Can I Survive One Day without a Car in this German City?

[@johncrwarner]

As I have lived in Germany in a medium sized city with 350k population for 15+ years and worked, shopped and pursued leisure activities without using even the local carsharing scheme. I also have a problem with riding bikes as I have a balance problem and so only use public transport and shank's pony (my feet) with an einkaufswage or as I call them "Old Ladies Chariots" I do all of the shopping.

[@lucas2000.]

As someone who studies in Rosenheim, lives in Kolbermoor and might soon work in Bad Aibiling, I was so surprised when I saw your videos showing all the places I see on a daily basis! Keep up the great work :)

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I'm glad that you liked it! I really want to continue focussing on places that do not get enough attention, small towns, etc... My wife is German and is also from the area. Feel free to shoot me an email to the address in my channel description!

[@dv7533]

Interesting to see a German town doing bicycle infrastructure. For me, being from the Netherlands it seems like a blast from the past, since this seems like the infrastructure I grew up with. It looks like how the Netherlands was about 25 years ago, but once you have a critical mass of bicycle infrastructure, more people will use bicycles for more things and improvements to the infrastructure will increase ever more. I think most of Germany could be on par with the Netherlands in 10 or 15 years.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

That is one of the most beautifully encouraging things that anyone has ever commented on one of my videos. I'll see if I can find a way to work this into a future video, it matches with my outlook on infrastructure (it's like a scale from USA→Dutch). A critical mass is building here (I hope), and I believe that we're moving in the right direction!

[@prinzchen17]

i‘m from Berlin and love and share your thinking about your future projection on how bike infrastructure could evolve in Germany, buuuuut i‘m doubting we will catch up to the Netherlands that soon (it is quite a high bar to cross though - cycling in NL is just heavenly🙌).. Many of us will try to push this change though💫

[@yama123numbercauseytdemand4]

Hear hear. That is something to strive for.

[@nick2555v6]

Living in Chile, I bought an old bike for $30 and was able to get to work everyday and visit any part of the country I wanted without a car. Now living in Ottawa, I can't even get home from the bar without a taxi because the buses end service at 1 am. Tamo como la wea con la dependencia del auto

[@jessicaanderson750]

This is great! Living in Freiburg, I knew going carless in a mid-size city was easy, but seeing the small town perspective is super interesting. Also fascinating how similar Rosenheim's infrastructure is to Freiburg's, especially the riverside Radweg with periodic bridges/underpasses

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I haven't been to Freiburg in many years, but I remember it being super beautiful! I think Germany had since standards with bike infrastructure, and these river ways are included. I'll have to take a look at what you mentioned!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Thank you all so much for watching! If you are able, watch as much of the video as you can. Viewer duration helps this message reach more people! This video is a little different than what I've made previously so I hope that you'll bare with me! Comment below if you've had similar experiences, if you've seen infrastructure like this where you live, if you want to see this in your own cities, or even if you just wanna say hi!

[@XR190190]

As an European I myself is amazed. Because we have all these things mixed together, cars, pedestrians, bikes etc and it's working fine!

[@jorgkunischewski9363]

I Like your focus on the Fussgängerzone, this things are everywhere in Germany, there are very well established and proven to work very well in most cases, but strangely they are almost never included Into the discussion. People say "you can not ban Cars in entire streets or neighbourhoods, that will never work", but at the same time we are already doing that on pretty Central and important places all over Germany.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Exactly, it's a contradiction that must be addressed. The hearts of German towns are not car streets with 2-3 shops that have direct parking, they are these pedestrian zones that can handle so many more customers and which support a wider number/variety of businesses!

[@PardonMyFrench16]

I was literally just talking about how cities in Europe are more accessible by walking and generally easier to get around and why I want to move there, thank you for this video it helped a lot!!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I'm glad that you liked it! Feel free to share it!

[@TheWampam]

Unfortunatley in many places in Rosenheim the cycling infrastructure is unnecessary bad i.e. many left turns actually still demand you using the pedestrian traffic lights.

[@Ranman242]

Ok, this is fantastic!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Glad you liked it!

[@HamSaladtv]

Very well done!!! I live in France and i I usually bike, walk, or take transport like trams much of the time and i love the quality of the life here.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Thank you! Yeah, France also has some amazing places for this! Life just feels better over here sometimes, in Europe.

[@noefillon1749]

Interesting, what city are you in ? There are some that are way betters than others regarding bike infrastructure.

[@GenericUrbanism]

This is amazing. The best Rural Urbanist.

[@iliveinatent2]

Just spent 4 days in Savannah, GA which is one of the more walk friendly towns in the US. I found that since I'm not rich enough to stay downtown I still often drove into the outskirts and walked in. I swapped halfway on my time there to a new place closer to downtown that supplied a bike and found the town within reach but you still end up biking on the roads primarily since there are none of the small pathways seen in this video. Good video with some interesting tid bits of culture/local history! Keep it up!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Hey, that's really cool about Savannah! When we were there, we took a train to the city but had to drive downtown. That's cool that your stay gave you a bike... If only the city invested in some bike infrastructure!

[@iliveinatent2]

@@TheRuralUrbanist true true, they have an ordinance that scared me a bit where u can't have bikes in any of the parks which are one of the best parts of the city. I think making paths is hard there since it's so dense though. Not as rural as Bad Abling or organic as Rosenheim; but it is still a nice place compared to most of the US.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

@@iliveinatent2 that ordinance is the most pointless garbage that I've ever heard... Probably some anti-homeless thing. The cool thing about the cycle infrastructure here is that's it's not all from scratch. The raised cycle tracks, for examples, are extensions and slight widenings of existing sidewalks. The shared use paths utilize empty riverfronts or similar. There are also paths between properties, which may be hardest to do in Sav.

[@hankleupen2775]

Incredible video! Fabulous job showcasing the great and not so great infrastructure. I do have a challenge for you though... Hop over the border to a smaller Dutch village or town, (I recommend Oudeschans) and try to do the same thing. It would be more rural, but I think a higher standard of cycling infrastructure. I would be so happy to see you try it! Have a nice day!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Great suggestion! I'll see when I can make it over there...who knows! Seriously though, I relish the idea of finding a smaller place with even better infrastructure!

[@xNukeium]

Great video, looking forward to more content from you!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Thanks!

[@prinzchen17]

Herzlich Willkommen in Deutschland! Beste Grüße aus Berlin, einer -zum Teil- sehr gut erradelbaren Stadt🌇

[@nerdwisdomyo9563]

I like these kinds videos! beau miles made a great video where he tried to walk to work in Australia and it took him like 2 days It be cool to make my own video like that where I try to go to a grocery store without a car and document it I’m actually pretty close to Portland Maine so I could try and go there and see how many days it takes me

[@androidedestruidor_robot]

When you go to the intersection you can see several traffic prohibition signs, that was an only way road

[@NicLaue]

Hey, this is even better than the last videos! Looking forward to more content like this! How did you get such stable shots from the bike?

[@lunaris7235]

woah you are the first person on a bike in Germany that I've seen that actually stops at the red lights, haha... Great video, it perfectly showed the things where Germany is great and where it definitely needs to improve!

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Small towns, I have to play by the rules! A woman also died at one of the intersections I filmed. Last year.

[@Ojajjajaj]

I've lived in the subrubs of Auckland New Zealand my entire life and there are only a few roads that don't have footpaths on each side of the road

[@matthewcain2880]

Awesome video!!

[@freakpunk54]

MassDOT has an engineering directive that requires at least one sidewalk on rural roads and sidewalks on both sides of urban roads so there is progress! slow, but its happening

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Thank goodness for that!

[@santikorestuadhi9040]

wow glad to found your channel. keep making videos

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Glad you liked it, I will!

[@scottlauer3792]

Another great video, great videography. working out and showing how easy it is to get around on a bike

[@SirHeinzbond]

the only doubt i had was about your knowledge of rules and customs of german roads... at 6:30 around no one would have had a problem if you were putting your bike on the pedestrian sideway, cause there were no people in sight....

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I honestly didn't expect him to come then and would've gone on the sidewalk if the curb was lower😅 or I'd seen him earlier.

[@jiainsf]

Upload the entire trip, real time. No need to thank me

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I tried to do that originally, but it didn't really work that well. To actually make it a good KZbin video, I had to cut a lot... Maybe I'll upload it later, issues and all. But I want my channel page to stay focused

[@deinemudda1049]

I live in Germany and looking at the cities I've seen so far, mixed with the knowledge Not Just Bikes gave me, Ashwell as combining that with my experiences in France (I'm not exactly far from the border) I can confidently say that Germany is doing absolutely terrible. At least, in most places, I know 4 cities that actually don't do as bad.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

It's a little column A, a little column B. I've been in some cities that are much better than my times in the US, but others that struggle to have good infrastructure. Rosenheim is better than it should be.

[@kailahmann1823]

there are basically two concepts on bike infrastructure in Germany: The South tends to only create a fully separated network of bike trails, side streets and oversized sidewalks ("kombinierter Geh- und Radweg") creating completely different routes, which doesn't connect to everywhere. The North follows more a "per street" approach, where every single street has either bike lanes or low traffic volumes and speeds. Even if you are only one block over from a bike street, there is still demand to build a bike lane _here_, even though it can be narrower. Those separated routes may exist too as a shortcut, but are not the only option.

[@Seagull_House]

i love this new genre of americans who've moved here demonstrating how cars are genuinely a blight on society

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

That's part of my goal!!! Happy that you enjoyed this!

[@Seagull_House]

@@TheRuralUrbanist yayyyy!

[@Seagull_House]

@@TheRuralUrbanist i also really related to the video as a person living in a European country- I've never understood American car obsession until I realised their cities were bulldozed to accommodate them, i always thought they were just lazy and couldn't be bothered to wait for the train or take the bike

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

@@Seagull_House unfortunately it is also heavily related to marketing from auto companies. They marketed their products heavily, destroyed the quality of rail and public transit deliberately, and took other actions on the federal level to force people to take a the car.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

@@Seagull_House And yeah, there are not enough English language channels on these topics from the EU, so here I am!

[@stekra3159]

I am form Vienna and also can not under stand how much people drive hear

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Especially in Wien, you have amazing transit!

[@aeon6520]

no offense brother but that voice is one hundo percent ai generated interesting choice cool video

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

No, it's my real voice😭😭😭. Look at my first video, same voice but much worse mastering. I use software to smooth out some of the audio issues with my mic, maybe that's what you're hearing?

[@Kanvereb]

"I bought this bike from a guy in a parking lot for a hundred euros..." So you took your part to support bike thievery?

[@alex2143]

A hundred euros is a pretty normal price for a bike. And maybe the guy lives next to the parking lot.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Honestly, I am also very suspicion 😅. It wasn't registered as stolen, but the man I bought it from was Russian (didn't mention because I don't like to stereotype) and many many things were broken. It later needed a new drivetrain, brakes, rim, and still needs more. Ended up spending like 300+🙃.

[@MusikCassette]

If the answer is no, there is seriously something wrong with you.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

Yeah, if you watched, honestly was fairly easy with a few small issues🙃. Title is more to show that it's not a given, even though this is Europe.

[@lepsjarororo672]

"We can't get rid of all traffic right away" - We can't rid of all traffic in general. Grow up hippie. Cars can be limited if the urban planning is good and you can cut car trips by 3 in a population but CARS ARE USEFUL and won't go away in general.

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

I'd love to keep the discourse here respectful. You make some good points and we probably will always have cars. My point is more that we can't remove all traffic from places where it isn't good or practical right away. My personal beliefs are that the majority of people don't need a car, but I understand that many still will. A world where the people who don't want to drive don't need to is a world which is better for everyone, especially those who still want to drive.

[@ImKezo-kq4pq]

I'm American and one of the reasons I wanna move to germany is because you can live a car-free life if you live in a city, You can walk, cycle or use public trasnportation it just saves moeny and you're more physically active I don't think Germans know that they are blessed to be born in Germany

[@TheRuralUrbanist]

It's not perfect, but it is a great place to live. Checkout my Konstanz video if you liked this one!