What can be learned from urban mobility in Prague? | City Unboxed with George Liu
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- Опубліковано 14 лис 2022
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Situated on the Vltava River, Prague is the capital and the largest city in the Czech Republic. It is home to 1.3 million residents and claiming to have one of the best public transportation systems in Europe. George Liu - Urban Mobility Researcher - was very curious to discover it for himself. In this video, part of the City Unboxed series produced in collaboration with the Urban Cycling Institute, George gives us a tour of Prague by walking, cycling and public transit to finally give the city a Human Mobility Score!
This video was produced in collaboration with the Urban Cycling Institute. Click here to discover the previous episode of the City Unboxed series, in Hamburg: bit.ly/3Ecrxr2
#UMX #cityunboxed #urbanmobility #urbanism
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Urban Mobility Explained is powered by EIT Urban Mobility, a European initiative to create liveable urban spaces! This project is co-funded by the European Union. Learn more about EIT Urban Mobility: www.eiturbanmobility.eu/ - Наука та технологія
The line on a crosswalk is for visually impairment people to help them safely cross the street using their white stick.
4:53 And you missed the edges of the pavement there are two axes with special tiny bumps: one as edge of the pavement before the crosswalk to inform such person that he/she is about step on the crosswalk, and the second axe that is in the axe with the white line to coordinate the walk with the direction of the crosswalk. Those bumbs can be felt via feets by walking on them.
Both are very common in all over the Czechia.
Surprised he didn't recognize them. You find them all over Europe, for example at train stations on platforms.
Those lines in crosswalk are used by blind people
there are similar grooves cut into the stone on the floor if the metro too.
i think pragues paving stones on sidewalks, similar to those in portugal are amazing. why? think about it, you don't need all the energy, special big equipment, or time to replace sidewalk that is made of concrete. you do just need access to lots and lots of precut stones and can send an army of workers out to replaced paving stones damaged by a tree root or earth movement or water/ice. and for however it makes it more difficult for the mobility impaired, these sidewalks are amazing.
First video I've seen of this series and the channel, and it's wonderful to be able to condense, summarize, present and show different facets of public transport (of Prague in this case), in such a nice and entertaining way, with many beautiful places. I really appreciate this video, I think Prague is a beautiful city :) George's way of presenting is also very cool, greetings to everyone from Chile!
Happy you liked it! Thanks a lot for your comment, Ariel ☺
I liked the parts where there was a 'story line,' like where you went to the old city (giving the line number etc.). Some of the other parts like the your trip on the ferry seemed out of place because they lacked context.
I think it would add to the videos if you would include some simple statistics / quantitative visuals that support your decisions on the human mobility score criteria.
Yeah, that sounds about right. The haphazardly placed and designed cycling lanes are definitely the worst thing mentioned here, and generally, unless you are in the outskirts of the city, cycling is just a terrible experience here in Prague. If you're willing to walk though, then it gets much better, especially as infrustructure of all kinds is within comfortable walking distance mostly everywhere in the city. And despite the common complaints from locals about it always being late (by not more than two minutes on average mind you), the transit is one of the best in the world.
So yeah, this is definitely a fair review 🙂 Cheers form Prague!
Thanks a lot for watching and for sharing your thoughts!
Great video and a great presenter! 👌👌 Now let's get to work on improving the Human Mobility score in Prague! :)
Such a fun video! Made me feel a bit like I was on holiday:)
What are the plans the city intend to implement regarding cycling in the future?
Considering that the party that was recently elected into the mayor's office is obsessed with cars, I'd wager that the answer to your question is roughly "fuck all" and "maybe destroy some of the already patchy and disconnected bike lanes that exist".
Close to none. Depends on the new city council which will be more car-oriented...
Plus, Czechia has pretty bad laws regarding cycling when cyclists have to yield to all cars on crossings (even when on bike path next to the priority street)
@@patrikbaleka1990 Thanks for the detailed answers!
@@etbadaboum Two new river bridges are currently under construction. The first is in a location where the author uses a boat and completely ignored the construction site. I guess he (his team) didn't research much before writing the script for this video. It will be small for pedestrians and cyclists only bridge between Prague 7 ( Holešovice ) and 8 ( Karlín ) . The second will be a combined tram, bus, bike and pedestrian connection between Prague 4 ( Podolí ) and 5 ( Smíchov ). There are also some future plans for new bicycle friendly infrastructure, but these are still in the paper stage, and as mentioned under the current political leadership, are not a priority.
@@Dqtube Thanks for the detailed answer!
06:00 I don't think it is the deepest one in the EU anymore, though, right?
(I thought there was a deeper one in e.g. Barcelona? Called El coll la teixonera
And in a few years an even deeper one will open in Sthlm called Sofia)
The two narrow concrete tracks at the riverfront are only good for cycling early in the morning or in the winter season when it is not crowded by people slowly walking or drinking.
I wish my city Prague could become more bike friendly!
And I cannot give the public transport 5/5. The trams are often overcrowded and late. Maybe 3/5 is my rating as a Prague local.
As an immigrant, I'd rate
public transport 3,5/5
Main detractor being the lack of circular routes and the focus on routes going through the center - getting from Bohnice to Dejvice, or going east or west from Modrany/Krc/Libus by public transport is a fucking joke
bike infrastructure 2/5
The bike lanes are a broken patchwork of disconnected painted gutters that mostly disappear where you actually need them, and drivers often drive on them or open doors without looking for bicyclists
pedestrian infrastructure 3/5
Not great, not terrible. Some areas have very stupid infrastructure "solutions" that limit pedestrians, but the biggest issues are mainly caused by drivers and the police's disinterest in dealing with them. (Speeding, refusing to stop at crossings, parking too near crossings and intersections, parking on pavements, etc)
Wait, what about the 4th category to make it a score out of 20?
That category is gone. Think they lumped biking and bike sharing into 1 category.
@@hendman4083 Yes, you are right!
Public transport in Prague is more than 30 years old, after the fall of communism only few new tram lines has been built. Most of the metro cars are 40 years old. And still it gets 5/5. :D The number of cars has unfortunately increased many times over the last 30 years.
The lines on pedestrian crossing are for blind people.
Great bones to the (aging) tram network, and lines on the crosswalk a great feature, thank for the tip!
it's not so simple. During the 30 years, there were several new parts of the metro built, the lines prolonged (not always ideally or at least intelligently but that is another thing). One of the lines has new trains, the other two have completely reconstructed trains (they look similar and have some parts and paperwork left from the old ones, but most of the important parts are new). Many of the stations have been renovated, with addition of elevators and other accessibility means (quite a feat given their depth). Signalling and other technical parts of the metro are replaced (and not only because of the floods that flooded many of the stations in the centre in 2002, but also because of both physical and moral age) Fourth line of metro finally started construction last year and finally the trams are (too slowly, but at last) returned to the central parts of the city, where they were previously replaced by the metro in the 70', based on the wrong assumption that metro will be a "cure all" system, leaving the tram network in the centre extremely fragile and without any necessary redundancy. And leaving too big parts of the centre without any surface public transport - the depth of the metro lines A and B in the centre means it's not really a useful option for short trips there.
Overall the public transport in Prague and its modal share is definitely impressive, but there are actually several buts. a) the system is clearly going all the time at top capacity, without any reserves. Any maintenance or disruption causes a lot of problems. b) it is very uneven - it's pretty good in the centre and parts of the broader centre and it is good for trips from the periphery to the centre and back. Tangential directions in the periphery and even parts of the broader centre are way worse. c) especially in the centre it suffers from the lack of courage to stop through car traffic and limit car parking in key parts - trams are routinely trapped in car caused traffic jams. A "banality" such as a wrongly parked car in some places can cause disruptions in half of the tram network that will take hours to catch even after the car is removed.
Regarding cycling infrastructure etc. The bottom line is that PRG is on the hills. Thanks to the profile, bicycle can simply never be a regular mode of transport here for regular residents in a way it is in flat cities. Yes, of course, I can go on bike to my office from time to time, but its an athletic achievement rather than something regular person can start the workday with (200 altitude meters measuring only ups on 5 km). Same with most trips here.
That is why cycling will never be a 'regular' mode of transport within the city.
If there was significant public demand for extensive network of cycle lanes, they would have been already in place. But its not the case.
Fore 'regular' usage by the residents, only specific(flat) areas along the river would make sense. But then , few people both live and work by the river. And if Praguers do cycling (and they do a LOT) they typically do it on weekends and in the direction out the city, not along the river within the city limits (why should stay in the city when its leisure weekend activity and there are so many great cycling areas just outside the city limits).
So that's the 'mystery' of why few cycle lanes in PRG explained
Taipei Score🤔
Transit 3
Cycling 1
Walking 1
Bike-share 4
Total 9
😰😡😮💨🤧🥺😭
Could you maybe check your facts before releasing the video? 😀
The sign is not "the playstreet" it means "urban zone", where the speed is limited to 20 kmh and the drivers are advised to pay extra attention to pedestrian traffic that might include children. 😂😂
The cycling paths are narrow because there is no space to put them, the city is medieval, made for horses and carriages, not modern traffic.