hey guys welcome back to foreign react today we're going to be checking out a video titled
why europe is insanely well designed it's a video comparison between america and europe yeah i love
that i love that um i'll be moving to europe click the link in the comment section i'm gonna
leave a link down there social media instagram y'all want to follow me i got some of y'all over
there already on instagram and those folks they don't know stuff before y'all know stuff just like
the folks on patreon i lose a lot of members from patreon though mostly i'll depart most mostly all
bailed on me but that's alright much love to you guys ease always um what i can say is this though
i'll be moving to finland and y'all don't want to miss when i do move so click the link in the
comment section go check out the channel go check out the social media like i said check out the
social media it's going to be a major point if you do but um yeah we're going to get right into this
video by obs they dropped this video today and i was just starting to do my reaction videos and i
saw it so i'm like shoot why not but either ways guys look you're right into it this is a map of
europe's mass transit railway system across 33 countries the yellow lines indicate the person
that's like right now again i gotta stop the video that's 33 countries
yo it's for real look at finland sweden oh oh my gosh it's actually true it's actually true look
at that oh my gosh i'm actually amazed bro that oh my gosh bro my eyes are watery bro that's insane
that was that bad okay wow
yeah wow that was a weird experience i don't know i got wow that i i don't know maybe i'm excited
because i'm moving to europe i don't know i maybe i don't know maybe but i literally got tears in my
eyes and you need ground boy either ways we gonna get keep it moving but this is really amazing to
see all of these railways that's really impressive i know american got that they probably got it in
a single state but um yeah that one got it like that new york is pretty well designed in my humble
opinion but yeah new york city that is of a train line and as you can see it's very dense there are
hardly any spaces where there isn't any coverage for railways now if we compare this to a map of
railroad tracks in the us it's a different story while parts of the us have some good mass transit
there are large areas of the country which isn't covered by amtrak the nation's largest passenger
railroad service but let me show you another map this time of high-speed rail in europe
now obviously high speed railways aren't going to be as common as regular speed railways as
they require excellent design strict planning and massive investment and yet as we can see
high speed rail is present in europe which is a historic contrast to the us as you can see from
this map while the us does have some higher speed rail like the aquila line in the northeastern
corridor it's hardly an effective map of transport solutions and the aquila line isn't really that
fast either it can reach about 150 miles per hour but average is less than 70. this is not the case
for europe's insanely well designed railroad system and you have to remember that europe's
system accomplishes this while spanning 33 different nations in a very diverse continent and
i know what you're probably thinking this is just because europe is smaller than the united states
which simply isn't true while the european union is smaller than the u.s continental europe has an
area that is about 1.04 times as much as the us so we can dismiss this argument that the united
states can't be that well designed because it's too big europe simply is better designed
but if you're american you might not understand why railroad tracks or public transport as a
whole is so important i mean imagine hopping off one of them things that they look nasty
i'll be like man i'm in first world for the first time in my life
man that's hey i've never been on a train
like that before i've been on tramps but i've never been on like that type of stuff
i've actually you know even when i had the opportunity to be on a train like uh subway
new york um i just didn't do it like i just didn't do it i'm dumb guy i guess i don't
know maybe who knows who cares works fine right well no and europe showcases why a primary focus
on private transportation is so detrimental to a well-functioning transit system look at these maps
they show the u.s road network versus the eu's and as you can see the eu's road network is not nearly
as impressive as the us's and yet when you look at some of the most congested cities in the world
european countries don't feature particularly prominently in the global rankings this is pretty
shocking information because you'd assume that the country with a more expansive road network
has a lot less congestion especially considering the united states has devoted lots of time and
money to their highways so how come europe is less congested when they have fewer roads well it all
comes down to disincentivizing the use of cars and most importantly making an attractive alternative
europe does this by having both private and public transportation infrastructure which technically
the us has as well it's just a lot worse but on top of this europe makes it pretty expensive to
buy own and use a car this is achieved by having high taxes on vehicles and gasoline in fact here's
a map of worldwide gasoline prices as you can see european nations are in the top rankings
got netherlands coming in hot italy france norway uk germany sweden japan
oh shoot nash wide right there is it though in order because i doubt it's in order they
definitely can't be in order like they probably just you know select these random countries i'm
guessing right i don't think it's in order first lies at the bottom charging very little but let
me be very clear it's only a good idea to make it expensive to drive a car if you have an attractive
alternative which america doesn't but europe does i mean obviously this wouldn't work in the us with
its current transportation infrastructure but in europe this is a great strategy because you make
the roads less congested for those who actually need them and give everyone else an affordable
and efficient alternative being europe's amazing public transport like the trains on the railways
this is arguably the better strategy because even though the vast majority of americans
have access to vehicles at around 91 percent and gas is comparatively cheap it still leaves nine
percent who don't have access to vehicles what are these people who can't afford a car supposed to do
i mean sometimes public transport isn't even an option or simply too expensive for many so
you've now actively excluded those who aren't exactly the most well-off from society to make
matters worse some u.s cities actually got rid of their public transport to make room for more cars
i'm not joking american streetcars like trams were actually removed to make way for bigger roads
absolutely insane compare that to oslo berlin and madrid where discussions are on the way to
restrict or even exclude most cars from the city center and let's not forget that when you have
cars you also need somewhere to pog them and this is where things start to become rather ridiculous
you see the united states has 2 billion parking spaces for 250 million cars that's eight parking
spaces per vehicle in europe it's pretty much a one to one with around 250 million public parking
spaces for 300 million cars but to emphasize the ridiculousness of this even further the area
that the us dedicates for car parking is actually larger than the area dedicated for housing people
it's honestly unbelievable that people are being squeezed out of american cities due to regulators
wanting to make more room for parking spaces this simply wouldn't fly in the eu as it has a whole
policy dedicated to improving urban planning see the eu spent 115 billion euros between
2014 and 2020 to improve city design by making it smarter greener and more connected simply
meaning they allocated funds to make their cities more efficient more connected and better for the
environment and better for the environment they really are as the average resident in
a typical western u.s city such as los angeles or phoenix contributes approximately six times
more carbon to the atmosphere per capita than an average european city resident this is purely the
result of not having effective transport solutions which saves resources and allows people to move
about efficiently and exactly that moving about efficiently is something most of europe's citizens
are able to do as a result of the european union see most of europe's nations are in the european
union which gives the eu citizens a number of perks which includes a free travel area this has
been one of the most important achievements of the eu as it makes it possible for an eu citizen to
travel freely to other eu member states and stay for up to three months all they need is a passport
or even just an id card no visas no trips to embassies no form filing just head straight over
this makes it incredibly easy to travel study and work in other countries and communities and having
this level of centralization is very important to good design as it gives the smartest people
the opportunity to work where they are most useful and since good design obviously requires a lot of
complicated problem solving and planning this is very smart another smart thing is the incredible
biking infrastructure we see in europe perfectly illustrated by this map of bike path density
in europe all the purple lines are bike paths and there's clearly a lot of them especially
towards the left side of the map but that's just because this is the home of the dutch
the netherlands now the funny thing is i won't be able to compare this to a map of bypass entity in
the united states because such a map hasn't been made at least i wasn't able to find any and i
can only wonder why but anyway what europe and also the european union has achieved is pretty
remarkable as it's hard to think of another set i personally think that is remarkable for
real i think it's really a great achievement personally because i'm thinking about free
travel and all that yes the i would consider the european union uh america i would i would be that
guy to consider european union a great comparison to america not just a single country in europe i
wouldn't consider a single country in europe to be comparable to america at all but when it comes to
european union i definitely see it close as the united states of america right why because
you're the european union is literally membership type stuff right and practically america started
with such and such and such as state grab this state grab that state put it together
and then you have the united states america right so of america so i personally you know
look at european union as a fair competitor comparison i should say to the united states
with that being said i do believe that they have achieved a lot and it's really remarkable in terms
of um the way how they maintain and you know just keep things going and that free travel thing you
know you just move about show your passport and you're good to go that's really impressive and um
you know the the financing and all of that using one currency stuff like that while they're still
different countries that's really really really impressive you know what i mean so it's not like
a situation where it's uh america where america has taken this place in that place in that place
and that's how you have the united states it's a situation where okay you're you you are you
you are you but we're going to build this together try to empower empower each other to actually you
know achieve the best that we um capable can of such diverse countries where you would be able to
travel so freely in an efficient and inexpensive manner i mean you can literally get from paris
to amsterdam for example in just 3 hours for around 30 imagine being able to travel all
over asia without any border crossings checks or visas and being able to stay for months at a time
that would be truly amazing and let's not forget that european design has always been distinctive
and very successful in fact the continent's history of design and interconnectedness
serves as a model for the rest of the world but even though europe and the eu are pretty great and
have amazing infrastructure they obviously aren't perfect i'd love to hear some of the reasons it
might not be so leave a comment down below if you have some thoughts on this but that's it for this
video thank you for watching and i'll see you in the next one yeah for sure leave some comments in
the comment section down below and tell me why you hate europe and why it sucks and why it's
not the best and whatever you want to say but um i do think that europe is a really amazing
place and i think that um it's it's it's it's it's heading places it's going places and um i really
do believe that maybe if europe was actually a single country it would probably have overtaken
america already if it was a single country because i think the european union um you know with the
countries they're striving to increase and benefit from their self from benefit themselves right so
they're trying to get a better economy for their country help their country imagine all of those
countries trying to achieve that one goal just for european union it's called european union
it's a country it's called the union of europe or something you know something you know it's
interesting and y'all can let me know what y'all think about it but um yeah we out of here guys