Do Your Buses Get Stuck in Traffic? Traffic solutions & the Downs-Thomson Paradox
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- Опубліковано 8 бер 2020
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Do your buses get stuck in traffic? It's amazing what a difference it makes to life the city when public transit is treated as a first-class alternative to driving, as it is in Amsterdam, and many other cities in the Netherlands.
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The Downs-Thomson Paradox on Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E...
The description of the Downs-Thomson paradox is simplified in this video, but in general, this principal applies. Technically it is possible to meet demand for car traffic, but in practice, this is unaffordable, simply due to the amount of infrastructure required per person carried by car: there is no city that has done this in a sustainable way (as StrongTowns.org is keen to point out). More information can be found at StrongTowns.org, in articles such as this one: www.strongtowns.org/journal/2... and this one: www.strongtowns.org/journal/2...
The Dutch traffic per hour graph was taken from this report:
3e Publieksrapportage Rijkswegennet 2017
www.rijksoverheid.nl/document...
The graph of daily traffic in a car-dependant city is based off of the graph here:
www.wbez.org/shows/curious-ci...
Comparing the traffic volumes between countries is difficult, as they use different methods of measuring traffic, so don't take this comparison too literally; it's meant to be illustrative.
Footage of New York provided by UA-camr Walk NYC:
Walk NYC: 10/3/2019 New 14th St Traffic Regulation "Busway"
• Walk NYC: 10/3/2019 Ne...
Footage of San Fransico provided by UA-camr UpDownAcross38:
First day of Car-Free Market Street. 2/10/2020
• First day off Car-Free...
My dad explained it to me as a kid like this: a full bus represents a row of 40 cars in front of you, that aren't there because of the bus
Your dad's analogy is amazing and to the point.
It's a fair point to consider, and I think the Dutch have got it right. But watch out for oversimplifying. The articulated bus that drives by with priority at 5:35 seems to be nearly empty. It really is going to be hard to fix NA.
@@duaneeitzen1025 yeah, thats what i think sometimes.
@@duaneeitzen1025 The thing is that for the bus to be "better" it just needs to have had a total amount of passengers that equal more than the amount of car space it takes and that is almost always the case.
So while obviously his example of the bus taking the space of 40 cars is simple and assumes a full bus, it's still a easy way to think about it.
All depends if the buses are full. Unfortunately in London too many buses drive around empty and in those cases cause more congestion. I think the transport services need reviewing with Covid, as now less people are willing to use public transport - and most people are travelling less.
If the public transport system is only used by the poor or desperate than it's a failure.
Public transport has to be a real alternative for everyone, instead of the only option for some.
As a byproduct of this, what's best for the poorest is also good for the middle class, as it almost always is.
In Vienna i saw a city mayor in a subway, somehow cannot imagine this in some U.S. city.
@@radimkatrinec6935 most us cities do not have subways.
Radim Katrinec It's not a subway, but Joe Biden uses the Acela Express occasionally. It's not common for European politicians to use any kind of public transportation besides PR, since they all own not so inexpensive cars.
The problem is that if a bus line is popular then the transit company increases service, but for the bus to get popular they need to have increased service. See the problem?
Also a cool fact is that the buses and trams automatically get a green light when they are on or behind schedule, but not when they are ahead of schedule (; - Amsterdam resident
Wow. I had no idea. Do you have a link to an article about that? If not, I'll find one. I'm researching a video about traffic lights right now and that's a great bit of information to add!
@@ucantbcereal Great, thanks! That gives me something to research.
@@NotJustBikes I don't know if you've already made the video but emergency vehicles also use this to automatically get a green light when passing traffic lights to make it faster and safer.
What about the 'green' traffic-lights for cyclists by bad weather ;)
New York City’s new buses just added this. It’s so awesome!
* finds channel *
1.5 hours of fascination later: i need more!
Here is more watch city beautiful.
In my hometown they made public transport free for all registered citizens. At fist everyone was like "yea, it's not free, it's tax payers money". But when public transport infrastructure was getting money from people who wouldn't take the bus it improved so much that now no-one complains. They even turned the city center to mostly bus lanes so drivers would avoid this route.
Roads and lanes for cars are also funded by tax payers' money anyway. In fact you could say that they are the result of people who cannot/do not own a car subsidizing infrastructure that will benefit only car drivers.
That's how all public institutions are destroyed, first they are delibaretly underfounded, then they are presented as bad and people don't want their money spent on something that doesn't work well, then public institution gets funded even less which further detoriates the view of the public of the said institution.
Also, if you have public transport financed entirely by taxes you are incentivizng the use of public transport, if you are already paying for it, you might as well use it. Especially if it is well funded and thus you have good clean busses which come often.
My town cars take the bus lane as a short cut 😢 no hope for humanity
The best argument I've heard against free public transport is that if you have it then people will take the bus for trips that they could walk instead, which isn't great for heath reasons and can hurt surface level businesses in a walkable commercial district.
You're not stuck in traffic, Karen. You ARE traffic.
@@ericolens3 Or maybe swallow that classism and mix with people of different socioeconomic than you.
@@ericolens3 wew, all that wall of text just to say you won't ride the bus because of the poor people.
@@ericolens3 they do ? I mean this is not about you agreeing or disagreeing, buses take up less space
become the traffic
@@ericolens3 dude you’re a fucking menace, what an awful take.
I never understood that paradox. Though rewatching your video and with the magic phrase “There’s usually no bike people, var people, train people...” it just clicked. It truly shows how nothing needs to be done one way and how much potential we have to change that into sustainable, livable streets. How speeding up a bus with a minute here and there can relief a whole city. I’ve read about that in New York how the 14th busway decreased car traffic in neighboring streets. But never understood it was directly connected to the increased speed in buses/alternative modes of transport. How a cars detour can increase the speed for everyone.
Now I understand also why my city is laser focused on saving time on bus lines. We’ll get there with bike lines eventually. :)
The planning truly matters.
Greetings from a Swedish viewer.
I'm glad I could make it clear for you. I had a lot of trouble with this concept myself until I thought of it this way.
@@NotJustBikes I'm the opposite. I'd never heard of the paradox before, but reading it in your video (I had to pause to process it), I don't understand how anyone could think this is a paradox. It makes perfect sense.
In short summary, minority of people sacrifice benefits the society (or the majority) or otherwise the entire society got screw up.
@@Wouter10123 same.
@@chungonion There's no sacrifice, only the illusion of one, because the car drivers that are detoured don't know that the alternative they are asking for is worse.
I love how some government idiots think the solution to traffic issues is to constandly BUILD MORE LANES! When that just ends up creating more traffic.
I've been involved in municipal politics several times over the years, and I've found that a surprisingly large number of politicians understand that building more lanes does not solve traffic in the long-run. But the people who vote for them DO believe that it solves their traffic problems, and the best way to get re-elected is to do what your constituents ask for.
@@NotJustBikes huh, interesting. So basically they do something they know won't help to get re-elected to do more of that which doesn't help...
@@NotJustBikes so people are stupid
Well, people are ignorant ...
... but many of them are stupid, too. 😆
@@NotJustBikes Since you're close to Belgium; how would you solve the traffic jam problem in Brussels then? All the highways cross there and everybody needs to get to the other side while driving on a 3-lane road. In my simple mind making extra lanes would solve those kind of traffic jams.
I live in Prague, where public transport is also really good (sadly still very little bike infrastructure but it is getting better) and everyone uses it. Politicans, rich people, poor people, famous actors or even the mayor of the city who uses bike or public transport.
It is really strange when someone from US says that they dont have or use public transport and that it is dangerous or only for poor to use public transport.
This thinking is so wrong. I cant imagine driving around Prague. It would be so much slower and so much less convinient. Especially the parking.
Absolutely! Good public transport is an absolute necessity for a city. It's crazy that so many Americans think they can resolve their traffic problems without it!
To be fair to Americans, the only public transport they have ever seen is probably complete crap, maybe busses that come every half hour and move slower than a bicycle. If they live in a major city like NY they might see something decent, but even the NY subway is falling apart and smells like pee. Many people assume that this is all public transit can be.
That is another factor about moving around with a car:
Unless you are going to a shopping mall, parking will be hell. And if you are going to a shopping mall you will walk farther from your car to the mall than city dwellers in Amsterdam walk from their flat to the corner store.
@@alexcat3121 my town is one of those "bus comes every half hour on the weekdays, once AN HOUR on the weekends". Seattle's public transit is alright, but I live 30 miles north of the city, so I'm left with no other choice BUT to learn to drive. There's too few opportunities here, and the best ones are south and best accessed by car.
In Trnava, Slovakia, we have a mayor that doesn't even own a car, he just travels by bike and helped build an amazing infrastructure of bike lanes. It is now much more convenient and faster than driving. But buses don't seem to be supported enough.
"And be glad you're not driving in this"
*sobs in Phoenix, Arizona
Lol that’s cute
From Los Angeles
@@KingCheckOut *cue the opening scene from La La Land. Traffic jams are so romantic!
I would say that I'm somewhat of a "car guy", but I really don't understand the obsession with designing our roads around them. I also love bikes, and buses, and walking. This might sound weird but I preferred it when I was younger and cars were more of a novelty. Cars are " a" choice, but in North America they're just used to give us the illusion of choice.
Well, you do have a choice in America. It's just a choice between Toyota, Volkswagen, Mazda, Ford...
Yep, the illusion of choice is pretty on the dot. In much of North America, a car is basically a necessity. You need it to run errands, go to the grocery store, see family, and especially to get to work/school.
it's not a choice really, most times you don't have a choice to save money and not get a car. You have to have a car to have a good job to survive unfortunately.
I would love to live in a place where the only people driving around would be the "car guys" who could really enjoy their ride or people running delivery errands. Being able to spend your commute time reading, playing or checking social media is so much better.
@@caiofernando I agree with you. :) In 1989, Japan had a concept on paper to build a vertical city called Sky City 1000 with all the amenities of a traditional city (condos, schools, offices, movie theatres, parks, stores, places of worship). It would have been 3000 ft tall, and have elevators instead of cars.
Dear Canada.
Bus lanes. Look it up. Trust me.
Kind regards,
The Netherlands
@@wclark3196 having an enormus but empty country is no excuse for having shitty public transportation where there is significant population density (toronto, ottawa, montreal, quebec city)
Really? Clearly, you've never visited your own country's capital city. Ottawa is FULL of bus lanes. The buses even have their own highways in many cases.
@@xxTheminemanxx Im a paramedic in Toronto, this video is accurate to about 80 percent, mostly all of the surrounding areas have bus lanes stringed everywhere, and a lot of the street car lines in Toronto dont allow cars on them at all. The biggest problem with Toronto itself is that its simply out of room. Everything is stacked on top of itself so closely there is simply no room to rebuild a better road, without taking down the entire block of buildings and starting over. The TTC (Toronto transit) all things considered is relatively not *too* bad, everyone tears it to shreds if they use it, but a vast majority, myself included in some cases, have a car, but its more convenient to take the bus. We arent as far behind as this video makes us out to be, but we are nowhere even remotely close to being "well off" in the transport sector, the city was designed with 500,000 people in mind, we are at 8 million living in the area.
@@wclark3196 Yes, i think toronto or montreal have good (not excellent if compared to europe but very good if compared to america) public transportation systems (although maybe for example streetcars should have priority in crossings and streetcars would also benefit from being separated from cars, where I live in Barcelona we have that and is very impressive the speed that a streetcar can have given this priorities). What I was trying to say is that canada could have europe level intercity trains in the quebec city to toronto corridor but thats is not the case. And that saying that canada is huge is no excuse for that bc there is population density for good intercity trains in some areas.
@@wclark3196 Adding bus lanes to the rural roads of Nunavut would be a bit of an overkill (do they even have roads there?) but I don't believe those were the subject of this video.
16 lanes dang.....it's like continually upgrading your broadband internet because they keep uploading 240p footage in 1080p containers.....
Come to Texas, you will see the Katy freeway (interstate 10) with 29 lanes
@@culvuil Katy Freeway makes me want to vomit. If adding more lanes was a real solution, it’d be an international model not the embarrassment it is.
@@culvuil What in the holy...
@@culvuil Traffic = disaster
@@eriklakeland3857 The Katy is a unique product of bad (non existent) zoning policies causing completely unmanaged traffic. Most other American cities have higher population and less lanes.
I was born and raised Dutch, the more i hear from you about North-America and Canada the more i just wanna stay here.
Everybody should try to live in another country for a while, if they're able to. Even if it's just to appreciate what you have at home. 😉
@@NotJustBikes We don't have to, we've got your videos for that. 😁
If you visit the USA, go to the National Parks. Most of our cities will not impress you as a Dutch person, but our mountains and canyons will blow you away.
@@ceruchi2084 Probably. And the flatness of the Netherlands and therefore lots of wind will literally blow you away.
@@therealdutchidiot 🤣🤣
I’m a train person, if it takes 10/15 minutes longer I’ll still take it
Me too. I love trains.
Love trains for longer trips, but there's a Swiss study that said people accept about 50% longer travel time on a train, not much more, and I can see that. You accept some loss when it gives you other perks, like time to read/work/relax, but very few will take a bus ride for an entire hour when it's less then half that by car. You'd need a very compelling reason to do that, like not having a driving licence or not having a car. And as public transport is often neglected, when you don't have a direct bus line, it can take ages in many cities. I love bikes, but you need good transportation, too. And combining the two is even better, hence the big bicycle garages near train stations.
@@barvdw In Singapore people may favour public buses over trains in some circumstances e.g. if the train takes a more circuitous route (due to our relatively less extensive train network) & thus takes even longer than public buses, or because buses offer more seating
@@lzh4950 Singapore is a city state, and cars are heavily taxed to add, so I don't think they are totally comparable. Trains are more suburban trains or even subways, and don't offer the same comfort you can find in an average regional train (most trains in the Netherlands are regional, even if they are called Intercity, most will hardly ever travel for over 2 hours in them) In the Netherlands, as in most European countries (and most of Northern America), most families have at least one car, and that's the real competitor. And trains generally do better competing with cars, as they can go slightly faster (even if they stop regularly), they offer more space, etc. Most buses I know have cramped seating even when no one is sitting next to you, and city buses are often standing room only, while still only going as fast as a car can, if that much.
If a train ticket is cheaper than þe alternative...
1:40 "Why would anybody take this bus if it's going to get stuck in the same traffic as a car."
I would still choose the bus over a car if it's not slower either. Then I can at least e.g entertain myself with my phone instead of having to concentrate on driving.
Totally agree! That time could be used for productivity like reading or working, plus it's cheaper than owning a vehicle.
Don't forget not having to pay for gas, parking fees and not having to worry about paying back car loans.
Nice video! I’m a busdriver in the Hoekse waard, since a month ago we finally got a traffic jam lane from Rotterdam to Heinenoord. Instead of just waiting to get to the next stop with a 5 to 10 minute delay, we can be there in time. Passing more cars that are just waiting to get home.
So I think, in theory that in the near future ppl from the region Hoekse Waard will be getting the bus more and more because it will get them home faster rather then slower.
Nationalism is bad and very dangerous
The sad part is that the Hoekse Waard is a wide-open area with a lot of villages and houses spread out. So when you get past the traffic on the A29, you still have to get from the bus station to your home which may depend on where you live to take everywhere from 5 min to 30 min on a bicycle. Meanwhile, if you take a look at Voorne-Putten, you'll see that with the metro coming in a central hub from there the busses move people locally on the islands. You should basically have a subway to the Hoekse Waard and from there have busses move people to the neighbourhoods and villages.
@@tdmike3624 Just like we used to have... RTM
Really? Finally! That was about time
@@Eric.T.Cartman Sounds like you don't have enough buses then, if they are always so full you cannot avoid sitting next to smelly people. A bus with 40 seats will have between 0 and 2 smelly people, so it has to be filled with 38 people before you have no choice but sit next to a smelly person. Ofcourse, 2 people more and you can't sit, solving your problem neatly. If every bus you catch has exactly 38-39 people on it you should report to your nearest luck-lab, because that makes you a rarely unlucky specimen.
Our mayor (who bikes to work) instituted a new bus lane in his first term in office - against considerable resistance. And it works great.
We need politicians to ride the bus on their commutes.
For a city that relies on buses so much, I’m shocked that my hometown of Hong Kong doesn’t designate more bus lanes. The buses are clean and enjoyable, but the ride is not because of the traffic.
Let's get tons of highways to travel FAST
Proceeds to drive 50km/h on the "highways" and even come to complete stops every 10 minutes.
I somehow feel like the quality of public transport really reflects a society as a whole.
Do we care about people with less income? Do we see ourselves as a community and travel with others, or are we too "individualistic" to share our meas of transportation? Do we care about social coherence and about the environment?
As a European living in Berkeley, CA, right know, I sadly believe that the answer to these questions will mostly be a resounding "no" in the US.
Public transport can not only be faster and clearly better for the environment, I also think that it is good for all members of society if they are actually "exposed" to each other in a certain degree.
Berkeley and SF also has the best the public transportation in California which is incredibly sad.
I was just thinking about the second part of your comment the other day, majority of people "go out" to meet others, but online shopping, work and recreation means most people only go out to get groceries, or work or complete some task, and the entire time they're isolated in their car, then get home and are isolated from everyone else. But if there were public transportation and cycling, it's hard to avoid others in both areas which would allow an intermingling of people from all walks of life and socio-economic backgrounds
@@D1EHARDTOO
Exactly!
Having no exposure to people from other socio-economic backgrounds or ethnicities makes it easy to have stereotypes about them or even to hate them.
This is different with people you know, or even only with people that you temporaility share a space, a community of fate so to speak, with.
It makes you feel like you are part of a society. I am certain that this is the type of social get-together and katalyst for mutual understanding that we need in this times of diversion and egosism!
@@finnibat 100% agree, I really feel like that would change a lot of nations for the better, seeing people other than just the ones you have to interact with on a day-to-day basis
Car traffic generates so much noise which can increase anxiety and noise pollution. I hate walking alongside the large Florida roads because it feels unsafe due to small footpath width and its so noisy >:-(
The toxic exhaust fumes do nothing to raise the mood
@@uncletyrone yeah
Cars also generate a lot of heat which normally isn't noticeable but on hot summer days it is almost unbearable to bike next to a major road because of the heat generated by the cars and the hot exhaust.
It was weird when I had to go to Salt Lake City for a rental car to Yellowstone and only walked for half a block before _le irritation_ started
I know! All these stupid businesses are on these roads that are far from suburbs. It’s terrible. Then sometimes sidewalks exist and the randomly end all the while there is hardly any barrier between you and cars going 45 plus. Then you add a lack of trees and it just becomes really uncomfortable to walk.
Plus, even a five minute journey makes me want to go to my car because it’s just so annoying to walk anywhere in this country. It’s one of the things that I hated being born and raised in New Jersey. Basically your trapped until you can get your car or license and can borrow your parents car
I've learned a lot about managing traffic flows playing Cities: Skylines. My first city was where I learned the hard way that trying to solve traffic by building more roads and lanes just leads to disaster: commuter and tourist vehicles clog roads and street parking, trucks can't make their deliveries on time so your industry faces supply shortages, and worst of all service vehicles can't reach certain areas of your city leaving garbage piling and fires roaring. Gets even worse when you start building giant rows of apartment complexes... and every single tenant has to drive a car.
My current file is doing much better, highways only serve the purpose of getting trucks into the industrial zones and back out onto the highways again (or to the nearest cargo train station), metro stations are in every residential area so everyone can get around the city without cars (though I did have to use buses earlier on until I unlocked the ability to build metro), and commercial zones are within walking distances of residential areas so people don't have to drive to get to those either. With all of that together, I've got a nice little city that doesn't have any roads with more than two lanes. Something I never thought was possible in a city when I first started playing.
Now I know Cities: Skylines isn't a perfect representation of real life, but it's because of what I learned from that game that I find this channel very interesting. I agree that there's a lot we could do here in the States to make our cities better places to live. And I know first hand from living just a few miles from NYC that the biggest complaint everyone has is the TRAFFIC.
Imagine if NYC made protected bike lanes instead of little painted gutters. Suddenly everyone would bike and the car traffic would decline massively
Your videos are one long love letter to the Netherlands.
And the Dutch love you for it, even if that's not your intention.
Although I certainly do like the more critical videos. Public spaces are generally well-planned in the Netherlands but they're certainly not perfect.
@@Quintinohthree not perfect, but leagues better than anywhere else it seems, especially comparing to where I'm from
As a Dutch person heavily interested in making public transport my career (I looked at becoming a Student Bus driver for the RET) I love how our system is set up not to mention that if more people would take the bus it would mean less cars on the road which means less traffic jams and other benefits.
Please come fix my town
@@stevenreyna3437 Yeah, come to America lol
In India it takes the same amount of time whether you go by car, bike, bicycle, tuktuk, bus, horse, or on foot. Basically there's a bumper to bumper (and chest to back) jam from wherever you are to wherever you want to go.
during covid too?
Win the game buy a ebike
@@TheOpenSourceMerc Ebikes are expensive af
@@Anonymous-er7qx they come In all price brackets , yes they are very expensive if your getting the best of the best. Just about finding something that your wallet agrees with.
Tokyo’s train and metro system is the best, having lived there I’ve never had any issues with them. However I used to miss the efficiency of the dutch infrastructure within the city, such as busses, trams and cycling....I never realized how I took the infrastructure here for granted! Thanks for your explanation it was really eye opening :)
I recently moved from Oslo, Norway to California, and I fully experienced the no choice but driving... Now I am a bit desperate.
加油哦
just wondering why you would ever move from norway to the usa??
What are you on?
@Esh I mean California objectively has better weather. Also if you work in tech or entertainment you can probably earn more.
As an elderly non native english speaker i must give my compliments. Most UA-cam video's in the english language are hard to understand for me. But the not just bikes vids are fine!
The British version of the Downs-Thompson paradox was expressed by Martin Mogridge, the best-known transport academic in the UK in the 1980s and 90s. On the basis of research in the Greater London region, he expressed it this way: "The best way to improve road speeds is to improve parallel rail speeds". Average road journey time along a distinct corridor will reduce if the parallel rail route's speeds are increased and trips by public transport are made faster. Instead of increasing road capacity or building new roads, invest in improving public transport and reducing journey times on it, and road journey times will reduce too. Sometimes called 'The Mogridge Principle'. Downs-Thompson isn't a phrase used in the UK but it may be that Mogridge took it and tested it in British circumstances; others then called it after him.
That's where airplanes come in.
But then the people have equally a meltdown.
As a Dutch person I became significantly more nationalistic than I was before after I started watching your video’s :)
Same.
👌🏻
Dutch Nationalism on the Rise!
same.
Leve de koning
I live in a medium size city in the Netherlands, we have 3 cars. If I want to go to the city center I go by bike, going to a major city nearby we take the train or bus. The car is for anything else. So sometimes the car stays on the driveway for a week.😀
It's great that you have those alternatives, and I think it's one of the best things about city design in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately, where I'm from, it's not safe to go by bike, there is never a train, and the bus is very very slow (if it's availble at all). So of course, traffic is terrible all the time, because people can't even get milk without getting in their car. It doesn't have to be that way!
What kind of cars do you have?
@@stereotype.6377 Now that we live in Amsterdam we don't own a car anymore. But in previous cities we've owned a Smart fourtwo, a Toyota Aygo, and a BMW 3-series wagon. And we used car share services for over ten years as well.
Honestly I'm glad to be done with cars. They're a headache to deal with (especially when something goes wrong) and they're a money pit. I'm happy to spend my money on more important things.
Haha, my sister also has a car, but it gets used so little that it has happened on multiple occasions that the battery had run flat from not driving enough
@@NotJustBikes " I'm happy to spend my money on more important things. "
nice to listen/read that. these things are a bliss for me. but to be honest, i sometimes think US cant be THAT stupid. sooo...
amh, maybe also include some of negative points of Netherlands etc too... or some +ves from americas too... BUT only if that makes proper sense with proper weightage ofc.
cheers :)
Way too few views. You deserve a TED(x) talk in Toronto, Los Angelos, any major city outside of the Netherlands or Denmark, for all your outstanding clear observations and logic.
And of course because it tickles my national pride. ;) And you might title smarter, like: make car travel across your city faster by divesting from car lanes. :) Write titles that offer foreigners solutions to how they see things (now). :)
Absolutely, to be honest he should write a book
Would like to give a talk in Bordeaux?
Yeh, create dumpy accommodation where people exist (as opposed to live) on top of each other and then watch every morning as the ant hills try to get to work. Coming soon to a rundown dump near you, Suckers! Wake up!!
Right, this cat's such a genius he should be cleaning toilet in Amsterdam's Red Light District. Logic never enters into this equation.
@@franciscampbell3573 Cope.
You have to go to Switzerland, they have really good public transit and despite narrow city streets, busses and trams get more space than in most of American cities. Car traffic is almost everywhere limited to one lane, if there's space for another lane, it's for busses and bikes. In Geneva they recently made a street from two regular and one bus lane per direction to a street with a two lanes wide bus lane, not only to increase bus traffic, but also to decrease the number of cars there. Public transit works like a clock there and even millionaires take it.
Another version of this argument, using math: in one unimpeded car lane, 2.000 cars can pass in an hour; one unimpeded bus lane can move 10.000 people in an hour.
Let's say you have a 20-meter wide space for an avenue. Assuming it is just roadspace (i.e. sidewalks not counted), then you can either
a) build 3 mixed lanes each way (moving 6.000 cars each way) OR
b) build 2 mixed lanes + 1 bus lane each way (moving 10.000 people + 4.000 cars each way)
So yeah, very basic public transportation approach can lead to more than double capacity. And that doesn't even consider that the figure for two thousand cars an hour assumes no obstacles, i.e. highway standards. Reserving space for efficient transportation is a no-brainer, really.
You can even double that to close to 20,000 per hour per direction by making those lanes a tramway instead though not all routes would justify that much capacity. Having said that at this point the capacity limit becomes more where you draw the line between trams and light rail. But much beyond this point the consists get a little on the large side to make a sane case for shoving a bunch of busy ungated grade crossings on its route. It's maybe time to bite the bullet and build a metro if you need much more capacity than that heh.
so you have one bus an hour with 10 to 15 people on in that used the bus lane. And hundreds of cars who generate more emissions because of the bus lane.
mother earth thanks you.
Seeing those American lanes of cars, I can say the UK is better than the US when it comes to roads. Our traffic is bad but at least it isn't 20 lanes of insanity. America is such a flawed country, the UK less so but still flawed.
Buses thrive in the UK. Rather than being for poor people, it's more like driving and taking the bus have a duality of normality. People would be as unsurprised if you told them you drove than if you told them you got the bus.
Buses are used even more than the Tube in London. Every single bus in London is wheelchair accessible and has audio/visual announcements.
Getting the bus is usually more pleasant than driving because there's room to walk around and you can watch out the windows, especially if the bus has two floors, which is common even outside of London.
For me, having a bus pass me while on a bike can be scary. I can however follow directly behind one for a short while and risk breathing in some fumes for some protection. If the government does add bike lanes, they'll likely just be paint that becomes new parking spots despite the double yellow line on the floor (no parking at any time) and the sign saying "No parking at any time".
The UK's flaws in bike-friendly traffic design tend to be making roads that should be one way (too narrow) bidirectional, too many special 'shared pedestrian bike' sidewalks with no segregation (considered acceptable cycle infrastructure by my council despite the fact that only people that ride on the pavement will want to use them), too many bus-bike lanes, if we do get bike lanes, they seem to exist to keep bikes out of the way of motorists. Or you could be in London where cycling is growing quickly due to a few Dutch-worthy cycle tracks and some quietways. Or you could be in Cambridge/Bristol where cycling is normal anyways (not as normal as driving but still).
Most of the UK's bike infrastructure tends to be lazy and only really existing to check boxes and keep bikes away from motorists. Most motorists seem to think cyclists are only athletes in lycra and goggles who behave like needy little cars. I think the longest bike lane in my town is 20 metres (that particular one seems to exist for no reason?).
As a utility cyclist, I find myself sharing a group with rough men breaking traffic rules, teenage boys with BMXs on the pavement, and occasionally a nice cyclist, and even more occasionally another woman. Because cycling is considered dangerous, it attracts dangerous people, or people that stay on the pavement.
Motorists expect me to keep up with cars, which I cannot always do because my medical issues (my energy is drained anomalously quickly when doing anything physically intense, meaning I literally have to stop or the just muscle stops working and I be sick).
Cycling has helped me be more independent as walking and standing for more than 2 minutes puts intense, painful pressure on my feet and make my back muscles tighten to painful levels. I can carry much more cargo on my bike without having to strain my arms.
I am now technically old enough to get a driver's license, but I don't plan on buying a car because I've grown a irrational hatred for the internal combustion engine. At some point in my future, I'll likely attempt to move to The Netherlands. I've began trying to learn Dutch and trying not to pronounce it as Welsh (I have Welsh ancestors and know some of the language).
What we have in the UK is like if we tried to be European and then America twisted it. We're slowly learning, but the motorists still have presumptions of cyclists. My position is strange, being a female utility cyclist in the UK, I'm a minority in a minority. Thought I'd add to the pool of comments and experience from different people around the world. I have a habit of rambling so sorry for the longwinded nature of this comment.
edit: clarifications, I wasn't talking about Dutch roads when I said I'm glad I instead live in the UK, I was talking about American roads. Would much rather be in NL right now.
You'll have to join the EU for those sunlit uplands. You're welcome as soon as you have your house in order and comply. EU Membership requires that a candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.
as a londoner myself, buses are pretty impratical in the city centre simply because the traffic is so bad, most londoners will walk on the crowded pavements of narrow streets clogged with traffic or take the overcrowded rail and tube network, london really isnt designed for the car, and most people in the inner city donnt use it anyway, so having proper bike lanes make so much sense, but the planners cant build more than a strip of paint in most places!
hello. i am also thinking of moving to more eco- and people safe places some time in future. and your views are nice and seem to be aligning with me on some matters. so i was wondering if we can talk somewhere (twitter, telgram or instagram)??
Your hatred of combustion engines is entirely rational. I'm from Liverpool, lived in London for just over a decade and a lifelong lover of bicycles for fun and for utility. I lost count of the number of near death experiences I would have riding in London. A lot drivers in the UK have a sociopathic hatred of bicycles. I'm so glad I live in France now. Haven't had a single malicious experience on the road in two years, only a couple of minor mistakes at slow speeds followed by a sincere 'desolee' or 'pardon' from the driver. The UK can go duck itself as far as I'm concerned. :D
@@JellyFlavoredGerman I find it a little bit insulting when motorists just see cyclists as a nuisance. I've literally been called slurs and told to stay on the pavement (where I get called slurs and told to stay on the road).
I think the some people believe that cyclists just throw themselves in front of cars just to personally annoy motorists.
It's kinda victim blaming if you ask me. If a motorist hits an adult cyclist at 50mph they may crush and mangle that individual, killing them. They motorist will very likely be fine. That's a privilege that comes with having the money for a car.
The nastier motorists seem upset that they must 'so inconveniently' legally refrain from running me over on a Friday morning.
I can't wait to move somewhere else, be it a different city or a new country. Glad to hear France is serving you well.
I remember being taught this in (Dutch) high school. It makes perfect sense. If you have a chance I would recommend looking in the bus roads around Utrecht. There’s routes that are only available for busses.
In _Nanjing_ bus lanes on some 1-way roads also allow public buses to drive against traffic
5:00 coming from Den Haag I think Amsterdam trams suck. The moment that they enter the center they don't have their own lanes anymore and have to share the road with bikes, taxis, trucks and in places even other trams. It takes a terrible amount of time to finally get to the station. In DH the trams have waaaaay more exclusive road space than in Amsterdam. Unfortunately there are a few places where the teams have to share the road (line 12 comes to mind), but much less than Amsterdam. So come over to DH and do a video about HTM.
@@jbird4478 you know what the best thing is in the centre of Amsterdam?
@@XEinstein what?
@@yash1152 the train back to Den Haag 😉😉
most of the time the trams have separate lanes though? Or they only share a street with cyclists
The downside of taking a tram to Den Haag is that it takes you to Den Haag.
Glad to know that even New York City is acknowledging this problem. I remember spending many a workday sitting on a bus in traffic thinking that I could have taken the subway, which was more of a hassle for traveling the west side were I worked. A few times, I was close enough to my destination to get off and walk.
Even Disney World has designated bus lanes to prioritize their public transportation options.
In The Netherlands, when a bus route goes partly over a highway, busses sometimes may go over the emergency lane (the lane that you put your broken down vehicle on, usually the right side of the road). Here you are expected to bring your broken down vehicle to a stop not on the emergency lane but just off it, in the grass.
Busses may only do this during a traffic jam, and only at reduced speed. But it works perfectly. The busses keep moving while all others have to wait.
I think there are more variables that play into people's decisions to take a bus or tram. It's not just "Is it faster than the car?". Factors such as "Are the stops conveniently placed", and "Is the schedule frequent enough so I don't have to wait", and "How much are these tickets anyway? Do I have enough cash on hand to buy a ticket?" or "How many people are being crammed into that tin can?" are important as well. I understand that walking distance and waiting times are included in the door-to-door timings that relate to the Downs-Thomson Paradox, but I do think that they merit their own consideration.
Being able to just walk out the door, wait a couple minutes, hop in a bus, swipe your card, plop down on a seat and get out at your stop which is conveniently close to your destination has its appeal on people. Might be a bit faster to take the car, but you don't have to bother with finding a parking spot, deal with asshole drivers that are just as frustrated as you for driving in traffic, and you can just chill and listen to music or read a book. Maybe even have a friendly conversation with somebody (though let's be honest .. everyone is on their phone anyway).
Just like people will pay for convenience (thus there being a market for, for example, pre-cut blocks of cheese at outrageous prices compared to a whole block), people will leave their car if there's a more convenient alternative. It doesn't necessarily have to be faster (just like it doesn't have to be cheaper), it just has to be convenient.
Just getting somewhere faster is an excellent selling point, but I firmly believe that getting somewhere without hassle is a great selling point in its own right.
I think these two items are key for public transit. "Are the stops conveniently placed" and "Is the schedule frequent enough so I don't have to wait". If missing the bus means having to wait for 20-30 extra minutes for the next one, that can equate to doubling commute times for a lot of people.
Rather than trying to cram everything onto one road, I like that idea of dedicated roads for different forms of transport, as it allows every form of transport to work at its highest efficiency rather than being pulled back by any.
In Greece where my wife is from, public transport is used by many different people of varying socioeconomic standards and levels. It's not just the poor. For example, when getting from Thessaloniki downtown to Agia Triada where her mom lives, we took a ferry from downtown to Peraia, then we took a bus from Peraia to Agia Triada. It was about an hour for the ferry, and ten minutes for the bus.
It's so normal for so many to do that, that while they don't have organized infrastructure specifically for the busses, no one is impatient on the roads when a bus is slowing down to get over onto the side of the road to let people out and take on new people.
There's road synergy. There's also lots of consideration for the motorcycles and scooters all over the road.
The big problem is that no one follows the rules of the road, the roads are built in a way that everyone can kinda do whatever they want to do in terms of cutting each other off, and so there's lots of chaos and stupidity on the road.
First time I arrived in US, I had a flyer in my mailbox. It was a petition to cancel some newly established bus lane. Until I learned more about the country, that flyer did not make sense to me. Neighbors were unhappy that people without cars were moving to the neighborhood. You know, people like me.
That's because many bikers here in the US are arrogant and think they own the road.
@@trans-octopusspacealien8883 does my comment even include the word bike?
I know what you mean. I'm a bit of a "car person" myself, because I think it's just the most convenient way to travel. But when I have to be in downtown Amsterdam or Utrecht, I much rather go by train. Those cities did a great job promoting public transportation by road design alone.
It's only most convenient way to travel, because the area where you live has been designed with car in mind. So it's not really because you 'think it is', it's more of a because someone else made that decision for you and you simply go along with it.
@@Mikolaj_u I don't know, my commute is 30 minutes by car (in ideal conditions, may take up to 1 hour with traffic though) and 2 hours 30 minutes by public transport. There might be some optimisation possible with that public transport link but I rather doubt it would get below 1 hours 30 minutes. There will always be some journeys which will be best made by car. We should strive to reduce those journeys to a minimum though.
In Utrecht they just made the roads close to central station impossible to navigate by car 😂 (seriously they have already been working on rearranging the roads for 3+ years)
@@Quintinohthree Easy fix to make taking the car a worse option than taking the train: Remove all parking.
@@bramvanduijn8086 Where there is a road, there is parking, and I don't need a lot.
Great video, everyone should see this.
As an American who has never been to Europe I gotta say that these videos from you, plus others who do the same, has really opened my eyes to how entrapped I feel in my car now more than ever when driving anywhere in the Southern California area. I hope I get to live long enough to see a reform on making life more accessible on foot or on public transit without the total necessity of our personal automobiles.
This just takes me back to how my grandma once pointed out to me as a young child that if I looked closely at how many drivers there were in cars passing by there were a fairly significant number of cars that were only occupied by one person which was the driver.
OMG! I'm so happy to have found this youtube channel! It makes me wish so bad that cities were better. That cities would prioritise the quality of life for people and actually care about the society as a whole instead of favouring the car industries and all the rest. Good urban planning means that you just have to care about people.
That bus is taking like 30 people, now imagine if each of those 30 people was in their own car in that lane, yeah that's certainly more traffic.
Once upon a time in Des Moines, an insurance company needed to build a new parking ramp. Then they offered free bus passes and suddenly saved money by not needing to build a new parking ramp.
There is a big push for the teaching of sustainability in British schools. Your videos would be ideal content. Thank you. A great starting point for a debate, I think…
I was about to ask "Oh that's a nice design , where is this?" at 4:05. Because it came after the other 'improvements' pictures you showed. lol
q.q it was The Netherlands.
Love your videos! Its fun to see my country from a different perspective!
I like the way you describe things, just a informative channel you have created, simple yet beautiful. Keeping things simple is the most difficult task and you do that in your video. Thank you and looking for more.
Yes, these videos are very well done.
I believe this is your best video yet. The problem, the solution, and alternatives clearly explained. Thank you!
Have you read the book Strong Towns by Chuck Marohn? It aligns with your whole urban planning concept, but focuses more on finances and building community. I think you'd really enjoy it.
Yes, of course! I've been following StrongTowns.org for years. I plan to do a whole series on their topics, because their own video content is not the best.
Fantastic video as usual. I came across your videos a few months ago and absolutely love them. I've always had an interest in these kinds of things, for one being that I studied in Copenhagen/Amsterdam in college and two, my dad is a traffic engineer in the states (Ironic right?). He's very progressive with these kind of thnigs and has always been open to bike and safety infrastructure, but I think like a majority of people his age and in his profession, car infrastructure is always the number one priority (over livability, practicality, child safety, pedestrian access, etc) so it's always a good time bringing up topics that you bring up in your videos and that you too have experienced living in Canada with those big ugly highways, few sidewalks, practically no bike lanes, etc. I often use points from your videos to fuel my arguments.
Idk if this is a thing for anyone else, but sometimes i prefer the feeling of being on the move, not stopping a ton, over what route is actually faster. So even if a train ride is somewhat slower, but the alternative is being stuck in a parking lot, even if you can get to your destination despite traffic before the train would get there, i sometimes might still pick the train. Or walking, depending on where i am/how far i have to go.
Idk if that made any sense, basically i just find it so frustrating being stuck in traffic, and so I will often use an alternative that has more consistent movement, even if driving in a car in traffic would take 15 minutes, while an alternative way might take 20 minutes. Plus, i like being able to use that time, if I’m on a bus or train and not walking, to read, draw, or watch a short youtube video like this one.
I'm the same way! Even if you're not using the time productively, it's just way less stressful to sit on a train than to have to dodge traffic constantly and get all hyped up with road rage.
I hope your channel takes off heavily. You're creating amazing short-form essays, that should be widely seen and understood by anyone interested in mobility, city planning or public health. I reckon if you make more videos like this (with a bit less focus on the Netherlands) the algorithm should suggest them more widely
Thanks! The channel has only been around for 7 months and it's *well* ahead of most channels that are that young. I think the algorithm is doing fine so far. ;)
@@NotJustBikes oh yes, I am well aware, you are doing great! But you mentioned in another vid, that people from NL are by far the majority of your viewers. So I meant that in reference to that.
Oh my god, I can't believe I was on the street at 1:48 just a few months ago and now I see it again in your videos.
In the Netherlands students can use the public transport for free during the week (excluding weekends, or the other way around). And so people appreciate the public transport since a relative young age, and of course the government will build better transport lanes etc.
Rail lines sunken in grass is just plain sexy.
In the UK I used to work in Salisbury. I tried the park and ride and like you say, it got stuck in the exact same traffic and was only a small amount cheaper than normal parking. Add in the bus waiting times and it most definitely wasn’t worth it. I then worked in Winchester, which had a perfect park and ride. Literally a minute drive off the motorway, plenty of spaces and at rush hour, busses every 10 mins or so, which then took you straight through the centre of town. Busses had priority for most of it, or were allowed down roads that cars weren’t, and it was half the price of car parking. Absolute no brainer.
In Portland even the light rail gets stuck in traffic.
tbh in Vienna Trams usually don't get stuck in Traffic, at least in my part of the city, but that's because they often are segregated and I love in the outer parts of vienna, but in the inner parts they probably do, but hey at least Vienna is walkable
The problem is that if a bus line is popular then the transit company increases service, but for the bus to get popular they need to have increased service.
Also, is it bad if it is quicker to bike to work than to take the bus?
It's quicker to take a bike for short trips.
@@NotJustBikes the other problem is just relatively sparse bus service. Taking the bus to work would be ~1hr 10min but biking is only ~55min, to be fair ~15mins quite a substantial difference.
the fact i can read the title and then look to see the dundas west sign on the bus is so good omg
Los Angeles & San Francisco Bay area, are the perfect examples of "rush hour becoming several hours long".
I have seen people leaving early in the morning at 5 am, so that they can reach work by 8 am..
You should take a look in Almere (about 30km east of Amsterdam), there's a complete separate infrastructure there for public transport, bikes and pedestrians. You can go there by bike using a "bicycle highway" from Amsterdam to Almere. (Not kidding, they really do exist!) Maybe an idea for a video :)
My favourite part about this was the warning at the end showing the 401 with good traffic. Well at least good for the GTA.
In my part of my country, we have priority lanes for the buses in some cities. However, it is also the turning lane for many other vehicles into other areas too. Like for turning to residential or commercial areas.
Great video! I live in Toronto and commute by transit (subway and bus). I choose transit because I like public transit, and am resigned to the tradeoff that it takes much longer than if I were to drive. Most of my colleagues just want to get to and from the office as fast as possible, and so they drive.
I really wanna visit Netherland after watching your vids
Toronto, Canada: 3:17
Houston, Texas: pathetic
Fascinating and TRUE. I am Traffic Engineer and find this VERY excellent.
Engineering information put in a simple, easy to understand presentation.
EXCELLENT JOB 👏
Great! Thank you! And please make more such content!
I live in South-Holland. Driving to work in another city during rush hour will take me about 20 - 25 mins, while the best connection via public transport will take at least an hour.
I'd take the bus if there was a better connection available.
DrumdevilNL Strange, I would’ve thought that traffic was a bigger issue in the west. I live in Veendam, 20 km from Groningen, and if I want to go to Groningen it’ll take half an hour by car outside of rush hour, and (especially when I need to be in the center) over 45 minutes to an hour during rush hour. All this time and the agony of having to wait in traffic while a train ride takes 29 minutes. The bus however does take the same amount of time as the car, less during rush hour because of the many bus lanes.
@@roy_hks There are a lot of variables involved of course. I live close to the freeway entrance. I have to drive out of my neighbourhood, down a main road, enter the freeway, swap to another freeway drive down another main road and I'm at work. Outside rush hours it would be around 17 mins drive.
Sometimes I have bad luck like this morning, and it took around 45 mins because accidents happened on both the freeway and my alternative route.
For public transport, I have the options to walk to the train station (15 mins), tram (8 mins) or bus (15 mins). From there it takes around 45 mins to get to work.
Fun fact; as the crow flies the distance between my home and work is just over 11km.
DrumdevilNL Yeah ofcourse. The main issue with Groningen is that the ring road needs updating and 6 lanes instead of 4 (which they’re finally working on) so you’re always stuck in traffic there. Also Groningen doesn’t have a lot of large roads in the center but it does have traffic lights every 100 meters which sort of prioritize the thousands of student cyclists and also prioritize the busses. It’s a great city for public transport and bike usage but it’s literal car hell during rush hour. The randstad is better designed for large car masses.
Canadian here 👋 I live downtown Toronto and was amazed by how much you spoke my own thoughts. You truly know how to give the full picture ☺️
Thanks!
Unicycle commuter here! I ride my unicycle year round in Rapid City, SD. Winter is one of my favorite times to ride.
It's not faster than driving my car, but it is certainly cheaper and more enjoyable. If I don't have to drive why should I? The next step is to make Rapid a cycle friendly city.
Edit: I'll add that the unicycle that I ride is a 36" (the tire has a 36 inch diameter tire). My casual cruising speed is about 10mph.
"Grassy trams" are a thing of beauty.
In the United States employers will ask if you have a reliable form of transportation. These are jobs that don't even require you to drive as a part of the job (deliveries). This boils down to do you own a car. I have seen employers deny jobs to people who needed them because they didn't have car. Nevermind the fact that they could still get to work, or that they could use the job to buy a car. 🤦🏻♀️
Croatia in the nutshell basically
At about 2min "People taking the bus are looked down upon..." This made me think of the riddle Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have told at a private dinner party. "What is the definition of failure?" she asked. Answer: "A man over 40 riding a bus."
Hi :) as a canadian who's very much into cycling I love your channel.
Wow! thank you so much for sharing this great video👍👍👍👍
What people really don't seem to grasp, especially in the US, is that you benefit from public transit even if you never use it. If other people use it, that's less traffic you have to deal with. Likewise, people complain about funding public transit through taxes, subsidizing it's operation they believe should be self-funded. But don't think about how much they're paying for road repairs and upgrades. Nobody expects roads to be self-funded, and they have far worse cost per usage. As for buses and trains getting stuck in traffic, one thing that drives me crazy in the US is that trams and bus rapid transit systems - even if they have their own dedicated lanes - have to wait for traffic lights. They should have immediate priority, a transmitter on the bus/tram should trigger the light to change before it even arrives. My college town (Fort Collins, Colorado) had a great bus rapid transit scheme, but that was it's one flaw - it would be sitting at many of these lights for several minutes before they would change. It was thus slower than a car except in the worst traffic, but if the lights changed for it immediately it would be by far the fastest way across town.
Here, in Europe, the busses have their own lane at the traffic light, and get a few seconds head start when the light turns green.
But the busses also signal to the traffic lights if they're on schedule, or God forbid, behind schedule.
When the busses are behind schedule they get priority at the intersections until they are on schedule again.
It helps !
And ofcourse, the bus lanes are also used by the emergency services, police and taxis.
Here some more from the police: ua-cam.com/video/qyNbhDZMdKc/v-deo.html
@@xFD2x Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Though you could schedule them for faster overall times if the lights will favor them, which it sounds like they do for the most part. Most important thing you said there was "in Europe" - in actually developed countries, not countries that peaked in the late 1970s and have been in decline ever since.
@@quillmaurer6563
Busses don't need to be faster. They need to be on schedule, and thus dependable.
What if you're on time at the bus stop, and the bus was early and left ? The busses need to be dependable.
I have driven on both Manhattan 14st and the 16 lanes highway in Toronto. Most American cities just don't have enough political will to increase mass transit speed. There's various lawsuit in progress when 14 the st busway was started and now it has been 6 months the apocalypse the detractors spoke of never happened.
your comment at 4:40 pretty much sums up so many things, there will always be a balance of different transport mediums because requirements are different and nobody is telling YOU how to do your things they just give you options and you can decide which option fits your needs.
Also not needing a car every day does not mean you cant own a car, if you feel like it has a benefit for you to own a car and you can afford it nothing is stopping you.
Like i dont need a car in my daily life but i need it to visit friends and family and go on vacation, especially the latter is something where i would never take public transport cause i cant possible transport all my stuff i want to have with my on vacation.
WOW!!!
THIS IS ENLIGHTENING!!!
Well you did choose the TTC to illustrate, that’s on you lol
I wish Mr. and Mrs. Koch never procreated to create the brothers that almost single- ... double-handedly (?) effed up public transport for the US
@Bob H Greaaaaaaaaaaaaat
You should have added de "lijnbaan" located in Rotterdam into the video!
The Lijnbaan is the main shopping street of Rotterdam. It was opened in 1953, as the main pedestrian street in the new shopping district, after the old shopping district was completely destroyed during the bombing of Rotterdam by the German Luftwaffe. It was the first purpose-built pedestrian street in Europe :)
I moved from Germany to Canada and have to drive on the dreaded 16-lane stretch of the 401 you showed. They're widening that area even further now I believe (between Bayview and Leslie)... There is no more rush hour as you mentioned, I plan for traffic on this Highway at any point during the day. I never owned a car in Germany and got around just fine by bike/tram in Düsseldorf. No one seems to get the idea of induced traffic demand in North America
At this point, I just assume US and Canadian cities will just bankrupt themselves trying to meet their traffic demands, and still deny that induced demand is a thing.
Great video as usual, but I think you missed an important thing. In some big cities almost all (like at least 3/4th) of the people on public transport and bikes during rush hours are students. The vast majority of those students will not take a car to school even though it would be faster simply because they don't have the money for it. Even if taking the car would become even faster students would still take public transport because that's free for them.
"There’s usually no bike people, car people, train people." There are. But luckily, enough people are flexible. And since young people are more used to change than us 50+ people, people will only get more flexible. Cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen are perfect for flexible people. I daily choose between walking, car, car sharing (car2go), biking, public transport, uber/viavan, and now that Donkey Bike is starting to come to Amsterdam (I use them already in Utrecht and abroad) bike sharing will become a possibility too. Speed and price (mainly parking!) are the main considerations in my choice, in the evening possibly alcohol consumption. And this flexibility has as a side effect that I am hardly ever in a traffic jam. Well, I am, but mostly in other countries than the Netherlands.
Yup, exactly. That's why I said "there aren't that many car people, bicycle people, train people". There are certainly some of those people who will always take that mode of travel, but MOST people don't really care that much. Even people who say they like driving would not do it if it were slower and less convenient than other modes.
Calgary finally made a BRT system a few years ago with bus priority lanes. There are still some parts of the routes that have to drive with regular traffic, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
The tram in Edinburgh is so popular at rush hours that you're packed in like sardines. They're also extending the tramline up to Newhaven, which is welcome. The Tram allows somebody go directly from the city centre to the airport. Same with the buses, some routes have such a high ridership rate that It's hard to get a seat at rush hour. Usually you can just wait another 10 minutes for another bus though. Edinburgh still has bad congestion though, but I've noticed cycle lanes popping up in areas that are being revitalised.
Wait, do you can save time and the atmosphere and your sanity (a little bit maybe) at the same time.🤯
For me as a Dutch person living in Purmerend (city about 16km) north. My main thing with not taking the car is it easier to go around public transport in Amsterdam. Even if it is longer. Just because of all the route problems
Your videos make me miss living in Saltville, VA. I used to live in one of the big white old duplexes in the part of Saltville where the people living in the duplexes could walk to the Rite Aid, Dollar General, BB&T, library, the park, and if you really wanted to walk the mile and back, the doctor's office. Unfortunately, crime still seemed to be pretty common around that town so I would sometimes be woken up or disturbed by the sounds of sirens going by. My family and I couldn't afford the duplex so we moved into a trailer park in Meadowview, VA and sadly, it's not much peaceful: a woman called the police on her kids because they weren't cleaning up after themselves and one of them is a young deaf boy that doesn't seem to realize you shouldn't go into people's houses uninvited.
I like that basically every major Canadian city is currently investing in new rapid transit lines. You have the Broadway Subway and Langley Expo Line extention in Vancouver, the REM as well as several subway extensions and light rail lines in Montreal, Doug Ford's transit mega-plan in Toronto, and then Calgary and Edmonton are getting new Light Rail lines. There's even talk of light rail in smaller cities like Victoria, Regina, Winnipeg, and Quebec City. Probably the most ambitious mass transit plan by far is a Vancouver to Seattle to Portland high speed rail line.
Well that will be delayed thanks to the riots