Does (Fake) London have a chance to get better?
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- Опубліковано 27 вер 2023
- Watch this video ad-free on Nebula: nebula.tv/videos/rmtransit-do...
A small North American city is trying to convince urbanites to relocate using... golf?? If small cities want to attract more urban dwellers, they need urban amenities like great public transit. Hear more in today's video!
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Ever wondered why your city's transit just doesn't seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
Here before not just bikes comments
Me too thanks
Fr lol
@@illiiilli24601 hello fellow nerdfighter! :)
@@astronics > nerdfighter
That's a word I haven't heard in years haha
Didn't expect to see a fellow nerdfighter here this early, DFTBA
Same
Having visited Fake London earlier this year, there was...better urbanism than I was expecting. Decently tall buildings, some nice riverfront parks and paths, and a couple streets downtown that had been revitalized. It still has a long way to go, though, and hearing about the failed BRT just made me sad, especially when other nearby small cities like Kitchener and Brampton are doing this so well.
I drove from Maine to Indiana through Canada with a friend last year and we stopped in Montreal (excellent) and London (surprisingly good.) We stayed in a cool hotel close to downtown and had great food. The street we were on seemed to have been partly pedestrianized and revitalized with outdoor dining patios and the atmosphere was pleasant. Kinda depressing how much of their downtown is still parking lots though...
The failed BRT is especially sad because it was originally meant to be an LRT, which got downgraded to a BRT, then downgraded again into new bus lanes, and now finally into "express bus routes" (doubt). And it seems even this turbo-nerfed form which minimally disrupts any car traffic still riles up the nimbys to no end.
@@ohutchie I know just from your description that you likely stayed in The Delta, because yeah just a few blocks down towards the river they recently redid that whole street- again, for literally the 10th time since I've been born. And I'm not even kidding you, that street gets torn up constantly. We joke here that it's a constantly make work project to keep them busy.
If NIMBY can complain about trains they can and should complain about cars and highways and stroads.@@frosted3
@@frosted3They should add a NIMBY tax, anyone who complains against development pays. The money goes towards transit infrastructure.
For those who don't know, there's a reason the river is called the Thames and the city is named after the British capital: London was named by John Graves Simcoe, who also named the river the Thames, in 1793. The reason he named it London is because Simcoe had intended London to be the capital of Upper Canada. However, this plan of moving the capital there was rejected, but Simcoe's second choice of Toronto (which was first founded as York) was selected as the capital of Upper Canada in 1796, and Toronto would later become the capital of Ontario in 1867 when the Canadian Confederation was formed.
And yes, urbanism in smaller places that aren't the big and famous North American cities is very much possible! Jersey City and (Fake) London have somewhat similar populations and JC has achieved a lot thanks to its convenience across from NYC. But true small town urbanism based on my experience is Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. I first lived in that area when I was a kid because my father worked as an attorney in NYC and wanted somewhere that was both close to NYC and had express train service and the Tarrytown area fit the bill. Besides Tarrytown station, both Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow are extremely walkable, we didn't need a car to do our errands, and the area is exceptionally beautiful during the Fall and fully embraces Halloween because of the famous legend with the Headless Horseman. I'm glad I had my childhood there, because it was the best place to go trick or treating.
Thank you for the explanation. I didn’t know that 😊
I grew up in Londonontario (proper spelling and pronunciation). It was once upon a time a nice city but it's now such a backwards town. Decades of debate about a performing arts centre (still not built), Decades of debate about useful transit (still not built). So many announced downtown development projects that never get any further than an announcement. The once-vibrant downtown is awash of boarded up buildings and head shops. It's a great city "to be from".
Before I moved away I had a chat with the deputy-mayor of the day about preserving a transit corridor on Wellington Road for future development. His response: "We'll never need a subway - no need to protect the corridor."
The election of Dianne Haskett as mayor was the final straw - sold the house and moved to a more pedestrian/transit/biking/arts/culture/business-friendly city. Started a tech company, created jobs - jobs that could have been in London if it wasn't for such small-town thinking.
isnt it a post industrial poor city lmao
I live in London too. London should have opted for a light rail line running along Oxford Street from Hyde Park Road in the extreme west to the airport in the east, with a north-south line running from Masonville Mall in the north to just south of the 401 and the industrial parks in the area. The irony is that up until the mid-1950s, London had a successful street car line. The streetcar lines were ripped up when GM came along, sold the city cheap busses and built a bus manufacturing plant in town.
Instead, London is going with a bus rapid transit system that will be only a fraction of what it should be, and half as capable. It's already two years late and overbudget (sound familiar?)
London has a serious and growing homelessness problem, which the city is moving to address, if a bit slowly. London also has a severe housing crisis with rents and house prices being unaffordable for the vast majority of people. A lot of housing for the rich is being built, though. City council is not really addressing this issue beyond promising 6,000 affordable housing units by 2026. But this is a drop in the bucket against the huge demand that exists. That's provided the housing gets built in the first place and the NIMBYs don't squash it. London's city council seem to have no spine when it comes to dealing with NIMBYs and other professional complainers.
For the last 30 years, the city has also engaged in a quixotic, pointless pursuit of revitalizing the downtown core, without success. The core is dead, finished, because many offices shut down during the pandemic and haven't reopened. The revitalization the city wants simply isn't possible. Parking downtown is inconvenient, hard to find and expensive, too. What isn't helping matters is that the biggest real estate holder in the downtown core, Farhi Corporation, buys abandoned buildings in the core for tax write-offs and subscribes to a policy of demolition through neglect.
London isn't progressing, it's quickly turning into a backwater town of no repute. City council have no vision, aren't interested in doing more than the minimum possible, and seek to avoid conflict, controversy, and confrontation at all costs. To sum up, London's city council routinely manages to snatch defeat from what should be the jaws of victory. It's such a Podunk kind of place anymore. And boring to boot.
I've lived in London for the last 35 years and I am seriously considering leaving sometime next year. Even for a retiree like myself, there is no future here. London has never been my home town and I've never really felt at home here, but I stayed for economic reasons.
i thought it was fake-londontario
(am actively joking)
@@stevestruthers6180 The city council need to grow a pair and implement a vacancy tax rate that increases yearly and is tied to the property, not the owner, no "selling off" to another company to reset the rate. And no "Development plans". Shovels in the ground in 2 years or the tax is retroactively applied. Build on it or sell it back to the city less the taxes paid.
"and seek to avoid conflict, controversy, and confrontation at all costs"
If that were true, then they would appeal to and pander to the homeless and to those who want public train /light rail/tram transit for all.@@stevestruthers6180
As an International student studying in Fake London, the worst thing about the road repair works is that they removed all the bus stops in downtown, so currently the only way to go from Western University to downtown is to uber or get dropped of outside the town and walk for 30 minutes... not to mention the chaos of all the relocated bus stops not showing up on Google Maps and the 45-minute delays. It's even worse than last year :(
Transportation networks in London are horrible. In a word, they are shambolic.
Fake transport for Fake London, complete with Fake Bus Stops?
Not all stops are removed
I actually remember that the buses to Western were not that bad (back in 2013). It sucks if you can't take them anymore.
What? I live in downtown London and I've been taking the bus every day throughout construction. When they close down normal stops, they place temporary stops nearby. If you're too lazy to walk an extra block to get to the stop, that's you're problem.
I've been in Kitchener just a few days ago and had a good walk with my friends through the downtown. It's really good, but it still lacks pedestrian prioritisation, and (after Toronto, yep) it feels empty. But it is definitely a good place, and I'm happy to see how smaller cities are becoming really good places to live in.
BTW, billboards in Toronto inviting to move to London because they can drive a car is just hilarious. Does really anyone think people who decided to live in downtown Toronto care about cars? We build new condo towers without parking here. We elected Olivia Chow. She won even with suburban votes. Cmon.
You’ll find a lot of pedestrian activity if you head north on King and hit the twin universities in Waterloo!
@Yuvraj. This is exactly what my friends told me: to visit "Waterloo-side", but I didn't have time for it that day. I definitely do it on the next trip.
@@andymod I hope you enjoy it when you have the chance! I’m a student at UW and I’m loving seeing the changes in urban planning, street design and transit mode share in my 4 years here so far.
@davidcook8065 Let's not talk about exceptions. They always exist, but they don't change anything really.
London won't attract the downtown Toronto dwellers. But the people out in the suburbs who commute by car an hour each way could definitely be enticed with the thought of a 15 mins commute instead.
Speaking of the Thames, let's remember Tecumseh who stood and fought and died along the Thames river while his British allies ran on October 5th, 1813. He was the last Native American leader to lead any organized opposition to US expansion west of the Mississippi. All Canadians and US Americans should know this bit of history, but the war of 1812 often gets glossed over in school.
The military has never forgotten. Matched LARGE portraits of Tecumseh and Brock have shared pride of place at RCMI for example.
Those two had quite a partnership, it was short because of Brock's early death, but they understood each other as warriors, even though from different cultures.@@camberweller
Southern Ontario has pretty good transit, but I wish there were rail options beyond just the spokes out of Toronto. I'd love to see a Go Transit triangle between London, Kitchener, and Hamilton (and the towns in-between). With all the population growth these cities are seeing, it seems like a mobility option that really ought to exist! 🤔🚄
And then following a rail corridor outside of downtown Toronto to Scarborough and beyond. The missing ring connecting the spokes.
GO's entry into London was poorly thought out. The idea that the primary use of it as a commuter service to Toronto (4h each way!) made absolutely no sense. It would have been better to begin with something similar to what you describe, as a hub for regional services in the 519, to places like KW, Aldershot, Sarnia and perhaps St. Thomas / Aylmer.
@@davidreichert9392they already got union station too for that sharing with Via Rail, and future Amtrak will have a Chicago-Detroit - Toronto
The Triangle should be more of a ring. Toronto > KW > London > Hamilton > Toronto. Between these major cities that are not currently serviced by GO trains, there is Stratford, Woodstock and Brantford.
1000x Yes. Go Transit needs to go beyond Burlington and Hamilton. VIA Rail is a joke.
I lived in London for about 6 years (as it is my hometown) and lived here in Waterloo/Kitchener for university. Everytime I go back to Waterloo there's seems to be huge improvements to the bus systems, especially within the past two years. Meanwhile in London, the transit I feel is still stagnated and hasn't seen any changes imo. It's a staggering difference between the two cities. I do hope that London ontario gets some form of higher order transit at the very least
I cannot thank you for this video enough. Since they recently opened up public opinion for our Mobility Master Plan, I will be sharing this with everyone I know who lives here, and I'm genuinely going to see about sending a link to all of the councilors and the LTC board. This was incredible well put together showing what can be done when you think ahead. Thank you soo much for this video and all the effort you put into videos just like it. You're actually changing opinions of people for the betterment of everyone.
Always happy to speak to people in London about making the transit / city life better
I suggest you take a look at Sherbrooke, QC. It's roughly half the size of Fake London but it's also gone (and keeps going) through a demographic surge as well as a downtown re-investment and revival, and its transit system, while "just busses" and humble at first sight, is super well structured and highly convenient.
Je suis d'accord avec vous que Sherbrooke offre un bon réseau d'autobus. Par contre, ça serait une bonne idée d'améliorer la connectivité entre Sherbrooke et Magog en transport en commun. Également, je rêve du jour où un train rélierait Sherbrooke et Montréal, comme dans l'ancien temps! Merci.
@@user-mrfrog On est bien d'accord, et l'absence de lien ferroviaire est une véritable honte; reste que pour une ville de cette taille au Canada, c'est pas si mal!
Intéressant, j'ai toujours trouvé que la STS était vraiment mauvaise... peut-être moins pire qu'ailleurs au Canada, mais le manque de transport en commun est une des raisons pourquoi j'ai quitté la ville pour Montréal après l'université. J'espère que la nouvelle administration municipale va au moins investir davantage dans le réseau cyclable, et ça semble être le cas!
@@raphaelbosco8333 C'est peut-être une question d'expérience personnelle et de localisation dans la ville. Lorsque j'y étais, je pouvais aller presque partout où je devais à pied/vélo/bus et j'utilisais mon auto peut-être 1 fois/semaine, et encore. Le routes me semblent très bien faites; la fréquence gagnerait à être améliorée.
@@cedriclevasseur-laberge4298 c'est sûr que ça dépend du quartier. J'ai vécu 4 mois en face du Siboire Dépôt et c'était juste super bien placé, j'ai vraiment aimé mon été là-bas. L'été suivant, j'étais chez mon frère à Fleurimont... invivable. L'épicerie la plus proche est à 26 minutes de marche et il faut passer par des endroits sans trottoir. J'espère juste que la densification de la ville va rattraper le développement de la banlieue périphérique dans l'avenir.
I love this North American idea that small places “can’t do public transit”. From 2015 to 2018 I lived in Switzerland in a place with a pop of around 30k. The town had: a) a railway station with direct services to Germany and Zurich, the biggest city of the country b) light railway to neighbouring towns and b villages c) Postauto regional buses d) 6 city bus lines with an extra night service e) rental bikes. That’s stuff you won’t find in places with 1 million people in America. It’s all a question whether people value good public infrastructure and intellectually understand the idea of common goods and resources that benefit the whole of society.
Which Swiss town was this? I am guessing Frauenfeld, which has hourly trains to Konstanz (just) in Germany. However the level of public transport provision is typical of moderate sized Swiss towns.
To be fair transit is perhaps best in many smaller cities here (per capita) since it’s a lot easier both economically and politically to buy a fleet of buses rather than build rail infrastructure (at least where I’ve lived in the US). I currently live in an area with about five million residents that has practically unusable transit whereas my rural college town of ~14,000 permitted me to live without a car because the local bus network was so efficient, bike lanes were plentiful and respected, and the lack of interstates preserved the town’s walkability.
Our perpetual rejection of public rail infrastructure is what destroys scalability in much of the country/continent. Unfortunately a garden variety city bus system can only take you so far, and many places have grown and are growing beyond that capacity without investing in more scalable forms of transit. Places along corridors between major metropoles currently served by intercity Amtraks at least have the benefit of several trains per day to either city along the line, but most of the country is generally on its own in that regard.
All this to say that I don’t think it’s as bleak here as it’s often made out to be, it’s very patchwork based on state/province, county, region, etc. and there certainly are small cities with good transit here
Even the biggest cities in North America don’t have passenger rail service to Zurich.
@@partiellementecreme But Zurich is in Switzerland, several thousand miles across the Atlantic from North America. Zurich does have flights from North America! More important to a discussion on public transport Zurich airport has a main line railway station right under the entrance to the main air terminal. Just in front of that main entrance is a large bus station, and just beyond the bus station is a tram station.
5:00 - "Luas" is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, so it actually sounds more like "Lewis".
Yeah, the naming has been a running joke since it started, but it really was an improvement over what it replaced! The real issue it has isn't the speed of the system, but the restrictions on the length of the trams due to the lines crossing normal roads and streets.
It was actually a very clever name because they never told us what speed. Just a speed.
Luas already has some of the longest trams in the world, its major issue is mixing with other traffic in the centre, making the central section dead slow
The parts that are segregated are pretty nippy, it's the section that goes through the city centre that's slow
@@PixelsInMySoup Probably unworkably expensive, but in combination with giving the green line a free right of way the whole way through Charlemont to Parnell (by banning non public transport in the core section and defaulting priority to it at any cross streets) and putting the Jervis to Abbey Street section of the red line in a cut and cover tunnel it would make a huge difference.
@Riddlinrussell Actually could be improved easier than that by simply giving the Luas absolute priority at junctions. It's really frustrating to have the tram stopped at minor roads for a few cars, especiallythe red line. There will always be some slowdown at O'Connel Street where both lines cross.
Super excited for the Dublin video! Just a heads up "Luas" is pronounced the same as the name Lewis (loo iss)
I'm so glad you briefly mentioned Dubai, because Dubai's trams are the epitome of a participation trophy. Dubai has two different trams, well really just one because the other hasn't been in operation since 2019. The Dubai Tram opened in 2014 and is 6.6 miles long with eleven stations and it only goes between the Dubai Marina (where it loops around) and Al Sofough by Dubai Internet City, and there are connections to the Dubai Metro at two stations as well as the Palm Jumeirah Monorail at Palm Jumeirah station. The Dubai Tram was the first tram network to have platform screen doors at their stations!
The Dubai Tram system is powered by the Alstom APS ground-based electric supply system to be futuristic, but the dead man's switch has to be pressed every few seconds or it'll stop. And with how slow it is, you might as well walk. The tram is really a tourist attraction and not for the average person, and that's especially true with the Dubai Trolley. The Dubai Trolley opened in 2015 hasn't been in operation since 2019, but when it was operating, it's an old-school style double-decker tram that can carry 50 passengers at a snail's pace through 1.1km (or 0.68 miles) of Downtown Dubai. It was first announced in 2008 with a proposed opening in 2010, but it was put on hold until it finally opened in 2015, with Phase 2 still on hold (probably forever).
Dubai's mass transit (with the exception of the metro) is Basically a tourist attraction... and I don't think there's any plans to expand the metro system
@@WilliamLopez-ek7gl most of dubai is car dependent because theyre trying to get people from la to live there
Make a video on how much of an abomination it is for a city the size of Winnipeg to not have any wide-spread rapid transit 😂
Right? Literally twice the size of London, lol
Winnipeg Union station having a many platforms but only use them for the occasional Via Rail trains, legit add some LRT on platforms or even have (maybe) commuter rail too
And not even a particularly good bus system either.
At least they've been getting protected bike lanes. I noticed that the last time I was there.
@@jasons6021 Ehh, credit given where credit is due, Winnipeg has one of the highest transit ridership for a city its size in Canada and US without extensive rapid transit. Something clearly works, and the same could not be said for every city.
Reece having worked for the GRT and living here for a few years, you've got your analysis absolutely right. You've summed up the feelings I've heard from colleagues and planning peers alike. There are some very rough plans for East-west 'rapid transit' as well as a bus priority corridor of some sort on Fischer Hallman.
Thanks for your service!
Would it be possible if the iXpress had dedicated bus lanes? If that could work out, and frequency was bumped up, then KW would have an amazing transit system
As someone from Waterloo Region, I will say that the transit system here is not too bad. Yes, it is very slow but it will take you to almost anywheres you need to go with limited transfers at stations. The easygo card is a decent system (presto integration would be very nice however) and makes it easy considering that busses go directly into neighbourhoods (not just outside them) and will take you to big places like malls and downtown. Expanding the LRT is something that I think is defenitley needed and they should implement soon.
Reece: "Small Town"
London population: 400K+
North American English commonly uses the word "town" for any type of urban area. I give the numbers too!
@@RMTransit Makes sense, I just found it amusing
Love these videos where you look at the smaller cities and ask what they're doing, and what they should be doing. Hoping someday you get to my city or region.. even if we're fairly tiny.
Why not tell him which city your talking about?
As a life long Londoner who works in arts and culture, one of London’s greatest assets is that the city has a very distinct cultural identity (despite neglect by some local institutions). We have an exceptional Arts Council and a renewed interest urban core. One of the weaknesses of all of the BRT construction work was done with little consideration for local businesses. Our businesses are struggling and some may not make it. It is not transits fault, it is constructions fault, which was not spaced out well. Love the channel - thanks for covering LondonOn!
I’ve seen many closed shops for good due to constructions and I live in Waterloo, just above Kitchener.
That, yes. And the City never made a cost-benefit case that was even CLOSE to convincing. It looked like billions for "meh, it looks like we're doing *something* and who cares if harms more than it improves".
Great video!
The one time I was in Canada, I went to a conference in Kitchener in June 2018. Transit back then (if that's the right wording for five years ago) wasn't great. I had to get a bus from Pearson to Mississauga and then another one (whose actual arrival had essentially nothing to do with the schedule) to Kitchener. On the way back to Toronto Union, I had to force the routing system to offer me a connection using a train - from Bramalea, where I had to go by bus. That the fastest connection still appears to be a VIA train taking two hours, in competition with the car going downtown through traffic taking 90 minutes, is wild to me. When I'm going from my home city, which is similar to Kitchener, to the closest bigger cities, it's always faster or at least comparable to take the train.
That is definitely still the reality. Go rail service to Kitchener is truly embarassing. When we want to get to downtown Toronto for something like a Jays game or a concert, it is a much better option to drive to Burlington and get on Go from there. The one detail you don't have right is the length of the drive from Kitchener to downtown Toronto. On a normal day it is more like 2 hours now, and on a bad day, it's 3. Driving to downtown Toronto is utterly horrendous.
@@chrisrennick392 honestly, I just went by the Google maps prediction. Which was sometime around 10am, I guess. Bad thing either way, though. And a kind of cultural difference you don't really realize unless you experience it yourself.
No urban planning channel produces videos this fast, this frequently. This is amazing.
A new Not Just Bikes comes out maybe once a month. RmTransit makes one every day or every other day.
Kitchener is basically the only City outside of toronto id actually want to live in in ontario. Maybe Ottawa if they improve the O-train more.
Hype for Dublin video building!!! Love it!
Also since I won't have to keep calling for a Dublin video, my I request Belfast and their Glidder BRT, Manchester Metrolink, and the Tyne and Weir metro in the UK?
I went to UWO for 5 years in the 90s (I refuse to call it by its stupid new name), so I'm quite familiar with the place. Short answer: it is hopeless, rife with wasted potential. Great place to be a student, the campus was nice and the city centre is actually nice and has lots of untapped potential. However in the nearly 30 years since my graduation, it has gone really downhill, and the city centre is a ghost town. London is basically a small city aspiring to be a small town. It takes NIMBYism and resistance to change to a whole new level unseen anywhere else in Canada (which is saying a lot). Not holding my breath on its future.
Thank you for shouting out my wonderful home of Waterloo. I live a stone’s throw from the LRT, which is slow but still better than the buses it replaced. We’d love to have you here, it’s a fantastic place to live.
This. I live in freaking Ottawa now and I still miss KW dearly.
I hope to be there someday
You live by the station? Lucky bugger, I live in west end by Costco. I prefer train over bus as well.
I moved to London last year from Germany and I must say I find it very frustrating to get around here. The car is pretty much the only solution and even though busses exist they are usually overcrowded and not going very often plus they get stuck in traffic just as much as the cars. There are quite a few bike lanes but barely anyone seems to be using them. around the river there goes a biking path through a forest, where homeless people and junkies built their makeshift camps (i think the opioid crisis and the resulting mental health and homelessness crisis is a way more pressing issue here… it’s really bad) I really don’t feel safe here at night and biking is not really an option in Canada during the winter either.
That doesn't mean it can't get much better, so much progress to be made!
It looked like it was improving a lot already from Miles in Transits video about the longest commuter rail line in North America.
I am initially from a town close to London. I may be biased, but I absolutely hate the layout of it. The layout of London's road is so poor it can take up to an hour to get across the city driving. I think the biggest critique of London's transit (LTC) is the need for more frequent busses. I think given the horrible driving conditions of London, rapid transit (if done right) could be a competitor to cars. London has actually two major post secondary schools, and rapid transit that hits both of those and any major malls/downtown from those places would be great. Unfortunately they are too concerned about cars.
The funny thing is that London is attracting a lot of people from the Toronto area anyway as is Waterloo, Hamilton, Niagara, etc. London is the fastest-growing city in Ontario & 4th fastest in the country. So at some point, reality will have to kick in and we will have to upgrade our transit system. On another note, I was in Kitchener/Waterloo last week. The LRT is great, but the downtown(s) don't have the same density as London. Both regions are adding a lot of skyscrapers (both cities have lots of cranes in the sky and both have towers of 50 floors & as tall as 600 feet proposed) so the downtowns can only get better if more density is there.
They need to help the homeless/addicted people first before any infrastructure improvement becomes impactful.
People I know who drive in the GTA anyways moved to places like Brampton then London, maybe that’s their market not really transit commuters
In real London, when many of the segregated bike lanes were being put in place, we had a similar problem with some local politicians correlating the congestion caused as a result of the construction of the lanes with the bikes using them. Infamously they were even described as “causing as much damage to London as the blitz”. Which is both offensive and utterly ludicrous.
Always happy to see Reese talk about KW ❤
I've always thought that London had a chance, even based on NJBs footage😅
Easy fix too, it just needs the will and push to get it better
Great video! Please rename it to "How London Ontario needs to follow Waterloo's plan" - that will definitely get some city planners attention!
See! I told my mom I wasn't the only one calling it Fake London!
The UA-camr NotLikeBikes is from there so his rather large youtube reach has made the name stick much more recently lol
@@Fenthule Apparently "orange pill" (to mean buying into urbanism) is attributed to NotJustBikes too, because the font sets on his channel are orange. Not sure how true that is, but it's cool to imagine that it is.
@@bonemar66 I think you have a good case to make as he has an orange pill video on his channel which is where I learned of the term.
LUAS (Irish for speed) stands for not an acronym Dublin Light Rail System
Luas is a tram system in Dublin, Ireland
As someone that lives in the background of the Not Just Bikes Doom Stroad footage in London, I wish there was anything resembling rapid transit.
I take the bus, but the buses are slow because they get stuck in traffic. They only have a few priority turning lanes, and construction is constantly changing the bus stop locations, making things more difficult.
Also the inter-city station is fine, but Via rail is not a solution for most people because the prices become outrageous if you don't book a week or more in advance.
Truthfully I want London to get some real transit, but as soon as I have enough money for a down payment, I'm buying a house in another city in Ontario.
Hi RMTransit! I live in York Region and notice a lot of the footage you have is outdated. Although it's not night and day, there is a decent bit more development than the footage you have in this (and other) videos. Great vid.
The Luas is so slow, I once missed it at the stop closest to my apartment and managed to run fast enough to catch it at the next stop. Not only does it move really slowly, there are too many stops along the Liffey. The 2 lines also used to not connect, you had to walk like 2km to transfer from one to the other through the always densely pact Grafton Street, College Green and then the hellish crossing situation at O'Connell bridge. It's not the main reason by far, but I strongly believe part of the reason for the housing crisis can be explained by the fact that if you do not live within the Circular Roads, you have very little transit options and cycling is absurdly dangerous, I got hit by cars 3 times while in the bike lanes.
Thanks for making this video, Reece! (I think I even requested something like this a long time ago.) Some people would make fake London the butt of jokes and derision. It's tempting - I have even done so on occasion. Showing us the way to better transit can only help!
Waterloo is amazing!
I live in London and its hell. If you dont have a car here you are fucked.
Love to see the shoutouts to mid-size southern Ontario cities!
Looking forward to the video on Dublin. Some of the names can be tricky - Luas is pronounced like Lewis in CS Lewis, for example :)
I keep seeing ads for Alberta in Chicago and Minneapolis. I really don't get it, they're not selling it well or they're trying to sell it to the wrong audience.
Lol practically if you wanna pretend you’re some kind of city redneck and be in fake north Texas, Midwest cities like Minneapolis-St. Paul is practically that already if you’re American
😊Blushing over the KW praise. We'd love to have you when you're ready to move again, Reece!
Thank you! I want to talk about KW more
Being from Windsor we wish we could get anywhere near London's level of urbanism 🙃 It's okay though, our mayor says it's fine; everybody already has a car right? (ignore the 30,000+ students in the city, which also has some of the highest unemployment and poverty rates in the country...)
As a Cambridge resident, the ridiculous costs of the LRT make me sad because it means that we probably won't get the LRT in our city. However, the urbanism in downtown Kitchenr-Waterloo can actually be good at times. With small sections of streets that are pedestrianized, bicycle infrastructure, nice parks, densification and frequent transit (needs to be more frequent though)! It's not perfect but I like that they are putting in the effort.
Great point about cities that waste their time and money on decades of marketing campaigns and slogans, citizen involvement surveys and studies, but never actually build anything or test anything new. All these Ontario towns have a built in audience of university students testing out the city. Make the place great and more people will stay. Fail and people who have the means will get out as soon as possible.
Fake London is Calling
I do not live by the river
I've been in London for about 8 years now and they've only just Finally started investing in transit and addressing major traffic issues. The train yard underpass on Adelaide, adding a dedicated bus lane from the northeast end to downtown, etc. I'm starting to feel like i might actually enjoy decent transit in my lifetime here, rather than just always driving everywhere, adding needless traffic to already-packed roads
Advocate!
Would love to see a video covering smaller cities outside of Ontario (Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Regina, Halifax, Victoria, etc)
YES PLEASE. I understand it not resonance to do *really* small cities, Saskatoon, Regina, etc (lived in Saskatoon and do now in Calgary). I think Calgary and Edmonton mushy be acutely ok! RM Transit has actually done a “ride on the c-train” video. Thanks!
Cries in fake London tears.
As a student of Western University. I’ve felt the same. It’s frustrating (i come from Seoul, SK). The bus is there, which is a good thing, but often times terribly unreliable (late, mislocated bus stops, full). There are a lot of places that you cannot reach within the city without having a car (unless you are willing to sacrifice 3 hours of transit). Connection from within Western university is decent. But that is about it. When you move out of dorms, mobility becomes an issue. Another thing, It’s great to see the rejuvenation of downtown, however, they’ve only done one street, which has plenty of closed shops. It’s sad. The street itself is actually quite pretty, and there is so much potential, but it’s suffering. There is still an abundance of parking lots. You walk through downtown and sometimes feel if you are even at downtown since you walk pass these large open spaces that have no density. Again, as a pedestrian, it is quite unsafe. Some intersections that I needed to cross are quite litterally 10 lanes wide, and a shoulder road for right turns. They cannot see you crossing the street, hence, I have nearly been hit atleast once every week. It’s something I need to prepare for, and genuinely hope that I dont get hit by a car just because i dont have one and i need to walk. All in all, there is potential, there are glimmers of hope and effort that I see, dedicated bus lanes, rejuvenation of the core area (more like a street for a few blocks), and new protected bike lanes, but its just NOT enough. Definentally not enough for a city this size.
I've experienced the public transit in your home city. I apologize for what you're experiencing here.
Seoul’s public transit system is so good, especially the subways. I love 한국🇰🇷
I’d love to see better transit in my city. Currently we have about 5 BRT lines. The BRT runs every 30 minutes outside of rush hour. We got a few “high frequency buses” that run every 15 minutes outside of rush hour. A bus every 15 minutes is the absolute best you can get outside of rush hour. Most buses run every 20-30 minutes outside of rush hour.
I visited Western University in July 2002 for a computer algebra conference. Horrible dormitory.
But the Via Rail train station in London, ON was the most beautiful train station I'd ever been to in my life.
I used to say about a city I disliked living in that my favourite place was the departure lounge at the airport.
I feel kinda bad for fake London, between their name and the fact that Not Just Bikes is from there, they get all of their urbanism dirty laundry aired, because they're such a meme in UA-cam urbanism.
Moving away from building in small parts of the greenbelt Ontario needs to find a way fast, to do the greenbelt leap by rail, fastest cleanest way possible. They need to focus on building good rail towns from Toronto to Essex county
The Luas in Dublin is pronounced more like Louis or loues, the "a" sounds more like an "e" in Irish. Great video.
This is the first time I've ever heard you mention Dublin. I suppose there's no point making a Dublin transport explained video as it would barely be 2 minutes long ! By the way Luas is pronounced Lewis.
It's not the first passing reference he's made to Luas. 🤣
I will be making a video on it eventually
Lots of busses driving around KW fully loaded lately. We need more and bigger busses. Also a tram line that connected Conestoga college Doon campus to the Ion would be a plus.
Yeah, it’s insane how packed busses are nowadays.
I lived in London last year, and as a carless person, I don't recommend anyone in my situation do the same. The buses are not great, the routes are not efficient (e.g. a six-minute drive to the grocery store was a 25min bus ride), and the city itself is pretty boring. Hopefully they can improve things in the future.
Lmao it’s amazing how London can be called a small town with 400k. To me that’s a medium sized city, and not far off the size of the city I live in, Edinburgh (500k) which has a lot going for it and is well known internationally
It's well known (and has a lot going for it) because it's a capital city, it's historically important, and it hosts the world's biggest arts festival.
I feel like people in North America just have a completely different definition of the concept of a city. I'd call every town with a population of >50K a city, but in NA a 400K metropolis is called a small town. I mean 400K is like bigger than Ghent and nearly the size of Antwerp in Belgium. I guess it's because a European town of 50K has more going on than the 400K suburban desert of London, Ontario.
@@xanbur it’s because in NA we think of a city as a place where you can see people walking around, which you don’t see in “cities” of 500,000 which are just suburbs and nothing else. No people, not a city.
"Town" is used to refer to any urban area by many North Americans. I ask if people are "coming to town" when they visit Montreal.
400,000 is misleading, anyway. At the last census, the population of the metro area was 550,000. It's sure to be over 600,000 at the next census.
UWO represent! 🤙🤙 Being from Rennes while having spent some time in London ON, 100% of what Reece says in this video is true 👍
it is kinda funny seeing London, ON pop up in a video. I was just there for a convention at the end of August(Tennocon). I will say for the size of the city I was surprised there was not street cars or something. I mostly just ended up eating at the hotel, did not seem to be a whole heck of a lot near RBC place and the Hilton.
Yeah the convention centre is not really in an area with many restaurants, more to do and eat around the market area
Cant wait to see how NJB respond to this!
Is he still "Canadian" in the sense that he's a citizen of Canada? I have viewed a lot of his negative criticisms and general apathy of US & Canadian urbanism as a reaction that he would have made a conscious decision of relinquishing his citizenship to immigrate to the Netherlands.
@@ratinthetub5048guy's a doomer, he'd likely either ignore the video or find any way to ridicule it
If that's how he feel then that's how he feel
Regarding GRT fare payments, presto and credit cards Are accepted as of a few months ago, and people using presto are able to transfer from go to GRT for free. Also, there does exist the iExpress bus system which is a set of grid-like express bus routes with the ion rail as the central spine. Most routes run 15 minute service.
Can you make a video on Brussels metro and tram system? I recently visited Brussels and I found it quite fascinating
So happy you did this, I might have even suggested it years ago when you were starting out. I lived in London and what makes it unique to me is that unlike most NA cities, there’s no direct highway through London anywhere so all of the traffic has to go through town and with the rails everywhere makes traffic bottleneck everywhere! But also gives great transit potential because of those rail right of ways!
A few things to bare in mind too, Calgary and Edmonton were both around 500k in Pop. when they built their rail systems so London isn’t far from that. Secondly, I think something along the east west rail right of way could connect major areas, from the Airport, to fanshawe, western fair, downtown, UWO / Hospital and maybe a terminus at Hyde Park. A good north south corridor would be from Masonville, also to UWO, downtown, Victoria Hospital to White Oaks. Being raised in the suburbs of TO I thought that London had a great mix of sprawl and density compared to many other cities. Finally, because there is no highway, if it’s possible to give light rail it’s own right of way there it would undoubtedly be faster than driving. Hope to see it happen, great video Reece.
About a decade ago, London looked at building a ring road around the city but backed off when it discovered how expensive the land would be. London missed its chance to build an in-city expressway because previous city councils insisted that such an expressway wasn't needed and they wanted London to be a medium-sized city with a small-town feel. Meanwhile, the K-W region were smart enough to anticipate growth and build an expressway long before the need was apparent.
@@stevestruthers6180 right? So many missed opportunities. Even highbury was supposed to be an in city expressway that I’m pretty the province was going to build for them. Many years back.
London is def at the size that it needs to get serious
As a Dubliner... yeah it feels like the Luas was named Ironically
i agree
Being from London and watching Waterloo choose the light rail while we picked busses...
I just feel so much envy.
Waterloo isn't on PRESTO because they never made a bid for the fares service. Even after the Region reached out asking them to. However you get a free ride to the GO station.
EasyGO must start accepting payments by credit cards, phones, smart watches ASAP as almost everybody else does (sometimes even garage sails 😃). When this is done, there will be no difference if it is PRESTO or EasyGO for me.
Yes, but I think that might be different today
ALBERTA IS STILL DOING ADS IN TORONTO!!! "A bigger house, closer to work" is their latest slogan lol
Not surprised
@@RMTransit They were literally plastered over EVERY TTC advertising space possible. Full streetcar billboards, entire subway stations, every single poster spot on every single subway train, even Yonge Dundas Square and highway billboards... I guess it worked because all of a sudden Calgary is seeing the beginnings of a Toronto level housing crisis.
Found those ads on a TTC Bus on 25C.
you should seriously consider making a video about the hamilton street railway (re)envision project
I remember when I was intern in GRT, I asked the same question about the payment system, apparently Presto was not even interested in bidding when GRT has the payment system up for bidding. So that's why we have a different system.
Can you please make a video on Lyon ? I'd really love my city to he covered here.
Yes down the road
Canada trying to not steal UK place names: Impossible challenge
Kitchener used to be called Berlin Ontario lol
@TheRandCrews But it was renamed after the British General in WWI for... obvious reasons.
Hence Stratford, Halifax, Hamilton, Hull (but not Kingston-upon-Hull), Kingston (but not Kingston-upon-Hull or Kingston-upon-Thames).
There are other place names like Paris, Ontario.
Well we are children of mother England.
I mean New England part of the USA also mugged a shitload of names from the UK.
Hello Reece are you gonna do a video about Quebec City. The 6tth most populous metropitan area in Canada and whitout a proper mass transit system .
I've covered it before and I am sure I will again
I like how you said about fake London compare to the real London in this video. Marvellous 😂👏👏
I live in real London but I bet fake London is nice and quaint
Judging by the videos posted by Not Just Bikes, who invented the phrase 'Fake London', that city is most certainly not .nice and quaint'.
First: also someone should probably show this to njb
You're not first .
Fake London neds a fake underground/ fake overground lololololol
Seeing how successful Ion is makes me sad about the saga Hamilton’s turned into. 😭
Same. Our transit system is kinda pathetic for a city almost twice the size of Fake London.
What makes me even sadder is that Hamilton NIMBYs blocked a local Skytrain-type system from being built in the 1980s, and now all we're getting is a tram instead of a proper metro.
That could have really changed the cities trajectory @@tomasjakovac7950
@@tomasjakovac7950 That’s the problem with NIMBYs. They always complain.
Something to note about KWC: KWC is very much our own version of the Tech Triangle. A loooot of tech firms have offices in Waterloo and Cambridge.
And maybe one day, if they do everything right; they might even manage to lure NJB back there.
so many cities outside the GTHA deserves more transit investment from the feds and province. The idea that we still don't have go service is absurd in international standards. It doesn't even have to be a connection to Toronto... Fake London could be the transit and post-secondary hub for so many smaller towns and cities like St Mary, Woodstock, Chatham, St Thomas, Strathroy, etc etc
I moved to KW from Stratford just over a year ago and the ion is my absolute favourite part of this city and there is lots to like. The improvement I’ve seen since moving here, minus the seemingly pushed aside homeless population, is incredible and it seems to be only the beginning. The downtown core is almost Un recognizable from just a few years ago and it is incredibly exciting. Would love to have london become similar, ideally minus the unfortunate growing homeless population.
Glad to hear Waterloo is improving. Last time I was there (2 years ago), downtown Waterloo seemed like a car-centric hellhole.
I remember when I was a kid, Canada used to post ads on local magazines (especially professional or science ones) to emigrate there. Most of my parents' coworkers were like, "Damn, it's tempting, but it's too cold" until one of them actually moved to Winnipeg and confirmed it. One day there was about 70°C of difference between here and there
I long wait for the mention of the Old Cummer GO station.
I love Toronto, although I simply cannot condone your pronunciation of Strachan Avenue. 😅
Huh? Strawn?
There's East London,or Oos Londen in Afrikaans,in South Africa too although I don't know if it has a Thames.I am guessing that East London has worse public transport than London, England and London, Canada.
has NJB become urbanist youtube's nemesis
This entire video could also apply to Cambridge right now, with the ION Stage 2 decision all up in the air. Build it, and we'll see the same massive benefits our neighbours have seen. Shorten it or make it BRT, and we'll see all the benefits London has seen... which is essentially nothing.
It won't get built if costs are not controlled
@RMTransit agreed. But how do we even begin to do that without sacrificing quality of the build, etc.? Video idea lol. Pretty applicable to a lot of North American transit projects.
I lived in London while they were initially punting around the idea of BRT. The amount of pushback the wealthier North part of the city was immense. Open contempt for students and anyone who didn't live in Masonville.
Yep. The mindset is that public transit is for students and poor people.
6:39 the funny tram looking thing on the billboard lmao
London, Paris and Berlin (Kitchener) Ontario couldn't have used a tree or explorer as a name. Still, there's no confusion with Canadians.
The Bonaventure technoparc in Montreal has dedicated buses ?? and some in the states might be private?? Techies don't seem to mind the bus or on-demand transportation.