American Reacts to German City with More Bikes than Cars

Thank you so much for watching!

Where should we go next? 🌏❓

[june]

German here. My stepdad was a policeman until his retirement, and his advice on bike safety was "The best security for your bike is a more expensive, less secured bike just next to it."

[ganymedes]

My US friend wondered why I never got a driver's license. I simply told him I've lived in Amsterdam for most of my life and never needed one 🙂 I could get wherever I needed to go either by bicycle or public transport. And yes, you will need to lock up your bicycle or it will be gone.

[Friitz_Mueller]

Greetings from Freiburg, I like your videos and your view of the world. What´s missing in the video is, that we have a Park & Ride System, so if you come with your car to Freiburg, you can park for free outside of the City if you buy or own a ticket for the Tram (Straßenbahn). If you buy a ticket for a concert or a soccer game, you can use the public transportation in the whole Freiburg Area for free.

[johnfrancismaglinchey]

Putting the Tram infrastructure in place before any building is erected is a long held practice in the NEDERLANDS.

[GiavanniGabrieli]

There is a reason, why I don't have a drivers licence. I never needed it. I work in Frankfurt and live in another city. From my home to my office it takes 23 minutes with public transportation.

Oh, and I can really recommend Ashton's channel. She has some really fine videos. Really surprising was her take on the difference on the costs of living in the US and Germany.

[h-mh]

Yeah - you have to lock your bike - else it´s gone. Especially in the big cities - but the locks usually deter theft and work pretty well. Great point btw - when you said Freiburg is "humancentric" - that´s what all cities should be 4 real!

[Zitat-ist-auch-nicht-mehr-das]

There is a Germany ticket available to everyone for 49 euros per month. With this, you can use all buses, trams, underground, regional express trains, and regional trains in whole Germany. I commute on weekends over 250 km by bus and train, using the regional express system. It takes me less than 4 hours for the journey. By car, it also takes me 4 hours, so I prefer to use the train. And yes, you have to lock your bikes here too….

[johnfrancismaglinchey]

My dear Joel, , , , Where your heart is. Your feet follows

[renesalinas]

Münster has 3000km bike lane and was votet as the most liveable city in the world by citys up to 750.000 habitants and has 300.000 and 50.000 students. It is said everyone has two bikes. One for going out and one for touring.

[seanthiar]

There are seven (mostly) car free islands on the German coast - some are even bicycle free. Mostly car free, because only emergency vehicles, sometime public transport and maybe maintenance vehicles are allowed to drive on those islands.

[leszekk.]

Washington DC has 690, 000 inhabitants and 177.0 km2 (68.35 sq mi).

And Copenhagen? It has 660, 000 inhabitants and 90.01 km2 (34.75 sq mi)...

American cities are built in a way that makes it difficult to use public transportation and bicycles. They take up a disproportionate amount of space, and in many parts of them, car parks take up more space than buildings...

[NightBlado]

Black Forest area at least in Germany even has these bicycle sized safeboxes for individual bicycle storage, so it is not "just" locks and garages.

[Arltratlo]

in Europe, you learn to use the bike to go to places....
in the USA, you learn to use a bike, so your parents can brag about that their kids know how to use a bike and still get driven everywhere!

[grahamthompson]

LA had the largest tram system in the world, which was ripped out by an oil and gas consortium after a privatisation deal.

[julianun]

In my german city bikes get stolen when you leave them locked outside for 24 hours. Unlocked it will probably last 10 minutes until it's gone.
But we are having surveilled locking stations and rentable bike garages. Most of my friends and I are keeping their bikes inside their flats when they are at home because the bikes will also get stolen from your houses cellars.

[Marion.k]

Freiburg is wonderful, but these smaller beautiful cities can be found everywhere in Germany! I hope you'll have a wonderful summer in my country! Thank you for your nice reactions, I like them a lot. Take care!

[esaedvik]

Once my dad stole back one of my bikes in Finland in the 90s-ish. He saw someone riding it, followed them, checked the ID number off the bike (he had put it there himself) and it matched. The bike had been gone for like a year+. I constantly see people leave their bikes unlocked in the village I live in nowadays, I wouldn't though. I ride an eScooter at times and I lock that with a bike lock to anything solid, usually a bikerack.

[alicetwain]

There is a bit of prejudice that it's mostly the cities in northern and central Europe that really push transit, but I invite you to check out Barcelona, which is also a much bigger city (a million and a half people) and it's really pushing the transit network, with lots of subway lines and busses, limiting the number of streets open to car traffic, and making also the peripheral areas uncrowded.

[PokhrajRoy.]

“Appreciate my patience and good timing.” 😂

[edwardwoodstock]

Thanks for sharing J. What a wonderful place. The world could learn a lot from this x