How Straight Lines Broke NYC

[@nomnommaple]

We need more parking lots and walmarts. The city has too many buildings and is too walkable, so every road should be expanded into 4 lanes.

[@Iosif.dumitru01]

Sarcasm 👍

[@RonGerstein]

New York City forbids Walmart from opening any store inside the city.

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

The city also needs less parks. They are a waste of space! The sky is enough nature for most!

[@chiefenumclaw7960]

Why can't we build apartments INSIDE the Wal-Mart!? Why should I have to change out of my pajamas to buy 3 tubs of Great Value brand ice-cream!?

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

@@chiefenumclaw7960 I like your thinking. Maybe not inside the store but above it. Apartments but first floor is a store. This is a great original idea of mine!

[@heyimapl]

it's a tragedy i'll never be able to experience the thrill of roaming the aisles of a 200,000 square foot walmart. instead i'll have to settle for walkable streets :/

[@derpyyyyyyyyyyyt]

what a waste of space that couldve been used for 27 more lanes to finally stop traffic smh my head

[@louisjohnson3755]

Walkable streets are way better than a Walmart. Walmarts are depressing, walking cities like nyc are full of life, particularly in queens, Brooklyn or Bronx, but also Manhattan, even though it’s loud and dirty. It’s still has way more life than your lifeless suburbs with your giant lifeless grocery stores that force you to drive 30 minutes just to get groceries

[@louisjohnson3755]

@@derpyyyyyyyyyyytmore lanes won’t stop traffic, it will just make traffic worse. It’s called induced demand, seemed like you never heard of it, since your just a typical carbrain, who only thinks about making his car trip faster rather than making cities more lifeful and allowing for improvement of transportation that isn’t cars, just for the convenience of your lousy car

[@derpyyyyyyyyyyyt]

@@louisjohnson3755 sarcasm

[@heyimapl]

@@louisjohnson3755 im nyc thru and thru bro its sarcasm. i love walkability & urbanism

[@connorparadis4804]

Should be noted that the "time lost in traffic" is for car commuters, not the "average person". The average person in NYC does not have a car. Additionally, while the city gov't has made promises to add x miles of new bus and bike lanes, they have consistently failed to fulfill these promises for the last decade.

[@felmlyd]

Couple of errors: 1. The average person who commutes exclusively by car spent on average 101 hours in traffic, not the average citizen. 2. I have no idea where you got the 36 number for wheelchair accessible stations. The true number is either 117 or 145 depending on how you count.

[@assonance9057]

It’s about 150

[@louisjohnson3755]

4:37 actually in NYC, only 3 percent of people commuting into Manhattan drive a car, so it’s not like we need super wide streets and highways, we need more subways and commuter rails

[@ufifan]

How is there still so much traffic though?

[@louisjohnson3755]

@ because cars take up a lot of space, and those 3 percent of people who are driving into Manhattan, is more than enough to clog up the streets. No it is not because there isn’t enough road space, it is because cars take up a lot of space. Also we can’t be making out street super wide and dangerous for pedestrians just because a minority of drivers is annoyed they are getting stuck in traffic when they wouldn’t be getting stuck in traffic if they just took the subway or commuter rail

[@presumedeagle10]

@@ufifanbecause there’s 2 million people in Manhattan, and even a small fraction of that in cars overwhelms a lot of roads

[@bionicle37]

Why is *insert american city* terribly designed

[@ranfan1820]

And that's why we need to ban cars. You will own the nothing and be contented, or however it goes.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

@@ranfan1820 What they need to do is make car use more expensive and build alternatives to it!

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

Most cities have design issues - just different types

[@BuildNewTowns]

@@Blaqjaqshellaq We need more cool walkable towns in the US where ppl could choose to live there if they wanted.

[@gagehammarlund2171]

Terribly designed but still more free than the euros

[@wyw876]

7:55 lol, that footage of bicycles on the Brooklyn Bridge is soo out of date. The bike lanes have been moved down a level alongside car traffic as protected 2-way , and the upper walkway is now pedestrians only. The only solidly true point in this video is the lack of alleyways for the unpleasant aspects of modern life. We have dumpsters - yes, on the sidewalks - but those are not operated with public funds.

[@seanmcmullen4274]

Weak video

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

How would you have done it?

[@oldgreg506]

@@Blaqjaqshellaqnone of these issues he talked about had to do with the grid layout…

[@Njndirish13]

​@@Blaqjaqshellaqby not doing it

[@possiblyadog]

I would actually argue that the 1800s grid plan is excellent because it was so future-oriented and forward-thinking. Just look at any number of US cities that were built and expanded without that lack of forethought and how unlivable they are now

[@louisjohnson3755]

The solution to this problem isn’t building more car lanes, it is building more subways, more bus lanes, and giving transit signal priority. If you add more car lanes, traffic will only get worse, it’s called induced demand, and if you build more lanes, more people will want to drive creating more traffic. Also buses and trains carry people way more efficiently and adding bus lanes and train lines will make traffic better because it will encourage more people to take the bus or train. Bike lanes can also help, since building bike lanes will also encourage more people to bike, which will also reduce traffic. The only solution to traffic is viable alternatives

[@ItzMiKeKirbY]

The fact that no other city in America has taken what positive things NYC has done and improved on it is just sad.

[@Kapro]

What is going on with the pie chart at 7:08? The 36 wheelchair accessible stations are shown as almost 25% of the entirety, instead of the 7.6% they actually are.

[@nycuba7478]

Caue i think he meant the number is 136

[@mirzaahmed6589]

There are far more than 36 accessible stations.

[@nknkannadiga9742]

This guy hates grid cities

[@bryan89wr]

"No one in New York drove, there was too much traffic" - Philip J. Fry

[@Trickaz94]

Man i was thinking just that

[@Dayvit78]

Paraphrasing a famous Yogi Berra quote when asked if he still went to this one fancy restaurant. "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

[@austinparagas1371]

I'd just like to point out the **initial** reason that NYC trash is in plastic bags (and not in containers) is because of a sanitation strike which led to NYers stopping use of metal cans, and transitioned over to plastic bags that were easier to deal with and handle from both the resident/business perspective as well as the trash collectors'. Recently, the Dept of Sanitation has also mandated at what time trash can go out at night, so it's not a stinking trash pile ~all day~. It's not a perfect system by any means, but NY is slow I guess lol

[@BCJDM]

Now do Why Toronto is terribly designed. There should be no shortage of information on that. We have a premier that hates the City of Toronto so he's currently working to remove bike lanes and revert them back to car lanes.

[@kimeiga]

lack of alleys is because they wanted to maximize sellable land area not because straight lines are bad. I agree that the garbage collection here is haphazard but i dont see what it has to do with straight lines

[@TheKewlPerson]

Yeah the real problem isn't cars themselves, we need to accommodate our cities for them! Destroy the housing widen the roads so some suburbanite can drive his Ford F-150 into one of the densest places in the world!

[@LegioXXI]

The most ironic part of comparing New York to Amsterdam is, that New York actually was founded as a Dutch colony - even called "New Amsterdam". You can actually still find Dutch street layout leftovers of the oldest part of NY.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

Not to mention the Dutch place names: Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island, Harlem, Stuyvesant, Bowery...

[@officialgreendalehumanbeing]

@@Blaqjaqshellaqalso vlissingen -> flushing

[@Trickaz94]

​​@@Blaqjaqshellaqwall street and Conan island are another few big ones

[@pierren___]

It was a french colony - Nouvelle Angoulême

[@Trickaz94]

@@pierren___ no it wasn't

[@kubiekemeester]

Like you said, the underground garbage containers like we have in The Netherlands... The newer upgraded containers even have sensors so the trash collectors have a better insight in when to empty the container.

[@Homer-OJ-Simpson]

1:27 I live in Chicago and I’ve traveled to NYC. What a difference alleys make! Manhattan is smelly and dirty because all the garbage is out front. I saw it in Brooklyn as well. Meanwhile, Chicago has alleys on basically all blocks and downtown has one sometimes two levels below street side that also function as alleys! Garbage trucks can pick up in the lower streets and parking entrances can be found below as well. But for areas with no lower levels, they have alleys for garbage and more.

[@justSTUMBLEDupon]

8:21 It’s going to increase some more when the recession hits. Cars are money pits (some more than others) that will eat up 1000 a month (payment and insurance) just for it to sit on the street, let alone maintenance, gas, and repairs. I’ve seen many MANY people move to bikes. There is a, what I would call, a make shift bike highway in Brooklyn that heads downtown on Bergen street.

[@mind-of-neo]

It's literally not, except for the part below Houston street. the uncompromising, perfect grid above Houston is incredible.

[@MSportsEngineering]

Most German train stations are not wheelchair accessible either because the elevators to the platform are broken for months or years.

[@MrAlexs888]

whats with the shitty photos, they hurt my eyes dude

[@agme8045]

I genuinely don’t understand why you’d need alleyways at all in a city. There aren’t any in mine, there aren’t any alleyways anywhere in my country in fact, and we don’t have giant piles of trash bags all around the city. There are trash containers every couple of meters and the garbage trucks empty the containers every night. Every couple of days all the containers and streets are cleaned with trucks by the city, and every apartment building/house/store must clean their sidewalk every morning, on top of the multiple ‘urban janitors’ that are constantly sweeping the streets, emptying trash cans, and collecting leaves so that the sewers don’t get clogged.

[@watershock9211]

Where do you live? This sounds labor intensive and expensive.

[@kimeiga]

from the guy behind "Why Cities With Grids Are Terribly Designed" comes the new banger "Why Cities With Straight Lines Are Terribly Designed"

[@robertrompf]

Meanwhile in most European countries we have huge garbage storage facilities underground. No mess, no smell, no trash on the streets.

[@ShaheenGhiassy]

I’d love to have alleyways here to clean up the trash. But think of how much housing would be lost to alleyways, and how much higher rent prices would be 🥵 3:00

[@NateCrail]

Should've talked about how the Governor stopped congestion pricing at the last minute SMH

[@ItzMiKeKirbY]

I hate car centric infrastructure as much as the next guy but congestion pricing was no different than tariffs on imported product. Just like tariffs, businesses and services coming into the city would have to pay more and thus pass on the cost on to the consumer. It would essentially make living in the congestion area even higher.

[@2aj.]

congestion pricing was a terrible idea it raises costs for everyone

[@NateCrail]

@@ItzMiKeKirbY Currently, the effects of our car centric infrastructure costs much more than what we pay for. Congestion pricing is a way to price the harmful externalities of vehicles. How much money will NYC save because of less traffic, better air quality, and an efficient transit system?

[@Demopans5990]

And then she just raises the bridge tolls

[@Michistrasse97]

Great job on this one! Do you think one day we'll have gridlock in bike lanes too? 😂

[@kimeiga]

i know you dont like grids but for what its worth if your phone dies you can still figure out how to get somewhere and sometimes that really saves you

[@user-ei7ed6zy9k]

As a Londoner who uses the tube 6 days a week. About 90% of this applies to us.

[@ryoukwjdbwopqmqpzl73819]

Hope you keep this consistency in uploads

[@L.I.T.H.I.U.M]

To support such a population, the city has to be exceptionally designed.

[@jonasrettig327]

Make superblocks like Barcelona.

[@leonardflame-w8w]

In Europe we also don't have alleys and our streets are clean this is a new york problem

[@Paepmaster]

I think they should ban private Cars in whole New York City. So the people need to use other forms of transportation. And they should build parking areas near public transport around New York City. 🙂

[@Demopans5990]

Easy method: Only cars with a special NYC plate can be in the city. Exception are cars parked on private property. Plates can be purchased through auction

[@vincenthickey8622]

How could not mention the most evil man Robert Moses effect on car culture? Second point, the problem of we have waterfront everywhere and almost no waterfront parks with highways blocking people ever reaching the water.

[@lioshin]

i think manhattan would be just as bad traffic wise if it wasn't designed with a grid

[@Inc.Co.]

FYI there are basically no alleys left in NYC

[@EdvanDomingues]

I live in America: gridlock on the street. Blondie 80's music

[@markmuller7962]

A cynical ultra-competitive metropoli with zero welfare... No new dumpster is going to solve the problem

[@jasonaarninkhof871]

You have to play with the cards you were given

[@ShaheenGhiassy]

Travelled to over 37 countries. Manhattan is the best city in the world (for me)

[@BuildNewTowns]

Interesting. Why do you like it best?

[@pyeitme508]

WOW!

[@MateusChristopher]

Its just too expensive to buy space to put a highway. You know if they could they would

[@Housewarmin]

You keep saying New York City, but only are showing Manhattan?

[@wojciechmuras553]

Two words: congestion charge.

[@EireHammer]

NYC is, has been and will most likely always be Gotham... until spite or mother nature decides otherwise

[@Housewarmin]

Dude, you gotta chill on the sound fx

[@kaiseramadeus233]

So is the problem NYC as a whole, or just Manhattan?

[@-Osiris-]

Change the title to "How MANHATTAN was designed for chaos", the other 80% of NYC not mentioned is fine.

[@Blaqjaqshellaq]

Perfectly?

[@aterxter3437]

Being French, I can't speak about NY, but I have both the experiences of living in outer suburbs of Paris (near Versailles) and in the center of Brest. I have to say that I have mixed feelings about bike lanes Pros : it becomes easy to navigate, you combine exercise and transportation for a healthier lifestyle. You can go nearly anywhere without struggling to find somewhere to park You don't care as much about traffic jams, and if a road is blocked because of construction you can just walk for a hundred yards on the sidewalk Cons : The streets gets even more prone to jamming For motorists, you get less and less places to park In a way the city gets reserved for those that live here and the comuters are thrown out Badly designed bike lanes are dangerous, especially those side-to-side with parking lanes, you are always at the risk of scamming into a car's door

[@wassupcuhwatchumeancuh]

6th comment!!!🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@theon860]

Yum

[@gangstagummybear3432]

This type of negative US place content is so popular now, yal foreigners truly need to worry about your own countries.

[@RoyMathieuBorole]

Laughs in Johannesburg and Lagos.

[@weamibrahim2146]

Laughs in Damascus

[@miloszkraszewski3533]

​@weamibrahim2146 can't beat that comment. Literally war zone.

[@weamibrahim2146]

@@miloszkraszewski3533 it's also designed like absolute shit though.

[@miloszkraszewski3533]

@weamibrahim2146 I took a look on Google maps and confirm. I have driven a garbage truck earlier in my life. I looked at the maps and saw how it's an ancient city with many citizens pushed up against a mountain and on multiple rivers. The street layout makes 0 sense.