Gadgetbahns. They're bad, folks! Patreon: / adamsomething Feelin Good by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommon... Source: incompetech.com... Artist: incompetech.com/
I'm going to start using Gadgetbahn in conversation. There's always a stupid "twist" and a fancy name to these projects, and having a blanket term is quite nice. it's not a hyperloop, it's not a skybus, it's just another Gadgetbahn.
They're still building the system that began as the Skybus. It' one of the most popular airport APM systems. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zGQBrhwHg9M.html
@Jamal Ramadan Ironically, that's the cause of a lot of current problems today. People have gotten very comfortable with the idea of traveling to any where in the world in a day or so. Aeroplanes are perhaps the least efficient way to move people and goods in existence, and now that we properly understand the costs, there's been a push back against allowing anybody to fly anywhere cheaply. In effect, we need trains to replace as many air journeys as possible, particularly those which are regular commutes for remote workers. During covid lockdowns we got first hand evidence of how much less fuel is used by eliminating non essential air travel. I think a lot of tourists would prefer traveling on (nice) trains to flying the same distance if it means they can walk about on the carriage, sit down in a dining car and actually see something out the windows. Not to mention the relief to those who are afraid of being launched into the air in a metal tube, or those like me who are opposed to be forced to touch a stranger for 10 hours. Sadly, living in Australia less air travel would mean a lot less travel in general, but it would be nice if once you left the country you could get from one country to another on trains instead of planes.
Gadget Bahn is my new favorite word and concept. During the 2000s, the city of Seattle got fell in love with its own version of Gadget Bahn when somebody had the bright idea to put monorails everywhere. That idea has since fallen by the wayside but it delayed the conversation of building conventional light rail by at least a decade.
Sydney Australia. A city that chose to tear up all light rail lines in the 60s to replace with cars and buses because petroleum is king. Then put in a monorail because gadgetbahn. Then removed the white elephant monorail that nobody used, and now we’re spending stupid money laying light rail tracks on the exact same roads they were removed from 50 years ago. 🤦
That's the point. Politicians who don't want give an inch of the road to anything other than cars usually come up with expensive ideas like this. So people discuss this "alternative" to a tramway or lightrail. Had these stupid ideas in my birth town- none of them was build, but also no tram - and in my hometown, where everytime the tram network is to be expanded, some local politicians come up with funiculars, monorails, trolleybus or expensive subway extensions from tens of kilometers away, usually in 20 years or, never,, just to prevent the tramway being extended now.
@@dieabsolutegluckskuche5174 I just think it works really well phoneticly and English words such as gadget has been seeping it's way into other languages either way. Also, wouldn't a more accurate translation for Bahn be railway?
@@dieabsolutegluckskuche5174 Bahn is the German word for all kinds of a track or road where vehicles drive/ride on or objects move. railway/railroad would be Eisenbahn ("iron way") and the gray concrete or asphalt track the car runs on is called "Fahrbahn" ("drive way"). There is also "Kegelbahn" ("bowling-pin way") for the bowling alley.
The older folks back in Pittsburgh still wax nostalgic about the street cars that used to run 24/7. They disappeared wayyy back, when my mom (64) was very little. Some of the old tracks were still there when I was a kid- as small rails to nowhere; a sad reminder of what we once had. Im happy the old town has a light rail. I don't think I've ever been on it, but I'd like to use it if I ever go back for a visit.
Now we just have the "T" and it doesnt reach that far out of city limits unless you live in the south hills but if you live east, west or north of the city theres no luck for you.
There is a reason those tracks are vacant. People want to use cars. They don't want trains where they have to wait outside in the snow and rain, for who knows how long, to take a train that costs more than the gasoline required would, to then get dropped off a mile away from their destination. Trains are stupid.
@@christianlibertarian5488 lol. I don't think I've seen as smooth brained of a take in a while. Also, nice name. Its good to advertise how foolish and ignorant you are so nobody has to engage if they don't want to.
So so so so true. And no transportation safety net either. The reason Light Rail was so popular was because in the early 20th century not everyone had the money to buy an automobile or pay the expenses associated with the ownership of one, and so it was cheaper on a day-to-day basis up to just buy a pass or ticket for the trolley. But once people had the money for cars, and to fly on airplanes, they basically did away with everything associated with rail travel regarding maintenance and expansion. Pittsburgh for example, the featured city in this video (and my home), ripped up and scrapped about 90% of all of the trolley lines within a 25 mile radius between 1950 and 1990. Now, if things could get tough again and you need to get from place to place, buses likely aren't efficient enough or don't have routes that take you where you need to go (not to mention are much slower and not as comfortable), and there is literally no other form of transportation that does not involve the costs of a personal motorized vehicle. By ripping up those lines they deprived future generations of a very useful method of transportation. Same can also be said for the big private railroad companies that ran major passenger lines and either were left to go out of business and die to the airline industry or got assimilated into Amtrak, all while not encouraging or regulating adequately, to the extent where neither travel quality nor safety (due to poor regulation of freight companies that don't adequately maintain the lines they own, which are the majority of routes in the U.S.) has increased on those national routes for both freight and passenger service.
There is still one good reason : America is huge ! I mean, trains along the west coast and along the east coast, maybe one from N-Y to the Chicago area would make sense, but in all other parts of the countries, it makes no sense, building the railways would cost a fortune, and even with high speed trains, travels would sometimes be veeeery long. Imagine a New-York to Houston. Even at 300 km/h it would be very long, though acceptable IMO. There's a reason the USA has such a fucking shitload of airports. Above 600-700 km it's faster. But yet, I think USA should convert to trains to connect cities, and obviously I agree with the video, stop this car obession and put public transports in place in town.
@@hugolouessard3914 you would think so but so so many people still drive long distances on a regular basis. There is a reason that road trips are so integral to American culture
@@hugolouessard3914 The fact that the country is huge isn't an excuse to not use efficient railways for the mid-sized distances. If you built a high speed rail system that could go over 300km/h, it could be faster and easier to use that line for any trips under 1200 km instead of flying. The train ride would take around 5-6 hours, including time spent in the stations, and the stations could be much closer to the cities than airports. A flight of 1200 km would take around 2 hours but airport shenanigans at both ends can take anything between 1-3 hours and many airports are a long way away from cities so even at that long distance you could have the bad luck of a plane trip taking more time in total. The best case scenario would be the possibility to choose between the two transit types. Of course trains also come with the added bonus that multitudes of people can use the same train to travel different distances, whereas planes will require a separate vehicle for all A to B trips
@@houndofculann1793 I totally agree. I often go from Tours to Perpignan and back. I need to do Tours-Paris then Paris-Perpignan, all in TGV, mainly at 300 km/h and even though it's still 7hrs+, it's 1000 km in train and not really bothering me. I like trains. In France, we have a decent network thankfully. Though it has many delays and cities like Toulouse are not on the network.
actually that what my city do, our govt build skyway for bus only (BRT), the reason is the road below are too small and cars will take the bus only lane if there is no police around 🤣 so they build dedicated sky way with gate. i don't know if its effective and they also built MRT, Small LRT(2 cart), big LRT. there is no unity of transportation. they only build the random system that the cheapest and easier to corrupt.
@@wolfenstein652previously Bombardier built, now owned by Alstom. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zGQBrhwHg9M.html And the video lays waste to the BS claim that switching remained an issue.
@@EricLDunn As a standalone transit system on a private site with absolutely no possibility of ever being connected to any other network, it may have found its niche. It's not clear why its higher capital cost is justified vs light rail - perhaps it's the "magic factor", making the airport feel different from normal life and therefore part of your holiday or whatever. But for urban transport, it's definitely gadgetbahn, and even "broken" is almost fair compared to the alternatives.
@@recordkeepingandinformatio8206 Then why do American transit authorities place orders for Chinese subway rolling stock? See Chicago's CTA and LA Meteo.
the car is a central part of the american dream and american culture, all three having individualism as a common thread. That is the power of culture (a culture that has been of course shaped by the Automotive Industrry (and its respective lobbies)). Cutting down on car use is to fight against very powerful players: not just the car lobby but the whole fossil fuel industry. Americans have had no trouble invading other countries just to secure that sweet, sweet oil. However, It's not just an imperialistic desire; oils and cars pump through the USA's veins.
I like the way real footage is included, makes the video alot more entertaining when there's stuff actively happening on screen. Love this video, great work as usual!
Yeah. Must be a lot of work to search and edit all these illustrating snippets of folks in Pittsburgh entering and exiting the vehicle. Looks like in a Jacques Tati movie.
Using cities skylines as examples is a great idea. Remember to use the El preidente traffic mod and then you can also simulate how to lower traffic congestion with public transport. The traffic overview showing where people need to go is a great infographic, urban planners irl would kill for such an overview
@@SiisKolkytEuroo If you look on RU-vid what people are building, their cities are often 50s planner dream with motorways everywhere, even over rivers. The players don't even try to reduce car usage and improve public transport. Anyway, I recommend TMPE mod because it makes the traffic more realistic, primarily by disabling despawning of vehicles
@@SiisKolkytEuroo the mod just makes traffic more realistic with better lane switching as well as options to add percentage of drivers who drive bad/recklessly for more difficulty You optimise roads first of all, make sure your big main roads can support the traffic, you also need to make your intersections effecient, either by manually tuning and timing traffic lights and lanes, or making roundabouts for more flow Secondly make the layout of your city smart, dont make a commercial district iosolated and resident district isolated. Then you get the american hellscape problem where everyone commutes the same shitty way to work. Spread things out, make the center effecient. Of course industry needs to be on the border of the city for pollution sake, but you can make sure that its not your entier town going to work tehre. Make schools and placers of interest easy to get to etc. And lastly you can ban certain cars or trucks from certain places or roads. Lots of trucks needing to go to the highway from their industry origin? Make a specific tunnel or road made for them, and ban them from the main road so they dont take that instead (traffic simulation is very picky, cars always tries to take the fastest and shortest road, so you need to ban acces to certain roads to change their course) You can also use one way streets for this stuff too Cities skylines is easier than real life, because it doesn't simulate parking. one of the major downsides with cars is the space they waste, but in this game they just disappear into the building they need to go to.
Americans be like the Soviet Union had trains therefore two parallel tracks in American is spreading communism. 8:25 I think there might be a render error. The rest of the video is blank
@@madsam0320 luckily now the drones are becomming the flying car. Everybody needs one to get to work, to pay for the loan they have to take for the freedom of having a flying car so they can get to work without being stuck in rushhour. 🤠👀🤔
I used to love the idea of elevated rail until I looked for the answer to the question: Why aren't they everywhere if they're so wonderful? Your video hits upon most of what I learned, added other factors, summing things up nicely. Thanks! I'm still disappointed by its not being feasible. I like the idea but I'll stick with reality.
@@UltimateAlgorithm Because they don't have enough space in the cities. And they use them if all other options were already in use/not usable, like busses and metro.
We have a rail system in Vancouver that's similar to the SkyBus in design and name. It's called the SkyTrain. It's pretty much did what SkyBus tried to do and succeeded, because it uses rail.
I'd say the only gadgetbahn element of the system is the LIM rail but other than that, it's pretty standard. And the Canada Line is just a normal light metro line.
Build a roller coaster! It is fast, energy-efficient, safe, has great capacity, and because it only has one station, the full stuff can fit into a small patch of land. It is also fun!
As a Teenager I use to go with my sisters on the Valley Line of Pittsburgh. That line was old (First built in 1869 as a narrow gauge railroad, upgraded to a Streetcar system in 1905 but barely touched even in the 1970s when I was riding it). Anyway the tracks were so BAD on that route it was like riding a roller coaster. I was best in the back of the streetcars (Which were over 30 years old in the 1970s). Thus we entered the almost empty streetcar (For were going AGAINST rush hour traffic) and went right to the last seat. I suspect the Streetcar Drivers knew what we were doing and they knew where all the bad parts of the route was so they made sure we had a "Good Ride". I missed that line and its TIMBER bridges.
The problem with pushing for public transport, at least here in LA, is that the while the mass public loves to complain about high gas prices and traffic, they thumb their nose at the idea of taking public transport. They complain when the government pushes for increased track. And ironically, the majority of these people that complain are actually middle class suburbanites. It’s pretty sad and pathetic.
yeah whenever cities wanna add large public transit in American cities people really do lose their minds. Last year my city which is approaching 1 million people, proposed a new subway system. Instantly the people in richer neighborhoods tried to shoot it down because their riverside mansions would have higher property tax, and then after it passed they tried to leave the city altogether.
@@peterixxx I wouldn't call it good riddance as they left so they can dodge city taxes as well as dodge the new subway property tax. Yeah Americans will do anything to not pay taxes. The city just found out the riverside mansions house owners have been dodging taxes for a long time because it was overlooked. So when the city started charging them a congressman rushed in and tried to pass a bill to exempt them from these taxes.
Of course once it's built they'll gladly use its existence as an excuse not to pay their employees enough to afford a car "just take the train!". Without public transit those same people would be complaining about how "entitled" their poor workers are for wanting to make enough to afford the car they need to get to work. The great irony of America, the rich want free infrastructure to support their businesses and call the poor "entitled" and "greedy" for wanting to be able to afford basic necessities.
I'm so shocked you mentioned accessibility as a priority that needs to be addressed! I have a serious issue getting around LA, as a disabled wheelchair user. *thank you for including disability rights and accessibility!* _you are awesome! keep up the great work_
Look at the Skytrain in Vancouver. It works pretty well (not the same as the skybus or monorail, but it is a mostly elevated automated rail). The reason it works well is because it's separated from car traffic and intersections that would otherwise slow it down. This also meant it was fully automated back in the 80's. Also, an elevated track is much less expensive than boring underground (atleast in Vancouver). The result is metro level speed/throughput at lower cost.
Or, you could just build it on street level and convert all the additional cost of building an elevated travel platform into being more places for a conventional system to go. Fewer cars on the road, cheaper to ride, and less congestion.
@@ShroudedWolf51 the issue with that, specifically with Vancouver, is that it’s dense as fuck. Creating routes that work on street level would sadly cause extreme congestion due to railroad thrus in roadways. Vancouver, and most of south-western BC, is currently facing a housing crisis, so that would cause a massive problem if ground level space needed to be allocated for this Also you mentioned the idea of diverting costs of the sky aspect to expanding the railroad, but the skytrain surprisingly goes pretty much anywhere you want to, it’s quite well developed. From when I stayed there, I could get within 4 blocks of all major areas I do ultimately agree with this idea of making it street level, but it’s hard to do that now. The pricing of the tickets is fairly standard for the train, and I could definitely see how a cheaper fare would encourage more users
@@theroyalgamer6560 if the railroads connect basically any place in the city with other places... you can bet that a lot of the cars on the road vanish and congestion is reduced a car usually transports a single person, sometimes more - so lets average it to 2 people per car... and they take about 2m length per car (plus security distance to the next car so lets add another 1m for that) and 3m lanewidth each a train during rush hour will likely be close to capacity.... a small tram for example at about 30m long and 2-3m wide has a capacity of over 200 passengers - that size is equivalent to 10 cars... which would be about 20 people and this is a pretty small tram, you can easily increase capacity beyond that that means, that a tram or train system can easily transport 10 times as many people as a road... so any road lane you replace with a train... can reduce congestion by a factor of 10 now of course, in practice the numbers arent going to be that nice and trains will not be continuous on every bit of track length... but the massive capacity difference still is extremely noticable even just going with prioritized bus/taxi lanes on the road could have similar results - a typical bus has a capacity of about 50-60 passengers (the short ones, not the ones with the flexible area in the middle) and is about as long as 2 cars on the road... so they have an improvement of a factor of 25-30 and they can use existing infrastructure... all it needs is a bit of paint to declare a dedicated lane for transit and i would assume you can imagine how people might switch to taking the bus, if they know that the bus will never be stuck in traffic....which then reduces congestion due to removing the equivalent number of cars from the roads
Here in Portland Oregon, in the NW USA, we have slowly been reducing street capacity to accommodate more lightrail, streetcars, and bikes. It definitely does make things easier for getting around without a car, and in my opinion does make the streets less congested for those who still drive. I can think of several intersections that were nightmares until a few lanes were repurposed and suddenly they are much smoother. However even in progressive Portland it's still an uphill battle to get any meaningful work done, slowly working on plans from decades ago with new dreams mixed in. That being said, I love what they've done!
TriMet has built a fine system, using multiple rail modes: LRT, streetcar, and commuter rail. Realistically, it takes DECADES to rebuild a robust rail transit network in any city that paved over most of their original trolley lines (that includes most cities in the USA).
The Miami Metromover is a rare case of something like this actually working in my opinion, it's like the gadgetbahn equivalent of Germany's Wuppertal system, a complicated setup that just happens to have the exact right conditions that allow it to work in a specific scenario. For example because of Florida's elevation and close aquifer, it is pretty much impossible to build any form of transit underground, and due to how tightly packed Miami is, having an elevated system is actually the best solution in this instance. Now the metromover also makes up for its shortcomings with its companion service, the metrorail, which is essentially just a regular subway but in the sky. This train system is great for linking up suburbs and surrounding areas to Miami downtown at a high speed and high capacity rate. But what do you do when you actually reach downtown? Well, Miami decided to deploy a system of tons of small completely automated transit vehicles across three lines that travel across the downtown area. Their size allows for them to easily meander through the crowded Miami metropolis, and even lets the trains have stops within buildings on some occasions. The lack of rolling stock per train also allows for more trains to be on the line at once, providing highly frequent service to any wanting to use it, and because the trains are fully automated, they are always on time and there's no labour factor to worry about. And to top it all off, it's completely free to use!
@@BorrieBeats well in las vegas it might actually work, even if highly inefficient. You are there for all the attractions anyway, might as well visit another novilty.
I'd be very interested in Adam's take on Vancouver's skytrain. It meets most of the criteria of a gadgetbahn, even being rolled out as a demonstration tech at a world exposition in 1986, except since it's been expanded, is heavily used, and generally beloved. Suburbs have repeatedly turned down light rail in favor of skytrain and its elevated trackways and gimmicky linear induction motors, and there's even Facebook Fandoms for the system.
The Metromover in Miami is actually pretty awesome, it’s automated so it’s always on time and completely free to use. It’s a dope way to get around downtown and since I’ve never lived anywhere with public transit it’s so cool to see rolling around
Monorails have uses depending on the city, like in Wuppertal. They don't occupy a lot of space and have similar characteristics to trains, they are niche but still useful.
Malte Meyer Yes it is. It’s a suspended monorail, but a monorail nonetheless. Monorail, as the name implies, just means “guided by/runs on one rail”, and the Wuppertaler Schwebebahn runs only on one rail.
Malte Meyer Any monorail System can potentially do that, just build a second track. Rail and track are not the same thing. One monorail track has one guiding rail, whereas one regular train track has two. Both can then be multiplied to allow for crossings, continuous multi-track lines or whatever else.
I'd be curious to find out what you think of the Morgantown PRT in West Virginia. While a lot of it does seem to fall into the Gadgetbahn category it does actually solve one particular problem for Morgantown, the topography. The narrow roads had become congested with cars and busses and the hills that prevented widening roads also prevented building other more conventional solutions. I'm sure there are things that would be done different in building the PRT today but it did seemingly actually solve a problem there, a system that could have compact vehicles and guideways that snake their way around hills, grades, and curves that roads/busses/trains couldn't
That looks so cute! Like roller coaster cars in amusement park. I would assume that partially suspended tram network with 1 line and tact of 5 minutes or so would do the job cheaper, more reliable and possibly faster. But it wouldn't be "unique" ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iaSaWfw07Sw.html
@Blackbird The Morgantown PRT was a prototype. It wasn’t intended to be unique. It was intended to be the first of many deployments. The PRT’s advantages are that it is fully automated with no station attendants and can travel directly point-to-point without intermediate stops. An aerial tram would not do that.
It was built as proof of concept. I've ridden it and even had a tour of the operations center. It's cool, but there's nothing "compact" about those vehicles or their guideway!
Hey I see the point you bring for the skybus, but the Miami Mover is one of the best parts of Miami downtown. It is strategically placed around transport hubs, tourism spots and frequently traveled locations. It is a great idea for moving people around with 0 traffic to key spots in downtown, which is plagued with intense traffic. The metro mover was a major part of my Downtown Miami life for college.
@@raymondgutierrez5421 For now there is. Maybe if people wise up in the future another path can be found but given our current political situation I am not optimistic.
now the really important part about railway service is that you must not under any circumstances half-privatize it. Germany has one of the worst national railway services, because the Deutsche Bahn is neither really public nor really private, so we get the worst of both worlds: a monopoly, a greedy corporation and a state that's on the hook to pay for repairs caused by negligence on the part of the private side...
You have to admit, though: the negligence was there even before the semi-privatization. Many of our bridges and tunnels haden't been properly maintained since we still were a monarchy. And the closure of many of the tracks dates back all the way to the 1960's. It wasn't that much privatization that's responsible for that, but the emergence of cars, and long distance trucking, in particular.
I'm so glad that my state government is spending billions on actually improving rail and light rail. They're adding new lines to regions of the city that previously didn't have any removing dozens of level crossings, increasing the capacity of trains and stations and massively increasing line capacity with new signaling and more interchanges between lines. I'm talking about Melbourne Australia. Of course there is still disproportionate spending on highway upgrades and expansions too but when the government got in they actually canceled a planned tollway that would have made congestion worse.
There is actually one successful Gadgetbahn. The "Wuppertaler Schwebebahn". Though this is an exception to the rule, because it wasn't build instead of a more favourable light rail or underground rail, but because the specific arrangements of the city allowed for it to be built in a useful way.
Those gamer lights are what I call "Tron lights" and I fucking love them, I want everything covered in them. Cars look better with them, they make Escalators look sick, and adding them to buildings looks awesome!
When I visited bordeaux I used a three wagon monorail system that connected all the city, and that's all I used. That monorail was practically perfect.
I absolutely love this channel! Can you make a video analysing the best existing solutions, what can be extended to the rest of the world, and what improvements should be made (japanese railways for instance).
Love the gadget bahn example. I'm a regular visitor to Tricity area of Poland, so Gdynia/Sopot/Gdansk. As far as I can see they've done just what you say - connected the airport to the main railway via normal train tracks. The last time I took the train the airport tracks weren't even electrified, but were running some sort of diesel cars.
@@starventure Lol. Posts link to car riddled American city suburb with poverty: "tHiS iS wHaT yOu wAnT". Dipshit. Look at any European city and you'll see walkability is king. 👑 Amsterdam is yhe ideal. And if you're defending car dependency; LA and Houston, America's well known car based cities, are filled with the homeless and poverty. America just hates the poor and refuses to help the needy. When you actually try to prevent poverty, you prevent living in the horror of the American state.
I just wanted to say that you do a great job at producing your videos, because one can notice the amount of effort that you put into any video and the content is just pure quality! Thanks a lot!
I lived in Miami for a while and I love the Metro Mover. There's already a train service and that's called the MonoRail. So comparing one to another feels like apples to oranges to me. The MetroMover is a very nice bandaid to carbrained cities, allowing you to easily move internally within the city without needing a car. The Monorail helps you move between towns / cities. One of my daily routines was to take the metromover to get to the monorail, which was incredibly convenient.
There's one aspect of these gadget-bahns that no one has ever commented on (to the best of my knowledge), and it's something you might want to make a video about. These things are essentially elevators. I rode on one once, back in the 1970s. I was very young, maybe 5 or 6, and I have NO IDEA what city this was in. But I remember that the trams were single cars, and the line had only 4 stations. The way it worked was that you go to the train platform and press a button that lets the system know that there's someone there waiting for a tram. Then the tram, an unmanned steel box, arrives and opens its doors. You step inside and press a button to request a destination. The doors close, it takes you somewhere, and the doors open again. IT'S AN ELEVATOR. The thing I remember most about this was that it was a hot, sunny, summer day. We were trapped inside a glass and steel box for... I don't know, 15, 20 minutes? It was hot as hell. And at some point before we rode the tram, someone else had ridden the same tram and urinated on the floor. Now, normally urine smells bad enough. But on a hot summer day in an enclosed space? There are no words to describe it. So, as a 5-year-old, I was already able to see one potential problem with this system: There's no conductors, drivers, or any other people keeping an eye on passengers. Most people would not urinate on the floor under any circumstances, but there are a LOT of people who will urinate in any location as long as there's nobody around to see them. And now, as an adult, I can look back on this and see a MUCH, MUCH more important problem, and this is what I believe you should make a video about. THIS IS AN ELEVATOR. It's a STEEL BOX in which you are LOCKED IN with TOTAL STRANGERS for WHO KNOWS HOW LONG. The big difference between this and an elevator is that with a gadget-bahn, you're locked in for a longer period of time. It's a really, really long elevator ride. And people have gotten raped in elevators. People get robbed in elevators. People get molested, assaulted, and have other crimes committed against them in elevators. A long elevator ride can take over three minutes. Imagine what a criminal could do given five times as much time. Yes, there are windows. But: 1) Who's going to see you? Will they call the police? Even if they call, what could the police do? And 2) The windows go from the ceiling to waist-high. If the criminal knocks you to the floor, no one will be able to see you anyway. The next time you look at one of these things, think of it as an elevator, and all sorts of new problems come to mind.
@@anindrapratama It might have been. I don't know. It was a long time ago and I was very young. I looked at pictures of the Morgantown PRT and it looks like it, but then any of these systems is going to look like any other. When we rode it, we didn't actually need to go anywhere. We just rode it for the novelty of it. We were literally the only people there at the time. (By "there" I mean the entire system: At both stations and the tram itself, we didn't see anybody else.)
I've thought some more about it, and now I remember that there weren't any buttons inside the cars. When a tram arrived, it displayed what station it was going to, so you had to make sure you got on the correct one, because once you got on, you were stuck until it reached its destination. But this also means that there was no "emergency call" button. If the car broke down or some other emergency happened, you'd have no way to signal anyone.
SkyBuses have one advantage over trains - rubber tires - which help them climb steeper gradients than conventional trains. In confined multilevel surroundings like airports this is actually useful.
Mostly because these Gadgetbahns work best internally as a closed-off system, like in an airport with multiple terminals, and may have lower maintenance costs than regular trains
AND when Skybus was proposed several people wanted it between Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland. It that corridor it would have been perfect. These are the second and third busest transit stops in Pennsylvania (Downtown Philadephia is number one) and thus a LOT of movement of people between those two locations. Right now, that corridor is served by buses on an exclusive bus right of way but since that right of way still stops at every cross street is it slow. Something like Skybus would have made the trip quick, just by NOT having to wait for lights to change or traffic to move. The problem was Skybus was made to get rid of the last Streetcars Lines in Pittsburgh NOT to provide the best movment of people. Those last line (Which are now the Light Rail system in Pittsburgh) were on their own Right of Way and as such could NOT be replaced by buses. The Streetcar routes between Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland COULD BE REPLACED BY BUSES and were and any talk of putting Skybus in that transit corridor was dismissed as not needed buses were good enough for people on that corridor.
They brought back the tram in my home town of Nottingham 15 years ago, it's been an amazing success and was updated and extended 5 years ago. Who would have thought!?
So far I absolutely love all of you videos and I know you have already had 1,111 comments on this video however I lived in Miami and used the Metromover regularly and I do think there were reasons why the Metromover there made sense given the special circumstances of the city's history, the era it was built, and the geology/topography of the city. Building a traditional street level light rail system through the downtown of Miami during the era when the Metromover was constructed would have been untenable because the city center was already completely and ridiculously over developed into a skyscraper metropolis and the amount of property acquisition and destruction just wouldn't have allowed for it. Additionally Miami already had a history in the 1960s of entire mixed use multi ethnic thriving neighborhoods being destroyed, disrupted and disbursed by older "transit projects" [admittedly all highway oriented!] that left real people displaced and destroyed and the memory of that experience was too recent to be dismissed and no one wanted to have that happen in their neighborhood again, even if it was for another type of transit. They were burnt on how they had been betrayed the last time. And finally - the most Miami specific part is that the option of underground rail is not feasible in south Florida because the entire city is built upon just a meter or so of sand layered over hundreds of feet of fossilized coral reefs. So everything under a few "feet" is completely porous to saline ocean water and can also easily be susceptible to "sink holes" etc . For example, the city of Miami recently built a tunnel connecting the interstate highway system to the port and it is already constantly plagued by leaks and corrosion. Frequent shut downs, over spending, missed deadlines - all the things you warn of with these new "tech bro projects" the latest of which is apparently a new "boring project" coming to Fort Luaderdale, right next door to Miami, with yet another Musk project. For those reasons the Metromover being located above head with minimal footprint and linking the existing light rail system {even though it requires a tranfer} seems to me to be the most logical system they could have come up with given Miami's unique history and locality. I used it regularly while I lived there and it was always at or near full capacity when i did so. I think it is a successful system given the intention and what it provided to me and my fellow citizens while I lived there.
I agree for Miami's case it make sense. What is still a problem is for the parts of Miami needing a light rail system. The existing metro rail is nice to get parts of North Miami and to the University of Miami. However, other universities and places located west have no light rail system. This means it's entirely reliable to use and car or bus. Traffic gets very congested on 8 street and West Flagler. If there was sort of train that go to Sweetwater, Kendall, or Doral for example would be amazing. However, a plan was proposed and I think it even approved but nothing got done sadly.
This type of technology is quite common at airports. Both Gatwick and Stansted which serve London have examples. Linking the terminals within the airport. Monorail systems are the best example of "Gadgetbahn" thought! You are absolutely correct we Must Cut car use.
7:02 dedicated bus lane yay! Oh wait it mixes with bikes boo. Who came up with the idea of combining 20+t vehicles that usually go 50km/h and a vehicle that literally consists of a metal frame and the meat from its operator that can go 30 if they're sporty onto the same lane? Buses will have to slow down and the drivers have to work harder, while riding a bike is just stressful. I'm all for public transit lanes, I'm all for bike lanes, but combining them into one just makes both aspects worse, so please separate them.
Separating cyclists from the road is also a good idea. Having Cyclists on the road just makes car drivers resent them and increase their risk of manslaughter. But we seem to think putting them on the sidewalk is also too dangerous since they travel so quickly. Give them some shortcuts along more scenic areas.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 the problem isn't cyclists on the road, the problem is _cars_ on the road; the solution is fewer cars on the road, and make them go slower, and f* their "resentment" because at some point they're going to have to learn that the road does _not_ in fact belong to them alone.
@@dwc1964 Yes it is better to massively reduce car use, but many Countries and select cities have had massive success making bike roads. It allows them to go fast through areas cars can't fit through without massive disruption but also doesn't put them at risk of hitting pedestrians. The goal should be in many places to reduce car dependence by adding cycling roads that are faster and more enjoyable than driving.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 In the USA, the idea of bicycle infrastructure has been interpreted by car-centric planners as "how to get bicycles (which are toys) out of the way of cars (which are _real_ transportation)" and so we're getting lots of pretty bicycle trails out in the suburbs that are great for recreation but not for getting anywhere. The kind of wholesale redesign that, say, the Netherlands undertook (I've been watching Not Just Bikes) has yet to be even conceptualized here. It's not even so much that people oppose it; they can't even feature it.
@@dwc1964 I also watch a fair bit of Not Just Bikes, Strong Towns, City Beautiful, etc. And that is certainly an issue in the city I live in, the only bike roads are for recreation. But the main problem with Bike roads in the u.s. is our super low population density. Most places it is an unreasonably long bike/walk distance. So you need to *mercilessly slaughter* single family homes and start making areas more compact. During that change it is important to add these biking roads. Though if you want useful bike roads in suburbs then we need some mandate or zoning laws that make it so you have routes between houses (since normally you need to walk around an entire street rather than walk/bike past them.
The "Skybus", not to be confused with "Skytrain", Vancouver's fully automated, mostly above ground, fully grade separated, fully electric (linear induction motor), rapid transit system.
i am fully in support of teleporters for public transit. not because they'd work but because it's a lot harder to blow billions of dollars on a teleporter that wont work than it is to blow a billion dollars on a gadgetbahn that wont work
@@nlpnt well, theres been a slight update to the trains along with a waste of money added stations in the past 5-7 years, but yes. And those station basically enbodies this as there are only 2 stops qnd a tranfer point
Tokyo’s Yurikamome line is a great example of where a “Gadgetbahn” type system actually works really well and makes sense for the area it serves. It’s rubber wheels are designed to make quicker stops than steel wheel trains, which means the stops can be placed closer together. It also takes up less space than it’s competitor, the Rinkai line, meaning it can fit between all the large buildings on the small, dense islands of Odaiba and Aomi, as well as the district of Ariake. The Yurikamome also requires a sharp turn loop on the Rainbow bridge, which wouldn’t be able to be made by standard trains. It *can* work, the important thing is understanding when something like this is better than traditional rail.
In Pittsburgh offence, in my city (which is roughly 10 meters above the sea level except for a mountain in the middle) we built a metro line that bores through a mountain like nothing And I'm in sicily which is one of the poorest zones of europe
It's funny because in Singapore we have a pretty big neighborhood with this as the main transport solution. It was introduced to reduce congestion, and now that neighborhood has one of the highest congestion rates in the country.
Oh wow! I grew up about 5 miles (8km) from the skybus. It basically just went around the fairgrounds in a park in Allegheny County here in western Pennsylvania called South Park. They had such big plans but light rail transportation in Pittsburgh only goes from the city center to the suburbs just south of the city. They added a line that goes from the city to the stadium area on the north side of the city. Nothing going west, north of the city, or east. I live in the first neighborhood south of the city limits and access to the light rail (we call it the T) was one of the reasons we bought here. It was definitely a surprise to see Pittsburgh in one of your videos.
The closest thing came to my mind is Morgantown PRT. And VAL is also quiet similar, although VAL is “sky aticulated bus” vs this “sky minibus”. They are all pretty small, maybe as narrow as a real bus, run on rubber tires, and full automated.
Now here me out, I have a radical idea: Light rail.... that is elevated! I'll take my payment for planning via bitcoin please. Golly public transit planning feels painfully obvious
We used to have something similar at DFW airport to move people between parking and terminals(DFW is deliberately shaped like a circulatory system, so it works on a central loop). It got replaced with a monorail, but the trenches for the old tram bus are still there.
You had the TrAAin which was supposed to be a PRT but in general ran as a scheduled service. What runs now at DFW is *not* a monorail and is in fact is a direct descendant of the Pittsburgh SkyBus (Westinghouse/AEG/Adtanz/Bombardier).
One problem we have in Stockholm is that the busdrivers don't use the Bus/taxi lanes that often, i think it is due to them arriving at the next stop too early if they do.
There could be some use in a "sky bus" in the form of a guided bus-way that's elevated above the ground for situations where you want a dedicated bus land but there isn't enough room on the existing road and there isn't a convenient patch of empty space next to an existing rail line.
@@erik_griswold Yeah, that's why I'd personally hesitate to call it a "gadgetbahn". I think APM's and RTM's are common enough nowadays to have attained a mainstream transit status, so seeing this as an early experiment for those sorts of things makes it less of a boondoggle in my eyes.
I love the approach you use in your argument for public transit. It really is that simple. This video should be required viewing for all urban planners.
At this point, I believe the usa is just activly refusing to build a public transport train network. Considering how many "revolutionary transportsystems" were invented in the usa, that got nowhere and are in all cases just a less efficient train.
You missed a very major issue. SNOW/ICE! A rubber tired tram car would need a heated roadway (in pittsburgh). Btw the thing you show at the end is called "The T" because calling a street car would remind people that they removed those.
Step one: Create a template - ,, Thomas the tank engine supports building trams/trains/metro, you should too '' Step two: Slap there some funny Thomas the tank engine picture. Step three: Share Step four: Proffit 👌
I feel like if you gameify them and try to very specifically advertise it as anything other than a train it would be easier to get public support. Even if it is a bit more expensive to make it a GaMEr tRaIN called the "Express Pod" with a bunch of LED lights and local unique music it could go a long way. Then start programs for high school or possibly even middle school youth to teach them how to purchase a ticket, board the train, understand scheduling, etc (and provide them a free pass for ___ amount of time or for being a student) and you will get higher adoption and future support.
@@haruhirogrimgar6047 Sure, you’ll get public support for the idea. Then no one will actually use the things and you’ll get blamed for wasting a fuck ton of money on them. Why is it so hard to realize that the reason why Americans don’t want public transport is because none of us actually want to be restricted to where and when we can travel? “Ooh, innovative idea to get more cars out of my way so I can get where I want faster? Sign me up! Wait, I have to use it and this can’t actually get where I want faster? Fuck that.”
The Miami MetroMover is lovely! I quite enjoyed it for getting around downtown! Plus its entirely free! It has 3 loops and most of its movers are 2 linked up cars and is entirely automatic. It has stops that are even within certain buildings like the mall, and serves the local college and various government buildings. It links up with Bus stops and Bus Stations. It links up to the Miami MetroRail (I quite enjoy it as well) which serves the surrounding communities and has an Airport line that links up with the Miami International Airport train. Both the metrorail and and metro mover have a shared station that supplies various services and when I was there they were building a connection to the Brightline. A high speed rail line connecting Miami to Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach with Expansions planned to link up to Tampa and Orlando. The Brightline and the MetroRail also link up to the TriRail. We have lots of buses going around. The downtown area now has a bunch of bike and ebike and escooter services. I really wish we had more public transit options for the area, some more lines for the MetroRail would be much appreciated. But I rather like the MetroMover for what it does.
