@@tommyl7203 I was referring more to people that want everyone in a 4 block radius to hear the music they're listening to. People will find a way to be noisy and bad neighbors no matter how much thought is put into urban planning.
Everyone that says highways are necessary, he is not saying to get rid of all highways around the country. Just the ones cutting right through large downtown cities. Western Europe has the same interstate system that connects cities but within a city there isn’t. If you ever visit, you can not deny how much more livable, pleasant and efficient it is to live in cities that are better designed.
That's what I was thinking, they should turn into a local, 1 lane per direction, 20 mph road 5 minutes before getting into a city, they should only be used when getting from city to city (should not have exits going to local areas like towns, villages, neighborhoods and suburbs), and should have 2 lanes per direction.
@@Steelix371 trains buddy same way they did before the interstates. You will still have local access roads for trucks to transport goods. Long distance freight would be by train and some local freight would be by train aswell.
@@PseudoProphet as you don’t know how the economy works let me break it down for you. When there is an increase in population to an area, that means the more money in that area(as long as their are jobs to support it which there are). The more money spent in a specific city allows business owners to pay their employees more and expand their business, as well as more infrastructure expansion due to local tax. Smart city’s will reinvest this tax money into making the city even nicer which in turn attracts more people and those people have money. Highways also allow people to live greater distances from their workplace.🤡🤡🤡
But then again European cities are much more densely populated. So when you get to places like New York Chicago Detroit etc. they have massive mass transit that works excellently. Far better than any other city in Europe. Don’t forget that all of Europe fits into United States with plenty of room left over. And it has double the population.
@@tomster7574 American cities aren't as dense because of cars and since the public transit in most of the US is only used by the poor the "excellent mass transit" causes traffic jams, air pollution, sound pollution, takes up a huge amount of space and are quite dangerous for anybody not in a car.
@@IBangPipers oh how blissfully ignorant you must feel. cuz you are all wrong. you did no homework. or if you did, you then lied your ass of from your overly boosted ego/pride cuz you couldnt bare to face the truth of the reality.
@Malcolm Wagner they have nothing better to do. They spend all their time trying to convince us how bad off we are and how superior they think they are. I’ve lived in Europe and know firsthand that they are (Euros) full of ‘you know what’.
It's really weird that more people don't know about this but California used to have a Subway system just like New York. It was under construction when the automotive industry lobbied to have it stopped being built. And because money talks the government listened, and now every time you're driving to Disneyland and get infuriated with all the traffic just know that there literally was a solution to that problem and the car companies said no.
Here in Columbus, Ohio, the beautiful German Village was chopped up by a highway and lost a big piece of the neighborhood because of it. While the remaining German Village is still very picturesque and beautiful, it’s only a reminder of how we lost a big piece of beautiful, vibrant community.
P.S. off topic. German Village would be much nicer and more pleasant if they would get rid of all of those overhead wires and also would improve sidewalks in the area.
Lol. No highway = No people = further decline of big cities. What killed the big cities was suburbs. And rightly so because the big city concept is flawed. The automobile made the suburbs possible. The highway allowed the folks from the burbs to be able to get to the flawed intercity. Also lets not forget semi trucks need to be able to get in and out of these cities. So in fact the highway actually helps big cities.
"Of course not. You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night. Soon, where Toon Town once stood will be a string of gas stations, inexpensive motels, restaurants that serve rapidly prepared food. Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." - Judge Doom from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"
I was thinking of this movie as I watched this clip. Train-line rights of ways were bought up all over the country to many small towns, also. This makes it necessary for people to take buses if available, or drive. 😢
It’s crazy as an immigrant it’s the huge modern cities and freeways that made fall in love with this country. Something about driving into a city I’ve never been to before on the freeway as it opens up to the skyscrapers in the downtowns is just mesmerizing.
My favorite example of this is Ogdensburg NY. They tore down *the entire downtown* in order to reroute the highway through it, and the city has never been rebuilt in 60 years.
Same thing happened in Belgium, we used to have the densest railway and tram network in the world. Now we are the most suburban country in Europe after Malta.
Funny...someone talked about how the German Village in Columbus was destroyed that way. So white folk. In Dayton Ohio people complain how West Dayton (Black neighborhoods) was cut up by the interstate. The same interstate goes thru East Dayton (White Neighborhoods). In fact the East Dayton area is much longer and misplaced more homes.
@@whiteclifffl It's a bit convenient that everywhere that highways split apart communities, it was the economic choice of non-white minorities to just happen to live there. Totally not a conscious decision by towns and cities or even states to build the interstates there because they must be completely supportive of the projects and totally not taken advantage of for their weak ability to mobilize thanks to decades of disenfranchisement and marginalization by the state, society, and the law.
Back then? If you had family who lived in another state and you relies solely on public transit, if you weren't wealthy and could afford plane tickets, you were very isolated from others.
Growing up in America, I always knew the "car culture" here was a little ridiculous, everyone obsessed over cars, kids taking about how they cannot wait to get a car throughout all of school, and the pressure to get a car only gets greater and greater as you get older. It's been made almost completely essential. Because of cities being made like this, and even neighborhoods being made with specifically cars in mind. Every damn side walk ends, or fucking merges with the road. Impossible to walk anywhere without the fear of getting ran over. It's really frustrating. Especially as someone who had a traumatic experience with vehicles as a kid, it's one of the reasons I've considered moving to another county, among many other reasons.
Wow that’s Not true and you know it cars are the most Used form of transportation in the world, and as it should be, and you won’t find a better country to live in get over it
And that's why NYC tends to go green by shortening the streets to add walkable sidewalks and small parks with benches in Times Square. Adding more bike lanes for pedestrians to go around the city easily and not get hit by any vehicles.
❤ Seattle love it but hate it at the same time, I’m a subcontractor and do work taking care of some buildings and I have found really cool things on older buildings I also have a copy of the door that takes you to the underground Seattle.
Considering the toons in roger rabbit are coded to be racial minorities, the place they call home getting plowed over to build a highway makes perfect sense
and the thing is a hybrid system is possible. I live near Munic and Munic has a very developed Puplic Transport system while having a central ring road that connects the incoming Autobahnen to the different parts of the cities and keeps the majority of traffic on there
Many bus stations are still in the old heart of their cities. Once thriving, now many now the seedy part of town. The bus station in Binghamton has had the same flickering florescent "Shortline" sign for over 60 years
what's sad is it didn't have be this way, we could've gotten the benefit of both the highway system and walkable/transittable cities. like the worst parts of every interstate is when it cuts through a city.
*IRONICALLY* *IN Chgo* an E-way named for the President Known as the father of Our Highway System *Eisenhower* was responsible for tearing my city apart & family apart. Literally-members of my family got displaced by the construction of the EISENHOWER E-Way. Some relatives moved from the Westside to the Southside, as a result & 2-sisters became estranged. IDK how your channel ended up on my *viewing list-but I'm glad it happened* *Your take on our urban cities are very educational.* *I'mma new subscriber.*
You are right. Even Iowa City Iowa had a electric trolley system and all the stores down town that later got turn to stores moved to the edge of town .
It's bc the property values were lower. Not saying it's right....but fyi, the gov does the same shit to beautiful farms and forests, running powerlines through once beautiful and useful landscapes to get power to cities
@MantisMan ya know, simply because you choose to reference it as “playing the race card” I’m not going to answer you and leave you to wallow with yourself because you simply could have googled it but you’re choosing to antagonize people online, be gone.
I have driven on that stretch of highway in Seattle shown in that video many times. Driving around there fills me with nothing but stress. The car-centric infrastructure is unhealthy on so many levels.
I'm from rural/suburban Wisconsin. Travelling to, say, Madison has been a pain for me because of the highways. Yet, my family and I went to St. Louis as part of our vacation this year, and it was so horrible. Tons of interleaving highway, crazy streets.
Ah you happened upon my pet issue. The Auto Industry conspiracy. Car and oil companies colluded to destroy the public transportation system which was cheap and clean and the government found out and gave them a slap on the wrist. I am legally blind and cannot drive, so much of my life I have had very limited independence. People are virtual slaves of the car and oil industries as they struggle to pay for cars, upkeep, gas, insurance. It's a grave injustice and I hate it!
@@chuckfinley9352 the same way many chinese cities are walkable. we can take europe as a WHOLE. you can go from paris to amsterdam easily without a car and without expensive air fare. now try to go from san antonio to houston without a car or without air fare. size is not an excuse.
I'm here on the side of FUCK CARS. I'm just leaving a comment because I'm interested in how this comment section will evolve and I wanna be notified if that happens
because people dont want to use them I dont I used to takethe bus all the time because I couldnt afford a car at the time it was miserable going to the store standing at the stops with strangers and with snow onthe gound carrying my groceries and not being able to aly them down in the wet snow, and carrying them from teh stop to my home and dealing with the time constraints and strangers on the bus, once I got a stalker from being on the bus and thank goodness he wasnt dangerous and he eventually left me alone. it is slow you cant take much stuff and you have to have plenty of time and no bathrooms either. no I prefer my car, or a bike or walking to being on public transit. some have these because their taxes and regulations are so intense that people cannot afford a car, taking transit is usually forced not voluntary.
Important note to add that during the early 1900s up until the end of Jim Crow, most of these interstates were placed in the lowest income communities, causing even more issues for such communities
The interstates were built along existing highways, train lines, and natural features like rivers, mountains, and ridge lines. Poverty had nothing to do with how the highway paths were chosen.
@@EpicSayGamer Again, the interstates were built along existing highways or followed natural topographic features. They didn't suddenly zig zag out of their way to pick off poor neighborhoods. If there was a neighborhood in the way, it would be bought out with eminent domain laws regardless of how rich or poor the citizens were.
@@mattrinck7503 Baltimore had a neighborhood called Oldtown. It was a vibrant neighborhood, the thing was, it was a black neighborhood. A highway was placed along it. The neighborhood is now a ghetto
So glad I live in Melbourne with the biggest and nicest tram system in the world... While every other city was ripping them up and adding a couple of more lanes for cars, Melbourne's politicians said "nope, the trams are here to stay", now each of those trams takes 20-30 cars off the road...
This isn’t new to a guy from LA where this originated. The first photo you showed looked just the the 101 cutting through it. The movie Roger Rabbit’s storyline plot is about this. The oldest section of freeway ever built is featured in it. I think it was Goodyear Tires and GM bought out the Pacific Red Cars that you can see in the Spaghetti Factory restaurants in So Cal. I didn’t know it took place in other cities as well. Corporate greed in all of its deviousness.
@@The_king567 which shouldn't have gone through the middle of a city in the first place? Expanding the highway neither solves the traffic nor make the city look any better
@@The_king567 you can easily go through a city faster with public transit and without all the problems you would face when driving, and please try to fucking live near a god damn concrete wasteland yourself before you say 'oh I don't care about the looks'
I’m total agreement!! The fact we don’t have nationwide high speed rail is sickening to me! European nations are all connected, Japan & China are well connected. But because of the car companies lobby on capital hill citywide transit was destroyed in most cities & regions! Sad & sickening!!!🤨
@@Steelix371 I get it man, of course we need highways for truck drivers but there should not be as many cars on the expressway making your life a living hell on the roadways that’s all I’m saying. There should be 25-30% less cars on the roadway why because so many are taking high-speed rail to and from work and going from city to city! This nation invested in the wrong system! Highways are OK on a sunny Saturday afternoon but at rush-hour its the worst place in America to be!
That's why cars industry is the shining example of success, don't let ordinary people stop you from reaching gold, exploitation is the way of the world.
There's this large section of a highway in Chicago that was proposed to cover up and turn into a tunnel. Over the tunnel would be large green sections of natural plants and trees, which would also filter the smog below it. If done, it would be enormously expensive but effective
Also, think about all the Americans with visual impairments that are unable to drive. We are the ones that suffer because of the idiotic car worshiping policies of greedy corporations.
Adelaide is very bike friendly- not because of dedicated bike lanes or lack of freeways, it's because it's not a big city population wise. Unfortunately they expanded the tram system to hinder traffic flow in the city centre area.
Originally when the highways were being built in the 1950s Eisenhower didn’t want highway’s just smack dab in the middle of cities and they were instead built around the cities but as the cities grew they encompassed the highways
@@dereklwashington1132 and it’s not a race thing talk to the farmers who got cut their lands chopped up, and it mostly definitely wasn’t 9/10 cutting through a “black” neighborhood this happened to everybody
@@river3583 It happened mainly to those who didn’t have any influence and power to fight back and most of those would have been black communities. The fact that it also happened to some poor who’re communities does not mean it happened to everyone equally.
This also contributes to food deserts. Because American cities now pretty much require you to have a car, people that can’t afford a car are stuck going to convenience stores and pharmacies for basic needs. In these types of shops food and cleaning products are usually significantly more expensive and they usually don’t offer produce or other healthier options. But because of the lack of widespread and efficient public transportation, people are stuck with this. For example, in my area the nearest grocery store is 10 miles away. And that’s across a large bridge that discourages pedestrians. And because of the bridge busses going that way are few. There is no other public transportation in my city besides the bus and Uber and Lyft are banned here (not a coincidence that a couple of the city council members have a brother that owns the only taxi service in town). But usually folks that can’t afford a car, can’t afford to take an Uber to the grocery store every week. So for people in my neighborhood that can’t afford a car or are disabled and can’t drive, they have to constantly beg a ride from folks, pay a ton for delivery, struggle with an inadequate bus system, or make do with the corner store and CVS. All while the highway leading to the grocery store has destroyed the little storefronts that used to be in walking distance. And that’s by design. It’s a concerted effort to keep us beholden to Ford, GMC, and Chrysler.
Santurce in Puerto Rico, the most densely populated Ward in all of the island, has a highway cutting right through it. It displaced many poor communities,and blocks access to the upper class Condado neighborhood and the beach
This is major facts. Buffalo NY was once a shining beacon of city design planning and architecture. Then it got too 'multicultural' and 'the flight' happened. In order for the ppl who ran to the suburbs to get to downtown areas they built the highway right thru the middle of some of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. Split em in half. Afterwhile they just moved alot of the business to the suburbs as well. Essentially killing major sections of the city.
Seattle certainly isn't bad. The way they blend the infrastructure there is actually very cool. It's places like Boston that were really affected, they spent years and lots of money fixing that by burying thier highways.
Most metro cities in Europe and Asia = excellent public transportation, tons of walkable streets Most US cities = spending half your life sitting in your car, spending half your expenses on your car
They nearly did it in London in the 1970s but were stopped in time. Other cities in the UK, such as Coventry and Birmingham were carved up, a process that is, to some extent, being reversed.
Actually, I know of a city that not having the trolley cars, but years later after all the trolleys were gone and the historic trolley barn was turned into a mall, city planners decided to put trolleys back in! Why you ask? Because in 1996 the Olympic Committee chose Salt Lake City for the Winter Games. And in order to decrease car traffic they reinstated the old Trolley system. Luckily, back in the day, the city didn't rip out the old tracks, so the city only has to uncover the old track and replace them with more modern tracks. I thought the removal of the old trolley system was to make the city more modern, but infact having a rail system was the best deal. Imagine all the money they would have saved if the city had never gotten rid of those old trolleys? At the time I was living in the Salt Lake Valley and my commute to work sucked, as they weren't only updating the streets, they decided to widen the freeways and make room for the new Rail System along those routes from Provo all the way up to Ogden and to and from the Airport. Driving those roads during that time was insane!
Great point. They partially did this in Toronto in the 60s but then the people protested when there were plans to demolish hugh parts of neighbourhoods.
I couldn't agree more with you. This happened In Miilwaukee, WI, where I grew up in the mid 40's/50's. Lovely old mansions and entire neighborhoods were destroyed when the I-95 was built. Great streetcar system connecting Chicago with Milwaukee had existed and was all destroyed in favor of buses and cars. I live in San Francisco now, where, in the 1950's (before I moved here) plans were made to build a freeway through Golden Gate Park which failed. The 1989 Loma Preiata earthquake destroyed much of the freeway that had already been built but had to be taken down because of the damage caused by the earthquake.
Freeways also wrecked rural america. Now you have a bunch of big box stores clustered around major freeway exits, with vast seas of parking lots. This encourages building subdivisions which also eat up rural land. And the quaint main street many older small towns have is seen more of a tourist attraction instead of the place to shop or work. But if the only place to buy something in person is at a big box store, why not just order it on amazon? If you lived within a 5 minute walk to some of those stores, amazon would not be more convenient.
Yeah, everyone is a victim in your world. While malls did destroy downtowns it was the consumers that demanded malls and stopped going downtown to shop.Just as rural America abandoned their hometown retailers in favor of Walmart.
@@1020donny Not about victimhood, it’s about realising humans are not the individually driven actors you think they are and that actions are determined by environment and market forces. The businesses realise this and use it to their advantage through advertisements and the framing of topics. Offer the public a 2 point choice and they will ignore the 3rd 4th and 5th alternatives.
@@1020donny but maybe people demanded malls because they had more parking than downtown? And because the car was seen as the only way to get anywhere because streetcars had gradually been undermined while roads were heavily propped up by government subsidies. That's why they're called *free*ways, they were paid by taxes whether you liked it or not. Source: How GM Carjacked the American Dream- Climate Town
Nobody is going to get rid of cars because while most people live in “cities”, they don’t live in huge cities, rather suburbs or smaller cities where getting around by car is necessary to go between places. Cities today are far more populous and spread out today, and public transport is often the worst thing to ever be on in any American city.
Cars are not American. There are many non-American car companies (much more popular than American cars, especially in other countries) and cars originated from Germany. As for your point about cars being better, that’s just stupid. Trains are very comfortable. Even busses can be comfortable. I love taking transit in cities that have good transit. It’s so much nicer than driving.
When I moved to Seattle in the 90s they were so incredibly proud of the convention center that they purposely built over the freeway! Seattle has had several traffic managers who's sole purpose was to make traffic as horrible as possible to stop people from California moving there! It's a classic example of cutting off your nose to spite your face! It breaks my heart to see how salimi and disgusting the emerald City has become and it's through no fault of its own other than weak leadership hasn't had a decent mayor in that City since Mayor or Norm Rice! They have some of the worst drivers I've ever seen in the world. They cannot merge or drive over 65 in the fast lane.🤣 These are two things they're completely incapable of. As well as thinking beyond the length of their nose towards the future. That particular part of the interstate that you're showing goes down to two lanes to get you south of Seattle which is where most of the affordable housing is you should see what that freeway typically looks like bumper to bumper for about 4 hours each day a.m. and p.m.. It's the most idiotic way of moving traffic through a major city. 2 Lames For Millions of People! It's so stupid you can't make this 💩 up. It's taken 10 years for them to add additional Lanes in Tacoma they're still not done.
There is a channel which explains very well the issue with cars in the US. It’s called Not just cars, he doesn’t judge, just explains what happened and what could be done. I totally understand people need cars in most places, especially when I go to my friend’s house in the suburbs and I have to walk for 45 minutes from the train station to her house…
For me, Not Just Bikes is a bad conveyer of his ideas. He acts like every city needs to be utrecht and does a poor job of appealing to his target audience.
@@danielevans8910 I went twice on holidays in the Netherlands and used bikes there nearly everyday. Their land is totally flat and small, so yes, it’s not an exploit to become an all bikes country there. He makes good points though if you watch more than one video.
as a trucker I don't mind them. it makes it easy to get to wherever to deliver or pick up loads. and let's face it. if these highways didn't exist a lot of these places would be ghost towns today. these systems made growth possible.
People hate on the Interstate highway system but fail to realize our entire economy is reliant on it. Every loaf of bread you buy, every gallon of gas you put into your car, every piece of tech you buy was on a truck on an interstate highway.
