ability societies are becoming ever more urbanized, while ridership peaked in 2019 at 58300000 right before the cobit pen demik in north america. countries around the world are continuing to invest in infrastructure that are safe efficiency and sustainable alternatives to private cars. i'm christy, and you're watching the cost of everything we're today. we're going to be examining the cost of public transportation and how it varies between the us and elsewhere in the world. the wide us east asia has such a better transportation system, the north america, despite the u. s. having economic dominance and global power. while the 20th century american society developed actually around the automobile and north america is relatively sparsely populated. so modern cities are very spread out and the car

is the ideal transport solution. the us population density is 110th of india's and quite low compared to western europe as well. public transportation, on the other hand, requires a lot of volume to work. the new york city subway was also built cheaply, unlike other underground systems in the world which often consider aesthetics as part of their design. the new york subway was always built with efficiency in mind . it also had no planning at the beginning of 19 o 4 through 1930. it was pretty much 3 separate subway companies that competed with each other and had absolutely no interest in making it easy to use for their competitor. in many places lived crossed over each other without connecting or pass within a block without doing so. east asia also does not have the luxury of space, so have to pursue public transport more seriously. on top of that east asia experienced rapid economic development since 19 forties when they were introducing

new train networks. and these were found to be more advanced than the legacy transport system of american cities that were built in 19 o. 4 parts of the american system are over a 150 years old. the sheer size and density of the cities also contribute to high ridership. sol, korea has a population of nearly $23000000.00 people with $22700.00 people per square mile. type pay has $8500000.00 people, but a population density of $19400.00 people per square mile. and in contrast, new york city has just a population of $21000000.00, but a population density of only $4500.00 people per square mile. high speed trains are also extremely expensive, it's a very high tech product that requires precise manufacturing. so that 1000 metric tons of trains can travel at 300 kilometers per hour because it is so heavy and

travel so fast. the track it requires is awesome, very difficult to construct because of the expense associated with it. high speed rail makes the most sense when the distance is not that long. it has to be a distance where it's too far to drive, but too close to fly conveniently, or about less than 500 miles between population centers. population density, again, also has to remain high so that ridership is high and can recoup costs from tickets . but because high speed rail tends to stretch of vast expenses of land across various local jurisdictions, a strong political will is the requirement. typically, a strong political regime or a strong central government, like the case of china and japan, is where it will get implemented for the vast majority of developing countries, the lack of money and the lack of a strong centralized government are the main obstacles to in the us, there is the fundamental issue of the lack of population density to justify the

huge expense upfront. americans also have a very unique political culture, with an emphasis on the protection of private property rights over public goods and valuing the sense of personal freedom and private vehicles. americans also have a very divided political structure where every jurisdiction is at odds with each other, with varying agendas and priorities. according to the world economic forum, global competitiveness index, japan ranks the highest when it comes to a railroad infrastructure quality and efficiency of trans services. this is followed by hong kong, south korea, singapore, taiwan, malaysia, indonesia and china in a place. america isn't even in the top 20. the main industry in the us since the 19 ten's was car manufacturing. because of this developing a good mass, transit and transportation infrastructure would go against this japan,

even though it had a car industry was aware of the major differences between it and the us. japan is a small and area, so even with their excellent roads, they with the traffic jams everywhere. hence they develop a good railway and bust system in the 1970s. china is large and area, but the cities still have a high population density. and because of this, they had to develop modern railway stations and bus slides share dock list. bicycles are also everywhere. and over 50 cities have a metro system with train services from beijing to shanghai, taking only 4 hours to travel 700 miles outside of new york. most us cities have extremely poor public transportation. the public transportation is used almost exclusively by the lower income class. and bus services exist in most cities, but their privacy and not very expensive and not on schedule. while new york has

the biggest metro system, they're not very extensive outside of the city. and unfortunately, 45 percent of americans have no access to transit. much of the existing system is aging in transit agencies, often lack sufficient funds to keep existing systems in good working order. 19 percent of trans of vehicles have been rated in 4 condition, and there is currently a $176000000000.00 transit backlog. a deficit that is expected to only grow more to 270000000000 through 2029. meanwhile, transit ridership is also declining. so now let's bring in christian wal mart broadcaster specializing and transport an author of a series of books on railway history. so 1st of all, how expensive would it be to repair the new york subway or cities that are off starting from scratch or repairing them?

of the toner, of its subways is that they each all actually rules of money. it just him for the amounts of money. and the deal subway is constructed a large and hard rock. so it's very difficult to expand its value to the, to build a new lines. it's all incredibly expensive, but know you called stuff the guy that would be even more expensive because you do have the titles and sometimes that quite why didn't you. i managed of express trains which lots of systems don't. so essentially you have to invest do what you've got bought. i mean, just based on only a few weeks ago, i must say that a monk, subway systems are the well the new york one is looking a bit to todd old. our trains even a profitable business model anymore, given the enormous initial financial outliers of the play about 2 hours is they,

i've never profitable business muscle. they all know about business around ways have, you know, for the beginning of time. 18 to 2 are the 1st well worries. i've always be very expensive to build quite expensive to run up and make all sorts of create all sorts of benefits or welfare guides for whole communities. but the trouble is they can only charge a certain level of fast so well the like roads, in fact, they are just uh, an essential part of the capital assist of but they don't fit in particularly well with the calculus multiply in the united states. you have extremely profitable freight, right. why is which long? very long distances and uh, making a lot of money bought the passenger network, which existed in america from really the aging, such as food to the,

of the postwar period, which really covers the whole country is now just a shadow. it's full of a self. you have amtrak, which is stage road. you have some good services in the northeast, call it all between mazda of washington and the like, bought at you don't have an effective passenger rail service. and that's because the vatican federal government essentially refused to fund pass into services, particularly in the 1950s. 1960 is that all shot down, as i explained in my book, the great a railroads a read, the great wrote, wrote revolution. and essentially, you'll never get to get back to a situation where like, as in your, where we have, you know, focusing passenger rad wise, which by law law, speaking by little miss benefits the society as a whole. how much does it cost

a city to have a robust public transportation system as well? uh it's, it's difficult to get precise. think guys, but you get figures like something like maybe a $50000000.00 for every mile. the chinese have managed to get a box lower than that because they've built so many systems and labor costs are far less. so the chinese have built remarkable 50 subway systems in the last 50 years. uh, you know, in different uh, cities some, some of them with uh, 15 or 16 lives like it in shanghai. um, so, uh it is possible i lots of other cities of the world have built uh some places. ready in the last 203040 years, you know, they are incredibly beneficial for the city. is that the base of the problem is you need municipal governments that have the coverage to invested them. they take

a long time in london here. we've just opened a new line which costs some $25000000000.00 and took about 50 years to develop a school that elizabeth live day. best outlet queen, and it's a fantastic success. it has about $600000.00 people using it every day, even though it's less than a year old. so subway systems are all about making a city is accessible, enabling people to move it to the city center, to the jobs and to live in the suburbs. quite fall out because they know they couldn't get in that quickly. i knew your has a fantastic system. the trouble is, uh, it needs absolutely amazing amounts of investments to bring it up into the 21st century. it really doesn't look at the moment like a, a railway system that new yorkers can be proud of. now,

there are many arguments against building public transportation in cities as it could bring in more crime to the suburban neighborhoods. so what do you have to say about that? and i think the arguments against public transport systems are very same. uh, there's no way that they, they create drive. in fact, by enabling lots of people to mix together in a pretty safe environment. they actually discourage drive a and they create a neighborhoods that can function very well quite far away from city centers, fax to the fact that people can get in to those. a city sentence over a time of the cost of the well, but could look at, you know, all sorts of cities with a very good transport systems which uh, yeah, feel safe and as good places to live, fax to

a subway systems and bust systems and whatever you know, you have to realize that city centers i've not really made for cause and even in your record, i stop. thank you so much christian walmart. but please stick around. kristen. wal mart will be joining us right here after the break. and when we come back, how reliable is public transportation elsewhere in the world? that you know, the answer will have more after the break the western expectation was that pressure will be disassembled, lies by extreme sanctions and the material losses. uh, there was a, an expectation that the pressure wouldn't be able to continue the war like longer than a, for a period of time longer than probably a couple of months. and

the problem is the cost of housing keeps on going off. the cost of living keeps on going up in place and keeps on going up. gas keeps on going up to all the cost of living keeps on rising over the summer and i still wasn't able to find housing to. there's no foot routing in lakewood. i've seen an increase in people calling me asking me for a place to stay. i need to get 10 that we've had people that have been millionaires in the past, you know, had big businesses, different things can throw you over the edge. so people shouldn't be so judge mental about the homeless because it can happen, it can happen to them as anybody. i think government needs to help all these homeless people instead of sending money over to ukraine and all those other

countries worry about your own country. i just wish we had a president daycare. we don't have a president. thank. there's always people would wake up to see what jo. 5 is doing to us. people don't realize and the end up in the deep america's in the bug like, oh, it's okay with the welcome back to the cost of everything. now, in europe, there's practically no populated place. you can't get to buy public transit. it is reliable as the service is scheduled regularly, frequently,

and dependably in the us. there are thousands of communities that cannot be reached except by private car. and there is no commercial or government train or bus service available in europe has nearly 50 urban metro systems by the us only has 15 trains are generally the best way to get around europe as tickets costs are very affordable. france is also planning to invest a 100000000000 euros into rail transport by 2040 as part of the government's push to reduce the countries carbon footprint. this will expand and upgrade the rail network and launch express commuter change in major cities. and this is also to tackle the perceived inequalities between paris and other parts of the country is when it comes to public infrastructure. especially when the energy costs are going up, making transportation expensive for millions of computers. now in japan, the rail network of the 3 largest metropolitan areas which include tokyo, nagoya,

and those saca are perhaps the most efficient in the world. the countryside ocean concept has operated for over half a century without a single derailment or collision, and only has an average departure at the light of 18 seconds. along the 320 mile route. and in japan, they choose not to compensate loss is made by these public projects and instead allow private firms to do the business efficiently and profitably. so the operators of japan's public wells transport suffer losses for years, and the government used as budget to offset those. resulting in a fiscal deficit. japan later decided to have all public transport projects run by private firms. today, most public transport services in japan are operated by private firms who run other businesses to earn profits. things like running advertisements on the transit system or leasing out kiosks and station and stores in the vicinity. in japan's too

big is public transport systems in tokyo, in osaka, turned around after suffering losses. once it became privatized to become tokyo and metro. and those saca metro japan has about a $170.00 companies that operate railway routes. and none of them are state owned before the pandemic, the subway operators actually posted a profit of $362000000.00 in japan. tram lines had been around for a 100 years and on average tokyo bills at least one additional line a year. whereas in the us, it takes an average of 5 years or more, depending on capital availability and land acquisition. privatization was a boon to railways in japan, while rise and car ownership was a recipe for disaster for america's once private railways. and for more, let's bring in again, kristen. walmart, broadcast is specializing and transport. an author of

a series of books on railway history. now christian, the homeless population is growing in europe as well as the us. does this put a strain on public transportation and public services in general? public transport systems, always the policing that they function, the bass, if you do have stopped at every station, i know that some systems have ups, you know, not very many stuff. essentially they do, they stop at even at a remote stations. they what much better live that it makes people, particularly women feel safe. it shows you're not getting the homeless people sleeping in the systems and so on. so that the solution is not to say, oh, we don't want to build public transport systems. the solution is to effectively manage those systems well and it show that they are safe for people to use. and

that, that lost off available to the one be the comforting people. uh, thing that people want is to say stop that, but it's kind of around the ticket guys showing that people tend to jump over them and the likes. and that makes a lot of difference and it's a full economy. they just think that you could run these systems without people indeed, without drivers, which is technically possible, but not a fantastic the size. and how much money has the us invested in train infrastructure versus other countries? and where does all of this money go? uh, well the us uh, system has had some public money. i called give precise figures. i bought most of that has gone uh, adjusted a few places, a few cities that do have public transport systems or a few recipients with the light rail systems as well. a walk, the united states slacks is

a federal government that is prepared to say, look we, we need to review out our transport system alvo's system, link up, lots of places, a gateway with rattle, railways, maybe a high speed ro wise, or maybe just conventional by wise bought to actually recreate or kind of passenger route so, so close. that's a little difficult and it age of, of the i've applied but you know, there is a big market for well, china is that site 3 or 400 miles between the cities. because the hassle of going out to an apple, it's in fly and all the security of stuff is much greater. so uh, you know, it, does it say that about it lost its essentially lost its passenger rail. that way it's never going to recreate it to the way that it existed, but it couldn't level s that i had saw that inside the city passed like

a texas or in california. you could get a systems that were affected. they'll never probably quite pay for themselves, but they will take a lot of calls off the road and, and show that there's much less congestion for those who are still driving. and now there are some countries that don't have trains at all like iceland in greenland. so why has some countries not adopted trains this i'm, i'm spending all it isolated as it happens right to this. yeah. there's a few countries that have, have had rail systems and i've taken about, i swear these are pretty small country with a pretty small population. it doesn't really work great that has it even smaller population. they've some countries in africa that don't really have a functioning well systems. and that's probably for historical reasons that were never built policy because maybe they don't manage them on their, for example, in 70 or they, they used to have a bit of a rail system. and that's been

a bad cause. a railway systems do need management, they need tender loving care, they need investment. and those countries which i've lost, that route was probably great. he would regret doing so. i mean, even places like leg also have building kind of do a well networks because they, they recognize that uh, just the road system is, is to k all take box. so historically, that have been places that didn't really invest much as well. box. most countries in the world did one part of a railway. busy most countries still do have some sort of a roadway system. it might be for freight, it might be somebody systems inside the cities or it might be in our main live passenger links between the cities. but most countries of the world do and now that's pretty amazing. because these the roadway,

the concepts of ours is now the 200 years old. 1830, the fast railways. and uh, as a child support system, it, it survive competition from cause competition from aviation. it's by its kind of, uh, all sorts of technical changes and a date in many places. the world is absolutely sluggish. in particular, with high speed rails, railways and subway systems as a big, big freight realize where you'll trustworthy, you know, really large amounts, say from a chloe or mine or something where it's actually unbelievably cheaper. ready to do that by rail than any other means. countries that have private for profit and metro businesses perform better than a publicly run metro system of the japan has a sort of privatized system. uh, they actually, it was privatized with a big kind of lights all for the state. but there's actually very few

places where a passenger rail system can pay for its way. but uh, in india, the positive out network is allowed to subsidize from a very profitable effect, right? wise and about it. cuz i say the fact that was a very profitable amtrak, that's a big subsidy from a the federal government is in the whole point about, well, why is this that the role? because as i mentioned, the societal benefit of i'm something that fits well into a stab at the capitalist model. and that's because they were cloud vast amounts of investment. the operating costs are quite high, but, and they need to operate throughout the day where there's both rush out drives and kind of less profitable uh, of peaks drives. so they,

they don't really look as conventional businesses with, as i say, the exception of kind of a few exceptions, particularly if i was but they do as something that benefit society. thank you so much for your time today. kristen. well, my now the biggest winner in this infrastructure race is definitely going to be china who has the world's largest high speed rail network. china has built a network that spans nearly 25000 miles and is now the world's largest from bullet trains that can travel up to 220 miles per hour. this network is continuously getting built out with plans to extend it to up 250000 kilometers 52025200000 kilometers by 2035. and with this expanded network, 99 percent of cities with more than 200000 residents will have access to the general well, a network in china. 90 percent of cities with more than 500000 residents,

will have access to the high speed railway network. and this is a huge undertaking that happened because over the course of the last 10 years, china had invested over $600000000000.00 into building railway in remote and less developed areas to bring rail services to more than a 130 counties. these achievements have not come easily and are the result of huge investments and the efforts of more than 2 mil 1000000 railway workers. i'm christy. i thanks for watching and we'll see you right back here next time on the cost of everything the, the

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giving in the same way as the sub is in the same way as the row. you've got some time we is that of the problem most by little boys. obviously chuck, that is the watson has sent me a letter o. c. i used the vs bought a ton of shit back. you know, it's hit by repeated ukrainian shelling, leaving through dead comes is the russian capitalist targets and by long range, drones the damage, several apartment buildings the breaks group of nations is open to enlargements for the status of the organizations for ministers at the meeting in south africa, as was just a couple different months expenses of the control and india and accidents involving 3 trains in the eastern states of a dish of becomes the countries with ro disaster in decades in the lives of 298 people and leaving nearly.