Well said. The will to change is in short supply, these days.

​@@Redmenace96 in politics maybe, not for the people.

With the Americans' love of cars, it is unlikely that a functioning and inexpensive public transportation system will be established. But cars are another matter. Today, the average EV costs $47,000. That's too expensive for 80% of people. What will they drive instead? Scooters? Bicycles? Welcome to the future!

The point about willpower is very important. People want change, but there is little appetite to tolerate the period of disruption that it requires. I get it, but nothing will ever get done otherwise. Obviously, we don't want another Big Dig level of going over-budget and nearly a decade beyond expected completion, but a massive modernization of the MBTA would take time, money, and a hell of a lot of patience. I'd imagine any governor overseeing the bulk of it will probably get reamed, and they likely don't want to be the ones overseeing it, either (people's needs be damned).

Maybe the solution is to hire the engineers of the Peoples Republic of Chiina to upgrade our system. They could do so in a fraction of the time we could and on a much smaller buidget.

and bread is considered cake in UK

Yes, you’re right Ben!

Yoga Mats sure taste good

It's a misconception that there's no tuna in the tuna at subway. The way tuna is processed destroys the DNA as it is cooked at high tempature and pressure. Then it's mixed with ingredients that interfere with PCR. It's not that there's no tuna, it's that there's no proof there's tuna because the tuna dna is either destroyed or being hidden by other ingredients. At least this was true when I was in the food science industry.

I'VE BEEN EATING YOGA MAT PLASTIC?! WHAT THE HE11?!?!

That is what keeps the cities going like a well-oiled machine.

Not licensed? Does anyone care about that these days??

@@jimalcott760 What are you asking?

@@michaelmann8800He’s not making a dig at you for not having a DL then, but rather more the awful number of unlawful “motorists” here in the present day, just being sarcastic (don’t you miss it?😉)

I lived in eastern Massachusetts from 1982 to 1996. I was a student at Northeastern University, and even after I graduated and moved to the suburbs, I regularly drove to Wellington station when I needed to go downtown. Two years ago, I visited Boston for a conference downtown, and I enjoyed riding the T to visit old familiar places, as well as to shop for items I couldn’t get at home, although I was quite disturbed at the condition of the Orange Line trains. I do not want to see the T fail. I also love using trains to explore other cities I’ve visited, such as Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Beijing, and others.

Very astute obligation.

Very true. I lived in North Quincy and worked at a law office on Tremont St., kittycorner across the street from the Park St. station. No parking anywhere near that part of downtown. Unless you pay a HUGE amount to park in a garage - IF you can even find a space. Taking the T was the only viable way to get to work on time anyway since the traffic jams on the Southern Artery and Rt.3/128 are insane in the mornings and evenings. Reliably insane. I totally understand what you mean.

This is very true, and I never thought that other cities would have it differently. I’m envious.

yep i've had people who mostly drive try to ask me, a person who mostly walks/takes the train/bus and it was pretty much impossible for us to communicate

I DONT CARE WHY WOULD I, MY CONTENT IS SUPERIOR

Bostonian, the word you're looking for is Bostonian.

Much of this debt is from projects that improved transit as an agreement from the Big Dig. Yes, they are from the Big Dig, but the debt is exclusively from MBTA related projects. This includes projects such as the new GLX.

@@michaelpare5997crazy thing is isn’t that like one of the ONLY original mitigation projects to finally get completed other than the old colony commuter lines? I know Arborway was laughed off. Red/Blue and blue to Lynn kicked down the hall, north/south rail was also ignored. I’m actually shocked GLX ever got completed. Can’t wait to come back home and hopefully see it running

It may not have been mentioned directly but he did point out 20% of the annual expense was due to debt. The specifics would probably require its own video.

Too narrow, but the rest of the comment is right.

That’s not quite true. It shuts down early at night to fix the rails, not all day as implied. And the 3mph restrictions were only in place for a few days until safety was verified.

@@quadcorelatte8217 no, it was completely shut down for something like 2 weeks this fall. The slowdowns also definitely weren’t 3 days long, every time I take it there’s numerous sections of walking speed slowdowns

This video slid over the ineptitude, sloth and corruption that are hallmarks of this and other big-city systems. The T probably sits at the top of the heap in these departments, and it shows. They enjoy an enabling legislature, an apathetic public and media that's in the pocket of politicians. It should have been totally re-structured in the image of the Japan Rail system, with infrastructure publicly owned and operations provided by for-profit private corporations. Get it out of the political arena and encourage it to run efficiently through competition. To do so will be to bring down one of the largest taxpayer funded job and money schemes in existence, so that idea will never fly. Instead it will collapse, with a pile of dirtbag hacks battling over the spoils.

I moved out of south Medford right when they finished the line. Glad to hear I’m not missing much 😂

Where and when can I see this show? And what is it called?

@@B-rock-bragait’s called T: An MBTA Musical. It ended last month. It was okay.

A script that would really help the people would have it as the governor and state rep trying to ruin the people's commutes, because thats the reality of the control over the subway

Was this the one in Porter? I remembered seeing some posters of it up there

Holy crap I never though about that lol. That's a great point.

No. While I agree with your sentiment, roads do pay for themselves multiple times over. This is because they allow for the economy to function, allowing for the transport of goods and people, which will both make money. That money will go toward taxes, which will go toward the roads.

Who do you think rides the subway, parrots? Public transit is also far less detrimental to the environment and reduces pollution (and this, the burden on the healthcare system and also each individual's contribution to climate change) in urban centers. Just because they aren't also used for cargo doesn't mean they don't save money, genius.

Private cars need to be abandoned unless you want climate change to kill a significant fraction of the planet's population or cause a significant influx of immigrants who are trying to escape starvation.

@@justinwatson1510 please re-read my comment, as that was not the point I was making.

And a big part of the reason for this is that the Big Dig diverted funds away from the MBTA. I wish this was mentioned in the video

Nonsense It's been a mess forever.

@@liams923no amount of funding can fix widespread corruption and incompetence.

The denser the area and the more business and people concentrate themselves into one big clusterfuck, the worse it's going to get. There are no laws preventing the cluster from happening.

Agreed. I've been using the T to get work since the late 90's. Back then it was reliable and efficient. Now it's a mess.

you sound like a person who's never been stuck in the NY Port Authority bus terminal at 3am.

Jeez, and I thought we new yorkers had it bad with long time waiting in our subway system...

At it least it gives you time to practice saying Worcester. Rooster? Worsher?

Lived in Worcester for 2 years back when the commuter rail was every two hours, without a car, and I concur

@@perfectallycromulentnewark Penn station is like that too. Its a freak show at 3am

The green line is a mess it must compete with cars at every intersection.

@@tombeegeeeye5765 The Green Line single handedly solidified my deep disdain for light rail. Is it better than nothing? Sure, but just barely. 😂

They went with the regular Elmer's, not the heavy duty. Was stuck in that tunnel every day for 9 years and don't think for one second that the ceiling falling hadn't gone through my brain more than once. Epoxy in cement holding a four ton slab, what could go wrong? They ran out of money and never dressed the ceiling correctly. They also installed a railing system on the catwalks in the tunnel that had to be removed after a person on a bike lost and arm from the sharp edge design or they pulled it out before that happened, I can't recall. Plus the tunnel is impossible to clear. It's disgusting.

Yup I remember when that happened. I believe it was an old woman and her kids or something like that. But she was crushed by one of those ceiling panels. Same thing here. I’ve been stuck sitting in those tunnels for more hours of my life than I care to remember. Laughing with the other guys in the truck about when is the next one gonna fall and crush us. I don’t work in the city anymore and I don’t care to ever go back to the city. I’ve lost hours that have added up to days that add up to weeks and months and years of my life sitting on the southeast expressway. Good riddance!

@@timothycormier3494 I wish I still had the special edition magazine that said you would whisk through the city during rush hour in a gleaming tunnel. It was a woman who was crushed , she was in her PJ's , had decided to take the ride into the airport with her husband at the last minute who was picking up a relative or friend flying into Logan late at night . A young woman was killed when a manhole cover was dislodged south bound near the end of the tunnel by a vehicle traveling well over the speed limit ( Of course nobody went the speed limit , it was fast and furious when light traffic was the case) The manhole cover flew through her windshield and took her head off . Two second either side of time and she may have not died. I guess it just wasn't our time. I wonder how much poison we all breathed sitting there?

@@rbspider that’s right! I forgot about the manhole cover. Yeah that was brutal. And yes, I can’t imagine how much break dust and exhaust fumes we’ve inhaled from sitting forever inside of those tunnels. Especially on a hot summer day when that unmistakable stink of the tunnels is at its worst. So humid that it can’t escape because the air is so wet and heavy. Yucko! Remember deciding whether or not to take the expressway or the pike. Because one of them might…possibly…maybe moving…at all. I don’t know how old you are. But if you remember back before the big dig. Before the highway was the way it is now. The southeast expressway was a whole lot worse than it is now. If you can believe that. But even today. Heading home or outbound on the expressway. Ya got the HOV lane dumping out with the RT3 people crossing over the hov people crossing over to get on 95. All in the same spot. It’s a nightmare! 😂😂😂

@@timothycormier3494 I saw Boston when Jordan Marsh would setup Santa's village, back when the Annex had the toys and record department . I sold newspapers at North station when it had the elevated orange line . Later on I worked at the phone company in the Combat zone . That phone company building was used as the HQ for the all girl Ghost Busters movie. On the bright side , brake pads are no longer made with asbestos , but I recall people saying that working in the city was like smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. I ended up with a dashcam and have images of cars traveling horizontal in front of me to cut across lanes. One night there was a roll over inside the north bound side , a child had been ejected and died. I saw cars and motorcycles go through there at over 100 mph . Fridays and Saturdays were the worst at two am. Do not miss it one bit. They also missed the chance to finally connect North and South Stations. 13 billion seems cheap these days . Since 2021 we have spent 450 billion on immigration

That’s all of America.

As a Boston-area resident, no it's not. Go into most major city in the US and look at the underside of your typical highway overpass. Chances are you'll see one heck of a lot of rust.

this is the result of big government. what wendover didn't discuss is how the politicians then use these struggles as political weapons against their opponents come election year. this creates a perverse incentive to not actually solve the problems because if you can't blame the other guy for something, you have a lower chance of being elected.

He said to him "'You shall love the Lord your god with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it : 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

in the 90's and 2000's, the T was pretty good

DIDNT ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER

DIDNT ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER

DIDNT ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER

@OFFICERJIMMYUTTP I don't get it, what is your grift? To hope that some people who check to see if your videos indeed have been stolen by Wendover to actually click on your unrelated videos?

​@@NUMleaderNUMleaderbut do you play tag across Europe?

Didn’t we kick you guys out of boston?

nearly all inner-city train systems in Europe were established several decades before the US started building theirs, and all of the European systems work many times better than any kind of commuter system in the US. It's a matter of how the public transport is perceived. In Europe, public transport is generally something we see as required for society to function, while in the US there's an overwhelming belief it's something for the poor who can't afford a car, and thus the ones who can do something to improve it, refuses

when i saw that part again after you pointed it out i got furious because the DLR was colored Pink and the rest of the Overground wasnt there, just the East London Line

@@thesteelrodent1796Yes, it’s the impact of car culture here w/the idea of “freedom” and independence. The USA is so vast, our freeways/highways/roadways and vehicles are much bigger as well.

Sam didn't get the actual roads right either by deliberately excluding Rt9. That said, The "Boylston squeal" shows how tight/old Boston's subway is. It's almost charming; but Boston has also had over a century to fix that problem and has done nothing.

I feel like people are just gonna ignore this but its true. And despite all the bad things you can say about it its still one of the best transit systems in the nation. I live way out in the suburbs and I never take my car farther than Riverside or Alewife, it's very convenient.

Grew up in Boston here. I left and live in NYC now. I have spent too much time over the years advocating for better transit and reliability for the city and region. For the first time, I actually do believe it's finally going in the right direction under new leadership. As much as we love to praise Baker, he horribly misread the situation and managed to worsen the MBTA in his early years. His original concept of privatizing the T, paired with not fundamentally understanding how deeply broken the system was back in 2015 (even if he was aware, he miscalculated just how bad it was), brought years of additional mismanagement, accidents, delays, poor design quality for new trains, and a staggering laundry list of repairs not being made. Wu and Governor Healey definitely gave me hope as they knew this was a huge issue. Both have my vote to this day and since Baker left, suddenly most of the major problems his administration mishandled seem to be finally getting addressed. Its not Baker's fault entirely, he was given a system in terrible repair, but again he only tried to improve it minimally all while his appointees at the MBTA lied to everybody as to just how bad the state of the infrastructure was. Fun fact, there are multiple stations on the orange line alone that have come close to imminently collapsing but the MBTA did not want to disclose that, so they did 'quiet' repairs by shutting the stations down claiming they needed to do minor improvements when in actuality, they were emergency repairs to avoid the absolute worst. And unfortunately, Haymarket station collapse would happen, to which was mostly the T's fault and not the construction happening above... It is a constant story where instead of the system being proactive, it's only trying to avoid the absolute worst case scenario. Trains on fire, derailments and even minor ceiling collapses are almost nothing in comparison to what situations the MBTA was keeping under wraps. I know I wrote a lot here but its years of anger all of us from the area have felt about the T. I hope that the repairs continue to happen, I hope the state releases the 'big dig' debt that was tacked onto the MBTA, I hope the state votes to give additional funding to bring it to a state of good repair + that one day, we can finally get a real proper ring line around the core of Boston and Cambridge. Additional NSRL needs to happen, electrification of the CR (pollution levels of diesel, along with their noise, has caused health defects to residents living near these lines) to improve reliability, speed and higher frequencies. So much that needs to happen and we need to be serious about making those investments for the future.

@@kaicandoit this was amazing to read, darn good comment. I worked on parts of the OL tunnels doing inspection work almost 2 years ago and got to see first hand how inefficient things were run, before the new GM entered the picture

​@@duncanmcauley9450 I work in Architecture & CM and have heard insane stories about those tunnels. Had a friend who had to analyze the conditions of Chinatown station a few years back which I'm sure you've heard or seen what the condition of those support beams/columns were like prior to the emergency repair.

​@@SaxPanther"best transit systems in the country" -- have you actually been anywhere? It is BY FAR THE WORST

I DONT CARE WHY WOULD I, MY CONTENT IS SUPERIOR

I DONT CARE WHY WOULD I, MY CONTENT IS SUPERIOR

I DONT CARE WHY WOULD I, MY CONTENT IS SUPERIOR

to add to this, the (network manager? i don't know the english name, but IDFM) also finances the car pooling system. i stopped physically using the subway/tram/bus lines in favor of car pooling as my commuter pass also pays for the car trip. much faster, more comfortable, but for the same price as public transports.. aka using the already traveling cars for commuting and reducing the load of current public transports. and to avoid abuse, this is only for suburb to suburb or Paris to suburbs, not paris - paris system

Wesh mgl

If only they could extend Branch (green) down closer to me...a hour drive north to get to a train is still not great. (I would have explored more of DC by now if it was easier to get there...never driving in DC ever again...once made Florida drivers look polite)

yeah, wait until people find out about the part where the State of Indiana outright banned Light Rail Transit from being built in the state (2014), that'll be a fun one too.

Indianapolis’ public transit is the worst in America for city size -lifelong resident

3 hours is wild. I understand you're new to the area and it's an improvement from back home. I am from Weymouth and I hate the T because of how long it takes to get to Boston compared to a 20 minute drive

I'm from Weymouth and have no clue what u and the other guy from Weymouth in this thread are talking about. I havent lived there in a few years but when I did I would just get on the redline in Braintree and I'd be in Boston within 30 minutes. The other dude says he'd rather take the 20 minute drive but it's only a 20 minute drive at like absurd hours. Basically from 4am till 1am it's at least an hour drive with the traffic

Right?! There's no possible way it would take 3 hours.. I'm confused..or maybe they were.

Kind of a different meaning for these lyrics: "Hands, touching hands... Reaching out, touching me, touching you"

Depending on what time and which season you're in as well as which line you're riding, you can definitely find out how it feels to be "packed like sardines in a can" 🤣 Everyone knows that going out of Boston on the Red Line, once you get past Downtown Crossing and South Station going southbound, you can claim a seat somewhere on the car. Likewise happens after Copley / Prudential on the Green Line going outbound, and most definitely an empty car after North Station. Same thing happens at Haymarket stop on the Orange Line as well as around Ruggles station. Sometimes... its just faster walking from Ruggles over to Longwood Medical Center 😐

Going Outbound towards Kendall square on the Green Line before a Sox game is to test your faith in other people's hygiene

I guess you've never seen the New York subway at rush hour! (Been there, done that -- if the passengers in the Boston subway are "on a molecular level of closeness", then the Flushing line (7 train) in New York at morning rush hour can only be described as having a neutron-star level of density!)

@@agentorange153And it reeks of garlic!

@QemeH if Boston was European no one would be against more transit since it wouldn't act like a garbage highway

Almost European is somewhat accurate, but boston is very much more American car centricism than anything else. More European is only a positive saying. What on earth is there to be proud of from the usa that isn't thanks to Europe? Lmao

It wasn't "almost", there were a dozen black people in Boston in 1960s.

@churblefurbles Europe has black people, and had had black people for a long time, and a larger population than that at that time period. Today around 18% of France is black. Places being completely white are soley an American thing. Race was never even a thing of discussion in Europe, class and ethnicity played a much larger role, meaning there was never an attempt to stop certain races from being apart of the culture. Don't get me wrong there's plenty of supremacy, but it's not race focused, well at least it wasn't for most. The 3d Reich was unique for its ridiculously irregular way of viewing society, blaming issues on race.

that is in no way an insult

Same here i hadnt used public transportation in a while but had 2 use the orange line 2 weeks ago for Jury duty. I was surprised the orange lane had all their cars updated but my god some of the stops the train literally went like A TURTLE, i had no idea this was a common occurrence....

As a child I grew up in Boston and know the subway system like the back of my hand. Before the current orange line position it was elevated. It was ugly but seemed to be far more reliable at 75 years old than the current branch which is only 36 yrs old.

does the new orange like still have that dumb fabric "anti-grafitti" seats? I remember when those first started appearing and people worrying about wet spots being unseen. At least with NYC trains, you can se the puddle of water/soda/urine on the seat before sitting on it.

@@twistedlittlepuppythey are like orange plastic seat, so very easy to see if they are dirty, but they are still pretty comfortable

That Community College to Assembly stretch used to be brutal, but there has been improvement thankfully.

Well they clearly arent that smart if they sat there for FIVE HOURS and didn't even go out once before that lmao

Can't say I'm surprised -- their incompetence is at EVERY level

Its hard to believe a medical place can sign in someone and forget about them. That's highly unlikely.

If you think waiting 17 minutes is horrific, try living in western Massachusetts!!! Bostonians are such spoiled wimps!!! All the funding & you're STILL full of complaints!!!

JFK to Braintree was over an hour until about a month ago

It would be nice if they'd fix the rails between NQ & Wolly station. They've worked on them overnight (delightful) many times over the past year and the trains still limp between both stations, vibrating the hell out of my house. It's literally sinking. Won't even start on the Comm Rail with a single track south of NQ. Disaster waiting to happen.

No one from Massachusetts has ever called themself a "Bay Stater". The word is Masshole.

I was in Boston this year as well and can say the same thing. I never needed a car once. That's the issue with this video: it's more alarmist and doom and gloom than it needs to be, and focuses on a specific subset of riders. Yes, all public transportation has issues and the little bit of it that we have in America is not ideal, being that we're a car-centric country. But in all the traveling I've done, this is nowhere near the worst that I've seen. Only $2.50 to go one-way all over Boston? I'll gladly take that over the $7 one-way with limited subway lines that I have now, thanks.

I am in full agreement with this as well. It feels this way because we, advocates, and them, the T, are paying more attention than ever before to the detail. I also think that with ridership, it's not a fair analysis since a lot of potential ridership was not there being counted resulting from shutdowns and shuttle service replacement. I am more hopeful for our system even with all of these troubles.

My other issue with the video was when he criticized the T for only making back 45% of its costs, deeming it not profitable. Conversely, highways and other car infrastructure are far from profitable as well because there is tons of maintenance that goes into them.

Exactly, that was the problem; the previous long-term head of the MBTA had basically been just not allowing workers enough time to properly check all of the track, so a lot of damage wasn’t even recorded

In 5 years should they have been able to lay 7 miles of track from quincy to south station? Just wondering if youre accepting of regression or just unaware of it.

​​@@GeneralLiuofBoston1911Its 22 minutes between mostly empty red line trains on the middle of the day. The numbers dont lie, unless youre on the green and arent noticing because of the economic disparity within the mbta, and not just the commuter rail.

I hate that weekdays have a later train to Providence than weekends

Took me a few weeks to figure out that walking is faster than trying to actually get anywhere using the Green Line.

Philadelphia, where I nowl live, is another city where one can go from downtown to the airport on one train.

I believe a subway line travels between the Philadelphia Airport and the city?

It depends on the bus. A lot of major bus lines (1, 77, etc) are seriously hindered by traffic, leading to bunching. Some lines (e.g., the 89) could be great and are extremely useful but have been deprioritized for Reasons.

The "bare minimum" standard doesn't just apply to transit. It is pretty much all of our infrastructure and it is only going to get worse. We've spent the last half a century (well, longer) building up sprawling cities with absolutely no plan on how we would maintain the infrastructure that was needed for those cities to function. That would be a problem for future us to figure out. Well, we are future us, and apparently we aren't doing a very good job of figuring it out, because the answer, it turns out, was to not build entire cities with no plan to maintain them long term.

Baker was only governor for 8 years. The state tends to alternate between pro-MBTA and anti-MBTA governors pretty regularly.

Idk if it's actually American culture, but more like the commonality of democracy and authoritarian regime

​@@HenryElfin I'm not even sure what you're trying to say there, but clearly most European democracies manage their transit systems and pretty well, and this even applies to the rest of the infrastructure to some degree.

​@@smileyeagle1021 Suburbs kind of shovel their own financial grave. They are often built with federal subsidies with an infrastructure almost like a city, but actually only provide housing for a more rural kind of density. Then 20-30 years later when significant parts of that infrastructure start to rot and need replacing (but this time without the federal subsidies), a lot of those suburbs discover they just can't sustain that infrastructure on the tax payer base they have and go bankrupt. With the exception of areas that are full of really wealthy people, you can't have your cake and eat it - by which I mean, have city infrastructure on rural density.

lol nice correction

Also a note on that part of the video, Quincy is most certainly not commuter rail-oriented. It has four red line stops with strong ridership (including two recently renovated) and only one commuter rail connection with infrequent service. The Quincy Center commuter rail platform is the last thing on Mayor Koch’s mind 😆

Lynn Lynn the city of sin! Love that city. Lived there for 26 years and I miss it

The blue line was initially planned to go all of the way up to salem, much like the red line was supposed to reach reach arlington. Both ended up being shut down by NIMBYs who didn't want undesirables in their towns, now only some of who are realizing their mistakes...

How much tax revenue does the gov take in and how much would the plan cost over what period of time? Let's give context to "prohibitively" expensive. I am at the point of not caring about cost. I pay taxes to this screwed up gov regardless and I will never see that money again. I say build it, cost be damned. We spent $10 trillion dollars on our war of terror we can afford a bit of modern infrastructure.

I a resident of Ohio, envy the rail systems that are publicly accessible and usable in New England

I love living in philly. it's far from the best system, but it works really well

@@adnamamediayea, it def does. Trains, trolly, bus, regional rail, Amtrak, nj transit. I live in South Jersey but can easily leave my car 5 mins from my house and get from Boston to DC by rail. I wish more people embraced it.

No way im in worcester rn i live here wsg

I have to give New Englanders credit for their rail. Even Northern New England (Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) are increasing commuter and passenger rail, not as much as Southern New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island). Connecticut is trying to get commuter rail from Danbury to New Milford, Waterbury to Hartford, Middletown to Hartford and the New England Central line from New London to Brattleboro Vermont. Also, Shore Line East service to Westerly, Rhode Island - with a connection to the MBTA.

Chicagoan here, still praying one day CTA listens to the call for a Gray Line connecting all the other lines. 🙏 Given how long it took them to secure funding for the Red Line extension though, I won't be holding my breath. 😅

​@@lmnop29 I was thinking about black silver and white

We have one in San Diego for the Green and Orange lines converging in Grossmont (east county suburbs) and didn't realize its benefits for a few months. It's nice to have easy transfers to visit other nearby suburbs

I mostly disagree with the ring idea in Chicago. The obvious missing feature in Chicago is seamless travel from one side of the city to the other. The commuter rail lines do not link with each other or with transit properly, there's no direct bus route up Lake Shore Drive between south side and north side, and there's only one true through rail route -- the Red Line. Link these up and establish three or four through routes, and then we can worry about circle routes, but I honestly think the only circle route that would really do well is something along the lines of the dormant Mid-City Transitway plan, going up the west side linking the two airports with the transit hub at Jefferson Park, and continuing southeast of Midway to link up with Metra RI and Metra Electric around about 75th street or so.

@@danielbliss1988 Why not both? :) But yeah it's absolutely a disservice that the Red Line is (basically) the only non-convoluted option for traversing the city north-south. Screw anyone who doesn't live on the eastern sides I guess.

You mean the Purple Line? SV line goes to Dulles in VA. Also the Purple Line is a MDOT project, no association with WMATA.

@@simonignatovsky8445 Derp, yeah, Purple. You can pay with a SmarTrip card and do transfers like with buses, right?

I don't understand how a train line connecting the suburbs to each other could be seen as doing anything other than *IMPROVING* property values. In the Philadelphia suburbs being near a regional rail stop *inflates* property value, and going between suburbs means you wouldn't even have the more insidious "keeping the poors away" angle of opposing it. Baffling.

@@cloudkittits not even like the area would be upzoned, tons of new upzoned transit hub areas only demolish strip malls and 1/2 streets into the suburb which is good imo, eventually all the most unique suburban architecture (not the cookiecutters, the more unique 60s, 70s, and 80s buildings like office parks and shed style architecture

When I visited DC somewhat recently I stayed in Bethesda specifically because the metro was right there. Wouldn’t have stayed in a hotel there and visited their stores if it wasn’t for the metro

Now I'm not saying it's safe: there's too much broken stuff, deferred maintenance, and staff turn over. **BUT** The "Most Dangerous" angle is hyperbole. The MBTA has had one (non-suicide) passenger fatality in nearly a century (the recent Red line death). Compared to WMATA, MTA, etc, that's amazing. Compared to driving, it's beyond flawless. Although it's a bit like our driving record. Low number of fatalities but tons of little bumps and bruises. Our main problem is that we're Yankee cheapskates and don't want to pay to do it right until we have no other choice. The Big Dig only happened because the Fed picked up 95% of the tab.

One time I walked out of Boylston because the next train to Riverside was delayed for 11 minutes and I had to make it to work. It's getting increasingly worse by the day.

@@freemandrewFatalities aren't the only way to measure danger. Passengers aren't the only ones in danger. Just this Wednesday there was (another) near miss with a worker and electricity.

Blue Line of little use to Bostonians.... Yes, that may be true to Boston residents for the East Boston/Orient Heights neighborhood but you forget about the other communities outside of the city. The Blue Line is a major line for Revere and Chelsea residents, and soon, there will be more as Suffolk Downs project begins to open (first building opens in early 2024).

Yes, while working people w/o cars have always depended on it, plenty of people who could afford otherwise relied upon it daily also and as you said.

Hi. I’m from the UK. I know where your city is. It’s very charming. I used to pass through on my way into North Station. I was on vacation for five days, staying in Tewksbury, and used to take the train from Lowell.

@@Teifi71 I’m glad you liked it! It is quite quaint. A lot of our infrastructure was modeled after Manchester, England

It's definitely safer than getting behind the wheel in Massachusetts. That's why they make you wear a seatbelt there.

@@BN3140 Hi again. You’ll know where it is. I was visiting Lowell in July 1999. I got the surprise of. my life in Lowell. I was travelling back from Boston on the train. A Greek American woman sat down beside me. I explained to her, I’d travelled around the US. You know the bus from the train station into Lowell? The woman gave me a hug right on the middle of a Lowell street. I was given the wrong information at North Station. I was told take the train to Billerica. I was told there was public transport. I’ve never forgotten a very kind lady who got off the train. She drove me all the way to Tewksbury to my hotel. I’d flown across the Atlantic Ocean from London. A middle aged woman out of nowhere. When she offered me the ride in the parking lot. I raised my hands right up in the air. I said you really don’t have to do this. She said, “I’m not an axe murderer ya know.” I did see the funny side 0f it. There wasn’t any public transport at Billerica. Friends were expecting me in Massachusetts. They didn’t have a clue what time of day I’d arrive, The All Stats Baseball Weekend was in Boston. I had no idea what it was, I couldn’t get accommodation anywhere in Boston. There was a guy at Logan who arranged my hotel in Tewksbury. I know who was born where you live. The Hollywood actress Bette Davies. Where you live, it’s kind of similar to the UK.

I did like Lowell very much. I only passed through it only for three days. I think you headed left outside the train station. I’ve used the subway in Boston. I took it over to Harvard Yard. It’s a truly delightful part of the United States you live in. I rented a bike on Boston Common. Massachusetts is gorgeous. Friends took me out over the weekend. On the Monday, I had to find my way around on MBTA. I was quite surprised at the hotel in Tewksbury. The staff asked where had I been to. I had to depend on the MBTA to get into Boston. Back in 99, it seemed to be very reliable.

Trust me they are. But the voices in US are too divided currently to do anything. The big oil lobbying group does not wants any public transit because they want to keep oil demand pretty high in this nation

I’m fucking jealous. The American suburbs mean you’re stuck in your neighborhood, whixh is generally a good desert

But, surprisingly, most people in Boston would actually boast about the city's public transit. That's because they've traveled SO little. Years back, while standing on a Blue Line platform and seeing the condition of the cars that pulled into the station, I texted a member of the Mass. General Court (assembly), exclaiming that it looked like a train system in a 3rd world country. I'd been trying to meet with him to have him talk to whomever necessary about a means for providing the transit aims of the GLX (~$2.2B) for a $1B less. I'd already showed it to him via email, and HE KNEW I WAS RIGHT, but he didn't want to upset the political/bureaucratic/construction$ 'applecart'.

@@d1g1tvl-0hretor1c That's actually not true due to recent immigration. Seeing black people here in Switzerland has become a pretty common sight these days, though it's obviously nowhere near the level it is in the US.

@seb_617 I just visited Zurich and many places in Switzerland. I agree with you 100% about Switzerland’s excellent public transportation system.

NIMBY lawsuits, and extraneous fluff like DEI and ESG consultants, plus the ridiculous amount of management overhead that rots most US companies and govt agencies, figure 7-10 layers of management for every non-managerial role. UK has the same issue.

No in-house planning, design, and construction management staff so everything is contracted out to consultants. Like with the actual construction it's contractors all the way down!

Its all government corruption. Not a mystery. Why else do you think the Democrat run California "high speed rail" project has somehow spent billions yet nothing is built yet?

Unions

A lot of it is flat stolen by contractors doing cheaper, substandard work than they billed for, and disappearing once the flaws are found out. What happened to DC's Silver Line, anyway. Another classic of the genre is bid $1billion, get halfway done, go back to the state and say if you don't get another $2billion, you're walking off the job with a half built line no one can use, DC Purple Line.

This has been the ‘missing link’ since the beginning and should be the first priority.

NSL and some sort of ring should be the highest priorities

@@stephenlight647 The most frustrating part is that Boston was going to build it about a century ago. They were working on the financing… in 1929. Oops.

Remember when they told us this would be part of the big dig? LMAO.

the connecter seems dum

Another silver line? 🤮 They need to just poney up and create more light rail, especially for an outer ring. Bring back the A line.

@@mwl5 they shouldnt bring back the a line while cutting it was bad idea bringing back costs a lot better uses of money

It does seem that most transit systems use a hub-and-spoke topology. It works great for Disney World, since their system has a natural hub (the Magic Kingdom) and spokes (hotels). But less useful for real-life commutes unless you happen to work downtown. If you live in the suburbs and work in a different part of the suburbs, it doesn't work so well.

Three transfers is a ton lol. I hope those trains are running every 3 minutes.

Baltimore's subway is particularly badly planned -- it's not even connected to the train station, you have to take the tram between there and the subway! And you know what happens to trams at rush hour -- they get hopelessly stuck in traffic!

@@notstarboard9792 they usually are. Same for Japan, although in tokyo we tend to avoid transfers as much as possible

​@@agentorange153Baltimore has a subway?! I jest. I've lived in Baltimore 30 years. I'm aware that Baltimore has a subway, a sad little subway ...😢

Same in Germany, we have plenty train track dating back 100 years

Anything is Europe is better than this.I can't wait to visit to see it for myself.

@@FaySmash and yet any Public transport from 1970 Germany is probably still miles ahead than US 2023.

@@blackfoxstudioX to be faie, Public transport from 1970 Germany is also kilometres ahead of 2023 Germany

@@FaySmash fair point.

the screams of the damned haunt the green line fr

that screeching is ingrained in my brain

Exactly, almost all subways start by being cross center lines, radial lines come only very late in very large cities like Paris, Moscow etc.. This whole video is a bit half assed in a lot of aspects

I was thinking that there might be a bus to do that.

I was wondering about that one.

WENDOVER STEALS MY VIDEOS FOR MOOLAH AND HAS MADE MILLIONS OFF MY HARD WORK! (MAKING FUN OF BOTS)

It was great up to 2019. I used pretty much every line and there were n delays and slow zones. After covid, it went downhill.

DIDNT ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER

DIDNT ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER

DIDNT ASK + MY ANIMATIONS ARE BETTER

U should write a book on the subject. …… you’re already half way through it!!

you’re right in that suburb-to-suburb travel is awful in the GTA. even though there are GO bus routes that connect various locations along the 401, it is often times faster getting from the east end to the west end just taking two trains that connect at union just because of traffic. that proposed 407 route sounds wonderful though

How could you not mention the forever-delayed Eglinton Crosstown fiasco? Or Metrolinx CEOs $850k annual salary? Otherwise, I agree 100%

Was waiting to see if someone from Toronto or the GTA would comment about our situation and the parallels to Boston's situation. From someone who's been a life-long resident of Toronto and the GTA, great points and great job!

Route 1 and 66 are your friends

You show me a longtime deep-blue Democrat city & I’ll show you a f’ed up, corrupt, high-crime mess.

As an Atlanta resident, I concur.

As someone that’s familiar with both, MARTA is far better than the T. MARTA stations were built where there was better parking, the T the stations are there based on population density. Meaning Atl. more that has to be maintained that is more spread apart. Boston also never underestimate a Massachusetts public official’s ability to screw over the Commonwealth.

@@chrisconley8583 That is very interesting to hear. A unique perspective. Thanks for the comparison.

@@chrisconley8583 It's also a much smaller system in a much less densely populated city, and its also a lot newer than the T.

@nerdpiggy Thanks for bringing this point up. The MBTA tracks and trains are one spectacular mess that is getting all the attention lately but the woeful condition of elevators and escalators is just as important but often not mentioned. Besides the lack of utility when they're out of service I've seen moments where they provide extreme obstacles to access by mobility-challenged folks. Not too long ago I saw a family have to help an elderly wheelchair-bound member of their group out of the wheelchair and up the escalator because the main elevator on the subway platform was out of operation. And this was South Station, the main national train hub!

Yeah, the T definitely has its issues. But it’s mere existence already puts it ahead of the public transit systems of 99% of US cities

@@pdebuck1 Very true. We had a reliable way to get around, and without it, traveling would have been a whole lot more difficult.

Urban NIMBYs screwing themselves by proxy because they personally don't need to drive in and out of the city. *sigh*

Oh, I can add to this... Regarding the abandoned cloverleaf in the Canton area, the neighborhoods were bulldozed to extend I-95 directly into the city. It was then halted and what was left was abandoned land. The land eventually became the MBTA Orange Line right of way and MBTA Commuter Rail. On I-93 just north of the Zakim Bridge, there is a little offshoot. This was suppose to be northern start of the third ring known as the I-695. It met resistance in Cambridge and was eventually shut down. On the southern side... well, because the area was more poorer, the neighborhood was demolished and cleared. The scar is still there, although it goes by a different name, Melnea Cass Blvd. And what about the northern side of I-95. Look into the circle at Rt-1 and Squire Rd in Revere and you will see an offshoot. That was where the original I-95 should have continued and you can see the path where it would have gone through Saugus. The original path would have taken I-95 through Lynn Woods and connect to the current I-95 in Peabody. That is why I-95 makes that near 90 degree angle from I-495...

it may have gone through like it was supposed to if there was a community there that wasn't looked upon favorably.

Blue line also lacks a red line connection. All other lines have a way to intersect with one another

It was a big mistake not to build the recently retired Blue and Orange line trains with stainless steel bodies. This has been corrected in the new fleets.

😂

The LINK is still 10x better than any Boston transit

​@@drjustino Oh for sure. The way other US cities run their transit makes Sound Transit look like a bastion of competence and efficiency. It's just funny how we're all complaining about our trains and here's Sam showing them off as an example of good transit.

Seattle also has the triple whammy of concentrated workforces. MS people live in Redmond and Bellvue so they DON'T have to commute to the MS campus, which is why it's so insanely expensive to live in Redmond/Bellvue. Amazonians live downtown so they don't have to commute to the Amazon sites downtown, making downtown insanely expensive. Boeing people live in Everett so they don't have to deal with the commute, also Everett is a commuter community for people priced out of areas down south of it. Remember to this day, there is no light rail or commuter rail running to the MS campus in Redmond, I think LR is finally going to start up next year. With Seattle probably being the worst US city to drive in, the current situation is understandable. Seattle's long, skinny layout doesn't help either, if you're driving through there is no alternative to the eternal traffic jam on I-5.

@@mrvwbug4423 There is the 99, but of course it doesn't have any direct connection to the 90 and 520. And of course it turns into a surface street in North Seattle.

Ottawa is worse it’s new