I haven't seen many tram, but I'm amazed by the subway and metro system. Super clean, super easy to pay (easy to use machines and 10 travels = 11€ for all kind of transport), often available like 20min max. I can go in there center and come back without needing a bus, bicycle or car, only by my foot. It's so cool I'm a french and I hate the prices of public transports in Parisian region, and it's not that easy to pay anymore, no more tickets, and terrible availability in some parts of the region
Hey, Barcelona has trams! the "Trambaix" lines connect the suburbs of Baix Llobregat and main universities' campus to the city's CBD in Francesc Macià's square while the southern lines are named "Trambesos" and connect the city's biggest park to Sant Adri de Besos, and they are about to be joined through Diagonal creating a single network! there are also more expansions planned like a line through the coast, from Ciutadella to Port Olimpic and WTC BCN. They use Alstom Citadis trainsets made locally as Barcelona has a big Alstom factory where they have made trams for lots of cities (Madrid, JAen, Murcia, Athens, Sydney to name a few!) i LOOOOOVE trams btw
Indeed Google Street View is a great too to appreciate the transformation! Few remarks. It goes beyond transportation, these are urbanist operations as you describe how entire streets or boulevards (facade to facade) are being renovated. The feeling that the transformation is human-scale is because trams are compatible with walking and the path they took left us assured where they're going, without any surprise and at moderate speed even tough they are silent. Finally they are part of the aesthetic of the city, bringing with them a modern touch!
Live in Montpellier, France, and we have a very good tram system. We are slowly building our 5th lane and, very important note, tram became so important that it is now free for locals during the Week End ! It really is a great addition to this city
Barcelona, Spain also made 2 new tram systems from scratch, both connect the outskirts with city center and lead to quite interesting urban transformation, actually both systems are being connected through the most important avenue of the city.The unified systems are expected to be finished in 2026.
luckily enough to visit South France for the 2019 Women's FIFA WC and used the trams in Grenoble & Montpellier to get to the stadiums as well as in Nice. This past December, I used the T7 in Paris to see that 'abandoned' Concorde near Orly. I have also taken the trams in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra in Australia (as well as way back in the day, I rode the Sydney Monorail).
Dijon has hugely changed in the past 10 years with the tramway I just looked back at the city before we had trams and it's way more enjoyable downtown now
Good topic ! I love those transformations. I used to live in Lyon until 2021 :) now I'm in a much smaller town (Chateauroux, 40k inhabitants, very car centric) thus there's no need nor the scale for such infrastructure. But Châteauroux is one of the cities that chose, in its case since the early 2000s, to make its bus system free at the point of service - I love that though I don't personally use it (my bike is my best friend in town :P) But ! As you mentioned , there's still a huge waste of existing flora and trees eradicated due to building sites, and as with Brest's example, it's still far too often too mineral. I wish French city planners would prescribe a lot more green permeable landmass. My newly rejuvenated neighborhood in Lyon (7th arrondissement), in 2016, was covered in asphalt, with huge swaths of walkable black surface. It's unreasonably hot in summer, reverberating heat right to you face... In recent days, the last parts they build tend to be greener. It's still slow but I very much encourage the trend.
What a cool video ! I'm glad that you talked about my city, Brest, since nobody ever talks about it. I was very young when they started the transformation for the first tram line here, but I still remember how it was before, the city used to have much more trees before the tram as you said. Now it's been a month they started remodeling the city on the path of the future second line that should open in 2026, but thankfully they learned from their mistakes and are going to keep most of the trees intact this time, they'll only have to remove a very few, but all the ones they can keep will be kept. I was really disappointed about that first line they made, but I'm really looking forward to that new line. Sadly a thing I should point out is the fact that usually the bus network is kind of left to rot because of the lack of budget now, the buses are in quite rough shape because of poor maintenance, and every year the offer is slightly getting reduced. I think it's very sad that the city lets the bus network rot, since it's still what most people use to move ; hopefully they'll have more budget once the tram is finished.
The trams are really useful and cheap, here in Montpellier, it’s 1.60€ for a one way ticket, preferably I buy the 10 trip tickets for 10€, but citizens can get a special subscription card for trams and bus
In the German city of wiesbaden, 60% of the population (290.000) voted against tram system in 2020. Public transport is underdeveloped, busses only. And continuous traffic jam. Still hard to see the missed opportunity.
one thing to not underestimate, is that all the tram vehicles are made by Alstom, which is a pretty big manufacturer of rolling stocks. so ultimately building more trams is good for jobs, but it also feeds the company and allow it to to export its models in many countries, that certainly helps a lot.
If they tried to do this in the UK, it would cost £800billion, £1billion for the actual project, £799billion for friends of Tories and Tory donors. Thus nothing would get built, and following a 20 year consultation to determine why the project failed, costing another £100billion to Tory cronies, they'd decide Britons just aren't like other Europeans and don't like public transport.
In Spain there was a tram boom on the early 2000s, killed by the crisis on 2008. But lately a small but strong movement through more disperse areas is bringing interest into tram-trains, so lots of projects are being studied! :)
That's nice transportation. They would never do that in NYC as there are already subways and the city mainly caters to cars in order to make revenue from tolls, tickets, gasoline, parking, registration and soon, traffic congestion fees. All the city wants to do is squeeze money from car usage. I'm happy for the people who live in those areas in France. I like how sleek those trams look.
One French tram city you didn't mention is Montpellier, I was there last year and I was astonished by the quality and affordability of the tram system there. Cars are not allowed in most of the city center, so taking a walk there is really easy and enjoyable.
Support our channel by Patreon -
www.patreon.com/CitiesforAll
If any WHAT PART OF EUROPA had the deadly Dangerous streets before new tram/busses.. Germany???? Ehh
The same "back to trams and trains" renaissance is happening in cities across Turkey as well. Istanbul removed its entire complex tram system in the 50s and 60s and now the lines are being rebuilt one by one.
And that is very good!
The heritage tram in Istanbul is so nice!!
that's awesome, makes me wanna go to Turkey!
I love that the they are definitely becoming more trendy once again, and the more major global cities that redesign to include such infrastructure, the easier it becomes to convince others to trickle that down into other cities as well.
Will you make a video on Turkey?
Tram systems in France are fantastic, very quiet versus noisy cars, very comfortable and convenient. Ther is no backside to their reintroduction. You can really feel the cities going quieter and nicer once they've been introduced. To me we have the best public transport network in the world
Well as someone who lived in Bordeaux for 5 years I can tell you that there is one major backside to tramways; there are very VERY slow. Actually I used to spend 3h/day in tramways when I went to the University because I lived in the eastern side of the city and the University was on the western side. Both cities are separated by about 10km but it always took me 1h30 to go from one to the other.
Except for that flaw there is also the terrible moment at 5pm where you literally have 0 space for yourself and have to be compressed between people. That is a flaw that concerns most public transportation systems though, but I think it stills needs to be pointed out. Spending around 3h/day with people all around you and having no space was really a bad experience
@@virgoh1124 Hm, i have other experience. Ich drive a tram through munich to my workplace from east to west like 16 kilometers and i only sit 45 minutes in it for one way. So for the hole day it is 1:30 which is okay, because i read a book or so in that time.
@@barlauch9292 I've been to Germany (Munich and other towns) and the public transportation there is on a whole other level. Always on time and very effective
I find the exemple of Montpellier really interesting. There’s a huge no car area downtown that is fed from all sides by currently 5 and soon 6 tram lines, making the center of this relatively large town feel like a small town center with absolutely no traffic noise, just the noise of people walking, talking, living…
It’s actually one of the best town I’ve been to.
Correction : currently 4 and soon 5 tram lines.
Also, trams are noisy. Very noisy, because the city center has narrow streets, which leads to high angled turns. Something trams don't like (lots of wear and tears and accelerated aging), and my ears even less. If you live along one of those lines, you just can't open your windows because of the noise.
If I have one advice to city planners : trams are great, but they are much, much, much better if rubber-tyred if your city is and old european medieval one.
I guess classic trams are very good for American style towns with grid-like map and wide streets.
Small correction: there is currently 4 and soon 5 (4a and 4b are basically the same circular lines than go in opposite directions)
@patrickchinka Politics...
Only one of the train stations is anywhere near the trams. Hopefully that gets solved fairly soon, because confused tourists like me would expect not to need to take a shuttle from the train station to a tram stop.
@@JonathonV The line 1 will be extended to the other train station "soon". I don't remember the exact date, and delays are always a possibility.
The problem here was that train station build in the middle on nowhere.
I was in Bordeaux last weekend and I was so impressed by how little traffic there was and how frequent the trams were even on a Sunday morning.
bordeaux ☠ the city has horrible traffick and is undrivable, + it's plagued by crime
literally one of the worst french cities to live in
@@Yosh-wt4lg Why are you lying ?
@@languerouge5385 im not
@@Yosh-wt4lgare you sure? I think you may be referring to Nantes. But even there the tram system is great.
As someone living in Grenoble thank you for the great images of the city! It has a reputation in France as an urban laboratory and so things are have progressively changed here. Really hope to see more videos on it's transit and urban planning.
I liked it very much. This combination of good urban planning and mountains close by is just gorgeous. Hope to visit again one day.
C'est plutôt le laboratoire de l'Islam aujourd'hui
@@blaiseragon8142 non ?
@@blaiseragon8142 matrixé l'autre
@@blaiseragon8142 non
My home, Glasgow, once had one of the largest tram networks in the world and we tore it all down for highways 😞 Hoping we can be inspired by France soon
I know that feel, that's a sad story
Glasgow also had trolley-busses. And it built a motorway right through the centre of the city!
Certainly DON'T take you inspiration from the omnishambolic Edinburgh Council's trams! (Is say tram(s) plural), it's only 1 line and not even a circle line like Glasgow's clockwork orange.
Monorail go brrr
Thats the worst I have heard in a long time. Car hegemony is the worst. Luckily its been dying as there is no future for cars
The city of nantes had trams since the 70's, and it's no wonder that it is now one of the easiest cities in france to move around using public transport. they also implemented electric buses here recently, and they're great! i'm 22 and never felt like needing to own a car ever so far. And to top it all off An unlimited pass for all the buses and trams in the city cost only 350€ a year, way less than just the car insurance haha
Exactly! That's how good public transportation works!
Small correction - current Nantes tram works since 1985, not the 70s)
Nantes was the first of the French cities that opened a second generation tram network, 10 years before the goverment decision to reintroduce trams in 1975. Was the start of all... only three vintage networks survived the 50s. At present there are nearly 30 networks.
peuh, in Lyon it's 250€ per year for students.
and it’s free on week-ends !
In Strasbourg it's now free until you're 18, and dirt cheap if you're a low-income household
I live in Angers and it is the "1st big city in France where life is good". I'm sure trams made a big step on that and they're opening 2 new lines this summer ! It's beautiful ;)
What a beautiful country.
As a Parisian, I was a long time resident of the northern part of the city hemmed in between Porte de Clignancourt and Porte de la Chapelle, the old northern "entries" to the city, a bit cut off from the rest of the city when it comes to transportation. Those are still pretty rough neighbourhoods up to now (poverty, drugs, violence and prostitution). Yet the tramways have had a very noticeable effect on my former neighbourhood : though those problems still exist, their intensity has been dialled down tenfold.
People will say it's because of gentrification, and that is both true and untrue. I personaly think the simple fact of having a big tract of green lanes and less cars had a major effect : people started taking to the streets again, and people in my neighbourhood who felt they were condemned to stay at home after coming back from work began just walking and having coffee in the evening in their own neighbourhood, which they enjoyed more since they felt they weren't trapped in it anymore.
I take that line to porte d'aubervilliers every day (I don't even know how things look like west of there) and it always amuses me to see the homeless people sleeping all over the place, but as you said, it's not dangerous around the tram line.
You could have mentioned Bordeaux as well, which adopted the trams again in 2003 and is continuously expanding it. The oldest bridge in the city even banned private cars to prioritize trams, busses, cyclist and pedestrians. Another cool feature of the Bordeaux tram is that it does not need overhead power cables and instead is powered directly from the tracks. cool video tho!
They are powered from a third rail on the middle of the track. There are other cities that use that system in the city centre, but it increase costs of the system.
I’m also a huge fan of the segmented third rail trams! It bugs me that nobody seems to mention them, when they’re a huge esthetic improvement over the typical tram power system. I think more people would like trams if they didn’t require cables all over the place, so the segmented third rail systems, while higher cost upfront, would lead to lower costs over the long run.
it is capable of using both overhead lines and a third rail, allowing the network to be expanded for cheap and also preventing visual intrusions for overhead lines in the inner city
I'm so glad that my city Edinburgh is rebuilding its tram system with the long-term goal of having it be the backbone of the public transport network.
Shame you missed Montpellier, it has got a new tram network since 2000 and is now building it's 5th line. The trams are unique, as it is the only city in France to have line dependent liveries !
Seems that i'll have to make part 2 of this video)
Yeah I concur! There must be a part 2 or short that features Montpellier's network, the upcoming line 5 and new electric BRT longer distance lines that complement and extend the trams to far flung suburban villages.
Montpellier's transportation development around trams, BRT's and the "online" high-speed train station in the Southern outskirts of the city is really great and inspiring.
A great subject for an "addendum video" to complement this one with another example.
I'm sure several locals would provide footage and information.
@@cityforall Just make a video on Montpellier, and La Grande Motte, and La Gruissan Plage. Doesn't have to be about trams. The video can be about France having the best culture in the world with the most pleasant people and the most enjoyable atmosphere!! J'adore ❤❤❤❤(minus unleashed dogs and dog shit everywhere)
@City for All Yes!!! Part 2 on trams in French cities please 🙏🏼 I'm making a list of cities to visit in France from your list hehe
Nice has also been missed. I remember visiting the city well over ten years ago when they were just starting work.
The French city where I am born, Saint-Étienne, kept its trams from 1890 to nowadays. I live now near Paris and I appreciate using the trams to discover areas in the suburbs which are very interesting to visit, like Saint-Cloud, Epinay-sur-Seine,...
Cloud is not what I expected a saint's make to be hahaha
@@tomasbeltran04050 His name was more like Clodoald, but it became Cloud through the centuries. There's a wonderful park in this posh city, it belong to a royal and imperial castle overlooking the Seine but this castle was destroyed unfortunately in 1871 during the franco-prussian war...
@@marcelcharbonnier297 Clodoald does sound like an expectable name for a king or noble in medieval France, specially from ðe years 400-1000.
I'm sad ðe castle was lost, and really wanna visit ðe place in ðe future
@@tomasbeltran04050 Yes. Clodoald was the grandson of Clovis the First who baptised the French people into christianity. He became an ermit and was made a saint by the church and he passed away in a little village which became the town of Saint-Cloud.
@@tomasbeltran04050 Aerial views of the parc of Saint-Cloud, with the remains of its beautiful fountains : ua-cam.com/video/RZMebv2B7fg/v-deo.html
Taken the Angers tram almost everyday in 2019, I really love the walkable streets around it. I can hardly recognize the city without the tram. It's great to see those familiar streets from your video!
this video is pretty amazing and well made. I never paid a visit to France and Europe yet, but studied abroad in Canada for 5yrs. It reminds me of Toronto tram streets which were wonderful and environment friendly. It's very interesting that France lately introduced its nation wide tram systems in 1990s and 2010s. In South Korea, Korean cities are starting to introduce nation wide tram systems around Greater Seoul Area. One construction has just started in Wirye city located and neighboring Songpa ,Seoul , Hanam, Gyeonggi and Seongnam, Gyeonggi regions. anyway they are planning to build tram systems that cross regioins where no metro is accessible... !
Thanks for your comment! That's very interesting, I didn't know about South Korean tram project. I should read more about it.
I will visit Seoul in a month. What are some good existing tram lines?
Seoul and Trams BHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA, don't follow Europe they have tiny and unpopulated City , Seoul have 5X the population than Paris, Trams in Seoul will be disaster, you need to wait for 3-4 Trams before even get any space during peak hour......
As someone from Toronto, Canada, this is interesting to me as people here often complain about our trams/streetcars, but maybe that would be different if more of our streetcars were on dedicated lanes away from cars. Personally, I love them & feel they serve a different purpose than subways (which we also have) - they're better for hop on-hop off shopping whereas subways are better for travelling longer distances in an efficient manner.
Toronto trams looks very nice but they deserve to have dedicated lanes so they will not get stuck in traffic
@@cityforall signal priority is actually 10x more important compared to having dedicated lanes, an example in Toronto is the Spadina avenue Where despite the fact that streetcars/trams have their own dedicated lanes you can still jog faster because it has to wait at intersections for quite some time and this is something that French cities generally avoid quite well
@@gulagkid799 yep, you are right. traffic signal priority is veeery important.
Fellow Torontonian here. Yes, our trams need more dedicated right of ways, like ok’ing Spadina, St. Clair and Queens Quay.
True, a tram is a "walking accelerator"
This is amazing. Thank you so much for this addition to the UA-cam-Urbanism-Universe. I'm always impressed how every channel is so valuable by having it's very own perspective and style on progressive, sustainable urbanism!
I was wondering is there a place for me in that Universe))
@@cityforall Keep making and improving your content and soon enough you'll be off to NYC by the $$$ of your patrons. :)
@@karcinor Oh, yeah! Sounds great!))
You've gathered so many different examples! Great presentation! Very clear that trams can make our streets more pleasant and beautiful.
Thanks) If you have any suggestions for the next videos topics - you're welcome)
I'm living in Saint-Etienne. Our tramway is one of our two biggest pride with our football club. First french tram to be built, never ceased to function ! Gotta say it's particularly fitting to the city because oddly enough for an old european town, we have a main street (where the main tram line is built) that goes south to north all the way in a complete straight line. We opened our third line a few years ago !
The city of Rouen is a great example and I'm sad that it wasn't mentioned (mostly out of Normand pride tho). It was the second city to have re-inaugurated its tramway line, and also the most inventive. There was a growing demand for a subway system, and while there was also significant pressure for a tramway line, the already unpopular city government also didn't want their new line to be called a "tramway" because of the association with the fucked up old cars from a few decades prior. So what did they do ? They fused the two. It's a tramway line on the south bank, and transitions into an underground subway on the north bank. This way they could call it a "Metro" line and not a "Tramway" line. It's a genius idea and I love it.
I would have never thought the day would come where I'd see my city (Saint-Etienne) in one of your videos!! We were tramway precursors, then they dismantled the network and are now building new lines! Everyone here loves the tramway, it's electric, practically silent, and faster than buses! Loved the video!
Small updates concerning the Angers tram. Line B and C will open later this year, normally at the beginning of July. They also ordered new Alstom Citadis 305 sets last year.
The greening of tram tracks and managing rainwater runoff in what would otherwise be a paved area is something that needs to be emphasised especially when many local authorities are installing bus lanes as a cheap and short sighted alternative.
I'm from Orléans and I love the tram system, I just wish it extended to the suburb village where I live.
Salut neighbour!
The French know how to build cities :) happy to live here!
That return to the tram of these cities is a great thing, but as a French living in Prague, I see how much better and further are cities that actualy didn't destroy their tracks in the first place! Their network is flexible, goes everywhere, several types if tramways are used, and what they have to do is just expand the existing network for it to be even better and not start building one from scratch!
@@captainultraswagga what? Nonsense!
@@captainultraswagga Vote something else next time. You value freedom and individual rights. I do too. I've been to Prague, and your city could be so much better if you made it less car-centric. Look around you, man! You put a six-lane highway(?) and a ginormous parking lot outside your city's main train station. Your charming streets should be pedestrianized, but all these parking spots are bigger than the sidewalk. It's a horribly wasteful use of space. This car-centric culture makes everyone LESS free. When cities ditch the car, its inhabitants are healthier, more free and can spend more money on local goods and services. It's a win-win.
Surprised you didn't mention Reims, but there are so many great examples in France that I can absolutely forgive you. Great video! You earned a new subscriber from Oslo, Norway:-) Trams are great for business, great for the environment, and most importantly: great for getting around the city. Trams are probably the best indicator species of sensible urbanism. Their comeback is vital!
The modern French light rail is just a really good way of showing how to use trams to some of their best potential. In Denmark where I'm from we opened the Odense light rail a little under a year ago, which takes heavy design influence from French tram systems, and have had people experienced with work in Paris and Mulhouse onboard with the design process. The Odense light rail is not perfect, its poorly done foundations have lead to a lot of noise complaints, particularly in the city core. And though people still complain about it being "A waste of money" and only reaching half of the (frankly unreasonably high) ridership targets for now, it still carries 5 times more passengers than the bus lines it replaced and already suffers from overcrowding during rush hour
If that can reassure you, when the first tram line opened in Orléans in 2000, a lot of people complained about it being a waste of money, a ridiculous investment for such a small city (back then, the cities with new tram systems were in metro area close to 500 000 inhabitants, or even bigger ones, while Orléans' was around 270 000 inhabitants). The next municipal elections happened only a few months after the line opened, it was operating significantly behind the ridership targets and the mayor who had been behind the projet was beaten, his project of a second line and turning some car lanes along the first line into bike lanes were abandoned by the new mayor/city counsel, who was not a big fan of taking space away from cars.
In the following years, the first lane did reach its target, a second line was built in 2014 (the one featured in the video), a couple of stations were added to the first line to provide access to new developments in 2019 and a car lane has been turned into a two-way bike path along a small part of the first lane in 2020, temporarily at first, during the lockdowns, and is now permanent.
And even if there is still significant opposition to basically any new project, I'd say nowadays no one thinks having a tramway in a city that size is ridiculous and would never work, and I don't know many people who would want to go back, despite some of the issues with the first line (errors in the initial construction and maintenance require regular work on the rails, typically performed in the summer months).
@@filiaaut Yeah this is a great story. And though they just posted an annual loss of 12 million kroner or 1.7 million euros due to lower than planned passenger revenue, Im not so worried about Odense though, they're quite likely to expand their system. They have a phase 2 which theyll need to decide on soon and many developers are very interested in investing in the city, but their support hinges on the construction of the Phase 2. And if they dont build phase 2 well then Ill be back to tell I was an optimistic fool.
Its more so the other Danish cities I'm worried about. Aarhus and Copenhagen.
Aarhus is... weird. Their system opened in 2017 and still suffers from ridership less than half of the projections... though it is growing. And they suffer from very weird issues that should be easily fixable. Like not having ice protection on their pantographs despite being in Scandinavia. All of this and more has made Aarhus's system and its flaws turn much of the Danish public across the country against light rail.
But the city has already cancelled 2 of its 3 proposed light rail extensions in its phase 2. And the final proposed extension is being studied alongside BRT for the same corridor. All the while the city is studying BRT for a completely different corridor, where the report just recently concluded that it'd cost twice what the city had expected. So they're looking for federal funding and there is a pool of funding allocated to Light rail and BRT projects which the final phase 2 LRT project is elligible... but they might try to downgrade it now to BRT to try and fund both. It also doesn't help that the public and populist politicians are spreading pipedream stories about BRT to tout it as a suitable replacement for light rail and claiming it'd fix any issue anyone has ever complained about with light rail.
And as for Copenhagen its a big can of worms. The citys suburbs has a single orbital tram line along a ring road thats being built now and will open in 2025, finally giving a return to trams in the metropolitan area since 1972. But within the city proper support is weak. A few years ago there was a proposal for a phase 2 of the light rail that'd run in the north west of the city, linking the suburbs with the denser core at a transit hub, replacing part of the city's busiest bus line, the 5C (which also happens to be the 2nd busiest bus route in all of europe with over 17 million annual passengers or about 50k daily passengers pre-covid).
The project even received state funding but the city hall's majority declined it on DAY ONE! They called it "The gift nobody wanted" and touted all sorts of fearmongering about trams and how they'd supposedly make the street dangerous to cross, would lead to unbearable noise for residents, and would kill all local businesses "Because everyone would be passing by on the train rather than be able to park and shop as they please". Politicians from the Conservative party and the Danish Liberal Party Venstre both even went as far as Comparing Tram tracks to THE BERLIN WALL!!! Plus some politicians, especially from the Social Democratic Party claimed that a light rail would crush their dream of building an underground metro to the areas it would serve, despite politicians from the very same party having been in power in the city for over 100 years and regularly ruled the government and have never done it despite proposals being put forth time and time again since the 1930's!
Alas the city is now studying BRT on the corridor with Light rail as an unpopular alterative being studied in the same process. Though again the politicians massively favour BRT.
@@drdewott9154 those are all good pupils of the mayor that closed the original system in 1972...
I live in Orléans, i use tram to get school everyday and you see it as something wonderful😂
Fascinating. I'm English but used to live in France years ago before the reintroduction of trams and had no idea it was so widespread. They all look pretty stylish. I love the idea of grassing the tracks too. Several British cities have also introduced tram systems, the biggest and most successful being in Manchester. Great video!
I'll even forgive your American vocabulary (sidewalks, elevators) as at least you called them trams rather than streetcars 😂Mind you, reading many of the comments written by French people in this thread I notice they are nearly all using American vocabulary and spelling something you actually see more and more even amongst young British people. American English has won, I think.
English is not my native so I'm kinds struggling with that. But anyway thanks for watching and commenting!
Americans English often has more direct meaning words as well and of course the global dominance of American culture contributes to it
I love Grenoble, I've been living here for a couple months. The proximity to mountains is a personal requirement. Trams are great, having TGVs come right up to the city is incredible. Bike infrastructure is the best I've had in any city I've lived in.
The most incredible thing that I discovered was that this place used to be a *dump*, especially the areas around the west of the main train station. Like the area around the Belle Electrique was a literal scrap yard.
The city isn't perfect, there's a bunch of places in the outskirts that have inconsistent bike infrastructure, the regional trains can get pretty expensive for short jaunts (12 euros for 55km? In my home country of Greece it's 5 euros), the regional buses need Google Maps integration and e-tickets, but all those are far out from the centre. It's a bit lacking in night life, but it's 100k pop, so what do you expect.
Compare all this to Glasgow, where I used to live, and Grenoble makes it look like a crack house toilet. Glasgow used to have 140km of tram lines and now has zero. There are no conversations or plans about reviving any of them. The buses are extremely expensive and run by multiple companies that use different ticketing systems. In my four years of living there, I never once stepped on a train or bus due to cost and restrictions on bikes.
This is excellent. One point of note is that these new systems have some important characteristics that the old ones did not, such as dedicated lanes, off board fare collection, and hopefully traffic signal priority. That all makes the trams much more efficient and effective than the old ones used to be.
Yes, building from scratch has it's advantages
i clicked to see what you had to say about Nantes, the first french city to reintroduce trams... in 1985, far before google streetview, so imagine my frustration! You can use your old postcards to cover these more recent eras too: for example the current core of Nantes' tram network is visible on postcards and easy to find photos from the 60s/70s, at a moment in time where it was an intersection between two 8 lanes boulevards. Streetview could provide pictures of the intermediate steps between the configuration from the 90s where cars still had a few lanes, and the recent redesign where they fully pedestrianized 1.5 hectares (and cut a few older trees, but new ones will grow!)
concerning grass tracks, it's also to reduce vibration and noise. But it doesn't allow emergency vehicles to use the right of way, it makes pedestrian crossing less convenient, and if cars or motorcycles drive on them you have mud everywhere: not adequate in every street!
This video should be shown to every local authority and town planner in the UK
Tag them in comments)
I live in Lyon a few blocks away from the street you showed. The two images show the same line just a few hundred meters apart. That Tram is super popular and it’s hard to imagine people lived without it!
I live in Lyon too, near Part Dieu
A video on French trams cities without Montpellier is like a video about bicycles in Europe without Dutch cities!
je suis d'accord. 5 lignes de Tram, cadencées et maintenant....gratuites avec une déclaration résidentielle. Ca cogne.
When i went to Tours i was completely surprised and amazed by the looks of their trams, i just had to take a picture. Especially at night they look spectacular!
I really wish that they added seperated bikelanes when they added the tramtracks. It seems almost like the French prefer to have a single mode of transport next to walking as opposed to have multiple types at once. It seems like cycling is perfect for many of these French cities. I think its the next big step to making the French streets even more efficient.
Great video!
I've been travelling to Strasbourg for many years. It's my favorite French city, although France has so many great cities, it's not even fair to choose one...I have friends in Schiltigheim and I always take the tram or more and more, walk....Vive la France!
Nice video :) Caen, normandy would've been an interesting example : tram rebuilt in 2002 with a tire system, demolished and replaced with conventional tram in 2019. 3rd and 4th lines to open in 2026 !
I live in Melbourne Australia, and we currently have the biggest train network in the world. We never got rid of our trams in the 50s and 60s unlike Sydney, in Brisbane, and we are constantly evolving in developing our tram network. It's good to see that France is catching up!
I'm from Poland and trams never disappeared from our cities because we were just too poor to switch to cars 😂 now being modernised and expanded they give us the advantage over the West just as the rediscovered traditional vegetable-and-fruit-based diet of former poor peasantry made Poland recently one of the most vegan-friendly countries in the world 🥰
First read "I'm from Portland" and wondered - why is it poor?)
May be it's not because of poorness but because you were aware of sustainability when it wasn't a mainstream?)
Oh, what about Olsztyn? A have an idea to make video about it :)
Absolutely based. This channel shows great potential, subscribed.
Thanks)
Hi, i'm from brest and right now the city is building a second tram line ! They just started working on the constructino of the new lane, which will make some places in the city way easier to acces (like the hospital). Also ''Why is everything so grey'' is something you can say about like 3/4 of the city, the nickname of brest is ''Brest la Grise''
PS : the square you mentionned (Place Starsbourg) has won a french contest for the ''ugliest monument'' lmao
I’m also from Brest and love my town. ❤
@@w.k.7277 Same but one should accept the possibility our brains are just rotted. I saw a movie once that started with panoramic shots of the port of Le Havre and it occurred to me in retrospect that we were supposed to think it was bleak and ugly. I just thought "amazing views, looks like Brest, very inspiring start to this movie".
3:16 I have witnessed one of these Trams in Dijon while testing the new Dijon lines,they ordered the trams together for saving 25% of the bill.The color scheme is pistachio-silver & Cassis (black currant)-silver.
In Mulhouse they have gone a step further- with the interchangeably usable Tram-Train to the nearby town of Thann via the city center of Mulhouse and the train line in the outskirts to Thann.
Hi from Grenoble! There are 65000 students here and the tram is a pillar of student life. The only reason we're not taking the tram is because we're on a bike! I wish we had public transportation at night, that would be great.
Hi, I'm from Leipzig, Germany. We have a similar situation here. The night traffic sucks, therefore in winter and for the people who can't or don't want to cycle at night the public transport offers little and bad options at night. In nearby Dresden though, they do it much better for people who go out.
Visited both this cities and like them both too)
I live in Florence, Italy, and our tram is very similar to these. Only a big section of one line has the green grass though, I think it would be nice to see it across the whole length of all the lines!
Many people were opposed to the tram project before it was built, but now that everyone has seen how convenient and beneficial it is, everyone likes it. In fact they're building many new lines right now, so a lot of streets are under construction and I can't wait to see the result.
What's crazy to me is that here too, there used to be a tram in the old days, connecting everything from the middle of the city center (there was a tram stop next to the main cathedral!) to even the little old town up the nearby hill.
I wish Toronto took this approach! We're too scared of impacting car drivers that we end up with a whole tram that has to wait for a car to turn left.
I know that feel)
Well it's not that hard to make it better, some traffic signals and the job can mostly be done, if some local government wants to make the step.
Unfortunately, Toronto was restructured politically so that suburbs surrounding the city have all the political power and they are very car centric
Vote for a council that's pro transit, this policies cannot happen if more than half the council doesn't care about transportation
I miss Grenoble so much. Though I prioritized riding my rented bike, I loved taking the tram once a while. It's so much easier to localize oneself focusing on the tracks. I really think trams should be a priority in urban planning
yup. a benefit people don't realize is that having a tram is a very powerful "path" to follow walking. I actually walk a lot more now that there's one in my city
Thank you for talking about my hometown of Angers ! Changes for a more car-free city have been slowly taking place the last 15 years, and it is for the best. And it even made things better for cars too.
So helpful that you show not only the downtown hubs but also the network maps. Good video.
Thamk you! Next video like this I'm going to make about trams in USA. Stay tuned!
if you like walkable cities visit Montpellier. The tram here is amazing and the city center is exclusive to pedestrians
Love that your research is so extent and you didn't just do Paris!
Well done!
I visited France outside Paris so I can't ignore another cities)
Looking at unusual cities is, what's pretty great about this channel.
A similar renaissance has occured in the UK (though not to the same extent)
After the closure of the Glasgow Trams in 1962, the only functioning Tramway in the UK was the largely tourist utilised 'Blackpool Tram'
From the 80s ideas to reintroduce trams have been floated and since the 90s we have seen new team systems in:
Manchester
Sheffield
South London/Croydon
Nottingham
Birmingham (and surrounding 'West Midlands region)
Edinburgh
- there are also plans and aspirations for trams systems to link Kent with Essex; to serve the Wirral peninsula; to provide an 'underground' system for Bristol and; to link Hertfordshire with Essex.
Personally? I live in Scotland and would love to see Edinburgh get a full network instead of the extant 1 line.
I'd also like Dundee and Aberdeen to consider the reintroduction of trams as part of their urban transport development.
Glasgow, I think, is big enough and dense enough that metro & light metro are feasible. But Edinburgh needs more trams (possibly light metro too, in future) and Dundee & Aberdeen need to consider reinstating trams too. I look at cities like Brest, Angers & Besançon as models for Dundee & Aberdeen.
Very interesting comment, I was recently wondering at how I couldn't think of any trams in the UK although you'd think they'd have some so thank you for fully answering my unasked questions.
The greenery in the middle of the street, along the tram tracks is a very nice touch, IMHO. And here in Grenoble, lots of dog owners take their doggos for a walk in the grass, when no trams are coming :)
Ahaha, smart use of otherwise useless and costlty feature
@@retropaganda8442 not useless and definetely not costly. it helps with rain management, controls the noise the tram makes, helps with the urban heat island effect and also improves air quality and makes the street cooler and more visually appealing.
@@hypernewlapse Those are just ecoreligious believes.
Thank you for showing Trams are the future in France. Got to say France is moving forward. Subscribed.
The city of Montpellier have a tram too since 2000 and now it’s free for everyone since this year
Not yet, though: it will be in december.
Such nice video Strasbourg, France have same model light rail tram as in Porto, Portugal 😊 🇫🇷 ❤ 🇵🇹
All of this despite france housing Renault and Peugeot, which are both huge car manufacturers. Grant power to the local governments, they won't care for lobbyists.
As someone who takes the tram in Paris to go to work every day, I really appreciate it. Especially now that part of the line is closed for 2 weeks and we have to take replacement buses. The replacement bus is a lot more frequent than the regular bus line, but oh boy is it slow with all that traffic and going around because it doesn't have its own dedicated shortcuts.
Somewhere here i saw comment that Paris trams are slow)
@@cityforall Well, I don't know any other tram system to compare, but they're fine enough to me. They sure stop a lot and riding a bike is faster, but it's still a lot better than taking the bus. 😅
Fantastic video!
More videos about areas, that are in typical urbanist focus. I'm looking forward to the Argentina video!
Great research! But I’m surprised you didn’t mention the tram king, Montpellier. The entire city core is car-free and uses tram as the main mode of transport.
Wow I really loved these comparisons. Earned yourself a new subscriber! 😊
Woohoo!
Very excited about the same kind of revival going on of suburban train systems in cities like bangalore and delhi in india along with enormous construction of new metro lines. India is undergoing a public transport revolution with focus on buses, trians and metro. Excited about the future!!
I live in Angers and what they have done here is really beautiful ! Everybody is happy to see those changes, and another line is opening this summer ! While doing it they replaced large parkings in neighbourhoods with small parks (we were already the city with the biggest surface of parks in France but now they are even more and they even enter our neighbourhoods). Great job from the city
As far as I can see from this comments - Angers is the happiest city in France :)
@@cityforall really yeah
I grew up in Nantes in the 70s and 80s where these new generation of trams started. I was a kid then but I remember discussion of the adults about the new trams projects and many people (especially the one not on the same political side than the city mayor) were saying "Tram is an old stuff...." It's stupid, we had tram in the past and we destroyed it...", "this is a non-sense" etc etc...
40 years later it has transformed the city for the good.
In France there is a small ( Aubagne ) city with a tram with a funny disign !
and it's free !
@@juxbertrand I live in ! But with the Valtram extension project the livery will change for a simple design.
Those green tram tracks give me Rotterdam vibes. Nice!
This is very inspiring! I hope cities around the world wake up and learn from France. Also, +1 for properly pronouncing _kilometres._
As someone from Winnipeg, Canada I absolutely envy the tram and subway system of Toronto. We have relatively solid bus options here. They go to every aspect of the city, although the farther out, the less frequently they run and will stop earlier, while the more major/main bus lines will run until 2am, shut down for four hours, and start again. Personally, our bus system needs to be 24 hours. Secondly, taking the bus is limited by the fact that they constantly get stuck in traffic and are a slower option in almost all but one set of buses and a very specific route.
I wish that our city had been built with a subway system from the get go, especially considering how painfully cold Winnipeg is for so much of the year. - 40°, or worse, for a couple months, having more below ground that connects to things involving as little outside as possible would be a great service. Unfortunately, at this point, the chances of our city ever going through the process of developing a subway are, while not impossible, definitely improbable. As it is, our city struggles with funding and you won't convince Winnipegers to invest in anything. They'll support a project after its completed and see that it was a benefit, but taking a chance doesn't happen, and no one wants to fund anything. That and developing an entire subway network in our city at this point would be quite the process.
I would gladly love to see trams partly replace our bus network. Being electrified is great, especially considering all of our energy comes from hydroelectric power, rather than from dirty sources of energy. So any switch to electrification would be a great benefit. All of our major roadlines are wide enough that you could have a dedicated tram line in each direction, while still leaving room for normal traffic. Add dedicated traffic lights to ensure that trams are always first priority (excluding emergency personnel, obviously) and often could dedicate a lane specifically for emergency vehicles only.
The two big deciding factors for whether or not people use public transit are pretty simple. The first is whether or not its easier/more convenient. The second is the cost, but the cost is weighed against the convenience. I don't think public transit should be a pay at point of service type of service. It should absolutely be a public service to the entirety of the city. Whether you're talking about single parents struggling to make ends meet, poor people, homeless people, etc. There shouldn't be a barrier that locks anyone in their area. Of course that means that we have to change how we fund such projects, but the goal is also to get people who don't really need to drive to move toward public transit. It just needs to be available, safe, comfortable, easy, and affordable to all. Plus if adding grass wherever trams are, it makes the city streets look far more pleasant and peaceful, and it significantly helps reduce the way our concrete cities absorb and hold onto heat.
@@dalriada7554 we have in recent years started adding more dedicated bus lanes although they are largely toward the universities. I believe there are further plans to expand on this, which is necessary. I will gladly accept at least better improving our bus system. It isn't awful, but it isn't great because it can be stuck in awful traffic.
I live in a Dijon, one of the biggest cultural tourist spots but relatively small compared to the bigger Paris/Lyon/Marseille
We have two tram lines and a dozen different bus lines, always was easy to move across the city and even to neighbouring cities (Quetigny, Chenove etc..)
Public transportation is key to reduce vehicular dependency and carbon emissions
Superbe! So wonderful to see those horrible car lanes being ripped up!
Ce tram in the city of Tours is so beautiful !
I wish there were more trams near me.
I'm from Tours and the tram helped a lot for transports .Now all the big places like the train station or schools are connected because of trams .We also have lot of bus so its really easy to moove around the city
I visited Tours last summer and enjoyed using the trams to get around, and especially Rue National in the city centre being restricted to trams, pedestrians and cyclists. Only complaint I had was the 1/2 km walk from the airport to the tram. The line should be extended to the airport terminal.
Some of the bigger cities in the south of the uk need these. Busses have too low capacity/get stuck in traffic and heavy rail has too few stops, usually only on one axis, either north south or east west. France is so much better than the uk where transit is concerned, they are like 40 years ahead of us. The conservative party only ever build the bare minimum to keep society functioning. Nothing that makes life comfortable, or more equal.
This channel has great potential :)
Thanks! Glad to hear that!
Next video is coming!
These videos are amazing - thanks for educating people about the problems with car-dependency!
Thanks!)
Here in Italy we are quite late to the idea of modern trams and we're still quite far behind, aside from large legacy networks like Milan and Turin the most successful French style modern tram city we have is Florence and they've recently received funding to start on doubling the system length to cover most of the city, another city that will soon reintroduce trams is Bologna which already has an excellent bus network (118 million passengers in 2019) so the goal for the first line is actually replacing the busiest bus route which is running at full capacity and it will feature weird short section with single track followed by a short section of street running, these awkward measures are taken because this section is only 2 car lanes wide so it's not always possible to give trams full priority but this is mostly fine since the relatively narrow road they are taking over is being downgraded to a local street that serves local traffic with through traffic rerouted on a parallel road. The modern tramway revolution is also spreading to countries like Spain Marocco and Algeria while countries like Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands have done a good job at upgrading their existing systems to modern standards. All of this wouldn't be possible without the first modern tramways in France showing that trams weren't an obsolete technology and could adapt with the times
Trams are amazing, they remove cars from city centers by making them dedicated to trams, bikes and pedestrians, making these city centers really enjoyable. It is also really simple to catch a tram and reach downtown in 10min, rather than taking a car, being stuck in traffic jam and struggling to find a parking spot. I cannot imagine my cities without a tram! And yes, Tours definitely has the most gorgeous one. Fun fact, it even sings little melodies at some stations ;)
I'm a month in Barcelone as an exchange student and I live in the nearby university, a bit remote from the center of Barcelone. I haven't seen many tram, but I'm amazed by the subway and metro system. Super clean, super easy to pay (easy to use machines and 10 travels = 11€ for all kind of transport), often available like 20min max. I can go in there center and come back without needing a bus, bicycle or car, only by my foot. It's so cool
I'm a french and I hate the prices of public transports in Parisian region, and it's not that easy to pay anymore, no more tickets, and terrible availability in some parts of the region
Hey, Barcelona has trams! the "Trambaix" lines connect the suburbs of Baix Llobregat and main universities' campus to the city's CBD in Francesc Macià's square while the southern lines are named "Trambesos" and connect the city's biggest park to Sant Adri de Besos, and they are about to be joined through Diagonal creating a single network! there are also more expansions planned like a line through the coast, from Ciutadella to Port Olimpic and WTC BCN. They use Alstom Citadis trainsets made locally as Barcelona has a big Alstom factory where they have made trams for lots of cities (Madrid, JAen, Murcia, Athens, Sydney to name a few!) i LOOOOOVE trams btw
Indeed Google Street View is a great too to appreciate the transformation! Few remarks. It goes beyond transportation, these are urbanist operations as you describe how entire streets or boulevards (facade to facade) are being renovated. The feeling that the transformation is human-scale is because trams are compatible with walking and the path they took left us assured where they're going, without any surprise and at moderate speed even tough they are silent. Finally they are part of the aesthetic of the city, bringing with them a modern touch!
This is great, you've really done your homework here. Nice job, subbed -w-
Live in Montpellier, France, and we have a very good tram system. We are slowly building our 5th lane and, very important note, tram became so important that it is now free for locals during the Week End ! It really is a great addition to this city
I wish we never teared down our trams around the world. Modernizing trams would have been so much easier...
Barcelona, Spain also made 2 new tram systems from scratch, both connect the outskirts with city center and lead to quite interesting urban transformation, actually both systems are being connected through the most important avenue of the city.The unified systems are expected to be finished in 2026.
And there is also a train-tram network in the works for Tarragona!
luckily enough to visit South France for the 2019 Women's FIFA WC and used the trams in Grenoble & Montpellier to get to the stadiums as well as in Nice. This past December, I used the T7 in Paris to see that 'abandoned' Concorde near Orly. I have also taken the trams in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra in Australia (as well as way back in the day, I rode the Sydney Monorail).
Dijon has hugely changed in the past 10 years with the tramway I just looked back at the city before we had trams and it's way more enjoyable downtown now
Good topic !
I love those transformations. I used to live in Lyon until 2021 :) now I'm in a much smaller town (Chateauroux, 40k inhabitants, very car centric) thus there's no need nor the scale for such infrastructure.
But Châteauroux is one of the cities that chose, in its case since the early 2000s, to make its bus system free at the point of service - I love that though I don't personally use it (my bike is my best friend in town :P)
But !
As you mentioned , there's still a huge waste of existing flora and trees eradicated due to building sites, and as with Brest's example, it's still far too often too mineral. I wish French city planners would prescribe a lot more green permeable landmass. My newly rejuvenated neighborhood in Lyon (7th arrondissement), in 2016, was covered in asphalt, with huge swaths of walkable black surface. It's unreasonably hot in summer, reverberating heat right to you face... In recent days, the last parts they build tend to be greener.
It's still slow but I very much encourage the trend.
Very interesting! Thank you for this
Thank you for creating this content.❤
Thanks for watching it :)
What a cool video ! I'm glad that you talked about my city, Brest, since nobody ever talks about it. I was very young when they started the transformation for the first tram line here, but I still remember how it was before, the city used to have much more trees before the tram as you said. Now it's been a month they started remodeling the city on the path of the future second line that should open in 2026, but thankfully they learned from their mistakes and are going to keep most of the trees intact this time, they'll only have to remove a very few, but all the ones they can keep will be kept. I was really disappointed about that first line they made, but I'm really looking forward to that new line.
Sadly a thing I should point out is the fact that usually the bus network is kind of left to rot because of the lack of budget now, the buses are in quite rough shape because of poor maintenance, and every year the offer is slightly getting reduced. I think it's very sad that the city lets the bus network rot, since it's still what most people use to move ; hopefully they'll have more budget once the tram is finished.
I'm glad that youy liked the video!
Hope new line will be better than the others.
The trams are really useful and cheap, here in Montpellier, it’s 1.60€ for a one way ticket, preferably I buy the 10 trip tickets for 10€, but citizens can get a special subscription card for trams and bus
It will be free soon.
In the German city of wiesbaden, 60% of the population (290.000) voted against tram system in 2020. Public transport is underdeveloped, busses only. And continuous traffic jam.
Still hard to see the missed opportunity.
one thing to not underestimate, is that all the tram vehicles are made by Alstom, which is a pretty big manufacturer of rolling stocks. so ultimately building more trams is good for jobs, but it also feeds the company and allow it to to export its models in many countries, that certainly helps a lot.
the vast majority are but Spanish manufacturer CAF has slowly but steadily earned some contracts too (Marseille, Montpellier, Nantes, Besançon...)
At Nantes we have Alstom, Bombardier and CAF, each in different decades and lines :p
If they tried to do this in the UK, it would cost £800billion, £1billion for the actual project, £799billion for friends of Tories and Tory donors. Thus nothing would get built, and following a 20 year consultation to determine why the project failed, costing another £100billion to Tory cronies, they'd decide Britons just aren't like other Europeans and don't like public transport.
"It looks like iPhone on rails". Loved it!
In Spain there was a tram boom on the early 2000s, killed by the crisis on 2008. But lately a small but strong movement through more disperse areas is bringing interest into tram-trains, so lots of projects are being studied! :)
That's nice transportation. They would never do that in NYC as there are already subways and the city mainly caters to cars in order to make revenue from tolls, tickets, gasoline, parking, registration and soon, traffic congestion fees. All the city wants to do is squeeze money from car usage. I'm happy for the people who live in those areas in France. I like how sleek those trams look.
One French tram city you didn't mention is Montpellier, I was there last year and I was astonished by the quality and affordability of the tram system there. Cars are not allowed in most of the city center, so taking a walk there is really easy and enjoyable.