Why London Is Terribly Designed Support me on Patreon: / oliverbahl Follow me on Twitter: / bahlfranke Link to sources: docs.google.com/document/d/1K...
I get the feeling you haven't been to London. It's a rail city...tube lines, heavy rail, the DLR, Croydon tram. To dismiss all that as "not a reliable option" is just utter nonsense.
Also I thought the congestion was intentional. Its meant to discourage private driving. Talking about buses being rarely used clearly hasnt been taking them during rush hour.
I have been to London for a week and I have to say the rail options are not that good. Just my personal opinion but as a tourist it was hard for me to get around London fast and without running into cars everywhere.
Londoner here: A lot of errors with this video. The Elizabeth Line firstly is does not travel up to Enfield and go back down, nor does it loop back at Woolwich. Buses are also used a lot here and are now getting busier due to the lack of cross city transport, not “no one” uses them. Public transport is “expensive” because London’s public transport is not subsided by the government and relies on the millions including me that uses it daily.
Public transport is expensive in London compared to where? 183 quid a month (prices from a couple of years ago) to travel literally anywhere and everywhere in the city any number of times using any contactless card without needing to commit to a month-pass? Yes, please and thank you. Nothing comes close to this anywhere in North America. NYC may seem cheaper ($127 a month) but the difference in cleanliness and safety is night and day.
Sorry but as a Londoner I think this isn't 100% right. 'People aren't using buses' - before Covid it had under 3bn passengers per year. Yeah the usage declined a bit but it's still 2 point something BILLION passengers. We probably have the biggest bus network in Europe. It (and the trams) are also free for all under 16s. The one thing you didn't mention at all is that half of London relies on suburban rail rather than the Underground. Tourists seem to be totally oblivious to this and think the Underground 'serves London'. In fact, I believe there's more rail stations in London, than Underground. On the South side of the river, the Tube almost non-existent, and millions of us rely on suburban rail services that run every 10-30 mins depending on the route. While totally integrated with London ticketing, these aren't massively reliable as the network at track capacity, but most trains in South London at least, can be up to 10-12 cars to make up for frequency. Nearly all of these lines are radial (i.e designed to move people to/from the centre), terminating/starting at Central London termini, rather than crossing the city like the RER in Paris. The only exceptions are Thameslink, the future Elizabeth line and the East London line of the Overground. The same is for the North Side of the river, although it's more of a 60/40 split between the tube and rail/DLR. Orbital links between suburbs are poor in London and you have to rely on buses, taxis or driving. This is why there's loads of road traffic in the suburbs, and the one orbital system we have (London Overground) is incredibly popular. île-de-France is building the Orbital Grand Paris Express and several orbital tram lines, we just don't have this. River crossings in the East are also crap, no road bridges/tunnels for miles between Blackwall and Dartford. In the East, you have to rely on either 1 Underground line, 1 Overground line, 2 bus routes, 2 DLR lines, or one unreliable ferry, to cross the river by public transport. Bear in mind, that's roughly for 15mi/24km of urban development between Central London and Dartford. So unsurprisingly, many people drive to the bridges/tunnels, which causes bottlenecks at Rotherhithe, Blackwall, Woolwich (Ferry) and Dartford - absolutely tonnes of pollution as a result. Rail transport essentially shuts down at night, there's what 4? 24hr tube lines (Fri & Sat only), and one 24hr rail line (Thameslink). So it's either night buses (which are decent) or taxis, because most of us have had a drink or six and can't drive. Ubers have massively improved the ease of travelling at night, and reduced the cost of taxis (good or bad, that's up for debate). The only people who drive in Central London are rich or are there for work (like construction vans). No one else would drive there unless they absolutely had to. And I don't buy the idea deliveries have massively made our traffic worse, it's not DPD vans that are clogging up my local main road, it's cars. Usage of bikes has definitely increased, and we're seeing more cycle lanes and cycle hire. But the costs of making London more bike friendly is something the Government doesn't want to pay (politics, politics). We need to improve river services, use them more and reduce the price. We can improve rail services, especially weekend timetables and station upkeep, but we may see this within the coming years. But until orbital links are improved, traffic will hardly reduce. Finally, I work in housing, and you're right, our prices are insane, but half of that is because of awful government policy over decades, which reduced our social housing stock as Westminster is incapable of thinking beyond making a quick buck. This could be sorted by government building on land they have already, but again, 'magic money tree' shite. As others have said, London wasn't 'designed' - it's grown organically, beyond its original borders, and arguably beyond the current one. It's funny though, because I'd say it's actually one of the best things about it.
Yep nailed the facts in the coffin. There are many errors with this video, even including pronunciations and lack of correct route diagrams on the Elizabeth line.
Add in that tfl isn’t funded or subsidised well by the Tories either and you’ll find it to be yet another politics equable - a labour mayor vs a Tory pm.
The cost of housing is entirely related to the Bank Of Englands policy of unlimited currency creation out of thin air of which 93% was pumped directly into the mortgage market. Before 1971 each pound was directly linked to its value in gold. It took the Bank of England 300 years to reach 1 trillion in Gold reserves. By 1980 they had created an additional 1 trillion out of thin air. In 2022 we are at over 3 trillion. We are simulating poverty despite productivity being higher than it ever has been. Until an elected majority prevents the creation of additional currency we’ll carry on existing in a situation of artificial scarcity. Neither the Tories or Labour are brave enough to make a change. I don’t blame them though if you had a money printer you’d print more everyday if it meant you could buy whatever you like with it. Corruption breeds more corruption. We need a separation of currency and state just as the west separated the church from state in centuries gone by.
@@someguy255 I agree to an extent, but the decline in social housing stocks since right to buy has massively burdend the housing market and screwed over the poorest. Right to buy is good in principle, but not replacing the housing sold is appalling. Landlords and developers are taking advantage, knowing getting a council house is ridiculously difficult to achieve these days. And if you do get one, the condition of them is often shocking for a wealthy country. Look at Singapore, and 75%+ of people have government housing. Tories and Labour are a mess on this problem.
They also seem to be taking about both the City of London and Greater London interchangeably without clarifying which one they're referring to. Like, saying the transport isn't connected very well and I'm thinking "Yeah, getting between Brentford and Kingston IS a nuisance. But then shows Westminister and the City of London as an example, where getting from A to B is insanely easy. Or saying people can't afford to drive, and the traffic is too slow, which is only really the case in the inner boroughs, where you don't need a car anyway.
I’m a foreigner that’s been living in London for a few months now, and I want to assure all the Londoners here that this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Every second of this video felt like someone who's never been to London who heard one person complain about it and then linked up a bunch of random statistics to make their own narrative. London has an incredible public transport system - just because it has issues to be addressed doesn't make that not the case.
@Black Da Ripper London has arguably the best subway/metro system in the world. It is the first ever made and is invested and maintained at incredible standards above any nations. London TFL Busses (double decker red) are incredibly well routed and efficent. London TFL system is ranked 4th globally for being the most efficient. It out-classes anything of US, Japanese or Korean systems.
@@carwyngriffiths true. his content is super biased, all he does it make content trying to justify why he hates certain countries and loves other ones, but puts it under a guise of "educational" by throwing in some stats here and there
1) London wasn't "designed" as such, more like mangled. It's got streets and structures that are older than many countries. 2) If you drive into Central London with your personal car, you're a mug and you deserve to wait. (except for those with mobility issues of course)
Yep, that's it. Most major European cities indeed. They weren't "designed" but just grew over 2000 years, and if you go to the city center by car then you will get exactly what you asked for.
Yeah London wasn't designed for cars at all. In fact we should actively discourage driving more and get people cycling + further improve our excellent public transport. This is an awful video
@@crazyfool59 Brit here. The context around the second point is that everyone in the UK knows that you’re not meant to drive in London. We have world class public transport in the city (despite what this uninformed video might claim) and there is absolutely no political will to improve the life of motorists because it doesn’t scale and causes climate change and a generally unpleasant city. People know driving is deliberately made unpleasant in London (see congestion charge) hence people in the UK would be shocked if you said you were going to drive into the city. People generally take the train in and move around by buses and tube. Therefore if you drive into London you are going against generally accepted wisdom and many would consider you only have yourself to blame if you suffer traffic. You should have taken the train they might say.
London was not designed. The City of London has existed for thousands of years. No wonder it does not work well for cars. The underground is pretty great if you want to keep your sanity
Yeah London wasn't designed for cars at all. In fact we should actively discourage driving more and get people cycling + further improve our excellent public transport. This is an awful video
Sorry this video lost me completely when you said London doesn't have amazing public transport, have you ever been there? Public transport is incredible in London, there are endless options to get you anywhere at all very quickly.
Exactly! I mean it's definitely got its problems, everyone can agree on that but it's also extremely good I mean there isn't anywhere else in the world where trains come every 30-40 seconds (if that)
So true everyone who Lives in other UK cities look at London in awe for the fact it's £1.65 for as many bus journeys as you can within an hour or how it's never more than 3 minutes for an underground train, it's banging.
@@georgedaole-wellman3950 Yes, but surely we should be comparing London bus use with NY's, or NY subway with the Tube? I don't honestly know if London buses get more passengers than the Tube.
@@rogink Ok let's go down that route. NYC annual bus ridership (as per the MTA) for 2019 - ~677mil London annual bus ridership for 2019/20 (as per gov.uk) - ~2bn
“Public transport, London doesn’t have that” - also London Underground one of the best metro systems in the world If you really don’t want congestion just don’t drive. Nobody in London suggests driving. I’ve been to London several times and It was so easy with the underground
As a Londoner we don’t want cars, the public transport it the best! the tube is so much better :)) I love the small roads and how you can work everywhere!
Yeah London wasn't designed for cars at all. In fact we should actively discourage driving more and get people cycling + further improve our excellent public transport. This is an awful video
I've visited London many times, and what I can say with certainty, London has a great Public transport system. The buses are nowhere nearly as horrondeous as you described and both the Tube and the Buses are efficient and clean. Yes they may be a little price compared to other European cities like Berlin, etc. But everything in London is expensive, and most people do use them. As much as I like your videos, I think the point on public transport isn't extremely accurate.
I'm not gonna argue that London has better transit than Tokyo. That would be just silly. However, I very much dispute that it's a "terrible" system. A terrible system would be commuter rail lines in North America for example, with 4 trains in the morning going downtown, and 4 trains in the evening going back to the suburbs, and nothing else. That's my bar for a bad system. London has frequent, extensive, widespread, widely used and accepted transit. Based on the many other comments, lots of Londoners are able to rely on this system every day (Google tells me it's >3 Million riders/day pre pandemic, don't know how accurate that is), and if a transit network achieves this, I cannot call it "terrible". Are there things that could and should be improved? Sure, no doubt about that. But just because it isn't able to match Tokyo doesn't make it bad.
All things are relative, and American cities have awful transit, but tend to have better road infrastructure that sort-of compensates (all be it in the worst way possible). London, however, compared to it's sister European cities like Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Frankfurt, Barcelona etc. is pretty terrible - mostly because it is eyewateringly expensive. Many working class people who work in the CBD in lower paid jobs literally cannot afford the fares for the metro ("Tube"), so are forced on to the roads in one form or another. Compare this with Paris or Madrid, where the metros and buses tend to be much closer in fares, and buses are used more as a last mile solution to ferry people to/from metro or rail stations rather than to compete with them. The transport itself, although fairly dense, is a low quality network. Reliability is poor, and trains are uncomfortable and often run down and dirty, despite the high fares. Ken Livingstone attempted to address some of these issues with the Overground network, that hugely improved transit outside of the CBD. He also introduced concession fares for people on benefits and income supplements that helped make transit more affordable, but many of the "working poor" who swamped the roads fell outside of this, and since them fares have continued to climb and concessions wound back, rendering even that change redundant. Essentially, the only option is to reduce the fares and invest in the network, but the UK politically is incapable of doing so. Government thinking has become locked into public-goods-as-business neoliberal model, which is why London has never had infrastructure investment in the same way Paris, Madrid or Berlin have had - and it shows.
@@lmlmd2714 I work in the construction industry, and can tell you more than 90% of our low skilled low wage operatives are taking the tube as how cheaper it is compared to car.
Depends on what you compare it to. I'm Dutch and from my perspective there are very few countries that come close to our level of infrastructure. Though it's amazing how quickly some countries have improved. For the record... I cycle faster than the average traffic speed in London. So it's not only healthier, better for the environment, and cheaper. But it's also faster. To me, that single data point indicates to me that British city planners are quite lax.
@@NLTops I was purely talking about the public transit system. Of course nobody matches Dutch cycling infrastructure, you're just a few decades ahead of the rest of the world with that. In terms of public transportation, I can't say wether London is better or worse than, say Amsterdam or Rotterdam, because all of these systems serve their city well and have unique strengths and weaknesses.
Yeah London wasn't designed for cars at all. In fact we should actively discourage driving more and get people cycling + further improve our excellent public transport. This is an awful video
@@readoutloud6171 the video is very vehicle centric. Focusing mining on taxi/uber/delivery drivers. Most people in London don't drive and don't use the uber or taxis except on an occasional night out. My friend who lives near the Emirates stadium has never used an Uber or a taxi in the 10 years he has been in London. Once you know your way around the bus, tube, and bike network most Londoners don't need vehicles. I think tourists use the taxis most.
@@lordgemini2376 Sadly the current mayor is anti-bike. His fare policy made the buses loss-making, needing more subsidies. Instead he could have spent the money on more bike lanes, which need very little money to maintain.
@@rogink Really? I'd have thought he's not so pro-bus, hopper fare was good, but bus routes have been cut, for example, 171 not going to central london anymore, is a bit bad
It's only badly designed from the position of a car driver. Since it was the first big industrial city in the world, it's layout was not designed around the car.
The street layout wasn’t really designed that much at all. The roads practically follow the same routes that have been used for centuries which means that they’re derived from a time when central planning for such public projects wasn’t really a thing. The road layout makes it feel a bit like an adventure walking about because there isn’t really anything monotonous about how London is laid out but it is also fairly confusing to navigate through by car or on bike because sometimes roads will unexpectedly come to a dead end. I don’t think this is the end of the world. London has a unique road system which in and of itself is reminder of the cities history all the way back to the romans
@@sachaalleyne3459 Designing cities specifically for cars is recipe for disaster but I don’t necessarily think the grid itself is carcentric, or at least isn’t always meant to be. For example Manhattan as it was experiencing an influx of immigrants designed a grid system further up the island incorporating farmland into uniform blocks of sellable real estate. The grid system itself was designed with walking in mind because streetcars hadn’t become incredibly common yet so the need to be able to walk from street to street was greatly needed. Designing cities so that people are able to walk through them should be the default standard as it has been prior to the mid 20th century
The only thing I agree with in this video is the housing crisis. London has amazing public transport and the Underground is pretty reliable, albeit a little expensive
London has an incredible, frequent & extremely reliable (by comparison) underground system, if the problem is taxis then the problem is the amount of wealth in this city, I know so many people that would get an uber from one part to another because a taxi is affordable to them on high salaries and they wouldn't choose the tube, even now, when it is very comfortable with low COVID ridership, always a seat, and free wifi. Londoners don't know how lucky they have it when they complain about an 8 min delay.
I've lived in London my whole life, and to say it doesn't have an incredible public transport system is frankly ludicrous. My family hasn't owned a car since 2016 when it broke down and even before then we only used it for trips outside of London, and not for anything else. Tube/rail coverage is extensive, and trains are fast and extremely frequent (eg the Victoria line where the next train pulls in before you've left the platform), the overground and DLR provide great orbital rail routes between more suburban areas of London bypassing the core. Where no direct raul route is provided, there will almost definitely be a frequent bus service provided. While buses are not as fast as driving there are many measures like bus lanes put in place frequently that even the playing field substantially, to the point where the bus is not just a tool for the poorest to use because they have no other choice but is instead a viable alternative to driving and a link to a rail line. The city is also extremely walkable. I haven't learnt to drive and I'm halfway through uni - I don't know if I will learn to drive as long as I'm living in London as it just doesn't seem like the best use of my time, given that I don't need a car within the city and intercity rail links are adequate enough (by far compared to North America) if a little pricey that I can get by using those should I need to travel outside London. Granted I will say cycling infrastructure (although far better than what I've seen in North America) leaves something to be desired when compared to Dutch cities, however progress is (slowly) being made. Yes London is congested, but aside from the noise and pollution, you hardly notice it if you don't drive, and i think most of the people who do drive in London are simply people from the outermost suburbs of London and towns outside of London commuting into the city from places where rail infrastructure isn't as good as it is in most of the city.
I don’t know why he’s saying it’s a terrible transit system, it’s expensive but has great coverage. It’s by far the best in the UK and is at least on par with others. I lived in Leeds all my life, the largest city in Europe without a transit system, going on London’s transport was like going 50 years into the future.
As a British Teenager who was born and raised in London I can say that we are all grateful and use our transport every day, we had free buses for under 18 and had a range of buses to any location we needed and we had so many types of trains to get us around. From underground Overground Thameslink and other rail services in the south you can get pretty much anywhere by train I can travel from west to east London in under 55minties and only change trains 2 or 3 times It's a system we as kids use every day to go out with friends or to go anywhere for school or work its a very reliable and on time system and services its city well it does need upgrades sure but where your running a system for 150 years and so on for the standards it has now its pretty amazing
Not entirely sure I agree with all of your points. London has a fantastic public transport system and is an incredibly walkable city. Fares are capped at a daily rate and there are tons of transport options to get you around. It wasn’t designed for the car - which is why it is such a unique and fascinating city! In my opinion I don’t really experience that level of gridlock, congestion and slow speeds you mention often - but yes this could be improved. Sorry, just don’t agree with you this time.
> incredibly walkable city So much this. Commuting to Charing Cross from the South Coast means alighting at Waterloo and walking across the bridge. A night out in Soho means taking the tube to any of the nearby stations and walking. Central London is pretty safe at night, so walking from night spot to hotel isn't a high risk activity.
Truth. Al though if you want to travel just say from South London to North London, the travel times can be like 1h30m to even 2h sometimes which is incredibly long - but travelling to anywhere you want usually can happen within an hour fairly easily as long as it's not in a complicated area that requires several changes - It's fairly well run, just one problem I see is it hasn';t improved much, but at the same time it has got busier so really if it's keeping up then in a way it has improved. I believe once we have the Elizabeth line and possibly even more tube lines which I hope happen within this century that venture into South London more (Northern line just to Mordern and Victoria only to Brixton), this city will be able to thrive way more. But this task is insanely hard for anyone to handle at this level - so for what we have, this is actually incredible. Maybe with changes such as possible 4 day working weeks or WFH as well, the city may be a lot less congested, so there are ways to help without doing anything major, but actually doing less.
@@dimitrygornomelikov3146 Well the opportunity is in the big city for what I do so there's no away around that atm. I'd prefer to live out of London tbh.
Pretty much every point you make in this video is misleading. - the Elizabeth Line will be open within the first half of this year (2022), and has been delayed largely (though not entirely) due to 2+ years of global pandemic. It will boost London's public transport capacity by 10% which will be a significant improvement. - The Congestion Charge has drastically reduced traffic and road congestion charge - you even admitted yourself that it's left the streets packed with cabs and buses, that's way better than it used to be when it was even more clogged by people diving private vehicles at all times. - Public transport costs are higher than they should be, but most people aren't dissuaded by the cost (a bus ride is £1.55 at present which most people find affordable). Given the title of this video is "The Problem With London's Infrastructure", I was waiting for you to mention one of its biggest problems, which is that compared to other major cities' public transport systems like those in Berlin, Paris, New York, Tokyo, etc. London's is majority funded by passenger fares, because the UK Government refuse to fund it properly and treat it as the vital service it is to the millions of people who use it. This means improvements are slow, and fares have to be higher to cover costs, and yet it still runs incredibly efficiently despite this obstacle. But you never brought that up! - You mentioned the number of people who use ride-sharing services like Uber and Black Cabs, but you didn't offer this as a percentage of overall people using any service, nor did you compare it to the overwhelmingly larger number of people who use public transport, nor did you acknowledge that someone can use Uber for a particular journey every once in a while but still primarily rely on public transport. Personally, I use Uber rarely, and only in specific instances like when I need to transport large items with me, or to get home after a night out, and I will always try first to use public transport if possible. - Finally, after mistakenly listing all the issues you think London's infrastructure has, you failed to offer any solutions at all, beyond previously saying that London should "lean into cycling" as an option, which it actually already is. You just said public officials need to work together to find solutions ... Ok, like what? I almost never leave comments like this under videos because normally I don't think they're worth it, but this video was just so misleading. I hope anyone who might have read this far into what I've written feels a little more enlightened about the reality of London's infrastructure and public transport system than they did after finishing this video!
It’s such a fluffy video. Just using stock footage + some very surface level thinking without offering context or comparison. It’s important we teach people to think critically and challenge anything they consume. Absolutely horrible video.
As someone living in South London, an area widely glossed over in this video, I have never had any complaints about the public transport system. Yes it's not the cheapest, but the train from Victoria covers 13.5 miles in 16 minutes! Busses are well used and run reguarly, and most people never drive into central London, so the traffic is never a concern. Furthermore, if you look at the traffic down Oxford Street for example, almost all of the vehicles are busses, taxis, waste disposal etc - barely anyone drives as London is not a car centric city! Yes the traffic is slow, but it's not a problem as basically no one drives into the centre!
I found this video very interesting because I’ve been living in London for the past 6 years and I have the total opposite perception (and I come from Sweden so it’s not like I am used to traffic like Mumbai). I always described London as an “organised chaos” because it looks like chaos but it just flows. The tube comes every 2-3 minutes, buses are a great way to get around too because 9 times out of ten you’ll be able to get off right where you want. One could argue that since I live in zone 1 my perception is skewed but to be honest that is the busiest part of London and I hear from friends that live in zone 3, 4, 5 etc how incredibly quick they can get to central London. I’m sure you’ve done your research but I have literally the opposite hands on experience. Love your channel keep it up!
Couldn't agree more, I've always found the public transport system to be incredibly efficient in London. Overground/DLR provides excellent access into the city centre and the tube network takes over from there with trains coming through every 2-5 minutes. The only point of improvement I can think of would be to develop the network south of the river, but that's always been an issue.
I live in zone three The trains are generally fast and on time but u also need to be at the station on time other wise it could be an hour before the next Thames link
London public transport is top tier. It's the definition of reliable and many don't own or use cars for exactly that reason. It's not even that expensive to use and having lived here for 10 years I have very rarely had difficulty getting to where I need to go using public transport. It's probably one of the best features of the city as a whole.
@@alexk7511 Well it's not 'just' the tube. The tube is the main method of public transport in the city. Also the buses are good enough. I don't know of any place with an exceptional bus service.
I wholeheartedly agree with a lot of other commenters in saying London's tube and bus system was amazing and extremely efficient ( at least by north american standards). The tube goes directly to Heathrow. And no shortage of walkable areas in my opinion. I normally agree with all your videos, but I really don't in this one.
@@pieter-bashoogsteen2283 he mentioned in the pinned comment that he set the standard at Asian cities, and while Tokyo pretty much has the undisputed best rail network in the world, I definitely think that London has a solid public transportation system. I don't think that many people come to London (even from Asian cities with huge, modern metro networks) for a visit and are underwhelmed by the public transit options.
Hardly any Londoners acutally take the tube to Heathrow, it totally a pain to use unless you live along the route. We have a great metro system, but you need to understand that a huge part of London isn't on the tube and rely on buses and trains.
@@Wasserfeld. but that's the thing: even if you don't have a tube station nearby, there's probably still a national rail station anyway. The sheer amount of rail lines in London is insane. Sure, these services aren't as good as the proper tube or other tfl services (mostly, Thameslink for example is an exception), but still solid enough that you can rely on it if you need to. There is so much more to London's transit than the Tube.
I have mixed opinions about what you talked about in this video! I am a Londoner, and there are pluses and downsides. I definitely think that London is actually way more than Central London - which I feel is the main place you've talked about. And buses are used heavily across the network - especially in the south where we don't really have many tube lines (except trains). Dedicated bus lanes are also getting widespread, so I actually must disagree with that statement. Especially comparing the bus service with other European cities. Fares - are horrendous. Extremely expensive to even get from Zone 3 to zone 1 during peak time - and so commuters do have to pay a lot of money for transport. They definitely have to work on that. Bikes - central London is okay for biking - but the rest isn't (at least from my view). There are a couple of cycle highways as they call them, but there aren't as many of them over here, and you quite often end up with a bike lane just stopping in the middle of a road and having to join the rest of the traffic. I find the tube to be alright - it's getting really crowded, but I definitely disagree, and it is in need of upgrades, but I find the service to be frequent and gets you from point A to B quickly. I was amazed by your previous videos, and their quality has been excellent. But I do believe you have ended this video about London's infrastructure abruptly, and it just left me wondering - what was the point of this video?
I must admit, this is the most inaccurate representation of London out there, London Underground is one of the most insanely interconnected metro services (and oldest) in the world. The fact there has been significant investment in the Thameslink 2000, East London Overground and Cross Rail 1, Northern Line extension and HS1/Eurostar further highlights improving London's transit system for the next decade. This video is grossly biased and mis represents how London has evolved and stood the test of time.
Regarding the rail system in London, I really think this guy has not visited London - there's the London Underground, Overground, DLR, Elizabeth Line (RER equivalent), Thameslink (RER equivalent by 3rd party), Croydon Tramlink along with all the National Rail commuter services - it may not be enough, but to say there's no proper rail transit system is 'What the hell???'.
Me as a non-UK resident watching this video and realising some things seem off, only to meet Londoners in the comment section confirming my suspicions.
“London is poorly designed”, yes it is, for vehicles. But it’s incredibly designed for HUMANS, walking, biking, sightseeing, and communities. Not many major cities are like this anymore. Let’s not let go of it.
You lost credibility when you stated it’s notorious for high fares, delays and cancellations. It’s the cheapest system in the country by a long shot. Of course it may have some cancellations but it’s extremely efficient. I’m starting to wonder if you’re even a regular underground user, due to the mispronunciation of Woolwich and Tottenham 😂 I’m so angry at this video it’s a joke.
I think this is a pretty bad video, but they do at least have a point about the fares - while it's just about the cheapest in the country, I think we compare quite poorly to many continental countries, where the government keeps fares much cheaper. Our national government just isn't as interested in affordable public transport as many other countries, I think (although there are clearly some other countries that we do much better than too)
The solution about the Foreign investors is to introduce a property tax paid instead of the council tax once the property is empty and proportional to the how long it was empty in the past say 24 months.
Yeah, it’s complex mainly because the companies that built the tubes were competing, so they used to have different entrances for the same station & be in slightly different locations
London doesn't have amazing public transport? Are you absolutely insane?! The tube/bus/cycle network is bloody amazing. The only thing its missing is more trams! Plenty of people live and work in London without ever getting into a car. If i were to move i'd sell mine immediately.
Meh, it's no Tokyo. I guess one of the issues with the Underground was it was pretty much the first one, so it pioneered and others learned from it. It's why for example in NYC the double tracked the lines so they can run 24 hours, whereas London has to close most of them for maintenance. The Medieval street layout in London also makes it hard to get around for buses and taxis say compared to Manhattan, which was designed with walkable blocks and wider Boulevards.
A lot of this comes from the organic growth of London imo. It wasn't really 'designed' and it grew without cars in mind. The roads aren't in what I'd describe as the "grid" layout that you so often see in US cities, which might also be leading to more traffic. The public transport, albeit expensive, is fast and efficient. Work definitely needs to be done to improve congestion, but I'm not sure I agree with all your points in this video. Also, at 8:43 why isn't Manchester there?
Bits of London - the outer 'rings' before you get to the Green Belt - were definitely built with cars in mind: in areas like Ickenham, Beckenham etc. all houses (except social housing) were built with garages.
I've just got back from my first visit to London in a decade with my two small children. We used train, tube, bus and the Uber boat. It was quick, easy and affordable. Compared to our experience living in the countryside, it was like a transport utopia!
Afraid this one just feels like a generalised "tut" against London. The Elizabeth line is near ready to go and should be great - unfair to lazily dismiss it like that. Yes London is expensive but the UK is at least reasonably fiscally responsible (I live in Tokyo and great as the transport is, it does so with 260% government debt).
London isn't terribly designed. It isn't designed at all. Edit: the title of the video was changed from "why London is terribly designed" to what it is now, so this comment no longer makes sense.
@@namenamename390 I mean, that is indeed a line in a video of his, but I feel like it's not so "specific" that someone couldn't come up with it independently.
I have a hard time believing that Amazon delivery vans contribute to traffic. One van dropping off packages for multiple people is a lot less traffic then all of those people going out and running errands to get those items.
I’m literally a cyclist in London, we have ‘die in’ protests because of the poor infrastructure we have in the city. Some places you can’t have a bike Lane because it’s in a wealthy area like Kensington and Chelsea, London isn’t a poorly planned city for public transport. But money always gets it way.
Well it really doesn't but it's good compared to typical western cities. Against cities/countries like Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan it almost an embarrassment.
As a transport planner from London but mainly works on issues in other regions and countries, we have a world class system and operation every other city is trying to learn from, yes it has its issues but they are mainly geographical and historical and very difficult to overcome
What's bad about London's public transport: -Fares -wheelchair accessibility What's good about London's public transport: -everything else I don't understand the point of this video
if you are travelling within the fare zones, they are dirt cheap. for people under 16 the buses and trams are free. you can also travel some insane distances, for example Chesham to Upminster (62 kilometres) for £3.20 if you’re an adult. if you’re a child it gets as low as £1.20 tfl are also doing a lot to make the railways accessible. all across london lifts and escalators are being installed at stations. there are ramps at national rail stations for people that may need them
@@PGATProductions London is not really doing enough to make the railways accessible. The new Elizabeth Line is good as well as the DLR and the eastern part od the Jubilee Line, but the rest is not good. Most other European systems are doing more to make their raillines accessible. But it is not just TfL's fault. In Germany the parliament passed a bill requiring all public transport to be fully accessible by the end of 2022. Germany will miss this target, but the urban rail lines and subways in the big cities have more than 90% accessible stations by now. With the right legislation you can force the operators to invest into accessibility. Otherwise it is not treated with high priority
1:14 I find it hilarious that when you say "if you had a well thought out city" you show pictures of American city maps. As someone fascinated by city design, they are the worst city planning i have ever seen.
Uh, if you live in London, or are visiting London and you have a car, that's on you. Public transit here is amazing. In many parts of central London, biking is really simple and fast as well.
I drive in London every day, yes there is traffic and even more congestion during rush hour but it’s always flowing and easy to avoid the hotspots. Also, The public transport is up there with the best in the world, endless bus routes, a reliable and huge network of under and overground train services. The main reason for slowing traffic is extra safety for cyclists, new one way systems and cycle lanes
Honestly, ANYTHING is better than the New York subway system so I’m not complaining about the congestion, prices, etc. of the London tube. At least I won’t be attacked daily on my ride to work in London!
Uhhh farming doesn’t harm the environment anywhere like building housing and roads… I’m sorry proper farming techniques still provide a huge amount of benefit to wildlife. Especially with how farming has been transforming in recent times especially in Britain. Your comment was just completely ignorant I’m sorry…
Mate, this is THE MOST inaccurate video I've seen of London. I've lived in around 5 or 6 cities in the world, and London, next to Tokyo has one of THE BEST public transportation systems I've ever lived on.
are the figures on average speeds you used just for central london? i find it hard to believe there’s constant gridlock in say, chessington world of adventures
Hey OBF Ive been enjoying your videos alot lately. Not about the accuracy in this specific video, but I wanted to mention that Id love to have some sort of bibliography in your videos for further reading. Thanks for the awesome videos!
London already gets ~50% more per capita capital investment than the rest of the UK. So the proper fix to the housing shortage is for the government to begin spending money in poorer areas of the UK and attract employers to move away from London.
I mean don't London already subsidize the rest of the country in terms of %of taxes collected. Easy to say invest in other areas but if the money dosen't start to be generated its a lost cause.
@@itsjonny1744 Most people in the UK live outside of London, and most of the British economy is generated outside of London. London pays the highest taxes, but takes the most aswell. I don't think london shouldn't get anymore investment, but I think the current system gives too much power to central government who end up spending it in London because that's where MPs live half the time.
@@Dumebi7278 Sorry, yes that first bit was incorrect, London tax revenue does cover the cost of the London expenditure. However, I think it is still bad that London gets far more investment per capita than the rest of the UK. A rich person shouldn't expect to get better treatment at the hospital just because they pay more tax. Also, I would like to say London is a great city aswell and I don't like hate it or anything.
London wasn't designed for cars, it was designed for people. Walk the streets, alleys and lanes of, say, Covent Garden, and you will feel what a joy it is to walk around and meander through the lives of shops and people. This isn't ideal for transport, of course, but that's why we have the tube.
I really hate the argument about the prices. I live in California, and one of my friends spends >$30 on gas every day to get to school. The tube and busses are pricey compared to other, subsidized transit, but I’d kill to have a transit system 2x the cost. You can say that it should be subsidized, but you can’t say it’s worse than nothing. This video has really broken any trust of this channel that I had. You hit a topic we knew, and that shows that these videos cannot be reliable.
People in Atlanta beg to differ. As the city with the longest average commute time (45 min) on earth, avg speed doesn't matter. RELATIVE speed does. Our average speed might be higher, but having such a badly designed, spread out city with large holes in population density really hurts us
I don't know where you are from, but I think public transport in London is amazing, including buses. And if cars travel at 12 km/h, so be it. I would trade every bit of my city's transport for London's in an instant.
These delivery and uber drivers tend to circle the city because the app tends to not send contracts while the vehicle is stopped, it seems. I know it happens regularly that I park, wait for awhile, I get nothing, and as soon as I start driving down the road, I get an order from the business I just left. Not only does this cause traffic, but it's dangerous for someone to be using an app while driving generally.
You have many valid points; London's public transport system is exceptional despite the obvious flaws. Foreign investment and neoliberal priorities are a huge problem, and are faced in all areas of the UK. I agree that policy review is necessary and inevitable; the current development is unsustainable and prioritises profit. Especially considering the substantial decline in London's social (council) housing, often gentrified replacing these council blocks with unaffordable rents and causing detriment by displacing the previous occupants. However, expanding urban areas into the greenbelt is highly unlikely and a poor planning decision; this would only exacerbate suburbanisation outside of London. Further encouraging private car ownership; due to how housing and services within suburbs are sparsely designed, resulting in a low-density population, this would continue to only suit the affluent commuters. To tackle this problem; invest in cycling infrastructure, push high-density affordable housing schemes and greater regulation on commercial vehicles in the city.
Though this video has some good points, there is a lot of incorrect information. I don’t live in London but I know a lot about it and its transport network. London’s transit system is actually great compared to most cities around the world. Lots of people use the buses, don’t know why you said otherwise. Ubers and delivery vans are not the reason roads are clogged, roads are clogged because of private cars. London has a lot of wealthy people that drive everywhere and refuse to take transit. And yes, there is a housing crisis, but no, the answer is not to expand the city outwards into nature reserves. That was a very strange part of this video. The solution is to encourage the construction of affordable apartment blocks, near train stations. At the same time the government should build more public housing.
No one is taking Uber because the tube is too expensive. I find public transport reliable and accessibly everywhere in London, as for prices its seems expensive but not compared to when I had a car before I moved to London.
Cross rail was ment to link Paddington station and Liverpool Street which are 2 stations of nation rail lines It using to bring people from these station which run to other cities like Norwich and Bristol into the centre of London
The pinned comment says that he compared it to Asian cities, especially Tokyo, but if the only way of having your transit system not be considered "terrible" is by matching Tokyo, that's too high a bar for it to be meaningful to me.
The idea of building on the green built is a slippery slope that cannot be allowed to happen. The city cannot just be allowed to keep growing and growing, consuming all the green space left. And with the farms, if they go then re-wild the land, don’t build more houses.
Lol the Elizabeth line just opened, 3 months after this video was produced I can only think of a handful of cities that I’ve been to with a comparable density of population to london which has a better transport system: Tokyo, Hong Kong, and maybe Amsterdam? Everywhere else has severe shortcomings in some way or another. Not sure why stringing together a bunch of random statistics is appropriate here. I was looking forward to an interesting video about London’s organic development resulting in some major inefficiencies, but I ended up giving up on this video 70% of the way into the video. London’s design could be a lot better, yes, but not for any of the reasons listed in this video.
You outlined 4 reasons why the roads are slower, all of which boiled down to too many cars. Then you went on to mention busses going only 6ph… but didn’t blame it on any of the reasons that streets were too crowded? Wtf??
I'm unsure about many things mentioned in the video. Regarding housing, I would take a guess that the billions flowing in from wealthy Russian, Qatari, Saudi, Chinese and Indian businessmen might be fuelling the issue. The first thing any rich person in a non democratic country does is buy property in London or New York as assets to stash their money offshore. Maybe increased taxes/levies on unoccupied/second homes could create some revenue and make the market more friendly to renters than investors. On the subject of transit, I think the UK should take some note from Singapore on taxing ownership of private vehicles in order to fund public transit.
the point made At 4:18 did planners take this into account anywhere, I honestly think that most places didn't see able to cope with it was because that infrastructure was already over engineered, is not necessarily inherently a good thing, although there are some benefits
I also like how they all the demonstrations in examples of a well-thought-out city is a grid formatted city, within the planning sector although a grid system offers certain advantages there are also massive downsides to the use of a some of these being, higher car speed, less pedestrian connectivity, repetitions of blocks, the streetscape is repetitive and often similar to be able to differentiate them from one street to another Street, just to name a few, ideal for car navigation and travel however not ideal for other types movement, although this is not true in all circumstances it is most definitely true with larger blocks
i really dont know where this idea comes from. london is one of the best city with great urban design and awsome public transportation. thats why you dont see cars in main central london, you see bus and cabs. and thats enough!!!i used to live in radlet and in those small places car is mandatory as lack of better bus routes, but the main 6 zones in london are awsome. you need to go outside the uk!! come to lisbon, you will see what a rubbish city it is!!
The opening is a good example of where this video asks a question about travel or community - such as the average speed - and then answers with a statistic about car travel speed, even thought people rarely travel via this method. It says one of the drivers of crossrail is to bring down the cost of travel, I've never seen this as a stated aim.
It's a huge and sprawling but I agree that it's way too congested, gridlocked at the worst of times and super over crowded in the west end, the tube does help alleviate this... but is also hugely crowded at busy times lol. (Elizabeth line is fully open now)
Also Uber in November 2021 celebrated 1 billion trips since it launched 10 years ago in the whole UK. This sounds a lot. Until you realise that in a decade the London Underground transported 3 billion people despite ONLY covering London.
This isn’t “why London is terribly designed” This is “why I can’t drive a car in london” You do know they have legitimately said they are encouraging walking and cycling. London isn’t made for cars and it never should be. Besides, why would you want people to be able to drive in London when the uk is trying to go green.
