How did Krakow build rapid transit at a low cost? | Navigating Urban Transit with George Liu
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- čas přidán 19. 03. 2024
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How can a metro-level service be achieved within an existing tram network on a tight budget? Krakow (Poland) provides an illuminating example. Through strategic grade separation and absolute signal priority, Krakow Fast Tram (KST) project demonstrates the possibility of delivering swift and dependable tram services using pre-existing infrastructure. Officially initiated in the early 21st century, this innovative solution has effectively tackled urban transportation challenges in the city. Join us in this UMX video as we delve into the transformative benefits brought about by the KST project in Krakow.
#Krakow #Tram #PublicTransit #UMX
This episode is the third of our new series, "Navigating Urban Transit" featuring George Liu. In each episode, George travels to a different European place to discover its public transit system and its specificities. Stay tuned to find out where he will go next!
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This video was shot in August 2023. Many thanks to George Liu and Jedwin Mok for their tremendous work on this video!
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Urban Mobility Explained is powered by EIT Urban Mobility, a European initiative to create liveable urban spaces! This project is co-funded by the European Union. Learn more about EIT Urban Mobility: www.eiturbanmobility.eu/ - Věda a technologie
You make it sound like Kraków has always had great urban planners who meticulously calculated gains against costs for different large scale transportation projects. In reality every 15 or so years the long term plans for the city are scrapped and rewritten, old plans are abandoned and new ones are paid for without hope for completion. Right now we have an abnormally long period of continuity and i hope it stays like this.
At least you have a plan, here in Wrocław the plan seems to be just praying the 150 year old tracks can survive another day. I an exaggerating but from outside it really seems Kraków government seems to know what they are doing.
well, since there are videos on CZcams about the terrible condition of the Wrocław tracks (at least in the past), e.g. how one two-unit Konstal almost welded itself to the rails@@kacperwoch4368
@@kacperwoch4368try living in Eastern Poland. Our mayor drives around in a Ford Raptor, turned all the city streets into one way roads with 30cm sidewalks (not hyperbole), and wants to turn one of the city squares into a multistorey car park.
I think that he is on Prozac. Obviously, he has never been to Kraków or he would know how to pronounce "Kraków". I have given up at 14 seconds and will not watch another of his videos.
That's the strangest way of stressing syllables in "Cracow" I have ever heard.
Cacao
It hurts, like 'ow'
Isn't it more common to pronounce it like "crack ow"?
@@samuzamu In English, yes. Polish is more like kra-koov , so the speaker in this video has the weirdest stress on it I've never heard anyone use.
Yes, it really grates and is actually making the presentation difficult to watch!
I would like to add that the Kraków tram network is being constantly expanded and right now two more underground tram stops are under construction.
Calling Rondo Mogilskie a "depressed tram junction" is the most accurate thing I have ever heard
Because it is depressed a couple of times I had to get out of a tram in a middle of a storm and was left standing in the rain on the side of a curb. Yeah, it floods.
So true, I always have a sense of sadness when at this juction. The feeling of longing when I exit one tram, and I see 50 already leaving...
Depressed meaning below the ground level.
For many years it's been even more accurate, because there was a really sad looking incomplete office building (dubbed "The Skeletor" by locals) right next to it. Luckily it's been finished by now.
I prefer the new Rondo Mogilskie, because at least it does not cause tram congestion. At the old roundabout, trams ran together with cars, so the Viennese had a huge problem both entering and leaving the roundabout.
as a Krakow native, I used to think that our transit is bad and all and why isnt there a metro already... until i went to Naples. Holy...
There are a couple of minor mistakes in this video, but I have to agree with the main premise - this city is squeezing 100% out of its existing network and service is of almost excellent quality; at least when talking about the tram system, and excluding all the neighbourhoods which should be served by it but are not. Taking the bus here can devolve into a very nerve-wracking experience and there is just no alternative in some places.
However trams here aren't really that fast. The average speed of trams (including all the stops and red lights and everything) is around 22km/h. Compare that with 37km/h at M1 in Warsaw.
Could be worse though, Wrocław is a similar city in many metrics and the average speed is only around 18km/h there.
Average speed in vienna is 15 kph 😢. And afaik there is no line above 20 kph
Love the use of existing ROWs and squeezing more value from existing infrastructure - so many cities can learn from this, including Toronto (where we keep handcuffing the efficiency of projects by leaving out signal priority or forcing modes to mix)
Absolutely! Toronto in particular is a great example of a legacy tram network left to rot - and the planning ideologies of hyperlocal stop spacing, lacking TSP, etc. have unfortunately been implemented in our newest LRT lines. Frankly there's much more we can learn from Krakow - including stop consolidation, selective grade separation, and dedicated lanes that can be applied across our legacy streetcar network at very low costs!
I have been to many places in Europe and to me Cracow stands out as a fine example of a city with a really reliable and efficient transportation network. The best way to move between different parts of the city. And still improving, new trams and buses to come, new lines under construction, new ways to purchase tickets, it's really nice. I hope that in the nearest future they will finally start to construct a metro system.
"city with a really reliable and efficient transportation network"
Clearly you haven't lived in Cracow for a long time, have you?
@@ArturKwaszyn Actually I have been for the last twenty years....Unlike many people I don't have this horrible tendency to complain all the time. Also I don't say that everything works and is perfect. I am considering the topic in a broader context of using many transportation systems all over Poland. Cheers.
@@tomaszpiotrowski2990 really? are you using public transport daily? because many of us actually do, and the number of times the trams were derailed, because of rails expanding, or huge traffic jams causing bus lines like 139 to never even arrive, is staggering.
This public transport is great on paper, when a) there's no traffic jams, b) it isn't too hot.
@@ArturKwaszyn jeez, dude, chill, relax.🙂I am using it daily. And I am not saying that it's perfect.
I'm so grateful to have all this content to watch and learn from, as an African. We don't have any meaningful infrastructure, outside of some roads and standard car-dependent cities (African cities look like a budget version of the city Phoenix in AZ). Many young people like us, who will build Africa's cities of the future will have the opportunity to do it right, making travel inside the city and outside the city as easy as possible to those without cars
this is what Auckland really should have done. this was the whole original point of the light rail to the southwest and Airport proposed in 2016, something cheaper than commuter rail with more benefits by serving more suburbs and forcing a mode shift away from cars.
instead the project got bloated out by politicians obsessing over faster travel times, and what should have been a $2-3 billion dollar build turned out into a $15 billion almost-light metro that was cancelled by the current anti-public transport government... who want to take that money and spend it on motorways, while the NZ transit community still argues (as they have been since 2016) over whether commuter rail, metro, light rail, or busways are the best rapid transit solution in our cities.
light rail may be slower and have capacity limitations, but it would have been far better than what the southwest suburbs of Auckland are now getting - which is nothing at all.
I love it! Thanks for highlighting Krakow! Nice to see my family's apartment block in the video briefly too haha!
Thanks a lot for watching!
Wow, fantastic high quality video of my city! 🥰
One small correction - PESA Krakowiak tram is actually around 43m long, not 48. Krakow is actually planning to order up to 30 new trams of similar length. 😊
The seperated junction is a thing of beauty. I'm impressed by the efficient adaptation of what they have already, even if it's not perfect or ideal.
The intro to this video was EPIC. The music really kicks in when he starts saying "They live here! In masive concrete tower blocks..."
Been living in Cracow for my whole life. A lot of bad things can be said about city's urban planning, but the public transport is top notch.
You should stay longer in Warsaw then. It's the best public transport network in Poland.
I was in Kraków as a tourist last summer. I stayed in a hostel around 1.5 km north of the historic center and traffic was hillariously bad during rushhour. Saw a bus just standing in the middle of a crossing with no way to move for like 3 minutes.
Kraków's tram network is really good and convienient mode of transportation, but I wouldn't call it "rapid transit". Average speed for trams in Kraków is about 19 km/h, and the most rapid line is... the line which conencts outskirts of metallurgical plant to Nowa Huta. And so-called "Kraków Rapid Tram" (Krakowski Szybki Tramwaj) doesn't even fit Rapid Tram systems average speed standard in Poland, because it should have at least 24 km/h.
Yes. We need more of this in Canada. 🙂
The system you described in this video is very similar to a light rail or stadbahn system, which is already used in almost all bigger german cities and it works really well
I live in Kraków and I disagree you can look up the average speeds of tram lines are low (below 20 km/h) if you want to see a real fast tram go to Poznań and see the PST line (from Piątkowo to the main station) that is a real fast tram with grade separations.
I've never been to Poznań so I don't disagree with you, but for Kraków average speeds must be low because of the way trams have to run in the city centre - very tight curves, being stuck behind a horse carriage, lots of pedestrians etc. The newer lines that are being bulit further from the city centre are much faster.
PST is only in one part of the city, and it was build as a low cost alternative for metro from the ground up. Rest of the network has different speeds, but it's still faster than beeing stuck in traffic.
@@MrKony98 I know the rest of the network are just normal tram lines
Szczecin Has the fastest tram in Poland slightly faster than Poznań line
0:47 Poland shed its communist government (and thus became fully independent from the USSR) in 1989, so technically the subsequent fall of the USSR in 1991 wasn't all that relevant to what you're describing. Communist Poland was never a Soviet republic.
1:34 wrong location
A very interesting video nonetheless.
Poland was always fully independent from USSR, but was never sovereign.
A truly budget solution would be to reconfigure the traffic lights to make the cars yield and to reduce the number of stations, so the trams can actually pick up some speed between the stops and spend more time moving over all. That's not what they did though, instead they went for maybe cheaper than metro but still pretty damn expensive tunnels, achieving tram speeds similar to that of a bike and no real improvement in traffic congestion. For example it takes 54 minutes to travel a 35 stop, 19 km route on line 50, according to Google Maps. That's barely more than 20 km/h on average, with a stop almost every 500 m.
I stayed in this lovely city for few days last year and can confirm that their tram system is a joy to use (and free for oldies!). It makes getting around so pleasant and straightforward.
Its crazy how each city has their own public transit stories! I can see how Krakow did some great engineering to avoid high cost in making a totally different new mode of transpo.
Right? There are key insights that can be taken from each of these cities 💯
In my opinion trams can not be underestimated for many cities with the size of Krakow. They are quite cheap to build and run, have a good capacity and good access to and from the transit system. Therefor, although the trams may be slower traveling, the overall travelling time is not so high since you don't have to walk a long time until you reach your station in comparison with a metro, because it is just on street level and you only have to cross a traffic light and you are at the tram stop and you don't need to walk endless corridors and stairs up or underground.
KST (Krakowski Szybki Tramwaj - Cracow fast tram) is slow as fuck nonetheless. Also - all trams need to slow down to 10 km/h on every tram crossroad.
Additionally - they have started placing tram stops at the exit of crossroad (because they need an extra turn left lane for cars, wroom, wroom), so most of the times tram stops 2 times - before entering the crossroad and at the stop itself.
Ye, sadly but we will have metro soon soon
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing :)
The tram Pesa 2014N "Krakowiak" is not 48m long. It's about 43m long: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesa_2014N_Krakowiak
Great video! Krakow has done an outstanding job!
Is the tunnel you mentioned going under the train station? I've been there few times and that hub really impressed me.
Yes, the tunnel goes right under Krakow Glowny. It offers a very convenient connection, and is fairly well integrated into the station itself!
fascinating video-this is the sort of thing that can really help with less money, like the DLR in London
The problem in Krakow (as others already pointed out in the comment section) is not the tram infrastructure itself but the speed of the trams. The speed is very low (below 24 km) despite that there are moderns trams and the lines look fine.
I don’t understand why the trams can’t speed up more. Maybe it’s a regulation, maybe they are afraid of accidents, or maybe they just need to make the distance between stations larger so the trams can actually speed up.
Because if the speed doesn’t change many people will still choose the cars vs trams. It’s not enough to have a large light rail network and modern trams if the speed remains the same like 20 years ago!
Great vid!
I live in this town. It’s everythinng BUT rapid. Not to mention, they started to buid it in the 70s?
Pronounce it KRA - KOV - stress the first syllable. In Polish KRA - KUV (Kraków) . Great video btw.
Well krakow fast tram is the slowest fast tram in Poland
Good video but comparing to my experience commuting around the city I feel like there's a bit of cherry-picking done. There's no doubt that the network is improving very well in recent years but the current transit system has a lot of flaws too. One thing in the video I cannot overlook is that all the tram shots seem to only show the new shiny vehicles when a huge part of rolling stock used in the city is either old or bought second hand from abroad. Thanks for showing the city so close to my heart in your video anyways.
I agree that it is a bit of cherry picking, but the old stock is not much present anymore. Last time I checked it was something like 10% of trams being the old ones (still cool to have some retro bits on the tracks, admittedly) as the city was buying new ones like crazy the last 5 years or so. They also have a tram museum line with guides running all summer. Trams are glorious.
I wanna say we will have a brand new trams in Cracow to 2027 with around 80m! It will be crazy
1:34 that's not where Krakow is. It's wrong location.
So the network is 90 km currently and they plan for many extensions
Turk high-tech! The smart nation.
I have a folder about it (folder 6 in the playlist).
Well done Krakow now take notes US especially LA!!!!
Poland wasnt in the USRR
I thought “Light priority” is normal ! But I learned , in the North American countries it barely exists… Why ?
It’s the easiest way to accelerate public transport - Bus and Trams…
The United States still doesn't believe in decent public transport while Canada is learning but not all its cities are yet on board.
The steelworks at Nowa Huta were so polluting that the statues of the twelve apostles at the Church of St Peter and Paul had to be remade as they had corroded away to sandstone stumps! It's great to see Kraków ('Crack-Oof' for the Americans reading this) thriving, much like the rest of Poland - the standard of living is predicted to overtake my own country (the UK) in a few short years.
That's because the eurosceptics sold you guys a bill of goods and most of your country's voters fell for it!
It's great to isolate tram traffic from car traffic, but this is only necessary because there is so much car traffic. And this is enabled by the road capacity: look at the quantity of lanes there are on that roundabout. You also need to reduce the place given to the car, and thus reduce the number of lanes allocated to it.
0:45 "but with the collapse of the Soviet Union..." it makes it sound like Poland was a part of USSR, except IT WASN'T
It wasnt but it was a puppet state under the ussr for almost 50 yeas and everything that they wanted to do had to go through the ussr's government
also that is not true that majority of people live in commie blocks, it's just 15-20%. Why so many false informations? :/
Ugh😂😂😂😂
True, and more importantly collapse of the USSR itself had little influence on the economy of Poland. Communism there fell in 1989. In the same year there was a rapid transition to capitalism which was an additional shock to the already rotten economy after the 1980s. By 1991 it would be already (very) slightly better I think.
As long term Kraków resident, aside from the accents and that ultra weird pronunciation of Kraków, was it actually needed to make so many references to the Soviet Union?
I mean, that newly built tunnel in Rondo Mogilskie was there when I arrived here in 2016. "Newly made". The newly made one is the one at Sanktuarium you showed, which has 1 year?
Also the bridge close to Bagry just for trams (and bikes) has been there for more than a decade.
In any case, I don't retain Kraków needing a metro. The planning of the city was already great for trams and a lot of green, the only good lesson from the Communist era I can take
It's kind of depressing how far behind my city is. Just irregular buses, virtually no pedestrian streets, no useable cycle paths... And a mayor who drives around in a massive pick-up truck, so yeah, he's not the sort to do much of anything (I live in Poland btw)
Although it's great, it is a bit of a stretch to say "metro-like" when talking of 5 to 10 minute frequency.
A 2 or 3 minute frequency is metro-like.
5 to 10 is only metro-like on a Sunday night.
Fun fact these projects were all planned at least 10-20 years before construction bagan
It's just very sad seeing this video and then comparing it to Bratislava transport network, especially the tram system
Do one of those videos about Hannover, they have done something similar but because of expo 2000 (the international exposition)
The transportation system in Krakow is:
-Slow (average operating speed below 20km/h, the fastest tram line is only 23.7km/h)
-Unreliable (90% of the traffic is going through a tight corridor in the old town, making tram jams a common occurrence during morning rush hours. I have to account for another 10 minutes of delays during my morning commute).
-insufficient (the tram network is badly interconnected, has a ton of blind spots and isn’t well connected to the urban rail network - which itself is fairly lacking).
All in all, the tram system is not suitable for a city of almost 1 million people.
Proof ==> for every 1000 residents, there’s 685 registered cars, compared to 324 in Berlin and 372 in Vienna.
I agree with your conclusions. Times were tough and this mostly did the job.
Dan Norris - Take Note
1:33 And that's even NOT where "KrakAU" (😉 as you strangly pronaunce it ) is located. 🤣
On the map it shows wrong place - in that spot is actually a different, smaller town - Tarnow.
Still, I this video very informative and interesting! 👍
0:27 well, almost got me, just a bit off frame
What cow? Kracow? That's pronounced the wrong way.
o mój boże mieszkam tam.
I feel like you’ve done very little research before making this video. The showed map of proposed metro line is not „an abandoned plan of metro”. It was created 2-3 years ago and it shows planned route of new rapid tram line which will be mostly underground. Metro line which was abandoned in 90s looked differently. Also the longest tram in Krakow isn’t 48 meters long, it’s only 43 m. This video is full of generalisation and small mistakes like those mentioned above and I feel like literally 1h of more precise research before release would eliminate all of them.
Its a nice piece, but what with that crack cow you keep mentioning throughout your video?
Riding a bicycle is a great way to exercise. Ebikes are bringing many older adults back to cycling.
Cities need to do more to encourage people to ride bicycles. Safe protected bike lanes and trails are needed so adults and children can ride safely. Speak up for bicycles in your community. Bicycles make life and cities better. Ask your local transportation planner and elected officials to support more protected bike lanes and trails. Children should be riding a bicycle to school and not be driven in a minivan. Be healthier and happier. Ride a bicycle regularly.
I definitely prefer trams to the metro, they have nice views, natural light and are relatively quiet (the sound of their engine is soothing).
If the tram is crowded, I can easily get off and wait for another tram or go for a walk, rent a bike, or take a bus.
Honestly, sometimes I'm surprised that someone claims that the metro is modern. It's only a little faster and the only advantage for travelers is that they can read because there is nothing else to do there.
If you spend your entire life riding the tram, bus or walking to a stop, a closed underground metro with no other transportation options seems outdated.
Wrong metro lines can be automated and as a result have lower operating costs!!!!!
In English paper spelling is Cracow!
They should have tunneled the road roundabout, better for everyone.
you have wrong map for the metro!! Beteeen nowa huta amd bronowice is mew map!! We are building tram on this route!!
omg. pls check cities spelling before the video
Nice editing, but even better contents! I love seeing the use of preexisting infrastructure, and understanding that rapid transit needs the right of way, to build a cheap and reliable transit system! The eastern block was definitely on the right track when priorizing density and providing trams as transit for these regions, it's really efficient and eco-friendly. Much better than the concrete deserts and the cookie-cutter-mold houses in the suburbs of the US or western Germany.
You mention the "collapse" of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the video, which wasn't as much a collapse as it was an illegal dismantling from above, against the will of the people.
Thank you for the video!
Perhaps collapse od SSSR was against the will of the Russians, but those nations that managed to leave the Soviet Union certainly welcomed it. Unfortunately, to this day, many nations are still occupied by the Russian Federation...
Please, Google which countries were in ussr and the public the material 🤨
1:34 that's not where Kraków is.
It feels like stealing to watch your videos without ads
Nice drone shots but no research. Fast trams, low cost? Speed and costs can be measured (km/h, zlotys) and you did not provide any number.
Great production. Krakow isn't great city to live, but video is cool 😊
Why is not? 😂 What is going on there?
Cracow: Builds a subway tunnel in the 1970s, abandons it, repurposes it as a tram tunnel in the 1990s.
Cincinnati: Funds a subway tunnel and surface transit system before World War 1, builds it halfway in 1920, stops, and abandons it because of money issues. Puts water pipes inside the tunnel while the state repurposes the abandoned, half-built surface transit lines for freeways. Finally in the 2000s & 2010s builds a pathetic little streetcar.
EU funding, plenty of EU funding along with EiB “loans”.
You miss an important part.
EU funding is mostly loans anyway
@@SnowWhiteArchesThat’s actually true. Also with most of EU funds 90% of time they tend to “end up” with corporations from Western Europe. Specially in infrastructure projects.
City wasn't part of Soviet Union, so correct sentence under communist regime which fall in 1989 the city was left.. ;)
Pronounce: Krakoov :)
HES SAYING KRAKOW LIKE COCOA OR CACAO CHOCLOATYE LOLOL
Hint: It didn't.
It's still slow and bad.
horse and buggy rides? horse and carriage. Also what the hell is Cruh-COW
It is difficult take someone seriously when they can't correctly pronounce the place they are talking about
When they are actually there!! Why didn't he just ask somebody? He's living up to so many American stereotypes sadly.
@@Barfield-cg7iqAmericans don't pronounce it like that either. I have never heard anyone in my life say it like him. Also, this was an EU production based on the video description so double shame for it
bro re-record this and pronounce the city name corectly
edit: great video though!
So the soviets were smarter North Americans 😅
It's not Crack-cow.. It's Krakoov
You should have learnt a fourth thing: pronunciation.
You gotta re-upload this with at least a half-way decent pronunciation of Kraków, it’s driving me nuts 😂
I could have forgiven you butchering the pronunciation of Kraków if it wasn't for the fact you actually went there to film!! It really was awful. It's pronounced Crackuff with the stress on the first syllable. If you can't manage that you could say it the way the Brits say it which is 'Crackov' (stress on the first syllable). Nobody expects you to speak Polish but we can expect attention to detail and a bit of respect. Poorly done.
Cute pronunciation of krakow. I thought I have heard all the possible butcherings of its name but this one takes the cake. Stopped watching after 10 seconds
Pardon me, at low-cost? :D
Yeah, all that EU funds and EIB loans ... low-cost :)
But maybe it seems low comparing to Western World
Poland is western world, and its about cheapness compared to subway.
You should present this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozna%C5%84_Fast_Tram faster and much longer.