urban transit

Not Just Bikes argues that North American transit struggles to attract riders because of the land use around it, not the transit itself. It uses examples such as a London, Ontario line with unreachable stations.

A Vox explainer from the 2020 election series on why American public transit is so poor. It traces the effect of the interstate highway system on cities and the resulting car dependence.

Not Just Bikes examines Toronto's GO Transit commuter rail, arguing it is a costly system with park-and-ride stations and rush-hour-only service that subsidizes car-dependent suburbs.

Oh The Urbanity! argues that most city dwellers live in dense residential neighbourhoods outside downtown, which can be calm and peaceful. It draws on older, denser parts of Toronto and Montreal.

Oh The Urbanity! questions the framing that urban planning reforms like bike lanes and traffic calming wage war on suburbanites. It argues that suburban and urban residents alike want less traffic on their own streets.

Not Just Bikes explains the Downs-Thomson paradox using Amsterdam and Toronto: road widening doesn't fix congestion, and buses stuck in traffic make transit slow. It argues for giving transit its own priority infrastructure.

A recording of Andres Duany's 1991 'San Antonio By Design' seminar on suburban sprawl. He lays out how codes, zoning and policy produce sprawl and makes the case for new urbanism.

Not Just Bikes contrasts traditional and suburban development in North America. It looks at the financials behind each pattern and argues that suburban development leaves cities unable to pay for their own infrastructure.

Not Just Bikes takes on the common excuse that a country is simply too big or spread out for good transit and walkable cities. The video argues that city density and short everyday trips matter, not national size or overall population density.

Explains induced demand beyond roads, showing that it applies to transit, walking and cycling infrastructure too but with different consequences. It corrects common misunderstandings of the concept.

CityNerd critiques the Las Vegas Loop, the Boring Company's tunnel transit system, arguing its design and operation are poor. The video covers how the system actually runs.

Not Just Bikes contrasts typical car-dependent North American business parks with one near the airport in the Netherlands that works for driving, cycling and transit. It looks at how the design makes commuting easier.

Strong Towns explains the Growth Ponzi Scheme, in which post-war suburban growth takes on infrastructure costs that new development must keep funding. It describes why municipal finances become insolvent.

A long, sarcastic critique of Elon Musk's Loop tunnel transit idea and related Boring Company and Hyperloop claims. It leans on transit-planning arguments about capacity and throughput.

Not Just Bikes explains why Swiss trains are considered among the best in Europe and the world, covering frequency, connections and what riding them is like.

Not Just Bikes argues that the Netherlands, famed for cycling, is also the best country for drivers. It explains how prioritizing walking, cycling and transit makes driving faster and more pleasant.

Not Just Bikes explains, using Urban3's property-tax analysis, why car-dependent suburbs generate less tax revenue than they cost to maintain, so dense urban cores effectively subsidize them. It is part of a Strong Towns series.

The first episode of a Cities: Skylines series on urban politics and planning, focused on parking. It uses the game to show how parking minimums shape cities, drawing on Donald Shoup's book The High Cost of Free Parking.

Not Just Bikes reflects on five years in the Netherlands and tours small towns and cities, from Haarlem to Veenendaal. It argues that good urbanism with walkable streets, bike infrastructure and transit is found almost everywhere there, not just in Amsterdam.

A Fully Charged episode where Robert Llewellyn visits an Oxford street trialling Urban Electric's pop-up chargers. These are retractable 7kW charging points built into street furniture for homes without off-street parking.

A look at Le Plessis-Robinson, a French suburb transformed from modernist urbanism into traditional mixed-use fabric with local-style architecture, green space and a more balanced housing supply.

Not Just Bikes argues that urban noise comes mostly from motor vehicles, drawing on the book Curbing Traffic and a visit to Delft, a city that takes noise seriously.

The first video in Not Just Bikes' Strong Towns series explains the financial instability of North American cities, based on Strong Towns research. It argues that low-density suburban growth costs more to maintain than it brings in.

Not Just Bikes explains how many American suburbs, built all at once rather than incrementally, cannot cover their infrastructure costs and survive on growing debt. It draws on Strong Towns' work on the growth Ponzi scheme.

A snarky, comedic video essay from Climate Town, with a guest appearance by Not Just Bikes, arguing that American suburban sprawl and single-family zoning are financially and environmentally unsustainable. It covers how zoning rules shape housing and what viewers can do locally, such as attending zoning meetings.

A long information session where The Boring Company presents its vision for Loop, an underground high-speed transit system, and the traffic problems it aims to solve. It includes discussion of faster tunnel boring and electrification.

Nine minutes of unedited footage of a very busy bicycle and car crossing at Korte Prinsengracht and Haarlemmerstraat in Amsterdam. Cyclists, pedestrians and cars flow through without traffic lights.

Charles Marohn of Strong Towns presents, in a Talks at Google session, the ideas from his book on why many North American towns struggle financially despite decades of growth. He argues for incremental, bottom-up city building as a path to local prosperity.

Not Just Bikes explains how Dutch traffic lights use early detection, transit priority and conflict-free design to cut waiting. The aim is to move as many people as possible rather than as many cars.

A 1996 documentary on the twentieth-century American decline of public transport and the role of car companies and the highway lobby in it. It is best known for its account of GM's streetcar buyouts.

Adam Something gives a short, tongue-in-cheek defense of Soviet-era prefab apartment blocks. He argues they offer efficient, dense housing with schools and services built nearby.

Not Just Bikes looks at traffic in the Bahamas to show that a small country can be just as car-centric as a big one. He ties it to land use, car dependence and how dedicated transit lanes help.

A short Vox video on Barcelona's superblocks, an urban design approach that closes interior streets to through traffic to return space to pedestrians.

CityNerd explains why traffic congestion grows nonlinearly as more cars use a road network, and why adding road capacity tends not to fix it. It covers the consequences for drivers, bus riders, cyclists and pedestrians, and discusses alternatives such as true bus rapid transit.

A short urbanism video presenting original observations of how drivers treat stop signs, to argue that cyclists rolling through them under an Idaho stop is no different. It filmed intersections in Ottawa.

Oh The Urbanity! tests the theory that banning housing investors would fix affordability, using Rotterdam's ban as a case study. The video finds mixed results.

Not Just Bikes explains why the channel exists, through the creator's walk in suburban Houston. It shows how car-dependent design makes cities hostile to pedestrians.

Not Just Bikes explains the Strong Towns argument that car-dependent American suburbs cost more to maintain than they generate in taxes. It describes the growth Ponzi scheme that props up municipal finances.

Not Just Bikes argues that stop signs are a poor traffic control, drawing on Dutch practice and the Idaho stop to show intersections can be safer without them, especially for cyclists.

CityNerd lays out a data-driven method for deciding where high-speed rail should be built in North America and identifies 56 city pairs that justify it, based on population and distance.