I fundamentally understand that there are vast differences between Shenzhen and Toronto, but to hear that they built this all in 20 years whereas we have built 8.6 km thus far and six stations... it just hurts me.
@@scpatl4now it is funny that I specifically mentioned the quote ‘vast differences.’ There is also things like how the government spends money, how the appropriation of land use and the incumbent infrastructure to name but a few. Nevertheless it still hurts.
@@scpatl4now well as an antifan of both CCP and Western government I don't know what destroy the environment more: a transit centric city with multiple metro line built in a short time or a car centric city which is obviously the hell on Earth for anyone outside of a car. But I know that a transit centric city just like Amsterdam is more liveable and safer for everyone, especially for kids.
The nine-city urban agglomeration including Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen and Guangzhou was called Pearl River Delta (which was nice sounding) in the past, but with Xi in power, the name was changed to the too generic Greater Bay Area.
it is mainly, "Political Will". Biggest complaint if it was done in USA right now are inconvenience caused, cost (over-runs) and noise. In China, you don't have a choice, so, they are able to accomplish a lot without great fear of protest on all levels, including special interest lobbies Best Case study of losing a loss of Political Will in a Public Transport infrastructure is the Bondi Beach (Sydney, Australia) Train network
One factor is population. The population of this Bay Area is something like five times that of the San Francisco Bay Area. It's has a higher population than the entire state of California, in a relatively small area.
As a worker lived in ShenZhen for 8 years I admire how accurate your video is about ShenZhen metro. You must have dedicated a lot to this. A huge thumbs up to you!
OMFG I seriously cannot believe my favorite transit UA-camr made a video about the metro system all the way across the Pacific that I use on a daily basis...
@@giri1478 Not really, bus fares in China are lower than metros but giant cities in China face terrible traffic jams, so most commutes will choose to ride metros. But in general the metro fares are lower than international average. You can get a one hour metro trip in around 6 CNY (below 1 usd)
I remember back in 2006 or so when I visited Shenzhen as a child for the first time. It was a day trip going from Hung Hom to Lo Wu then Luo Hu to other parts of Shenzhen. There was only 2 lines and as a child I was fawning over new sights. ~20 years later and Shenzhen is a completely different city entirely and the Metro is basically unrecognizable from its infancy. Thanks for covering Shenzhen Metro!
I guess I'm a bit older than you, Back in the early-90s my company started a plant in Dongguan & every 2 weeks I would take the KCR to Lo Wu, then a long bus ride to to Dongguan. From 2000 I relocated to Shanghai and started flying to Shenzhen monthly. Now it is all CRH and Metro. Amazing!
@@私気に成ります same vibes i remember talking to my aunt in the city how there was only 3-4 lines back in early 2010s but its crazy to see how much has changed meanwhile 3km and yet its still going strong after 8 years back in the city i studied in
One thing to mention is that Shenzhen is categorized as so-called "Special economic district" meaning it doesn't have to summit their fiscal revenue to Guangdong province but directly summit to central government. This fiscal statue makes Shenzhen has the resources to build such a giant metro network other than other cities in Pearl river delta which has limited resources like Canton, Foshan, Dongguan. Maybe you could make a video about metro in Canton city (Guangzhou) one day, about how they built a network in such limited resources. In Canton, they have to built small trains but face large amount of ridership, which makes the metro network in this city become overwhelmed nowadays.
It is almost as if that is exactly the point of being special. For hundred of years many other places needed to submit to Guangzhou and GZ enjoyed a priviledged position and now you sound like complaining about another place receiving better conditions to be able to develop with more resources. They had the luck to be located where they are located to be under the national interest to have those benefits. As a fellow oversea cantonese, probably SZ wouls not be where it is if it needed to submit to Guangdong jurisdiction. The think I disliked the most while getting to know GZ is that ridiculous religionalist and high horse attitude that wanted to make a BUT in a video that is not even about GZ or other cities in the region.
I first visited Shenzhen in 1985 and its development has been astonishing since then. Last time I was in Shenzhen was in 2013 and the changes by then were amazing. I must return. Must give credit to the Chinese government for improving the living standards of its people. Greetings from Australia.
@PipinoExcalibur - Autocracies "get things done", that is, there's no NIMBY in protests to projects that the government would want to do, rarely taking into consideration environmental concerns or the like. Perhaps this could be an attraction to some people who actually would want a dictator to tell them and the country what to do. (See Xi, Erdogan, Putin, Un, Urban, and yes, Trump) While impressive architecturally, said projects can serve as a "pleasurable distraction" to their rule, keeping their citizens under their iron fist while showing off to the world their "grandiose achievement", and the "beauty" of autocracy... 😠
Huge shout out to the amazing Chinese close-caption! Accurate and reads comfortably. Super inclusive and helpful for a video talking about a Chinese city.
Not sure if you’ve been to shenzhen or not but the facts presented and how up to date it is from foreigner perspective is amazing. I am a foreigner living in china but most of chinese are taking their infrastructure for granted and not so many people are geeking out about public transportation.
I visited Shenzhen 3 times and used the metro every time and loved it. Clean, efficient and takes you to all the city’s districts in reasonable time. You can also take it to the port entry into hong kong.
As always, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, having been to China several times. I noted you did reference Chengdu where I have spent considerable time on four separate occasions. On my first visit around 2011, there was no metro system. Since my first visit, a network of over 350km has been constructed composed of radial lines and concentric circle lines. There is alsona huge new airport which dwarfs anything in Canada. I would love to see you do an episode on Chengdu. I currently reside in Ottawa, where the modest and greatly delayed LRT network pales in comparison. Keep up the great work!!!
I have lived/worked in NYC, London and stayed for three months to attend a course in Shenzhen, I can say that Shenzhen is way more advanced, cleaner and safer than both London & NYC. As a solo female, I could walk freely in the middle of the night without any fear in Shenzhen while I couldn't even imagine doing that in London or NYC.
Like it or not, credit has to be given to the Chinese government for putting up amazing infrastructure for its people. Visited China many times and always impressed with its development. It is so convenient to travel around and we feel pretty safe. No wonder more than 95% of Chinese people supports their government. Back here in Melbourne, we have been talking about building a rail link to the Tullamarine Airport since 1970.
While I agree with all your points on Chinese built infrastructure, I think you should not show trust in satisfaction surveys in places without free journalism, democracy, and the possibility of imprisonment or death without trial.
@@Lancasterlaw1175 The concepts of democracy and dictatorship are often judged from a very biased Western perspective. If you learn a bit more about China, you can see that it has experimented with elections in its history, recognized its inherent flaws, and subsequently adopted a competition and selection based approach. Also, I think you shouldn't support the easily debunked lies about China without any reliable evidence. Go and see China for yourself-there is no lack of democracy or freedom, and imprisonment or death without trial is impossible.
@@Lancasterlaw1175 "I think you should not show trust in satisfaction surveys in places without free journalism, democracy, and the possibility of imprisonment or death without trial." stop listening to MSM. they are literally rotting your brain
The most iconic fact that this subway system is that it is very cheap in comparison to the mtr in Hong Kong, metro in Taipei or BTS in bangkok, it just costs less than USD 1 if you go through the entire line, costs are relatively low in Hong kong. Thats why millions of people go to Shenzhen every weekend 😮
Some fun facts about Shenzhen Metro: - There is a station called Huawei on line 10, and exit E of the station goes straight into Huawei HQ. Usually stations can't be named after companies but this one is still approved. - There are two main operators: Shenzhen Metro Group and MTR Shenzhen, nicknamed "green tortoise" and "red tortoise" respectively. - In London many lines intersect but there are no interchange stations (overground, metropolitan line, etc.), but these usually happen in the suburbs. In Shenzhen even in the Luohu CBD lines (especially line 1 with other lines) also intersect but without interchange stations. This is indeed a failure in mass transit planning, but the gov is trying to recover this by building a more dense metro network.
Another not that fun fact: previously the operating company stopped charging business class fare on line 11 during morning peak hours. Everyone can get into (maybe squeeze into) the two business class coaches. Now the company cancelled this policy and everyone needs to pay business class fare all day
I was in Shenzhen in 2006 and back then it only had two lines. I hope they build some more lines like the impressive Line 18 from Guangzhou to Zhongshan, which has a speed of 180 km/h. That blurs the line between a metro and an intercity train, but those are needed to make the region a giant single metropolis. Dongguan needs a lot more lines. Today it only has one, which is quite surprising.
I remember Shenzhen in the early 2000s too. I was there often. I believe you can literally ride, from metro to metro, all the way from Shenzhen to Guangzhou now.
I was in Shenzhen yesterday actually! Only rode the metro literally one stop but was stunned at the size. Kind of insane because I don't really consider Shenzhen as all that large, even tho I suppose it is the 3rd largest.
I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out, but you can see quite a few Cantonese cultural and historical parallels with Hong Kong in the district and station names. Not all represent the same general area (some do, such as Shatoujiao and Luohu) but they clearly come from shared culture and southern Chinese history. Chegongmiao (Shenzhen) = Che Kung Temple (Hong Kong) Shatian (Shenzhen) = Sha Tin (Hong Kong) Luohu (Shenzhen) = Lo Wu (Hong Kong) Shatoujiao (Shenzhen) = Sha Tau Kok (Hong Kong) Ma'anshan (Shenzhen) = Ma On Shan (Hong Kong) Liyumen (Shenzhen) = Lei Yue Mun (Hong Kong) And I'm sure there are more. Fantastic and detailed video as always.
I lived in Shenzhen for 9 years and loved the city. The metro system is amazing and it keeps getting better. I used to take the bus to the beach for $2 and now you almost get there by metro. Also, the Gangxia North metro station is amazing, definitely check out the design if you have a chance.
In 1992, I was living in Hong Kong. I had a frequent need to travel to Shekou, i.e. at the west end of Line 2. Since this system wasn’t yet in place I had to take a ferry, either from Kowloon or from Central.
Never thought Reece would upload a video about my hometown's subway system, since Shenzhen is not that internationally famous comparing to other Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong! As far as I know, there isn't a detailed (compare to this one) video to introduce the Shenzhen Metro on the internet, even in Chinese one. RMTransit just did it perfectly, as he covered almost every perspectives you have to know about this system, including the development, the operation, the future plan and stuff. I am deeply impressed by this video, Thank you!
As a Shenzhen local, I have mixed feelings about our metro system. On one hand, the service quality of SZMC falls short compared to other East Asian cities, especially other "1st-tier cities" in China. On the other hand, the city's financial strength often results in surprising architectural designs for the stations. I guess having money does let you do whatever you want... right?
The consumerist mindset in China focuses a lot on first impression, especially with “daka” culture. Architecture is important in that sense. That’s also why there’s a lot of well decorated shops serving sub par products.
Thanks for making the video about Shenzhen metro. But as a local, I must say that their operation method is really unsatisfying, comparing to its high-quality construction. And have a look at the metro systems nearby, Hongkong and Guangzhou, Shenzhen metro operators still need to learn a lot from its neighbours. Type A large trains are widely used in the Shenzhen metro system (except line 3 initially constructed by the Longgang district, and the 6Z because it has to be the same with Dongguan Line 1). Different from Guangzhou (whose metro system suffered from small trains), the usage of A trains undoubtedly ensures high capatity. But speaking of travelling speed, Shenzhen is not doing well here. There is no “true rapid service”, those “fake-rapid trains” are not able to overtake local trains, which means these “fake-rapid” trains are still restricted by the local trains. And there is no east-west rapid line, making it really time-wasting to go through the center of the Shenzhen, considering the shape of the city. This is even worse for some highly-twisted lines, making the trains even slower. Speaking about transfer, if you take a look at the stations in Luohu, you'll find stations really close to each other, but they're not designed as transfer stations, even if they're connected by a pedestrian tunnel! This makes it harder to travel by metro for a short distance (especially Shenzhen is downsizing its bus service). Oh, their instructions are misleading too. Line 2 and line 8 are connected head to tail. But they say that the east bound track is the 2, the west bound track is the 8! Why don't they just mark the east part as 2, the west part as 8? This is not instructing the passengers, but confusing them. There're still lots of problems not mentioned, such as shutting down all its ticket vending machines, forcing passengers to download and register its APP and so on. All I want to say is that they really should learn from GZMetro and the MTR HK about how to make full use of their equipment. It's a waste of high-quality equipments with such a low-efficiency operation.
Sorry if I'm too excited about that, but I'm really disappointed as MTR and GZMetro made textbook examples in a lot of fields, but SZMetro didn't learn anything good from its good neighbours.
I'm from Atlanta Ga, and I travel to Shenzhen a lot and I seen the development of Shenzhen from 2016 to now , Shenzhen is no typical mega city , It's the first city I know that changes to something , some place new very fast all of the time. Shenzhen is future city ,The subways are smooth no sounds and fast very clean , like all chinese big cities.
I worked as an intern for the line 3 design and surveying team. It's building on top of an existing but very old highway, equivalent to the "US Route". Since it's above ground, and mostly on public land, it's a lot cheaper.
Well that does track (pardon the pun), China has the biggest cities in the world and thus also the most access to funding per city. They're also one of the few nations in the world that really seems to prioritise public transport.
Went to Shenzhen a couple months ago for the first time. A lot less crowded than the Hong Kong MRT, but doesn't seem quite as well maintained (still way better than my home city of Los Angeles though). Overall, it was a very safe and convenient way to get around. And I enjoyed all of the connections to underground shopping centers full of delicious food. Shenzhen is an incredible city!
Never heard of any issues of the maintenance quality of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. Issues with crime and homeless, yes. Issues with it being a fairly limited system (albeit one that is growing very fast for an American system), sure. But issues with things like train break downs or slow zones? No. It's much more reliable than, say, Boston's troubled system.
Shenzhener here. Old lines and stations are more than 15 year-old, usd some inferior matterial like marble pavement. Those need a total refurnishment. The new lines are better, but mostly on the west part of Shenzhen.
Greatly appreciated that you provide information about the population and the area its length and width stretches in km. And in the images we can see if it's more than 80% sprawl (Los Angeles), skyscrapers (Hong Kong) or high rises (Paris). Population, Population density and zoning (mix-use or strict zoning, car centric or not), wealth are major conditions for the design of a public transit system. And depending on those conditions we can guess if the system is best given the conditions or if there's room for improvement of the system in the first place, and maybe with good city planning policies also the conditions themselves in the second places.
Hey Reece, I know it is slightly off of your normal patch, but Lagos Rail Mass Transit has made great progress in the last year with two lines opening and active plans for four more lines. Certainly worth a video as modern metro's are quite a new thing for Africa and when complete the network will likely be transformational for such a mega-city as Lagos.
When China started developing Shenzhen as a special economic zone, they looked to Singapore and Hongkong as example. The public transport network was baked into the design. It is good to see a plan come together that works.
Thank you Reece for an absolutely wonderful video about a huge network which has developed in just twenty years! In China they certainly do not waste time when it comes to building transport networks! Very best wishes for the holiday season. Roger
I think this can actually apply to a lot of things these days, with such advanced technology. I think central planning was a silly idea last century but now? The same software used by international conglomerates for supply chain management is very similar to early ideals of prosthetic socialism I remember from history class. If we can perfect a constitutional model of checks and balances to prevent power thirsty dicks at the top from abusing power, can use the same stuff but profit goes to everyone and not shareholders. Who knows, it's an interesting thought. Sky's the limit.
Shenzhen is the first capitalist experimental zone in china, and the subway system is completely self funded by the local economy. No central planning involved
I came to the comments to say this too! Kudos to Reece for not making Mandarin speakers lose their minds having to listen to an English speaker just *guess* at random how a Q or ZH or X might sound. It can really make some content unlistenable.
Shenzhen Metro announcements are made in three languages, the same as in Guangzhou(Canton) Metro: Mandarin, Cantonese and English. The English voice of the Shenzhen Metro seems to be from an African male.
I think it was a missed opportunity to not begin the video with the Kowloon-Canton Railway, precursor to the East Rail Line and Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway that linked Hong Kong and Guangzhou, where Shenzhen started off as a small border station next to Lo Wu, HK, and the city practically developed around and westwards from that initial Shenzhen Railway Station to form its multiple CBDs and flesh out its rail networks
@RMTransit, Maybe next time you could do Beijing subway, as it has the world’s largest metro system in the world for now and with its massive and innovated and also fast lines. One example is the Daxing Airport Express line, which runs from the city centre to Daxing Airport at speeds up to 160km per hour.
As an Irish person who lived in Shenzhen I am pleasantly surprised to see this video along with Dublin fall within the same week, if you can cover the Listowel (Ireland not Canada) ‘metro’ the Lartigue then you’ll really have me impressed 😉
I think you can make a video about Hangzhou Metro，in fact，Hangzhou Metro is the fastest subway in the world. It took only 12 years to build more than 600 kilometers of subway lines (including Shaoxing area).
Well done video. You can tell substantial effort and preparation went into its creation . As a video editor, I know this took days, if not weeks. Appreciate everything. Thank you.
It's a strange feeling seeing the metro line slowly creeping towards our old house over in Dayawan (aka Daya Bay), far to the east on the coast. We return to the old house from overseas every year or so, and see the metro line (more specifically Line 33) get closer and closer every year. Apparently Line 33 will turn into the Shenzhen-Dayawan intercity railway, and will probably connect my old house to the Shenzhen metro sometime after 2026. In case you're wondering, we book tickets on private buses/minibuses (via WeChat, hours or even minutes before departure) to take us to/from Shenzhen. However since 2022 with the opening of Shatian station on Line 14, one can ride the public bus and metro from Dayawan into Shenzhen. It's nowhere as fast as the minibus as that's a non-stop ride on the highway to Shenzhen, but it's much cheaper for seniors.
One thing quite extraordinary from SZMC is they use the system for quick package delivery during off-peak hours. vertical containers are loaded to the train just like the old times with postal railway but with autonomous robots now.
Great Video, and great showcases on the lines that are not in the urban centre! I rode the Shenzhen Metro for the first time in 2007 soon after Futian Checkpoint was opened, Line 4 was just a puny line with 5 stations. 17 years later it and other lines grew into a massive system with even more coming in the next few years. Shenzhen really benefited from being a Special Economic Region to have massive budgets for so many metros and even intercity trains to the Qianhai and Futian CBD (still in construction). Overall, it's a great system for going to most places, but the express lines aren't that fast, honestly. The so-called "express trains" on Lines 2/8, 6, and 14 don't even overtake any local trains and are only marginally faster than a local train. Looking forward to a Guangzhou & Foshan Metro explainer! And maybe the Guangdong Intercity sometimes?
as a Chicago local, it's so incredible to see all of this being built in the last couple decades, whereas here in Chicago we've been planning the red line extension for 50 years.
You need to revisit shanghai. They opened so many lines and are opening the most useful line of all time in coming days. Airport Express line from hongqiao to pudong!!! This is extremely good and hope they do more express lines because chinese metro are notoriously slow (district are too far away from each other). Also Beijing just opened 3 lines recently
I lived in Nanshan/Houhai for a few years and naturally as a transit nerd I was a big fan of the Shenzhen metro 🤓 It's probably a lot due to local bias but Shenzhen has one of my absolute favourite systems and it's still growing rapidly. Some of my minor complaints with the metro are being solved by projects currently under construction such as better connections to high speed rail for the western districts and additional north-south lines in west Shenzhen. Excited to visit in the future to see all the new lines/extensions that have opened since I was last there! 🎉
Wow china's metro is something else, like the scale, the futuristic designs, the technological development, and the clean and pristine stations are just crazy and too much to even comprehend, and the greatest shocker is the competition amongst themselves, sometime this year Shanghai had the largest metro system in the world, which was surpassed this same year by the Beijing metro system to become the largest in the world and now shenzhen is seriously pursuing the title to have it's own crown as one of the largest in the world 😂😂😂😂this is the best representation of development at it's finest, when cities compete seriously amongst themselves for world records, china is amazing ❤ nice video my bro
While not very distinctive from most other recently made Chinese metro lines, I felt Chengdu metro was very navigable and perhaps less crowded. The grab handles are panda shaped so that's cool 😂 But really, it offers an excellent service and the cost is stupid low. Also cool that I got to ride the faster line to Tianfu, although I still wish there was a faster direct connection to the center of Chengdu since Tianfu is so far away from the center
I would love it too. Despite the first line opened only in 2010, it already have more than 600km and there is like 300 under construction, and from what i saw in some videos, the stations looks really nice. For me it's one of the best and most interesting metros in the world, but is quite unknown in the west and is barely talk about it, and i would like to know more.
For all the glazing Tokyo's network gets, I've always thought the Chinese systems were a heck of a lot better, far far more modern. And always expanding!
They're more modern because they're way newer, like within the last 20 years. The network in Tokyo was practically complete by the time most Chinese builds had even started.
Never underestimate people finding some reason to hate the Chinese government, no matter what. "Chinese cities are rapidly building subways to move people quickly, efficiently, and with lesser impact on the environment." "But Beijing hasn't done anything about sunspots! CHECKMATE CHINA!"
The Shenzhen Metro caters to technology parks, business districts and residential areas. My favorite part is the very easy access to the coastline, parks, beaches, and even the Dameisha Park station exit is the beach.
I would love to see you make a video about my city/country (kraków/Poland). I am aware that it would be one sentence long: "not much there". Still love learning about far away lands and modern very advanced systems. Hope you get to make more lovely videos you are interested in next year.
I recently went back to my childhood home Shenzhen, and the subway has stayed clean and vastly expanded. That's not to say that China is not experiencing serious economic and political challenges in the past few years, it just weather them better due to its strong export-oriented private enterprises.
Chinese Canadian that lives in Toronto here. I use the TTC almost everyday for school and WISHHHHHH we had something like this. So amazing. A real shame North America isn't like this. I remember going to Beijing as a kid and thinking how much better the subway was compared to the TTC. When I graduate I wanna visit China's and Asia's mega cities, they look awesome.
Shenzhen metro is possibly the only metro that allows old age pensioners to travel for free and it is not restricted to nationality too. One has to visit the Gangzia North station, mentioned in the video, in order to claim to have seen the best. I managed to spend an afternoon in Shenzhen metro just to visit this station and went to Huaqiang North station to get an AI translator, does 125 languages translations, for £40. Huaqiang North station is the centre of the Chinese new gadgets.
One critical thing to know is that China's modern metro system was built with a total around 300 billion dollars, and China's High Speed Rail HSR system is also around 300 billion dollars. Both combined together were still less than what the US spent on war in Iraq which went well over 2-3 Trillion dollars. In terms of HSR- China went from having nearly none, to in just 10 years more than everyone else in the globe combined, X2. And they are planning to expand that even further to link up the most impoverished regions so they can get to the large cities in affordable commutes.
Shenzhen is a very interesting city in that it almost feels like what Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse would be in real life. The main arterial roads for driving are super wide and fast, but the inner blocks are rather narrow and suitable for walking, with storefronts on every street. The metro takes you to the centre of the blocks, so you can come out straight into the commercial plazas or office buildings. It's planned incredibly.
Shenzhen used to have named lines like the MTR (and the british underground), though they got rid of them for simplicity. Vestigial traces of the line name system though cna still be seen everywhere
great video as always, but "large parts of the city are hilly or mountainous" reminding you of shanghai is insane. shanghai is literally just a swamp with no hills whatsoever lol
I have lived in Beijing, nyc, and visited Shanghai, shenzhen. Big issues with the subway systems in major chinese cities is that they dont have commuter rail, and dont have express subways where it skips 4-5 stops. If they have those 2 done, the system will be much more efficient.
I fundamentally understand that there are vast differences between Shenzhen and Toronto, but to hear that they built this all in 20 years whereas we have built 8.6 km thus far and six stations... it just hurts me.
They're the same place
@@scpatl4now it is funny that I specifically mentioned the quote ‘vast differences.’ There is also things like how the government spends money, how the appropriation of land use and the incumbent infrastructure to name but a few. Nevertheless it still hurts.
@@scpatl4now well as an antifan of both CCP and Western government I don't know what destroy the environment more: a transit centric city with multiple metro line built in a short time or a car centric city which is obviously the hell on Earth for anyone outside of a car. But I know that a transit centric city just like Amsterdam is more liveable and safer for everyone, especially for kids.
@@omnipotent_arcanis Yes it does. I live in Atlanta, and we can't even seem to get BRT built. I feel your pain.
With how often accidents happen, most would never accept the trade off.
The fact that the US’ Bay Area isn’t like this is criminal.
The nine-city urban agglomeration including Hong Kong, Macao, Shenzhen and Guangzhou was called Pearl River Delta (which was nice sounding) in the past, but with Xi in power, the name was changed to the too generic Greater Bay Area.
Literally criminal. Streetcar removal conspiracy.
it is mainly, "Political Will". Biggest complaint if it was done in USA right now are inconvenience caused, cost (over-runs) and noise. In China, you don't have a choice, so, they are able to accomplish a lot without great fear of protest on all levels, including special interest lobbies
Best Case study of losing a loss of Political Will in a Public Transport infrastructure is the Bondi Beach (Sydney, Australia) Train network
One factor is population. The population of this Bay Area is something like five times that of the San Francisco Bay Area. It's has a higher population than the entire state of California, in a relatively small area.
@@Geotpf There’s no reason the SF Bay Area shouldn’t have the population of New York. If it’d been developed 20 years earlier it probably would.
As a worker lived in ShenZhen for 8 years I admire how accurate your video is about ShenZhen metro. You must have dedicated a lot to this. A huge thumbs up to you!
OMFG I seriously cannot believe my favorite transit UA-camr made a video about the metro system all the way across the Pacific that I use on a daily basis...
I hope to visit these cities - are the metro prices costly compared to buses and stuff ? :)
Thanks for the reply in advance
Bro doxxed himself
@@giri1478 Not really, bus fares in China are lower than metros but giant cities in China face terrible traffic jams, so most commutes will choose to ride metros. But in general the metro fares are lower than international average. You can get a one hour metro trip in around 6 CNY (below 1 usd)
@@giri1478 They are dirt cheap compared with any system in North America or Europe.
@@Gdsamplify fym doxxed its a city of 20 million
I remember back in 2006 or so when I visited Shenzhen as a child for the first time. It was a day trip going from Hung Hom to Lo Wu then Luo Hu to other parts of Shenzhen. There was only 2 lines and as a child I was fawning over new sights. ~20 years later and Shenzhen is a completely different city entirely and the Metro is basically unrecognizable from its infancy.
Thanks for covering Shenzhen Metro!
@@私気に成ります Welcome to come again👋
I guess I'm a bit older than you, Back in the early-90s my company started a plant in Dongguan & every 2 weeks I would take the KCR to Lo Wu, then a long bus ride to to Dongguan. From 2000 I relocated to Shanghai and started flying to Shenzhen monthly. Now it is all CRH and Metro. Amazing!
@@私気に成ります same vibes i remember talking to my aunt in the city how there was only 3-4 lines back in early 2010s but its crazy to see how much has changed meanwhile 3km and yet its still going strong after 8 years back in the city i studied in
Its incredible how far the city has come, a shocking transformation for the better!
One thing to mention is that Shenzhen is categorized as so-called "Special economic district" meaning it doesn't have to summit their fiscal revenue to Guangdong province but directly summit to central government. This fiscal statue makes Shenzhen has the resources to build such a giant metro network other than other cities in Pearl river delta which has limited resources like Canton, Foshan, Dongguan.
Maybe you could make a video about metro in Canton city (Guangzhou) one day, about how they built a network in such limited resources. In Canton, they have to built small trains but face large amount of ridership, which makes the metro network in this city become overwhelmed nowadays.
cough cough Line 3 136% utilization
车小属于时代的眼泪没办法，一个那时难预测后来客流爆炸式增长，还有当年地铁限建政策限制了规划发挥上限，同时期的上海地铁北京地铁新线路一样有这个问题（典型的比如北京10号线和上海6、8号线）。广州地铁目前的问题是市区线网太稀疏了，10、11、12、13号线这市区四大天王建设周期太长了，十年来市区全靠1、2、3、5、6、8号线撑着
Special Economic Zone (SEZ)
@@张三-q2t5h At least line 11 is already open, and the rest should be open by the next year. Hopefully that will help.
It is almost as if that is exactly the point of being special. For hundred of years many other places needed to submit to Guangzhou and GZ enjoyed a priviledged position and now you sound like complaining about another place receiving better conditions to be able to develop with more resources. They had the luck to be located where they are located to be under the national interest to have those benefits. As a fellow oversea cantonese, probably SZ wouls not be where it is if it needed to submit to Guangdong jurisdiction. The think I disliked the most while getting to know GZ is that ridiculous religionalist and high horse attitude that wanted to make a BUT in a video that is not even about GZ or other cities in the region.
Thanks for the Christmas Gift!!! Absolutely amazing metro system, and great video!
Truly staggering. The additional video on the transit of the Pearl River Delta is appreciated but probably a full-length video is also warranted!
More like a Netflix doc so Reece can get PAID
Maybe something for the future, it is going to be a crazy system.
@@RMTransit Indeed. The level of engineering put into it is fascinating. Thanks for your videos!
I first visited Shenzhen in 1985 and its development has been astonishing since then. Last time I was in Shenzhen was in 2013 and the changes by then were amazing. I must return. Must give credit to the Chinese government for improving the living standards of its people. Greetings from Australia.
That's autocracy for you! Get it built NOW or ELSE... 😆😒
@@stevengalloway8052 Again, that depends very much upon which autocracy you are talking about . . . .
@@stevengalloway8052 or else? tell me what are the purpose of these infrastructure? isn't it to improve the lives of normal Chinese people?
@PipinoExcalibur - Autocracies "get things done", that is, there's no NIMBY in protests to projects that the government would want to do, rarely taking into consideration environmental concerns or the like. Perhaps this could be an attraction to some people who actually would want a dictator to tell them and the country what to do. (See Xi, Erdogan, Putin, Un, Urban, and yes, Trump) While impressive architecturally, said projects can serve as a "pleasurable distraction" to their rule, keeping their citizens under their iron fist while showing off to the world their "grandiose achievement", and the "beauty" of autocracy... 😠
@@stevengalloway8052 if there is no NIMBY or protest, why they try make almost all lines under the ground?
Huge shout out to the amazing Chinese close-caption! Accurate and reads comfortably. Super inclusive and helpful for a video talking about a Chinese city.
Thanks to the guy who does the translations for RMTransit videos on Bilibili
I haven't ever been to China, let alone Shenzhen, and still watched the entire 28 mins video with serious concentration, don't even know why.
It is good preparing for your first visit!
@@ottorask7676 I actually genuinely agree with you
Not sure if you’ve been to shenzhen or not but the facts presented and how up to date it is from foreigner perspective is amazing.
I am a foreigner living in china but most of chinese are taking their infrastructure for granted and not so many people are geeking out about public transportation.
I visited Shenzhen 3 times and used the metro every time and loved it. Clean, efficient and takes you to all the city’s districts in reasonable time. You can also take it to the port entry into hong kong.
congrats from Shenzhen for launching this video ahead any of the yet-to-open lines by three whole days lol
woah just found your channel from the dublin vid (my city) and searched to see if u did any on China, and look here! 12 minutes ago posted. perfect
His video on China's railway standardisation is also a great one.
WHAT ARE THE ODDS (Poofesure quote.) for you, also what are the odds I make similar comments like yours
Thanks for watching, lots of videos about systems around the world on the channel!
As always, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, having been to China several times. I noted you did reference Chengdu where I have spent considerable time on four separate occasions. On my first visit around 2011, there was no metro system. Since my first visit, a network of over 350km has been constructed composed of radial lines and concentric circle lines. There is alsona huge new airport which dwarfs anything in Canada.
I would love to see you do an episode on Chengdu.
I currently reside in Ottawa, where the modest and greatly delayed LRT network pales in comparison.
Keep up the great work!!!
I have lived/worked in NYC, London and stayed for three months to attend a course in Shenzhen, I can say that Shenzhen is way more advanced, cleaner and safer than both London & NYC. As a solo female, I could walk freely in the middle of the night without any fear in Shenzhen while I couldn't even imagine doing that in London or NYC.
Nice paid shill
@@khanhhung8959That's like doubting every good review on a hotel.
Like it or not, credit has to be given to the Chinese government for putting up amazing infrastructure for its people. Visited China many times and always impressed with its development. It is so convenient to travel around and we feel pretty safe. No wonder more than 95% of Chinese people supports their government. Back here in Melbourne, we have been talking about building a rail link to the Tullamarine Airport since 1970.
While I agree with all your points on Chinese built infrastructure, I think you should not show trust in satisfaction surveys in places without free journalism, democracy, and the possibility of imprisonment or death without trial.
@@Lancasterlaw1175 The concepts of democracy and dictatorship are often judged from a very biased Western perspective. If you learn a bit more about China, you can see that it has experimented with elections in its history, recognized its inherent flaws, and subsequently adopted a competition and selection based approach. Also, I think you shouldn't support the easily debunked lies about China without any reliable evidence. Go and see China for yourself-there is no lack of democracy or freedom, and imprisonment or death without trial is impossible.
@@Lancasterlaw1175 "I think you should not show trust in satisfaction surveys in places without free journalism, democracy, and the possibility of imprisonment or death without trial." stop listening to MSM. they are literally rotting your brain
I mean when faced with the choice, I too support my government, when the other option is consequences
@@Mogeli Complete your story: what were the consequences to the 5%?
Last time I went to Shenzhen was around 2010. What a huge progress!
The most iconic fact that this subway system is that it is very cheap in comparison to the mtr in Hong Kong, metro in Taipei or BTS in bangkok, it just costs less than USD 1 if you go through the entire line, costs are relatively low in Hong kong. Thats why millions of people go to Shenzhen every weekend 😮
Some fun facts about Shenzhen Metro:
- There is a station called Huawei on line 10, and exit E of the station goes straight into Huawei HQ. Usually stations can't be named after companies but this one is still approved.
- There are two main operators: Shenzhen Metro Group and MTR Shenzhen, nicknamed "green tortoise" and "red tortoise" respectively.
- In London many lines intersect but there are no interchange stations (overground, metropolitan line, etc.), but these usually happen in the suburbs. In Shenzhen even in the Luohu CBD lines (especially line 1 with other lines) also intersect but without interchange stations. This is indeed a failure in mass transit planning, but the gov is trying to recover this by building a more dense metro network.
Another not that fun fact: previously the operating company stopped charging business class fare on line 11 during morning peak hours. Everyone can get into (maybe squeeze into) the two business class coaches. Now the company cancelled this policy and everyone needs to pay business class fare all day
有一些不换乘是为了缩短进城时间，比如11号线
@梁雨辰-u2m 这个正常 伦敦伊丽莎白线就是 但是早期比如1号线大剧院 罗湖 华强路等等 交而不换有点多了 以前去深圳旅游还是觉得有点不方便
@@dianahoward9089 嗯，平常我都在宝安南山一带，很少去福田罗湖，一般也就坐11、12号线
Wow, this makes the BART subway system in the SF Bay Area seem like some kind of rural railway
Thanks
Thank you!
I was in Shenzhen in 2006 and back then it only had two lines. I hope they build some more lines like the impressive Line 18 from Guangzhou to Zhongshan, which has a speed of 180 km/h. That blurs the line between a metro and an intercity train, but those are needed to make the region a giant single metropolis.
Dongguan needs a lot more lines. Today it only has one, which is quite surprising.
I remember Shenzhen in the early 2000s too. I was there often. I believe you can literally ride, from metro to metro, all the way from Shenzhen to Guangzhou now.
I love this video!! Kinda exactly what I hoped would pop up on my feed, I just wished it would've popped up sooner
I was in Shenzhen yesterday actually! Only rode the metro literally one stop but was stunned at the size. Kind of insane because I don't really consider Shenzhen as all that large, even tho I suppose it is the 3rd largest.
Shenzhen is only 1997km² and is one tenth of Beijing
@@wkl7132 That's because Beijing Municipality includes many rural areas
It's not large, just richer than most cities in China.
I'm not sure if anyone has pointed this out, but you can see quite a few Cantonese cultural and historical parallels with Hong Kong in the district and station names. Not all represent the same general area (some do, such as Shatoujiao and Luohu) but they clearly come from shared culture and southern Chinese history.
Chegongmiao (Shenzhen) = Che Kung Temple (Hong Kong)
Shatian (Shenzhen) = Sha Tin (Hong Kong)
Luohu (Shenzhen) = Lo Wu (Hong Kong)
Shatoujiao (Shenzhen) = Sha Tau Kok (Hong Kong)
Ma'anshan (Shenzhen) = Ma On Shan (Hong Kong)
Liyumen (Shenzhen) = Lei Yue Mun (Hong Kong)
And I'm sure there are more. Fantastic and detailed video as always.
I visited Shenzhen last year and I loved it so much, thank you for talking about this futuristic city not popular outside China!!
I lived in Shenzhen for 9 years and loved the city. The metro system is amazing and it keeps getting better. I used to take the bus to the beach for $2 and now you almost get there by metro. Also, the Gangxia North metro station is amazing, definitely check out the design if you have a chance.
In 1992, I was living in Hong Kong. I had a frequent need to travel to Shekou, i.e. at the west end of Line 2. Since this system wasn’t yet in place I had to take a ferry, either from Kowloon or from Central.
Never thought Reece would upload a video about my hometown's subway system, since Shenzhen is not that internationally famous comparing to other Chinese cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong! As far as I know, there isn't a detailed (compare to this one) video to introduce the Shenzhen Metro on the internet, even in Chinese one. RMTransit just did it perfectly, as he covered almost every perspectives you have to know about this system, including the development, the operation, the future plan and stuff. I am deeply impressed by this video, Thank you!
So incredibly futuristic. The scale and speed of expansion is amazing. I hope to visit soon, maybe next year.
Cool plane shot at 18:21 btw 😄
As a Shenzhen local, I have mixed feelings about our metro system. On one hand, the service quality of SZMC falls short compared to other East Asian cities, especially other "1st-tier cities" in China. On the other hand, the city's financial strength often results in surprising architectural designs for the stations. I guess having money does let you do whatever you want... right?
How does it fall short, in your eyes??
@@arc4705 Please don't let him elaborate or he'll get arrested.
@@vincentng2392 put off the serpentza or laowhy videos would you?
@@arc4705 Think like when you are a senior, you are free to take the ride to anywhere, including buses and metro
The consumerist mindset in China focuses a lot on first impression, especially with “daka” culture. Architecture is important in that sense.
That’s also why there’s a lot of well decorated shops serving sub par products.
Thanks for making the video about Shenzhen metro. But as a local, I must say that their operation method is really unsatisfying, comparing to its high-quality construction. And have a look at the metro systems nearby, Hongkong and Guangzhou, Shenzhen metro operators still need to learn a lot from its neighbours.
Type A large trains are widely used in the Shenzhen metro system (except line 3 initially constructed by the Longgang district, and the 6Z because it has to be the same with Dongguan Line 1). Different from Guangzhou (whose metro system suffered from small trains), the usage of A trains undoubtedly ensures high capatity.
But speaking of travelling speed, Shenzhen is not doing well here. There is no “true rapid service”, those “fake-rapid trains” are not able to overtake local trains, which means these “fake-rapid” trains are still restricted by the local trains. And there is no east-west rapid line, making it really time-wasting to go through the center of the Shenzhen, considering the shape of the city. This is even worse for some highly-twisted lines, making the trains even slower.
Speaking about transfer, if you take a look at the stations in Luohu, you'll find stations really close to each other, but they're not designed as transfer stations, even if they're connected by a pedestrian tunnel! This makes it harder to travel by metro for a short distance (especially Shenzhen is downsizing its bus service).
Oh, their instructions are misleading too. Line 2 and line 8 are connected head to tail. But they say that the east bound track is the 2, the west bound track is the 8! Why don't they just mark the east part as 2, the west part as 8? This is not instructing the passengers, but confusing them.
There're still lots of problems not mentioned, such as shutting down all its ticket vending machines, forcing passengers to download and register its APP and so on. All I want to say is that they really should learn from GZMetro and the MTR HK about how to make full use of their equipment. It's a waste of high-quality equipments with such a low-efficiency operation.
Sorry if I'm too excited about that, but I'm really disappointed as MTR and GZMetro made textbook examples in a lot of fields, but SZMetro didn't learn anything good from its good neighbours.
喜歡你的頭像 電鯊巴士
卧槽兄弟这是真厉害😮
I feel like Shenzhen Metro has much more potential than the MTR and the GZMetro
深大城际：会好的，对吗？
不过罗湖建的太早规划不好救不了了，没有像上海龙阳路宜山路之类的就偷着乐吧😂
I'm from Atlanta Ga, and I travel to Shenzhen a lot and I seen the development of Shenzhen from 2016 to now , Shenzhen is no typical mega city , It's the first city I know that changes to something , some place new very fast all of the time. Shenzhen is future city ,The subways are smooth no sounds and fast very clean , like all chinese big cities.
Man flying from Atlanta to China ain't easy, there is no direct flight right now.
@@fdjw88 there is never a direct flight ,it's too long of a flight from atlanta to China 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Thank you for the intro to the city too, much needed to help put it all into perspective
5:21 actually Lo Wu is the main line of East Rail Line and Lok Ma Chau is the branch😅
I worked as an intern for the line 3 design and surveying team. It's building on top of an existing but very old highway, equivalent to the "US Route". Since it's above ground, and mostly on public land, it's a lot cheaper.
China has 9 out of 10 cities that have the longest subway systems
and 10/12 or 14/20 longest in the World.
Well that does track (pardon the pun), China has the biggest cities in the world and thus also the most access to funding per city. They're also one of the few nations in the world that really seems to prioritise public transport.
Shenzhener here! Line 13 just opened yesterday
Went to Shenzhen a couple months ago for the first time. A lot less crowded than the Hong Kong MRT, but doesn't seem quite as well maintained (still way better than my home city of Los Angeles though). Overall, it was a very safe and convenient way to get around. And I enjoyed all of the connections to underground shopping centers full of delicious food. Shenzhen is an incredible city!
Never heard of any issues of the maintenance quality of the Los Angeles Metro Rail system. Issues with crime and homeless, yes. Issues with it being a fairly limited system (albeit one that is growing very fast for an American system), sure. But issues with things like train break downs or slow zones? No. It's much more reliable than, say, Boston's troubled system.
Shenzhener here. Old lines and stations are more than 15 year-old, usd some inferior matterial like marble pavement. Those need a total refurnishment. The new lines are better, but mostly on the west part of Shenzhen.
Greatly appreciated that you provide information about the population and the area its length and width stretches in km. And in the images we can see if it's more than 80% sprawl (Los Angeles), skyscrapers (Hong Kong) or high rises (Paris).
Population, Population density and zoning (mix-use or strict zoning, car centric or not), wealth are major conditions for the design of a public transit system. And depending on those conditions we can guess if the system is best given the conditions or if there's room for improvement of the system in the first place, and maybe with good city planning policies also the conditions themselves in the second places.
Hey Reece, I know it is slightly off of your normal patch, but Lagos Rail Mass Transit has made great progress in the last year with two lines opening and active plans for four more lines. Certainly worth a video as modern metro's are quite a new thing for Africa and when complete the network will likely be transformational for such a mega-city as Lagos.
When China started developing Shenzhen as a special economic zone, they looked to Singapore and Hongkong as example. The public transport network was baked into the design. It is good to see a plan come together that works.
Thank you Reece for an absolutely wonderful video about a huge network which has developed in just twenty years! In China they certainly do not waste time when it comes to building transport networks! Very best wishes for the holiday season. Roger
It's crazy what central planning can do
especially compared with some places that make a 'virtue' out of no planning at all.
I think this can actually apply to a lot of things these days, with such advanced technology. I think central planning was a silly idea last century but now? The same software used by international conglomerates for supply chain management is very similar to early ideals of prosthetic socialism I remember from history class.
If we can perfect a constitutional model of checks and balances to prevent power thirsty dicks at the top from abusing power, can use the same stuff but profit goes to everyone and not shareholders. Who knows, it's an interesting thought. Sky's the limit.
I mean New York also built a crazy amount in 20 years without it
Shenzhen has its own semi-devolved government.
Shenzhen is the first capitalist experimental zone in china, and the subway system is completely self funded by the local economy. No central planning involved
amazing content! I am now living in Shenzhen but now I am learning the city's metro from your video.
Watching you from Shenzhen! :)
@@Jazz56974 how come
@@khanhhung8959 what do you mean?
Thank you for making an effort to pronounce the city names ☺️ it helps a lot with the immersion of the content.
I came to the comments to say this too! Kudos to Reece for not making Mandarin speakers lose their minds having to listen to an English speaker just *guess* at random how a Q or ZH or X might sound. It can really make some content unlistenable.
Never been to Shenzhen but the underground network metro systems in Shanghai, Beijing and Chongqing are simply amazing.
Shenzhen Metro announcements are made in three languages, the same as in Guangzhou(Canton) Metro: Mandarin, Cantonese and English.
The English voice of the Shenzhen Metro seems to be from an African male.
Thank you for making a video for my hometown. It is truly an evolving city! In fact, line 3, 7, 11, and 12 just received a extention today.
我在13号线首班车上😂
Thanks for covering my hometown, Reese. Sad to see you go but thanks for all the videos in the past.
Politics aside, imagine a government that realise that they need to move people instead of cars. Yet they also have huge car industry. Mind boggling.
Tbh, china used to tried to ban cycling in their CBD to promote car industry
I think it was a missed opportunity to not begin the video with the Kowloon-Canton Railway, precursor to the East Rail Line and Guangzhou-Shenzhen Railway that linked Hong Kong and Guangzhou, where Shenzhen started off as a small border station next to Lo Wu, HK, and the city practically developed around and westwards from that initial Shenzhen Railway Station to form its multiple CBDs and flesh out its rail networks
@RMTransit, Maybe next time you could do Beijing subway, as it has the world’s largest metro system in the world for now and with its massive and innovated and also fast lines.
One example is the Daxing Airport Express line, which runs from the city centre to Daxing Airport at speeds up to 160km per hour.
As an Irish person who lived in Shenzhen I am pleasantly surprised to see this video along with Dublin fall within the same week, if you can cover the Listowel (Ireland not Canada) ‘metro’ the Lartigue then you’ll really have me impressed 😉
I enjoy how this video doesn't feature any distracting footage of a person speaking
I think you can make a video about Hangzhou Metro，in fact，Hangzhou Metro is the fastest subway in the world. It took only 12 years to build more than 600 kilometers of subway lines (including Shaoxing area).
Well done video. You can tell substantial effort and preparation went into its creation . As a video editor, I know this took days, if not weeks. Appreciate everything. Thank you.
我第一次去深圳的时候是08年，那时候才只有区区两三条地铁，现在深圳基本上快地铁全覆盖了
It's a strange feeling seeing the metro line slowly creeping towards our old house over in Dayawan (aka Daya Bay), far to the east on the coast. We return to the old house from overseas every year or so, and see the metro line (more specifically Line 33) get closer and closer every year. Apparently Line 33 will turn into the Shenzhen-Dayawan intercity railway, and will probably connect my old house to the Shenzhen metro sometime after 2026.
In case you're wondering, we book tickets on private buses/minibuses (via WeChat, hours or even minutes before departure) to take us to/from Shenzhen. However since 2022 with the opening of Shatian station on Line 14, one can ride the public bus and metro from Dayawan into Shenzhen. It's nowhere as fast as the minibus as that's a non-stop ride on the highway to Shenzhen, but it's much cheaper for seniors.
Thanks, this was very informative and helped me a lot to plan my upcoming trip
One thing quite extraordinary from SZMC is they use the system for quick package delivery during off-peak hours. vertical containers are loaded to the train just like the old times with postal railway but with autonomous robots now.
Great Video, and great showcases on the lines that are not in the urban centre! I rode the Shenzhen Metro for the first time in 2007 soon after Futian Checkpoint was opened, Line 4 was just a puny line with 5 stations. 17 years later it and other lines grew into a massive system with even more coming in the next few years. Shenzhen really benefited from being a Special Economic Region to have massive budgets for so many metros and even intercity trains to the Qianhai and Futian CBD (still in construction).
Overall, it's a great system for going to most places, but the express lines aren't that fast, honestly. The so-called "express trains" on Lines 2/8, 6, and 14 don't even overtake any local trains and are only marginally faster than a local train.
Looking forward to a Guangzhou & Foshan Metro explainer! And maybe the Guangdong Intercity sometimes?
my grandfather used to call it an old fishing village
You know this city is bonkers when it takes 6 minutes to explain the context of Shenzen
fantastic video
The stock footage at 2:34 is actually the Marina Bay Financial Centre in Singapore! Good video nonetheless though :D
as a Chicago local, it's so incredible to see all of this being built in the last couple decades, whereas here in Chicago we've been planning the red line extension for 50 years.
You need to revisit shanghai. They opened so many lines and are opening the most useful line of all time in coming days. Airport Express line from hongqiao to pudong!!! This is extremely good and hope they do more express lines because chinese metro are notoriously slow (district are too far away from each other). Also Beijing just opened 3 lines recently
There is also a monster-level city in Zhejiang Province, and its subway lines are also growing explosively
16:44 an elevated, automated, flying purple people mover
I waited for this for a long time
I lived in Nanshan/Houhai for a few years and naturally as a transit nerd I was a big fan of the Shenzhen metro 🤓
It's probably a lot due to local bias but Shenzhen has one of my absolute favourite systems and it's still growing rapidly. Some of my minor complaints with the metro are being solved by projects currently under construction such as better connections to high speed rail for the western districts and additional north-south lines in west Shenzhen.
Excited to visit in the future to see all the new lines/extensions that have opened since I was last there! 🎉
I have been waiting for this video....
Wow china's metro is something else, like the scale, the futuristic designs, the technological development, and the clean and pristine stations are just crazy and too much to even comprehend, and the greatest shocker is the competition amongst themselves, sometime this year Shanghai had the largest metro system in the world, which was surpassed this same year by the Beijing metro system to become the largest in the world and now shenzhen is seriously pursuing the title to have it's own crown as one of the largest in the world 😂😂😂😂this is the best representation of development at it's finest, when cities compete seriously amongst themselves for world records, china is amazing ❤ nice video my bro
What do you think about the Chengdu metro? 21million Chengduers looking forward to your new video!
While not very distinctive from most other recently made Chinese metro lines, I felt Chengdu metro was very navigable and perhaps less crowded. The grab handles are panda shaped so that's cool 😂 But really, it offers an excellent service and the cost is stupid low. Also cool that I got to ride the faster line to Tianfu, although I still wish there was a faster direct connection to the center of Chengdu since Tianfu is so far away from the center
I would love it too. Despite the first line opened only in 2010, it already have more than 600km and there is like 300 under construction, and from what i saw in some videos, the stations looks really nice. For me it's one of the best and most interesting metros in the world, but is quite unknown in the west and is barely talk about it, and i would like to know more.
So refreshing to hear a youTuber who pronounces "Shenzhen" and "Guangzhou" properly.
5th biggest metro network in China and 6th in the world, that should already tell you a lot about China.
After the line 8 section opened, you could occasionally see bits of sand on the floor of the train lol
I’m from Shenzhen and study here in Toronto. 😢 Toronto subway is just sad.
........especially in cold winter or hot summer days breaking down so often is unreal !
For all the glazing Tokyo's network gets, I've always thought the Chinese systems were a heck of a lot better, far far more modern. And always expanding!
They're more modern because they're way newer, like within the last 20 years. The network in Tokyo was practically complete by the time most Chinese builds had even started.
@@doujinflip No it's because China is based of Social Characteristics and standards while Japan isn't. So capital is a lot less involved
You couldn’t be mad at the Chinese government when they actually did this 🔥great life improvements to the Chinese
Never underestimate people finding some reason to hate the Chinese government, no matter what.
"Chinese cities are rapidly building subways to move people quickly, efficiently, and with lesser impact on the environment."
"But Beijing hasn't done anything about sunspots! CHECKMATE CHINA!"
The Shenzhen Metro caters to technology parks, business districts and residential areas. My favorite part is the very easy access to the coastline, parks, beaches, and even the Dameisha Park station exit is the beach.
btw, Vietnam's capital finally has a metro that opened literally in this month which took more than 12 years due to financial problems
Thats not capital=)))
@ one of their biggest city i mean, not capital sorry
I would love to see you make a video about my city/country (kraków/Poland). I am aware that it would be one sentence long: "not much there".
Still love learning about far away lands and modern very advanced systems. Hope you get to make more lovely videos you are interested in next year.
I recently went back to my childhood home Shenzhen, and the subway has stayed clean and vastly expanded. That's not to say that China is not experiencing serious economic and political challenges in the past few years, it just weather them better due to its strong export-oriented private enterprises.
Chinese Canadian that lives in Toronto here. I use the TTC almost everyday for school and WISHHHHHH we had something like this. So amazing. A real shame North America isn't like this. I remember going to Beijing as a kid and thinking how much better the subway was compared to the TTC. When I graduate I wanna visit China's and Asia's mega cities, they look awesome.
holy cow what a video and city!
This is really impressive.
Great Video, thank you very much!
I love the Shenzhen and Chengdu Metro system, they are convenient, clean and some stations are the most beautiful metro designs I have ever seen!
Shenzhen metro is possibly the only metro that allows old age pensioners to travel for free and it is not restricted to nationality too.
One has to visit the Gangzia North station, mentioned in the video, in order to claim to have seen the best. I managed to spend an afternoon in Shenzhen metro just to visit this station and went to Huaqiang North station to get an AI translator, does 125 languages translations, for £40. Huaqiang North station is the centre of the Chinese new gadgets.
One critical thing to know is that China's modern metro system was built with a total around 300 billion dollars, and China's High Speed Rail HSR system is also around 300 billion dollars. Both combined together were still less than what the US spent on war in Iraq which went well over 2-3 Trillion dollars.
In terms of HSR- China went from having nearly none, to in just 10 years more than everyone else in the globe combined, X2. And they are planning to expand that even further to link up the most impoverished regions so they can get to the large cities in affordable commutes.
Very good presentation about this transit.
MERRY CHRISTMAS! 🎄
besides lines in video, shenzhen still has at least 3 intercity lines being constructed, which runs at 160km/h
Shenzhen is a very interesting city in that it almost feels like what Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse would be in real life. The main arterial roads for driving are super wide and fast, but the inner blocks are rather narrow and suitable for walking, with storefronts on every street. The metro takes you to the centre of the blocks, so you can come out straight into the commercial plazas or office buildings. It's planned incredibly.
Shenzhen used to have named lines like the MTR (and the british underground), though they got rid of them for simplicity. Vestigial traces of the line name system though cna still be seen everywhere
great video as always, but "large parts of the city are hilly or mountainous" reminding you of shanghai is insane. shanghai is literally just a swamp with no hills whatsoever lol
I have lived in Beijing, nyc, and visited Shanghai, shenzhen. Big issues with the subway systems in major chinese cities is that they dont have commuter rail, and dont have express subways where it skips 4-5 stops. If they have those 2 done, the system will be much more efficient.