How to Get People on Transit
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- Опубліковано 25 вер 2023
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Transit is great, but transit with low ridership is not! In today’s video we talk about many of the key factors that make successful transit systems so busy. Enjoy!
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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.
One strange thing which I do not believe should be overlooked is transit cleanliness. It may not stop people from taking transit, but clean transit overall can be a good pull factor for people who normally take cars. I have noticed that dirty vehicles and stations tend to make people think twice before using a particular service. It can really affect stations in particular, which are often used like malls to help generate revenue to run services. When stations are dirty, few will travel there to visit shops unless they are actively using the transit service. Maybe a video about this would be interesting?
Indeed. This is actually what makes quite a lot of Asian transit networks very attractive. Cleanliness tend to be THE priority alongside frequency annd regular maintenance.
@@ianhomerpura8937 I've definitely noticed, comparing riding the train in Tokyo to... anywhere else I've been (ie. a reasonable coverage of North America and Europe). I hate to say it, but there seems to be something about the bulk of Western culture and having less respect or consideration for public property/spaces. No doubt trains and stations in Tokyo are likely cleaned more regularly/thoroughly, but the average person is much more averse to making a mess to begin with. While I'd love more attention be given to cleanliness by transit authorities... I think it's also a bit of an up-hill battle.
@@EggTamago7 Elsewhere, the dirt isn't necessarily due to slovenly passengers. If the floor is dirty but free of rubbish, which is often the case, that isn't the passengers' fault. If paint is pealing off the walls, or there is a visible build-up of dust, that isn't the passengers' fault.
@@katrinabryce Yeah, totally agree. There's definitely stuff that can be done in terms of station/train upkeep. Plenty of stations I frequent show signs of neglect. But, people leaving trash on the floor (when every station/platform is full of garbage cans), putting their feet up on seats etc. is pretty avoidable behaviour, but extremely common.
The buses in my town always have geese poop on the seats...
What I've learnt is that the public won't take the first step on taking public transport, transit agencies have to take the first step by providing a clean, fast, reliable, frequent, convenient, cheap and safe service will make the public start using it.
People are afraid of change and most people do not understand the concepts of city planning and transportation.
100%. I notice this with my friends and family. They will not take train unless its absolutely the most convenient way to travel. That includes cost, time, reliability, cleanliness, pricing and the other points Reece mentioned.
Being totally reliant on public transport after 21 years living in Manchester U.K. I often wonder if restricting or totally banning car ownership or use, insurance, licensing, tax, etc within 50 miles radius of any city, would force people to use public transport more often, as sometimes you have to use force of law to effect change
@@michaeljohndennis2231 I think it would help to have some pushes to make cars generally more hassle. NYC for example has a strong 'push factor' in the fact that there is very little reliable access to street parking (either free or paid) within the inner city area. This alone means basically any journey in Manhattan is more convinient by transit than driving, a major factor in this borough of 1.7 million having only 22% car ownership.
I think stuff like station lockers are pretty underrated. They seem only useful for tourists, but I think many locals could be convinced to leave their car at home or ditch it altogether if you could leave stuff at most stations.
Station lockers are really nice, but I have to imagine that they're a security nightmare.
Being used to good quality public transport links here in Manchester U.K. where I’ve lived for 21 years, it drives me insane when I go home to family in Rural Ireland on visits - getting into Dublin can be a nightmare from Rural Ireland at the best of times and the public transport offering is getting worse, not better in the time I’ve been away - the Irish government seriously needs to “cop itself on” with regard to sorting out public transport in Ireland
It’s good when doing something like shopping and you don’t want to lug stuff around with you!
Lockers also make it so you won't be forced to interact with a hostile employee.
At the end of the day, if city planners and politicians look at transit as an asset for cities and not a checklist band-aid solution, great transit is possible just about anywhere. And great transit will get people to ride every single time.
Exactly, starting conditions are less important than people think!
"great transit is possible just about anywhere."
you mean this literally or only in big, dense cities?
because I can assure you that in many places (even that count as a "city") public transit doesnt make financial and environmental sense if you want good coverage and frequency, and outside you can completely forget about it
lear about the road damage in relation to weight (10 times heavier vehicle=10 000times more road damage)
and look up how much power buses actually need in a city where they need to stop and start all the time and the AC/heating running at 100%....in some cases its over 200KWH per 100km
for comparison i can get 10KWh in my electric car..... so on average you need over 20 people in every bus, and from what i saw that doesnt happen because they run almost empty at night....
@@faustinpippin9208I ain't reading allat 🤣🤣💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️💀💀💀💀
@@CharlieND lol thats like 30 seconds of reading at most
100% agree - I feel like my city (Denver) has excellent transit "on paper," and I've seen transit commentators from elsewhere praise it, but actually using it it is pretty worthless, failing in almost all the respects described in this video. Many seem trivially absurd, simple things they could have done different that would have made it so much better. Those who designed it went through the motions, the "checklist" you describe, but didn't really think through the actual user experience of it.
The biggest upswing EVER (excluding world wars) for Oslo's tram was their at the time counter-intuitive large increase in service called the "Rolling Sidewalk" project. ALL central and semi-central lines were to have service at most every 10 minutes. Including the ones with dwindling ridership. The effect was that people simply stopped looking at the time table. You just strolled over to the stop at your leisure, because one would show up in a few minutes anyways. This decreased the perceived hassle and lead to a MASSIVE increase in total ridership across all parts of the system.
An effective system is the connectivity of Miami's Metrorail and Metromover with the commuter Tri-Rail. They got people to ride trains when there was highway construction in the 1980s, so Tri-Rail was meant to be a temporary solution to still get people to and from work. Because it proved to be such a popular service, they made the service permanent. They changed the livery from GO colors to blue skies and palm trees which I love and it's one of my favorite liveries of all-time, up there with the New Mexico Rail Runner. And purchased more rolling stock from Hyundai Rotem, as well as renovating coaches so they can be bike cars, furthering reach with making it great for cyclists.
The Metromover is a free people mover system with three loops and because of it, so much development has popped up downtown thanks to its connectivity to the Metrorail. The Metrorail first opened in 1984 as a park and ride system with parking garages outside downtown but now, transit-oriented development has popped up by stations like by Brownsville and Historic Overtown/Lyric Theatre stations.
From my experience in Philadelphia, people who choose not to use SEPTA cite how dirty it is and unlawful behaviors (assaults, smoking on trains, drug use) as reasons why they avoid using transit. They're not completely off base, it can be gross and very sketchy. Even if statistically there's a low likelihood they'll be a victim, the mere terrible reputation of the system leads many people to Uber or drive to places they could much more easily use transit. The buses seem to have a better reputation though. Until the issues are lessened, I just can't see people who have the means using transit as much as driving or ride services. Philly isnt NYC so you can get a ride so its just not attractive enough for a lot of people.
Wish that there were more female transit content creators with the same level of clout as RM, CityNerd, etc because this one thing I constantly forget is that as a man I sometimes forget that what I myself can shake off as "stop being paranoid" might be a serious concern for women. My female cousin stopped riding the metro after being harassed. Yeah it was one rare time and could've happened anywhere but that's all it takes to put someone off transit for years. I think when male transit advocates say things like public transit means sharing space with someone you might not be comfortable with, they forget the perspective others unlike them might have. Many (not RM) dismiss it as a problem with cowardly suburbanites, missing that city or suburb you don't want a system that people only take out of desperate necessity.
@@sebastianjoseph2828 My country (Malaysia) implement the women-only couches approach to tackle sexual harassment on transit. For example, the 6-car KTM Komuter train that connect suburban areas to the Kuala Lumpur city center have for years designated the two center couches as women-only couches, while other couches are open for all. Although it's not legally binding rule, a man wondering in the women-only couches will still get stares from the ladies; the train drivers will also make annoucement to advice male passangers to move to other couches if they spotted them through CCTV cameras. This will usually put male passangers off the women-only couches and eventually create a safe space for female passangers.
Our Ministry of Transport recently replicated this approach on our MRT Kajang line, but it's not well receive by many even among the public transit fans. The main points they cited are that women-only couches is unsuitable to a metro train as it create congestion on other couches and MRT have less couches than KTM Komuter train. They also argue that the Ministry put their priority on the wrong issue as there are more important transit issues to be tackled such as frequency and bus reliability.
@@sebastianjoseph2828 Very true, I think many downplay things that deter people. Being stuck in a box with a person who in unstable, doing drugs, or harassing you is not fun for anyone. I want to use the subway, but when that's something that happens with frequency it's just not as worth it. Use the subway in Asia and Europe and you just don't see as many of these issues, if any. So I think transit UA-camrs are a bit Polyanna when discussing why people don't use transit in US cities.
@@sebastianjoseph2828 My wife used to be mostly fine taking the bus to the community college nearby but eventually began to dread it because there were a lot of homless people causing trouble at the bus stop. I don't blame her but I do feel bad because even though that was an issue for me at the same stop I probably didn't feel as unsafe as her there. In general I think the urbanism movement doesn't take into account female and families as much as single dudes.
Absolutely would be great to have a woman’s perspective. Why would anyone take a means of transportation where they will feel uncomfortable the whole time?
As a Calgarian, I would say the number one barrier to people I know ditching the car and sticking with transit is service shutdowns. Transit in this city SHUTS DOWN in the wee hours of the morning. On weekends it's even worse. One can't even make it to midnight before transit shuts down. Whether it's a kid trying to make it home from their McJob, or a temporary foreign worker trying to get back and forth from that late night restaurant, transit has NO SOLUTION FOR YOU. Having to hire Ubers after every shift doesn't make transit an affordable option. It forces folks into cars, even when they don't want to.
It can work... if your economy isn't on the 24h clock. Restaurants and shops close by 10-11pm at the latest, bars might still be open, but most close by midnight, 1am at the latest. And there's still transit going then. At night, there is a collective taxi system instead for about double the price of a transit ticket, which is reasonable.
The World Cup and Olympics are going to be logistics nightmares. They're expecting people from around the world to rent a car at the airport and drive to their hotels, drive to bars, and drive to sport venues. People are going to be pissed. At least the few FIFA games in Vancouver will be enjoyable.
We in Manila learneed it the hard way when we hosted the FIBA World Cup here last month. There were railways nearby the Philippine Arena, but it is still under construction and would not open until 2028.
You left out a major point-- security. I've personally been on transit where I've witnessed sexual harassment and drug use. Transit agencies need a security system in place to kick off unruly passengers. If people's experience on public transit is not pleasant, they will not use it.
I feel like the solution to this has less to do with transit organizations and more to do with North America's general lack of social programs. If people weren't homeless there wouldn't be homeless people on trains, and if we had good systems in place to deal with drug addiction that also wouldn't be a problem.
Or, novel thought: deal with the underlying issues that lead to mental illness and drug addiction instead of kicking the can down the street 👍🏾
@theexcaliburone5933 That can be the overall goal while still having a small specific goal of not allowing unruly passengers in transit systems.
One of the solution in my country is put a few auxiliary police in the stations. These auxiliary police although not a "full, proper" police, they still have a fair share of law enforcement power within the boundary of the train stations. Yes, employing private security guards may be able to tackle most of these security issues without the need of police invovlement, but I would argue that auxiliary police's power to make arrest, equiped with weapons (baton or pistol), direct communication line with police forces and their police uniform appearance may act as a deterrent to potential criminals.
Outside of their patrolling duty, most of the time they are just like any other station staffs, directing confused passangers and tourists where to go and what platform they should get to.
@@theexcaliburone5933 While homelessness is an issue, it's a stretch to assume all problems on transit are caused by them. Oftentimes harassers are not unhoused, they're just going there and harassing or worse because they know there are no consequences. I think a program where police or security are paid to ride the metro and hang out at stops would be a good idea.
the „make cars slower“ take is…debatable. it just means that transit gets relatively more attractive, not absolutely. Making drivers more frustrated is a great way to make them vote for politicians who favor cars. I got rid of my car because I didn’t _need_ to take it anymore, not because I got fed up with driving.
If you need to take away road space to put great transit in its place, sure! But otherwise it’s just a net worsening.
Any attempt to slow down cars in the United States will just tend to elect Republicans who will then shut down as much transit as they possibly can.
You have to make transit better; don't make driving worse.
@@Geotpf
The problem is, road space is finite. If making transit more reliable requires bus lanes, where else is the space for the bus lanes supposed to come from other than car lanes? If the transit agency has to pay for acquiring massive amounts of property to widen the entire street, that's not only very expensive, it will generate a lot of local opposition from people who don't want their property taken.
Your transit system is doing something wrong if they need to make driving more expensive to get people out of their cars. That won't work very well, most people won't stop driving because it's more expensive. It might get them to drive less. Building a fast, frequent, reliable, safe. and clean transit system is what will get people to give up their cars!
Driving in cities, in most places, is subvented through minimum off-street parking requirements (which is internalized in the prices of all goods and services and acts like a tax on density), underpriced on-street parking (which leads to an increase in congestion, wasted time and foreclosed public revenue) and a lack of congestion tolls to account for time losses caused by motorists themselves towards road users. Beyond that is how roads are actually funded. In many countries, taxes on cars do not cover the costs imppsed by them and their infrastructure to society. Thus, driving is incentivised.
Fixing these issues by making them part of the monetary costs of driving would quickly make cities more transit oriented and increase transit usage.
Safety and cleanliness are important factors. I love taking transit in Asia. In Singapore, you get fined for just eating in trains, no questions asked. No wonder then that their public transit is so spotlessly clean. The people then feel like actually using public transit. Compare that to North America 🙄. You want people who actually fund public transit with their taxes(middle class and the rich) to use it? Then make it safe and clean. If you want North American transit system to remain a free for all Lord of the Flies type setting, then yes we will rather drive our cars.
I really wouldn’t classify all North American systems as being the same. The subways in Toronto aren’t as clean as Japan but it’s a lot better than say New York, and I think people should be able to eat a granola bar on the train if they please 🤷
In LA the number one issue preventing people from using transit is safety and security (real or perceived). If you follow the r/losangeles subreddit posters almost always advise against transit due to the "condition" of the system, even if it's convenient for where the need to go.
The concern about safety on LA trains is very real, especially for women.
I'm not saying that this isn't necessarily true in LA in particular, but non-transit users on social media seem to like to fear monger about the safety of transit everywhere. I think the solution is more akin to a general transit improvement rather than making safety a particular focus. More riders means more eyes on the street and on transit, making it safer and further reduces prejudice based anxieties over time.
Social problems have to solved otherwise. E.g. homelessness needs things like housing and services to fix.
No, the real problem is fear-mongering by sensationalist news media and auto industry propaganda by John Phillips of 790 KABC.
Can you please make a video on NJ transit. Its the most developed train sysytem in all of North America. Its very busy. Most of it is electrified. It also has high ridership.
My keys: 1) Allow bikes to be stored on transit 2) Have stations with short walk distances 3) Allow skyscrapers to be built by stations (99% of urban areas prohibit skyscrapers) 4) Fund transit with property taxes and not fares, to simplify station design 5) All stations should connect to bike paths 6) Provide good frequency & speed 7) Connect transit to airports 8) Arrest people who harass others on transit 9) Prohibit low-density developments near stations 10) Provide late-night/early morning services
Skyscrapers are banned for a reason, density can be achieved without skyscrapers
I would change that to "Arrest, indict, and prosecute people who harass others on transit." Having been harassed myself on public transit in one particular city (see if you can guess which one), I would never want ride public transit in that city again. I would also add that bike paths should be safely separated from automobile traffic with natural or man-made barriers. With those caveats, all of your ideas are great and if done correctly would make having a car in a city an unnecessary extravagance for most people.
@@lourencovieira5424 Because they block "sight-lines" from wealthy NIMBY condos? Are there any good reasons to ban skyscrapers? Everybody pretends Euro-style row houses can match skyscrapers for occupancy, but this just isn't true...especially when it comes to office space. Taller = more capacity. Plus Euro-style row houses would never meet satisfy North American fire codes.
@@vulpo Something I would love to see more of is "grade separated" bike paths in urban centers...even if elevated paths are required. Rivers/creeks are a great spot to locate bike paths as they naturally won't have to cross as many roads because of the cost of bridges. Also bike lanes should NEVER be located inside of shoulder parking/unloading...but always outside of it. So few urban planners get this right. Crime sadly is a major problem in select metros (like LA, SF, and NY). Zombies that don't respect other people's boundaries need to be put in jail. If cities wanted to clean crime out of metros it could happen.
@@AaronSmith-sx4ez Well than maybe that's a reality for you. I live in a country with no skyscrapers and there's some extremely dense neighbourhoods here. Also skyscrapers can be quite big fire hazards too! Not everyone wants to live in skyscrapers, not everyone wants to live in detached houses, the housing market should be diverse.
The exclusion of transit is, in the United States, very deliberate a number of times. For example, for sports stadia, the parking revenue is significant. There are also other reasons to keep "undesirables" away from certain areas.
2:51 Minor point, but the bad decision was not putting the stadium near transit, it was to not build core transit lines near the stadium (and the nearby Clippers arena). There were very few options for a NFL stadium site in the downtown LA area, there's not much they could do to get that kind of footprint in any realistic way, especially after the Staples Center plan went up in smoke.
10:38 Virginia Railway Express ran an interesting experiment this summer, making all fares on Fridays free. I tried it once at the end of the season, I noticed that there were a lot of families using the train for day trips up to DC on a day when people in the area traditionally take off and ridership is very low. The trains I was on were actually quite full both going into and out of DC, when they ordinarily wouldn't be. This might be something other commuter rail lines should look at doing, as it exposed a lot of people to the convenience of using VRE when they might not ordinarily have used it.
I specifically took a trip to Manassas by VRE and saw a lot of families taking young kids on the train. I chose Manassas because it had trains running out of DC in the early afternoon and back in the evening- counter to regular commuter traffic. I think weekend service and regional instead of commuter service would pleasantly surprise VRE and MARC with an uptick in demand. After all, how many people would love to visit Harper's Ferry or Frederick or Fredericksburg by train but don't now? Or office workers that live in DC and could work outside the city?
Great video of all the tradeoffs which drive ridership. Seattle is a great example: Ballparks are all accessible via transit and Sound Transit and Metro are making sure to add capacity at major events to get people to and from those events efficiently, Kraken games even include the transit fare! This gets a lot of car owners to give transit a try!
Yes, passing King St Station makes the 2nd downtown tunnel less attractive. Even better would be to run more lines through the existing downtown tunnel. It would double the frequency of transit service downtown and make for far simpler/faster transfers. Instead of building a 2nd tunnel right next to the existing tunnel, Seattle should rather build a tunnel farther to the east of downtown to serve for example the big hospitals on First Hill and Seattle University. That would increase coverage instead of complexity and therefore ridership.
The problem is that the existing transit tunnel can't hold that many more trains since the Use of light rail lowers throughput and limits maximum frequency a second downtown transit tunnel is non negotiable
@@IndustrialParrot2816it does seem like they should be able to get it to like every 5 minutes through the central tunnel
@@IndustrialParrot2816 Sound Transit had briefly looked at increasing frequency in the current tunnel and identified that they may have to add ventilation and upgrade signaling system but decided that a 2nd tunnel may provide even greater capacity if transfer is easy. Now that the detailed design shows how bad the transfer would be, it may be time to go back to plan B. Many cities (Frankfurt, Cologne...) have recently invested in more sophisticated signaling systems to make better use of their existing downtown capacity, why not Sound Transit? Munich runs 800,000 daily riders on a single tunnel before starting to build a 2nd one, Seattle is far from that ridership.
@@RMTransit the issue with that is it limits the ammont of trains through downtown and they went to have the 1, 2, 3, & 5 lines routed through downtown which would require a second tunnel anyway they promised they would build it
Please start talking about DART in the Dallas/ Fort Worth metroplex. Nobody has ever talked about DART but Dart has for light rail lines with direct connection to the DFW airport, one commuter train from Dallas, to Ft Worth, a train that takes you from DFW airport to Fort Worth and another train that takes you from Dallas to Denton via the A Train. Dallas is also building the sliver line. from Plano to DFW airport with cross connections within the current system.
I live there and use transit regularly. I'm not sure why CityNerd and evil NIMBYs like Cara Mendehlson hate our public transit so much.
I just like Toronto is too in love with car culture
the stadium isn't in LA, it was the decision of Inglewood
Actually, it was Stan Kroenke's decision.
How about urban planning. I think this is especially true as areas return to Transit. We should have much more active urban planning. For example, actively working with businesses and institutions to relocate them to transit friendly locations. If you have a large employer located in a suburban office park for example, what would it take to move them to a more transit friendly location? Maybe it is cheaper to help them move than deal with awkwardly routed transit or even no transit to them.
Similarly, my local Go station got recently renovated. It got brand new multi-level parking garage. But there surface lot is still there. I often wonder why that land is not leased/sold to a develop to put up some condos/apartment/townhouses/commercial properties.
Probably more complicated, but still doable. If programs could be had to make transforming neighborhood easier. I acknowledge this is going to hard. I live in SFH. I wouldn't mind if we could snap our fingers and it magically becomes much more dense townhomes or midrise. The transition is the issue. If there was a program to say keep people in the same neighborhood, build some new housing in a reasonable amount of time (
GO station parking will be developed, but I don’t think we should rush it, give it time and we will get more density, which we should have next to super high capacity train stations!
The main reason why businesses don't immediately move in such places is because of prices for rent or purchase of floorspace or ground to build.
As soon as you have good transit nearby prices usually go up by sth like 200 - 300% and if you aren't one of the really big companies swimming in cash it might become a real threat to the survivability of the company to make such an investment.
@@martinklein9489 This is why I say government should 'help' companies move. I think it is in the public interest to have large employers at major transit nodes. If it means lower property taxes or even subsidies for the move, I am for it. Call it corporate welfare if you want, but moving them to a good transit location is for the public good. Then in the future, have proper urban planning/zoning to deny major employers locations outside good transit.
Frequency is freedom! But frequency is also speed. This is obvious when connections are needed--and frequency also improves reliability here--but even outside of connections, frequency is "speed". Most people are arriving at some place at a time t, with a car, they must leave at time t - t_trip, but on transit they must leave to catch the transit vehicle that arrives before t, which could arrive at up to the wait time. So someone going to a meeting, might have to arrive 30 minutes early if the bus only comes every 30 minutes. If the trip is 20 minutes...that's intolerable.
Frequency is freedom.
As for free transit, that's an ideological issue, but I'd argue that any time the farebox recover ratio is very low (like single digit percent) like it often is for rural transit systems, which mostly support low income people, free transit is a no-brainer.
Of course, now that I have a family, the biggest issue on transit pricing is family pricing. On a weekend, or frankly any time, the idea I have to pay for my 4 year old to ride ION...is frankly idiotic. An utterly self defeating policy.
How to get more people on transit?
1.) Air conditioning.
2.) Trains every 5 minutes.
3.) Air conditioning.
4.) Getting to work/home as fast as driving.
5.) Air conditioning.
6.) Plenty of seating, even during rush hour.
7.) Air conditioning.
8.) Stations less than 2 blocks away from my house/place of work.
9.) Air conditioning.
10.) Take cash and fare cards (both at the same time), and don't require exact change, give change on a fare card.
11.) Air conditioning.
12.) Simple fare structure. Same fee to enter the system at any station. If you must have zones, then do it in a way that nobody gets trapped in the system unable to leave without begging and lots of paperwork.
13.) Air conditioning.
14.) 24 hour service so you're not stranded if you go out drinking on a Friday night and head home at 2 or 3 AM.
15.) Air conditioning.
Number 14 has actually happened to me … Pain in the arse !!, and an expensive cab ride home.
@@Clyde-2055 Number 5 and number 11 matter most to me 😛
Sofi Stadium was built where it was because that was where the private developer that built it had access to surplus land. There was no direct transit access to it because Los Angeles still has lots of areas with no transit access. Most or all of the areas that are near existing or planned transit don't have enough space to build a football stadium on.
Also, SoFi Stadium is in Inglewood, not Los Angeles proper.
I like predictability. I like frequent transit that runs along major corridor in straight (or mostly straight) trajectories, with 1 intra-city transfer to reach a destination. The rest can be reached via walking.
This is a good option, but context matters! Sometimes a straight shot isn’t best
@@RMTransit Of course, you are correct... Such is the limitation of sound-byte youtube comments!
@@SeanLumly facts
Trains naturally tend to be this, but a lot of bus services I see wind all over through neighborhoods. Serving more people and area with a given route, but so slow as-the-crow-flies, or compared against point-to-point transport of a car or other means, that it's really not all that useful - serves everyone but hardly worth using by anyone. The mindset behind these I suspect is that they want to serve the most people who have no alternative with as few routes and buses as possible, even if in a way that doesn't appeal to anyone who does have alternatives. The mindset that trains are to be an alternative to cars, buses are for those who don't have cars. Or, perhaps, to look good on paper to planners and critics viewing from afar, "Here's how many people this route serves," while in reality being nearly useless to those people it supposedly serves.
@@quillmaurer6563 I've noticed the same. I would personally rather walk a block or two and have a more frequent and more intuitive service, than a service along a winding route that runs infrequently.
It would be nice if planners were frequent users -- which they may be, but doubt they are.
If a car takes x, a bike takes 1.2x and transit takes 2or3 x guess which trip im taking. Its a reality of life in most small cities in north america. Strikes and feelings of safety are another factor.
That's because the environment was built to prioritize cars. If private vehicles were instead forced to take less convenient paths compared to walking, biking, or mass transit lines, safety per commuter would dramatically improve just from being around so many more people around to temper emotions and react to incidents -- because nobody has a 3+ton shield to hide personal incivilities.
@@doujinflip first part very true, but as for safety I am more referring to the unpredictability of people and also the fact that most people won’t stand up to someone that is misbehaving on transit because inherently we want to defend ourselves first. But my issue is most (not all)car inconvenience projects doesn’t improve transit speed but just makes car infrastructure slower. It’s a stick and not a carrot. Also cost per mile of transit has become completely unreasonable compared to an asphalt road which steers people towards more car centric infrastructure. I’m looking for how we can develop infrastructure that makes sense to build for everyone and not just for the rich. Also we have to consider the democratic process where the majority of people vote for car centric infrastructure and nimbyism in politicians so make sure you talk to your neighbours as well to promote existing infrastructure and new quality(and faster) infrastructure.
Driving doesn’t make me feel particularly safe, beyond the fact that crashes are shockingly common, road rage is also a huge problem.
@@RMTransit no doubt. If i was in toronto id definitely have a different thinking on driving. I dont speak universally. and again keep up the advocation for transit. But my main point on safety was the unease or auxiety for many people of sitting beside strangers on a transit, Transit as a statistic is safer, just as flying a plane is statiscically safer but there is a sense of control that someone that is driving a car has, however irrational it is.
Safety at stations/bus stops and onboard is another of these factors. I don’t believe a sense of personal safety will pull or push people to transit, but a perceived lack of safety will push them away.
Speaking os building transit, Grand Paris Express has gone past the threshold of 100 kms of tunnels dug in just 6 years.
When it comes to getting people to use transit, I can't help but think of that massive new GO train station in Aurora, located right in the middle of nowhere so you need a car to get to the train station, but that train route will take you downtown slower than your car would have if you just drove instead. The station is surrounded by a parking lot so huge, going on foot will never be a practical option when the area is developed further. It's always going to be way out of the way.
Transit should be seamlessly integrated with daily life, not something that takes a special trip just to get started.
Making cars worse just means the transit system gets defunded by angry car owners come election day to raise money for new highways. Making roads worse is not a winning strategy.
Having attractions at stations is a decent curve ball to get people.
Big transit hubs in Tokyo were fun place to hang around. I had no problem on waiting friends at station. Here in LA, I need to get out from stations ASAP. If there's no starbucks nearby, I can only meet friends at destination.
Make stations into a shopping mall, bring in small businesses, hire good security, get a decent monument for people to meet up.
I agree. Union Station in DC is slowly recovering but at least stores and shops in it are a possible way to keep things running when travel is slow. Crystal City metro has a mall and tunnel network that suffered from the surge in remote-working, but was historically busy.
Not all malls are dying, contrary to popular opinion. The ones near where people live are doing ok, even if they've had to pivot away from big clothing retailers to bars and social amenities. Being around where people live and around transit only increases the throughput.
To some degree, yes, I want some shops in a station as well, but it should be a station foremost, not a shopping mall where you have to look for your platform.
@@barvdw 100% agreed. If platforms are placed like parking structures at malls, I think it'll be fine for most of us.
@@sebastianjoseph2828 Yeah I live in the area where some malls are dying while others are thriving. And seeing similar trends you just said.
Driving to a shopping mall for stores you can find everywhere in the US (or online) is becoming pointless. But if they were located on my commute and I don't have to find a parking spot? I may spend some time (and money) there.
In defense of putting your sportsball venues outside of city centers, the Stadiums are an incredibly low value use of the land, and sit vacant most days, so they often should be built on cheaper land. There can and should be transit to these places similar to what is done for airports.
Transit to venues is amazing, the only issue is "tailgating" culture in America where people enjoy getting drunk in the parkinglot of a venue.
Personally i lived riding a bus from a random strip mall parkinglot into a concert closer to the gates than any of the parking lots. And leaving was blissful watching all the cars stuck in a jam as we flew by them all. (I had to drive out of a concert the year before as the DD and hated it, i hate driving in general but that was one of the most stressful driving experiences i ever had before owning my first car.)
As far as being a low value land use goes, professional sports make an insane amount if mobey and theoretically should be a big tax revenue source for the host city, but i suspect they actually are net tax burdens. At the very least the sports team could have an outreach program to make the facilities available to the community while not in use by the team.
@@jasonreed7522 It has been proven though that sportsball is taxpayer subsidized and a net negative to a city, it is usually one of the worst forms of Corporate welfare.
Unless you can make them livelier all year round. You can have a top restaurant in the business seats open year round, conference rooms, guided tours and fan shops, heck, have other attractions nearby, like an amusement park, office and retail space... and you'd have a decent flow of visitors.
In Ottawa they built an LRT system based on the need to travel downtown to work. After the pandemic ridership and revenues are way down due to more prople working from home. The loss of revenue will require the city raise taxes or cut bus routes, lowering public public transit use.
The next thing I think you should invest in with this channel is a good lighting set up. Would make your video look super professional and well put together I think.
start by not having endless parking lots around the stations and not building them next to highways too and then also having the stations and trains themselves not be dangerous and dirty!
Park and Rides are actually very useful for getting suburbanites to take transit and can actually be pretty accessible by walking or biking if done right. See Not Just Bikes’ latest video for a good example of this.
There isn’t a single starting point, we can do lots of stuff at once
@@highway2heaven91 Which one the one where he worship building intercity train-station in the middle of nowhere and worship it as the best train station in the-world just because it have 3000 bike rack?
Regarding tapping your debit or credit card to get on transit: yes, this would be handy, but having it be the only (or even preferred) option would make transit users more vulnerable to credit and debit card theft.
What would be better? A tappable transit card attached to a preloadable account that also supports monthly automatic withdrawals from a bank account or credit card.
Why? That transit card enables you to use your debit or credit card to pay for transit, without having to pull out your debit or credit card to pay for transit (and thus potentially have that very important card stolen). There's a lot less incentive to steal transit cards, as they can only pay for transit.
as someone living in la, the top barrier keeping me from using public transit is the lack of a metro station anywhere near me. the closest metro station is over a 30 minute bike ride from me. secondly safety is important
DC has two major problems at the moment. The first is that the majority of the federal workforce is still remote. The second is the massive increase of crime on trains & buses and in & around stations. And ridership was decreasing before the pandemic due to reliability concerns. People are coming to the conclusion that it's far easier to just drive.
In most areas of the country, public transit is viewed as something students and poor people use to get around. Anyone who can afford a car has one.
It’s also usually faster to drive than take metro depending on where you’re going. It’s a 20-25 minute drive for me to get from my house in Maryland to Alexandria. That takes an hour or more to do on metro and I live close to a metro station.
You can have state to the art transit network. But if it’s a nightmare walking to the train station with broken and disjointed footpath, how would you expect people to take the train? A problem that needs to be addressed especially in KL.
Same in both Bangkok and Jakarta as well.
@@trainsandmore2319 these places have put immense effort on building up their public transport infrastructure but sadly the whole walkability feels like an afterthought.
Despite being the densest population centers in Malaysia, both Selangor and KL have a really REALLY bad sidewalk problem: they are either poorly maintained or don't even exist a lot of the time, coupled with roads having high barriers along both sides that makes CROSSING THE ROAD a nightmare, and pedestrians are just left to the mercy of reckless motorists.
I love this series. Hope to get something similar for other type of projects.
In terms of connectivity, I completely agree about transit needing to connect to transit. I recently lived in a city where one of the commuter rail stops didn't connect to anything - no bus, not even a park and ride! So I, along with others who don't have a car, had no way of getting to that station.
The Washington DC area runs into the problem that whoever is making decisions about Metro, MetroBus, and other bus systems (who clearly don't talk to each other) all seem to be under the (wrong) impression that DC is still a Monday-Friday, 9-5 town. It's not. Hasn't been for at least a decade, but especially post-pandemic. But after about 6PM, transit starts to disappear. Out in the burbs where I'm stuck, I used to run into an 80 minute gap in buses, from 6:50 to 8:10. Even though folks (including myself) were still getting on the train in the city during so-called "peak" service time, we'd arrive to our suburban station with the local buses already having switched to their evening schedule. So 6 or 8 full trains would roll in, with no local buses to take them to their destination...thus most folks drive to the Metro station.
Forget about going to see a movie, a ball game, or even having a slightly late dinner, because what service remains after 6PM just ends completely at 9. And it's even worse on weekends. The train runs late, but the buses stop early, if they run at all. Probably half the bus lines outside of the city proper don't even run on weekends. Don't even get me started on the painfully bad cycling infrastructure that's being built right now...or has been built, but is still sitting there, closed to cyclists...it's a whole thing.
Grew up in the DC suburbs (Silver Spring) and I understand. I had to take the bus from the metro for a job once and the bus would come every 20 minutes in the morning rush. It took me ages to get to my job and that was after carpooling to the metro. I don't quite know how to fix it because MoCo is kind of unique in that there are few creek crossings and traffic gets funneled onto a few key arterials with alternate routes taking you miles around. Bus lanes on saw New Hampshire Ave or Rt 29 would cause a riot. They couldn't even get dedicated bus lanes on the new Flash "BRT" route.
Some cities really struggle with service span, Melbourne in Australia isn’t like DC but they also cut their service back way too much at night, heck even NYC does
Hey! What are your thoughts on the new brightline connection from Orlando to Miami! Also about the brightline west!
Video here ua-cam.com/video/m4UGNYNGxXs/v-deo.htmlsi=Ng_pzBbdt6QrzYov
When I moved in to my new place in Vancouver last spring, the company that manages the building gave me a complementary transit card (it's called Compass card here) with 100$ in it. I was positively shocked. I am quite sure the company didn't come up with that idea on their own, and surely didn't fully pay for those juiced up transit cards. Translink must have subsidized them in part, to promote ridership in transit-friendly areas. And I think that is a great idea. I used every free transit buck I was given, and I can see how that may have attracted other residents to use public transit.
More frequently is key. And make it just as fast as driving.
I live in Los Angeles, and personally I think our biggest barrier for transit is lack of a social safety net for the unhoused population. When we don't take care of our homeless, they tend to dominate public spaces & transit and make many people uncomfortable using them
@@crowmob-ii2ng Yes this!
Affordable dense housing close to job centers is the ultimate solution. Helps reduce homelessness, traffic (via reduced commutes), and the density creates more transit demand
Marina Central Park newly proposed project that I think would be huge on this front
@@SyntekkTeam - So your solution is to build more ghettos ??
The problem here is that the homeless problem isn't going to be solved any time soon and the transit agencies have to figure how to legally get them off the system or soon they will be the only ones using it.
I saw you spliced in some footage of the Stuttgart S-Bahn. You should do a video on our transit system as I think it's pretty interesting.
Stay tuned…
Brisbane has truly made it now 😎 three features within the one RM video (in a video that’s not about Brisbane specifically) 🤩
I could reach my workplace by transit. It would take longer, and then to get home the timetable is bad and gets worse the later the day gets. It would also cost me more per week than the fuel to drive.
If those things were sorted out, I would gladly jump on the train instead.
Thank you for all these tips. It helped me learned most cities simply suck at city planning 😀
A very important thing that you missed is how safe people feel in public transport and in stations. My female friends often avoid certain stations at night because they just don't feel safe there.
In Boston, the MBTA is encouraging people to bike or to work from home if they can, by making transit as difficult as possible. I've been a regular rider of the subway since 2006, and service has steadily deteriorated. But at least bike infrastructure is gradually improving.
The biggest problem with the UK's public transport system is just how insanely expensive it is. Taking the train even by standard class to any destination that isn't a big city like London often costs so much on a per-mile basis that a car works out cheaper, even once you add up the cost of fuel, tax, insurance, servicing and depreciation! As an example, my wife's office is about 90 miles away and she goes there once a week. The fuel cost for the return journey by car comes out to £24, the train journey...£80. And that's before you factor in that the train takes about twice as long (change via London) even with the M25's notoriously bad traffic, or that she'd have to contend with a 40 minute walk from the destination station to the business park where she works. She'd actually prefer to take the train and not deal with the M25 but it's just not economically viable.
There winds up being about four type of people outside of London who actually use trains and puts up with the inflated cost:
1) London commuters (i.e. me, as it's still the fastest and most convenient option)
2) Intercity business travellers where the company pays for their ticket.
3) People who snagged a cheap advance ticket.
4) People who cannot drive for one reason or another.
Price alone is the biggest reason why in this country anyone who can drive does so.
One thing that is very often overlooked is comfort. As stressful as we like to paint commuting by car, being alone in a quiet car is a comparatively very pleasant way to commute and people are willing to pay a very expensive premium for that comfort.
When I tried using transit (bus) to go to work instead of my car, the main issue I had was the lack of convenience (travel time was too long, I still had to drive to the bus stop, and buses were scarce). But the straw that broke the camel's back to me was that I always had to rush to the bus and try to figure out ways to outsmart other riders to get a seat. After a day of work it's just not something I wanted to deal with. And even if I did get a seat, it still wasn't a pleasant experience because of how hard they were: on the newer buses it was at best a piece of fabric over a hard surface, all in the name of easier cleaning. It got to the point I was genuinely happy to see an older bus pull up.
Crowded transit may be a good way to get more overall ridership, but I think a quality instead of quantity approach would be best to actually get drivers out of their cars. I'd be curious to see how popular (for drivers) some sort of premium transit option would be, I know I'd be more than happy to pay twice or three times the ticket price for a more pleasant experience. One thing I enjoyed about commuting by bus is that it gave me time to read the paper on my phone, I miss that.
PS: Making car ownership more is expensive is a dumb idea. A liter of gasoline in France right now costs 2€ and people largely continue to commute by car. Sure, cycling and transit usage has increased a bit, but in the grand scheme of things it's marginal. Pricing people out of their cars will only grow inequalities between people who live in areas with bad transit and people who could easily use transit but get around in their Range Rover just because they can. It's also a great way to turn voters against you and, indirectly, your transit ambitions.
Instead, make commuting by car longer and less convenient by reducing lanes, making trips physically longer and switching priorities at intersections to other road users. Do the opposite of induced demand. Not everybody has the same amount of money, but everybody has the same amount of time (in fact, I would argue richer folks value their time a lot more than their money). Making it less convenient will cut unecessary trips first, which is what we want.
Indeed, and most buses and metros (certainly in North America) are very, well, austere inside; unpadded plastic seats and chrome grab rails straight out of the 1970s. It's hardly much of an inducement to leave your BMW at home is it.
@@AndreiTupolev My experience is with french buses, but it's pretty much the same issue (only difference being the few old 90's buses still in service are much better).
Bad seats and overcrowding (leading to a lack of seats): both are underrated deterrents.
The big problem I have when people talk about disincentives for the car is how I've seen it implemented, in that public transport hasn't been built alongside it, ultimately just becoming a punishment for people trying to live their lives, especially when it involves extra costs.
"ultimately just becoming a punishment for people trying to live their lives"
nice way of saying it and I saw this in real life how my poor relatives couldn't afford to drive to the city anymore because the parkings were more expensive then their hourly wages,
sadly most urabnist channels cant comprehend this
@@faustinpippin9208 Surely you mean go to the city at all since my point was about how public transport wasn't being built as an alternative.
@@mattevans4377 "Surely you mean go to the city at all"
yep
I agree.
I am good the idea of great transit.
But, against how those who are super "anti-car" and, super "transit-only" want car drivers punished when there may not be a feasible solution!
Reliability is very important. I know people in Ottawa who ALWAYS took the bus to get downtown but will now drive because of the all the problems with the light-rail.
One thing to consider. A destination cannot consider itself to be well-served by transit unless it is served by two frequent transit lines running in perpendicular directions. One line traveling one direction isn't good enough.
For example, a place that is only served by north/south transit, but not east/west transit will be a pain to get to for anyone that doesn't live right along that north/south line.
You should do a video on Athens-Greece transit network and how it works. Given your point's it's really amazing how our companies do all the oposites.
I have recently returned from Germany and the Netherlands. I have seen the public transportation systems their are far better than here in Toronto. The problem here in Toronto and/or Canada is the bureaucratic red tape; thus, wasting valuable money instead of getting the job done.
Question from someone who likes the idea of public transport but never lived where that exists: What do people do when they have several places to shop, and must carry their bags from one store to the next. Most stores won't let you bring in bags from elsewhere. Also for the weight or number of bags, esp. for groceries.
A combination of lockers, personal shopping trolleys, multiple trips and deliveries. If you have local shops/supermarkets/pharmacies within a 5 minute walk (quite common over here) everyday shopping is not much of a problem.
I think the idea is to _not_ do one big shopping trip. The whole idea of the huge shopping spree, in addition to being an over-consumption problem, has been encouraged and facilitated by private car and single use zoning. For example: you go to the mall, you have to drive to get there and there are many stores that you might need to visit so you just hit them all in one day and get it over with. But if we switch to mixed use zoning, then those stores will (1) be arranged closer to where you live and (2) be geographically distributed so it makes less sense to go around to each one and instead just do them on separate days, possibly on your way back from work or some other errand.
My dad, for example, only goes shopping once a week. He drives to costco, buys frozen and self-stable foods in bulk and then packs his freezer. This strategy would not work if he needed to use public transit, its true, but I think that's a good thing. When I lived in a walkable neighborhood, on the other hand, I went to the store every day or every other day, and bought just enough food for a couple of days. I actually find that I prefer that situation because it enables me to buy fresh food which can't last a week and eat a wider array of meals (because I could just buy whatever I felt like that day). As opposed to my dad's strategy, where he has to _anticipate_ what he wants to eat for the week, and almost exclusively buy food that lasts a while because (inevitably) he will find that he isn't interested in any food around the house and instead opts for fast-food. This is not ideal. This is a "good enough" solution to a problem caused by cars and traffic being a pain to deal with on a daily basis. I _just_ moved back in with him and honestly I have no idea how I tolerated this life before.
More importantly, I have to ask: why do you need to do so much shopping? And must it all be done in one day? Can you maybe get some of it delivered like furniture? I know where I live, in the USA, we simply buy too much stuff. Stuff that we don't need, stuff that just becomes clutter and eventually garbage. Another question: how _often_ do you have to do such large shopping sprees? Perhaps you actually do need to do such a thing maybe once a month, why not rent a car for that day in particular? There's services like zip car where you can rent a car by the hour, even.
Or, alternatively, just drive your car? This isn't an either/or dilemma, you can use public transit without having to give up your car. There will be less parking overall, but if the system works then less people will _need_ parking. The idea of improving public transit is so that you don't _need_ to drive to the store just to buy a couple of items. This might just be me, but I personally find that I'm far more open to spontaneous trips out when I don't need to deal with traffic and parking.
sorry for the long reply, but this felt like a genuine question so you get a genuine answer.
@@tucuuk Thanks :-) I live on the outskirts of a large city, and there just isn't much public transit here. The "walkability rating" is near zero, it's very car-dependent. So in order for public transit to really be practical, they'd pretty much have to redesign everything, wouldn't they?
@@SilverDragonJay Yes, thank you :-) I'd love to be able to walk to a store or doctor's office, especially since I can't see well enough to drive anymore. But there's no place around here where that can be done. So by necessity we shop less often, like your dad. Most of our shopping is groceries, and since we rent we don't need a lot of home repair tools or supplies.
sadly the most popular solution is that you just dont....
and that where is ends for most people, the brave ones try it sometimes but they quickly realize that they are not up to the task
I think the biggest lesson from Japan is that rail companies should be real estate companies. Every train operator in Japan takes a very direct interest in the development in and around their stations. JR East is probably the most extreme example, with them running their own convenience stores (NewDays, Kiosk), vending machines (Acure), hotel chains (Hotel Metropolitan and Mets), shopping malls (Lumine, Atre, S-Pal), and even a Ski Resort with ski lifts leaving directly from the Shinkansen station (Gala-Yuzawa). In addition they lease out loads of office and retail space in the stations and surrounding buildings that they own and manage. JR Central's Nagoya Station is considered the world's tallest train station because of the two huge office and hotel towers coming out of the top of it. And it is not just huge city central stations, even small suburban train stations will be sure to have convenience or grocery stores, vending machines, a bicycle parking garage, coin lockers and clean bathrooms. They make taking transit not just convenient, affordable, and reliable, but a useful part of your day. It makes going to train stations attractive, which in turn draws even more business to the foot traffic, which in turn makes them even more attractive destinations. In this way every train station becomes the hub of its area.
thats also how the rail companies operated in the US at first, they would buy cheap land, make a rail station there and then sell it with huge profit while keeping the monopoly for transportation
huge nightmare for the working people
i wonder why people praise these times....
@@faustinpippin9208 Build a line and then develop along it? That's just called transit oriented development, and it is generally considered really good. I'm not sure where the nightmares for working people come in, but I don't think it's the trains that are doing it. Maybe you could elaborate. I will say that in Japan the government takes a keen interest in regulating big business. Japan is not an example of laissez faire capitalism at all.
@@pumpkinhill4570 "That's just called transit oriented development,"
no dude, back in the day it was just called "business"
I think you missed the part where the rail company made a lot of money from this....
"I'm not sure where the nightmares for working people come in,"
I think you missed the part where the rail company had a monopoly for the only transport option (in a normal time frame) between cities
"but I don't think it's the trains that are doing it" nah, the greedy guys operating the lane were doing and it was really easy for them because of the very nature of rail transportation
" I will say that in Japan the government takes a keen interest in regulating big business. Japan is not an example of laissez faire capitalism at all."
i was talking about how it was bad in the US before the adaptation of cars when rail/public transportation owners were also "developers" which is similar to what you praise in Japan, I think its pretty obvious that when a developer is also controling the only tranport option that its terrible, especially if they worked with the gov which allows them to push policies that enforce their monopoly for transportation even more
idk what more to tell you if you dont understand this...
@@faustinpippin9208 Oh, ok, so a historical issue unrelated to what I am describing. In terms of both transit within a city and between cities there are multiple options. Cars, planes, and buses all exist, and are in natural competition with each other. (You might even be disappointed to hear that JR East also operates their own highway bus service. Though I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that they are not the only bus company.) When the Shinkansen is extended to Sapporo it will certainly cut into the use of airplanes to that city, and when the maglev Chuo Shinkansen is finished to Osaka it will probably all but eliminate flights between there and Tokyo. Of course, if they price it too high people will just take the flights and/or highway buses instead. Further, as I mentioned, train companies in Japan don't even get to set their own rates, they have to work with the government to decide on fares and get permission if they want to increase them.
I'm not all too sure what this has to do with my original comment though. My point was merely that I think it is good when rail companies also take a direct interest in development around their stations in order to drive up ridership. It's better than just building a line/station and hoping for the best. If the stations are nice to use because of the facilities but also are places to go because of the shopping/entertainment/jobs located near/in them then more people will use the line making it more viable. Obviously zoning, NIMBYs, etc. get in the way more in North America/the West than Japan so I'm not saying it's easy or anything.
As for what "more" you can do, how about punctuation and capitalization? ;)
@@pumpkinhill4570 "Oh, ok, so a historical issue unrelated to what I am describing."
wrong, people were greedy and will stay greedy forever, especially corrupted politicians and business people
"In terms of both transit within a city and between cities there are multiple options. Cars, planes, and buses all exist, and are in natural competition with each other."
stop dodging all my questions and throwing buzzwords around and just tell me facts, the fact is that most of the time people want to drive a car and not be crammed into a bus with strangers while following strick timetables and walk from station to station in all weather conditions
"(You might even be disappointed to hear that JR East also operates their own highway bus service."
huh? why would i be disappointed?
" Though I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that they are not the only bus company.)"
if they are actually different companies that compete between each other without huge gov subsidies and while paying for the road damage they cause (like semi trucks can even pay 5k extra per year for the road damage they cause)
"When the Shinkansen is extended to Sapporo it will certainly cut into the use of airplanes to that city, and when the maglev Chuo Shinkansen is finished to Osaka it will probably all but eliminate flights between there and Tokyo."
cool
"Of course, if they price it too high people will just take the flights and/or highway buses instead."
ofc it will be higher then fuel for a car or even a plane (the train will have to be subsidized like its always the case)
" Further, as I mentioned, train companies in Japan don't even get to set their own rates, they have to work with the government to decide on fares and get permission if they want to increase them."
but if one increases the cost then they lose clients because his competitors have a lower price or is it like I said and rail companies have a monopoly?
"I'm not all too sure what this has to do with my original comment though. My point was merely that I think it is good when rail companies also take a direct interest in development around their stations in order to drive up ridership"
if you say it like this then it sounds good
but at first you said: "I think the biggest lesson from Japan is that rail companies should be real estate companies."
and if put this in conjunction with the trend of removing cars from cities this gives the public transportation monopoly.....and on top of that if they are a developer then then can enforce their monopoly even more and then make so money from it to buy politicians and make them give the rail company huge subsidies (just basic corruption that happens all the time in history)
"It's better than just building a line/station and hoping for the best. If the stations are nice to use because of the facilities but also are places to go because of the shopping/entertainment/jobs located near/in them then more people will use the line making it more viable."
if you say it this way they yea, it sounds good
"As for what "more" you can do, how about punctuation and capitalization? ;)"
no :) english is my thrid language and this is just a comment section so i wont care about stuff like this at all
Especially in America with really poor options, public transit needs to be up and running before implementing increases on car costs. the investment has to come first before pushing out cars otherwise you're punishing the disadvantaged before they even see the benefits.
You also harden resistance, because you make driving more stressful while not offering a good alternative. Safe way to get yourself fired, coming election day.
I see a lot of others opposed to cutting back roads. While maybe useful in a few small strategic ways, I think this is overall a bad idea, a net loss to a community. The goal isn't to force transit usage, it's to overall serve people better whatever their needs are. In my case, often driving takes 20 minutes each way and costs $2 in gas round trip, while transit takes an hour each way and costs $6 round trip. We shouldn't be pushing transit by making driving cost $6 and take an hour, we should be making the transit perhaps take 30 minutes and cost $3 - even if a little worse it might feel like a sort of reasonable alternative, when currently it doesn't. We want to overall make life better, not worse!
"We want to overall make life better, not worse!"
the urbanists' dont care about your life, they just want to complain that you have grass in your garden and then they will complain that they dont have it infront of their apartment, so their "solution" is to destroy the road infrastructure and stop you from driving into "their" city
Here's one very important, and never addressed point: profitability....to think transit must be profitable is folly. It's a public service....not a commercial activity where profit trumps everything.
*resists urge to make a "get people into the boxcars" joke**
*mostly
Seriously though, short of the many coercive methods mentioned, have you actually considered getting people to where they actually want to go, when they want to get there? You know, the whole last mile issue.
Cleanliness and security is also important. Most people would prefer not to be robbed or stabbed or second hand stoned. At the very least don't prosecute people for defending themselves.
There are two keys to urban mobility, intermodal options and elevation. Being able to transition seamlessly from one mode of transport to another is the only way to solve the last mile problem. Autotrains on regional rail, ample park and ride facilities at the edge of town, bike racks on commuter rail, bike parking down town, ect. Of course all this assumes that bikes can offer some comfort, safety and cover from the weather, and there is still some work to do there. Secondly, wide scale adoption of skywalks eliminates the artificial scarcity issues associated with the road surface. Shift storefronts, pedestrian entrances, sidewalks, bike paths, hot dog stands, ect. up a story. It's also a good spot for elevated tubes. The ground, including ground floors, are reserved for motor vehicles and parking. The result is both more parking and less motor way congestion, and more space to use the right tool for the job.
Like you Reece, I am not in favour of FREE public transport for all. I am in favour of free public transport for school children. Here in Britain some children get free transport to school, but others do not. Children not entitled to free transport are often taken to school in parents' cars - the dreaded 'school run' which causes congestion near schools. If they go by bus paying fares, the fares are often high. Eg, here in Nottingham a one year scholars' season ticket costs £289. And it is only valid on Nottingham City Transport Buses. It is not valid on the trams, nor on buses run by operators other than NCT.
In Canada we are getting pretty close to universally free public transit for children, it’s very good!
@@RMTransit Thanks Reece. Does that free transit extend to UNACCOMPANIED children?
@@Fan652was a child in Canada, it does
@@TheGuerreroEFG Very may thanks. You Canadian children will therefore be very well trained in using public transport ON YOUR OWN. When you grow up you all ready know all the ins and outs of using public transport. You are like all SWISS children. I visit Switzerland about once a year, and it is quite the norm to see children as young as five travelling on their own
I thing the better idea is to get extremely cheap public transport in the weekend, where public transport is less use, in Sydney we have $2.5 unlimited weekend public transport so people can explore and familiarize with public transport , its a great success, well then the new government decided to scrap that so now in the weekend noone use public transport anymore...
I agree that frequency is key, not just train and bus arrival frequency (headways), but also cleaning frequency. In Philly, the transit authority, SEPTA, proudly proclaims on Facebook that it just finished deep cleaning a station on the BSL (broad street line) and next up, a station on the MFL (market Frankfort line)! But it’s like they didn’t clean either station in months! Daily cleaning would be ideal, but if they can just manage weekly cleanings, it would be way better than what it looks like now. The urine smell is the worst and that’s mostly due to other big problem, homelessness. Not enough shelters and not enough housing affordability despite high housing density means the homeless use the subway and stations as shelter. This lead to closures of entire sections of the downtown concourse because they were being used as tent cities.
Que gran video amigo
1:20 i love how incredibly common these doors are becoming. good to see
Well-used transit depends on what’s at the origins & destinations. The park & ride/commuter model attempts to make transit modes useful to suburbanites, but park & ride transit can’t compete unless gasoline becomes very expensive and/or roads become chronically congested. Therefore, transit depends on land use or zoning that clusters housing, workplaces, and amenities within walkable nodes. Transit then connects such multiuse nodes, or villages, over distances that aren’t practical to traverse on foot.
Yep … Downtown DC …
Yes, I rush to tap on before 3:30pm to save a buck! Good when u work 7-3pm! I do struggle to do it before 6am though!
The problem with buses is that it is almost always slower than driving. First, the waiting times. You should arrive at the bus stop 5 min before the scheduled dep/arr time (This does not apply if buses turn up every 12 min or less.), but due to external factors such as traffic jams, this can be longer. Plus, buses stop at bus stops and each passenger takes circa 12 seconds off the list. a bus stationed at each terminus would help in case of severe delays or cancellations. With cars, you also have the struggle to finding a space and walking to where you are headed. Trams and metro solve this issue, but only works in medium-large sized cities
With free public transport, it would not help significantly (see Luxembourg). However, I think the London Underground/Overground should make it so that you do not have to pay more than £5 a day as long as you touch in and out and do not get charged ap enalty fare.
Who says it doesn't help Luxembourg? It's just not expansive enough, & the country functions like a suburb to the surrounding countries, so a chunk of the population would never use centrally located transit as it's faster to drive directly towards the border.
£5 a day? Sounds British :D UK transport is pants.
Here's the thing Hong Kong transit is also pants, just not as bad as the UK. In that it's faster for me to cycle into town than it is to take the bus in Hong Kong...
1. Make it come more often
2. If more people stop driving, there wouldn't be any traffic.
@@j134679 I did not say free public transport would not help (read the first part of the 2nd para carefully). I said that because traffic in Luxembourg has gone done only a little bit and many locals and foreigners still drive to this day. [I would post a linkhere but my comment will not be published) This shows that Americans would still drive even if they reduced or made it free to use buses.
@annabelholland ah well, traffic will never disappear as long as roads exist. With Luxembourg, the system is not enough to bring people off the roads. They have little to no vertical growth, built like a giant subrub. The geography has parts that add separation, which makes biking quite difficult.
They want to stay with the small hamlet vibes despite the said hamlet growing outwards in all directions like a US city.
Transit infrastructure has to grow with the city for it to work out. The free transit part is a step in the right direction, but it shouldn't end there.
I live in Sydney, and yes while we have had an extension of transit systems. At the same time we have also had a massive expansion of a motorway and tunnelling system. We have 11 motorways, and they are all owned and run by the same company. That kind of power, dynamic and infrastructure set up, is not conducive to making transit more attractive. Unfortunately, some of the stuff has to do with urban design, but a lot of it has to do with vested interests.
2:20 Well, I wasn't expecting Boca's stadium to appear on a RMTransit video 😂
(Insert the _Esto sí es Boca_ meme)
Please do two videos on "Disability access to metro stations and transits" Please included situations in suspended rails.
I live in a city close enough to Toronoto that we have a dedicated GO bus line, and our city busses all have NFC pre-built into the fireboxes... yet presto seems almost like a dirty word... for some reason we seem dedicated to an "exact change only" model for on route fare payment, with the only alternitive being buying a physical paper pass from the bus station, as long as you go during customer service hours...
it blows my mind that we literally have all the physical infrastructure already in place to modernize fare collection, and seem to have 0 interest in it.
One other reason to put transit near sporting venues is the copious quantities of alcohol that gets consumed and we don't want people drinking and driving.
I think the hardest part next to getting the money and political power to build transit in America, the biggest obstacle is how do we convince those people with car centered brains to adapt to this new environment? These people most likely have never lived, let alone went to a city with such good public transport which is often viewed as welfare. These people are probably very stubborn as well as probably are a NIMBY
The two issues of money/power and mentality are very much connected. It’s almost as if they feed on each other in a vicious cycle to keep the US from getting good public transit. It also doesn’t help that many of the cities with “good” public transit in the US (NYC, Chicago, SF, etc.) have historically been examples of how to not run a good transit system and that many of the real good examples are an overseas flight away, with the added complexity of having to learn another language to really make the most of them.
I actually don’t think money and power are as big of issues for the US as often are suggested, lots of American cities are spending lots of money doing big transit expansions!
@@highway2heaven91 This is a really good point. For one thing, Americans just assume transit isn't very good, never could be, because they've never been to a place where it was good. For another, I've noticed that Americans seem to have a severe "not invented here" mentality, think they have to invent solutions to every problem on their own, and often seem to conclude that it's not possible, the challenges are insurmountable. Or at least that it's all very difficult as "nobody" knows how to do something "never done before." Meanwhile many places overseas are doing that exact thing very successfully, we could very easily learn from them and implement their solutions, but it seems American egos can't handle acknowledging that. Transit is the best example, but I see it in other things too. Healthcare is the other big one, there are sometimes discussions of how to make a better, more affordable, more equitable healthcare system, but it's seen as this nearly impossible challenge that will require the most innovative of thinking. Disregarding the fact that almost every other modern country on Earth has a much better system. What they don't have though is very powerful businesses benefiting from the current system who fight to keep the status quo. And Americans think that healthcare-for-all would be too expensive given how expensive the current system is, not realizing that other countries spend a lot less on it overall by cutting out or reigning in said very profitable business interests.
Lovely video as usual. I love transit, obviously I'm subscribed, but I don't agree that you should attack cars and drivers to push transit. Make transit accessible, cheap, connected, and reliable like you said and you will get riders. You don't need to hurt drivers to achieve that. Just make transit a realistic alternative and people will willingly choose it.
2:19 DALE BOKEEEEEE
Have to agree on not using public money to support a small group of people going to sports and entertainment events. Montreal has talked about putting in a stadium (where an old one existed), but it would be on existing REM anyway.
With only one occupant on a wagon, why not let it stop nearest to their destination rather than the nearest stop. Bus drivers do it now.
I believe So-Fi stadium was placed not by the city, but by property owner who happens to own the L. A. Rams, the stadium's primary tenant.
So-Fi Stadium is in Inglewood not City of LA. It was built on the site of a former horse racetrack so there was lots of open land. I believe the K line selected was route already accepted when the stadium started planing and the airport/people mover connection was the priority.
@@mitchbart4225 K Line was already under construction when Sofi was chosen.
I can very much agree with the sport point.
My dad never used transit, he eighter drove or biked, unless a football match was played.
Then he took the tram. Probably also some social reasons. Being among so many others cheering for the same team.
But our stadium is just really weird.
It has two transit stops. A S-Bahn and a Tram. Both are almost 1km away from the stadium.
There's always a discussion to relocate the tram stop to be closer. The S-Bahn Station can't really get closer as it locatete at a complex interlocking.
While there is limit parking maybe 200 to 300 meters away it very very limited. The bigger parking is 700 meters away. But by far the largest parking is over 2km of walking (no shuttle service).
Radio station always tell you ppm game day to take transit as there is no parking almost immediately.
Well it is at least a plesent walk through forested area.
Oh, yeah, I made the mistake of visiting this city when a game was happening at this day (but I had no interesting on vising the stadium). Getting to a train at the main railway station was awful after the game finished! Which also shows how much car traffic there would be if it weren't for trains.
And here in Adelaide a project to restore the tram network was cancelled because "it would affect traffic too much" :((
I hope you can make a video on how to make they actually build transit when there is clearly lots of ridership (i.e. Hong Kong)
I live in the Los Angeles area. The city is definitely investing in more transit, but the problem with the Southern California area as a whole is that in the 1960s and 1970s, the amount of land available for building was virtually limitless, so they built massive housing estates everywhere (including my home built in 1952) with single-story homes with yards all around them. While this is great for the quality of life of the people living in them, it is NOT great for transit, because the amount of people living in say.... 500 meters around a potential transit stop is a lot less, possibly as little as 25% compared to say a suburb in the outer areas of London, Paris, or even New York, where they have built compact, multiple floors up.
So from the get-go, planning a new light-rail system through suburban areas of Los Angeles, Riverside, and Orange Counties comes with a massive financial return challenge. You can build the perfect route, going past all the perfect venues (work, sporting events as explained in this video, leisure, etc) but if the average amount of people within walking distance is low because the housing density is low, it is very hard for any transit company to make a buck, and they will likely operate on a loss until areas around the stations start replacing their 1960s bungalows with apartment buildings and condos.
As for making driving more difficult..... I do hear ya, but it is kind of too late with regards to parking. My office has a multi-story parking garage right next to it which means my car is dry when it rains, and my dashboard won't be melting in summer either. All around me in the office park I work at you see the same thing: Office building with parking structure attached or land for parking. And these were all built in the 1980s and 1990s. Before the pandemic there was enough parking, now with many people working partially from home (my company policy has remained 3 days in, 2 days remote) the parking garage near my office building with the same amount of office workers (give or take) is 50% empty. And they are certainly not breaking DOWN any parking garages, because no one knows where it will all go, and in 5 years from now everyone might be back in an office.
Even in the worst circumstances, with accidents on the freeway, bad weather, and lousy drivers causing traffic..... I can be at work in under 45 minutes. (Half an hour on most days, 20 minutes if no traffic). If I take public transport, it will be three different buslines and about 2 hours. So for me to get on transit, I would have to have..... 1) A stop nearby my home AND my office, 2) a single line, or at most one change-over that lasts less than 5 minutes, and 3) the total travel time would have to be less than an hour to even make it interesting. And even then, you bet that if I go to the office on Fridays, I'll still take the car because it takes me 20 minutes.
The best public transportation are the ones where areas have developed as "mini city centers" or "hubs" within neighborhoods, and that is not the case in Southern California. The only chance we have here for public transportation is good connectivity from airports to tourist attractions, because yeah..... everyone wants to visit California.
Then again, they are building an LAX people mover that will go directly into a state-of-the-art brand new modern....... car-rental facility. Also a stop on the Metro K line, but hey..... the focus is once again on cars. And as such, it will remain a massive challenge to change the thinking of residents and visitors alike.
Counterpoint to the "transit shouldn't be free" take: roads are largely "free" for road users (excluding gas taxes, which haven't covered the cost of road maintenance and have basically been a drop in the bucket for a LONG time) as roads are generally paid for by taxes everyone pays in the end (property taxes [which get passed onto renters too], income taxes, etc).
So, if roads are to continue to be basically free for road users that way, transit should follow a funding model that is at least as favourable for the user... meaning the price should be negligible. Something like $0.05/trip, maybe $0.25/trip tops.
The alternatives, if you want to be consistent while still requiring transit users to pay for transit use at-or-near-cost:
- All roads become toll roads, OR
- Total vehicle miles travelled is taxed, OR
- Gas and diesel taxes get raised through the roof, and EV charging is also taxed in accordance with their higher average weight causing more damage to roads, OR
- Extremely heavy taxes are levied on ALL car sales, imports, and manufacturing, OR
- Vehicle registration fees get raised high enough to cover the cost of road maintenance.
All of which would be pretty much guaranteed to make a lot of drivers fly into a blind, dumb fury because suddenly they're not being subsidized by the rest of society. You get the picture.
EDIT: Oh, this is what you're arguing for. Yes, that's a great idea, but I'm afraid the strength of the driving lobby would likely prevent any such legislation from getting passed right now.
If you go to any rail station in London just before 7pm, you will see a lot of people waiting by the barriers for the clock to tick over so they can get the off-peak fare.
Another thing is, people will quite often prefer a direct service to one where they have to change vehicles, even if changing is quicker. For example, on Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line, there are fast services outside the central section on the same corridor, but a lot of people take the slower train along the full route rather than fast train to the edge of the central core and change.
When the CrossCountry network was introduced about 20 years ago, it was a lot more popular than expected because people were switching to the slower direct links that it offered.
I'm pretty sure that there wouldn't be enough slots but it would be cool if Elizabeth Line had express trains running through its core. They could then be extended to serve places like Oxford, Newbury, Southend and Chelmsford. They could even have Chiyoda Line style Intercity services from Norwich to Bristol. I ackownledge the PSD maybe an issue.
The Thameslink route already has semi express trains on its route but the Non-stop Cambridge to London service could be linked up to a new express service that runs non-stop between London Bridge & Brighton on say weekends.
Ghost Reese has returned! Scary! :)
Unfortunately (when we're talking about public transit) I live outside of Boston. While it has the disadvantage of being an older system, it is very unpredictable and dysfunctional on most days. Fires, a runaway train with no passengers/conductor among some of the challenges. I do use it now because I'm retired and the urgency to get to a certain place by a certain time is not as important now.(with or without a conductor)🤪I watch a Shinkansen video every once in a while for inspiration.
It isn’t clear that big projects are the way to go especially post-CoVid with unknown travel patterns. Boston’s T has spent billions of dollars expanding its rail but can’t seem to find the money to maintain what it already has and subway system but ridership doesn’t meet expectations. I live and work in the suburbs with only T bus service available and it is inconvenient so, quite frankly, the only time I take Boston’s T is going to/from Red Sox games. I rather like the D branch of the Green Line even if it notoriously dangerous. I saves some on parking near Fenway Park but the T still charges me to park at one of their remote stations so with multiple people it is a wash in terms of cost and time. Nothing the T does will change how I use it.
"a runaway train with no passengers/conductor among some of the challenges."
what the f....
Singapore's Public Transit be checking all the boxes listed here✅✅✅
reframe road congestion as a positive: "utilisation is very high"... and we should aim for 100% utilisation for most of the day before we consider expanding it :)
Great video! I am noticing a number of improvements in your delivery. I have criticized in the past so I want to make sure I give positive feedback when I see you improving. Well done!!
It also occurs to me that you look slimmer as well. It may be that I'm more sensitive to it given that I'm in the process of slimming down myself. It just struck me while watching. If so, great job on that as well!!
One thing I've found very neat that ties in to both price and conveniance is zoneless transit. Which might make the cost for some short hops more expensive it makes longer ones cheaper generally, which in itself makes biking more atractive. But the biggest thing is just the conveniance, being able to just move wherever for a known cost is really neat. And helps if you simply are exploring and just get on a bus or train because you still got some time left on your ticket.
Biking sucks. Good way to get run over by someone texting, having your bike stolen, as well as being downright miserable when it rains.
The best bike sits down in front of the tv in the climate-controlled weight room …
The example from Montreal illustrated at11:50certainly offers plenty of space, but also perhaps shows one off-putting factor, particularly prevalent, in seems, in North America: hard plastic seats. That's not going to tempt many out of their BMW
Honestly the seats here aren't so bad, especially considering that trips on the métro and now the REM are generally fairly short. I would definitely have clean hard seats rather than nasty plush ones. That said, I'm not very old.
Make a video on the south shore. First and only expansion since ever
How about removing the lunatics? In Toronto, lunacy is a sport.
The tax system should be reformed to allow employers to give transit passes or transit allowances to employees without that being a taxable benefit. Employers can usually provide free parking without that being a taxable benefit so it would make sense! Businesses very close to skytrain stations should also have the option of charging for parking whereas now they have to provide a certain number of free spaces.