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Europe is frequency cited for its excellent transit, but this European city actually doesn’t have *any* rapid transit, not even light rail! Let’s talk about how it can improve its transit system.
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Ever wondered why your city’s transit just doesn’t seem quite up to snuff? RMTransit is here to answer that, and help you open your eyes to all of the different public transportation systems around the world!
Reece (the RM in RMTransit) is an urbanist and public transport critic residing in Toronto, Canada, with the goal of helping the world become more connected through metros, trams, buses, high-speed trains, and all other transport modes.
50 Comments
To be clear, this video isn’t meant to propose an actionable plan for Leeds, just to highlight the obvious need for something and some of the key considerations to make – like the regions dispersed nature!
This is all well and good for you and your 263k subs to think and see. Sadly nobody in government truly shares this goal/target… so… Leeds will remain the transport basket case it is.
Ahahahah. I knew it would be Leeds from the title
thank you for covering leeds! i found myself walking to the city centre (2 miles) yesterday because i dislike the bus system so much
It's so interessting to see the two concepts of Stuttgart and Copenhagen being compared to each other. One beeing the city which you call home and the other where you spend your last vacation.
I lived in Leeds. It was shite.
This video should have been about Ireland. Dublin the capital doesn’t have a metro. 😂We have a tram but it is literally two lines 😂
I've been to London a few times, so I always assumed that all UK cities had adequate mass transit. I'm surprised that Leeds doesn't have such a thing in 2023.
Jokes on you, Voronezh is the biggest European city without any public transport except buses. It has 1 mln people meanwhile the whole Leeds county has 800.000. There were trams but they were trashed in 1990s-200s in anticipation of "american lifestyle" coming with more private cars. Private cars came and clogged up the streets. Sometimes "metrobuses" and other weird things are discussed but nothing is moving.
When the title said "Europe," I thought… wtf?
When you said Leeds, I had a nice laugh ☺️
How you didn't use Dublin as the example for this is astounding.
The city is bigger in population than Luxembourg and still has no public transit!
Do Sheffield/South Yorkshire next! 😁
UK is no longer Europe 🙂
for a moment I thought you said Europe. Phew.
Spent a night out in Leeds, coming from nearby York, hoping to get back on one of the night-time trains. They were all cancelled. The Leeds train station is totally open, absolutely no coverage from the weather at all, so it was not the nicest place to wait until 6am on a November night.
Totally agree with the need for rapid transit in/around Leeds. Look Singapore. Radials are great, but any system needs circular connections too, Moscow has recently added an excellent outer ring, all above ground, mostly using existing track.
If you live outside London forget it
You obviously haven't seen how catastrophical Belgrade is… Especially the proposed metro lines since we (still) don't have any..
leeds should have an underground by now, trams and trolly buses cant be used as the streets are too narrow. the underground in Athens should be used, i,e a cross haired system, a circle with 2 cross hairs running at 90 degrees, its a simple system that works very well. All the nonsense of the HS2 going at 200 mph is rubbished when u can only go as fast at the buses in the city 3mph. Its the only disappointing ascept of Leeds, otherwise a fine city, the best in the Uk apart from Hull and Belfast. Come on Leeds grow up!!
Try Dublin í😅
I wish Bristol had better public transport.
Ironically, the times I've been to Leeds, I've always been able to get to where I was going – city centre or not – by rail.
Not just Leeds but Bristol, Teeside, Hull and others!
Pff investment in the North? No politician would dare with such extremist views.
UK is not in Europe – need to correct title
I enjoyed watching a video about another UK city and it was so good to see some of my Manchester footage creeping into it, thanks for it!
I live in Leeds, honestly. I don’t usually drive because it’s so so bad you literally cannot go anywhere, everybody drives. The people who get trains are often cramped onto a tiny 2 carriage train that is late. Buses are not a viable option as they also run on the highly congested roads and are too expensive, but old and run down.
Leeds could support a full metro and multiple tram lines system. The wider West Yorkshire area is huge and has a massive population where so many people come into Leeds for work and shopping.
It depresses me when I think about how bad this is.
I'm from Leeds and as soon as you were listing all those things, I thought, 'sounds like Leeds'. I was surprised it actually was though, out of the whole of Western Europe!
I've heard of plans to get trams in Leeds for years now but instead they resulted in a network of buses and bus lanes. Leeds once did have a tram network historically and it really needs one now
I notice in your suggestions you've got straight from Leeds having not much urban rail to having a better tram/light rail service than the Birmingham/West Midlands combination where I live!
In contrast to several lines in Greater Manchester, the West Midlands county is very bus dependant with a single tram line with 2 more under construction, a high frequency daytime cross city rail line and a few other commuter rail lines
As someone who lives and works in Leeds, I can say I am pretty much forced into having to drive to work every day as well as into the city center. The city is littered with cars and roadways. Leeds lack of a tram or any form of mass transit is genuinley the bane of my life and one of the ultimate reasons for my decision to leave the city soon.
The transport issues in Leeds, like the rest of west yorkshire, can be solved. In fact many viable options are good enough to get excited about. The problem is and always has been the government.
Currently in Manchester. Amazing trams and buses and cheap. £4.50 for an all day ticket. There is a divide within the North. Manchester is in another stratosphere to Leeds.
Great idea, however leeds and bradford / huddersfield are so sepearted. You could be in an entirely different world going between leeds and bradford, I live between them and theres no similarities, they are in different councils, meaning building a transport system would require both councils budgets, which is alomost none as its the north and involving bradford, to work together and be built together when transport to bradford is slowwing down as its reputaiton as europes most dangerous city increases. Leeds is growing, I se it every time i get the train but I really dont think it isnt walkable, there is a train that can already bring you between these places and half the time they are empty, even being hourly
If you'd like another UK area in desperate need of a decent rapid transit system, highly recommend taking a look at the south of Hampshire. Portsmouth, Southampton and the suburbs between effectively create a giant city with one (rubbish and overpriced) train line and a heavily congested motorway to connect it all. Plus 3+ large peninsulas to deal with too; gives me Bay Area vibes.
Being from Leeds I LOVE that you’ve made this video.
You should do some research on the bus guideways on Scotthall Road and York Road – basically a failed attempt at a BRT system where buses are often forced to travel at slower speeds than other traffic.
It is certainly frustrating to see London’s transport get invested in time and time again when my train home from work is cancelled and I have to sit on an old bus for an hour!
"Worst transit in Europe" oh ok, that's weird, thought they always had good transit on the main land "is in Leeds" oh, oh yeah that makes so much sense. Leeds is sadly devoid of livable solutions.
And ngl, as a londoner, the Elizabeth line wasn't great.
Hello RMTransit. I am no expert on transport, but I am from this county and when younger I studied in Greater Manchester.
The difference is that West Yorkshire has three cities, each of which think like their own hub. Many in Bradford or Wakefield would be just as likely to go to Manchester or Sheffield. Many others would never go to Leeds. Bradford is an older city than Leeds and also has over half a million people.
I have worked all over Yorkshire, not just West Yorkshire. You need a car, more like US, to get to much of Yorkshire, which is the true region, of which Leeds is just part.
For one job I had, I used to travel to Hastings. The train system was not an option as London is so dominant, like you said.
I have toured US and Europe when younger, so I got the comparisons. I use a photo elsewhere of me staring out to sea as a mirror image of the Little Mermaid statue.
Lastly, I used to travel between Bradford and Halifax, though not the centres. The route took me past Mountain. It is well named and was where "cats eyes" for traffic were invented. You would not get a tram and you hardly ever see cyclists, except very fit ones.
LEEDS, LEEDS, LEEDS (rule of three)
Good video, might i recommend a video on the South Wales Metro (Im from the Cardiff region)
check athens and you'll laugh at what we call transit. 5 millions people stuck in a shithole with one metro line and buses that are constantly stuck, broken and under-serviced.
Leeds is crazy poor but actually the wealthiest in western Yorkshire, there are a ton of social and economic problems you are just skimming over
You should definitely cover Cardiff or Wales in general!
I feel like having a great rail, subway or a tram system is very much a continental European thing. Up in northern Sweden where I live, we do have long distance trains and busses, sure, but the country is highly dependent on cars if you live anywhere outside the biggest cities. The idea of having an inter city rail line where I live is completely foreign to me.
Welcome to the UK. Too many motorways and cars in urban areas, except where the most important people are.
I wasn't referring to east London, but to areas east of London, such as North Kent.
Toronto suck if there was a way to get out of the miserable city. The weather suck much much more
‘The UK’s North’ – Leeds is technically exactly in the middle of the UK. It’s the North of England.
I knew it was about Leeds before I even saw the video – that's how infamous Leeds is.
Followed suit by Liverpool and Münster (Germany).
Woo Leeds in the news! There have been talks about rapid transit for literally decades but local and regional government usually doesn't have the power to implement such plans in the UK, so we need a forward thinking government who agrees with your astute points for this to happen ):