 I don't make response videos. I don't think it's usually super productive or nice to make an entire video dedicated to criticizing another person's video, especially if you're making fun of them. But, after seeing a CNBC video on Trackless Trams, a topic I have thus far avoided actually discussing, I decided the time has come. CNBC is a major news provider, and so if anyone's fair game for a response video, it's them. In case you don't watch the rest of the video to put it simply, Trackless Trams are another rubber-tired gadget-bond technology, the sort which cities have been fooling around catastrophically with for decades. But the issues go far deeper than that, and so let's talk about why they're so problematic. I want to preface this video by saying that I really do appreciate that news providers like CNBC are actually willing to dip their toes into the public transit space. Even if I don't necessarily like their analysis, I don't think any attention given to public transportation is a bad thing. That being said, I did find the coverage of what I would call a dubious technology a lot less critical than it probably should be. The video uses New York a lot to frame discussion of the technology, which is fine, but what I'm going to say is that this entire video is applicable to any city, including any city that's considering using this technology. Nonetheless, I'll link the video on referencing down below so you can watch it yourself. Before I dive into specifics, consider watching this video on Nebula. I release videos early there all of the time, and it's a great way to support the channel. You can also support me via YouTube Memberships or Patreon, but Nebula really is great. The video starts with a preamble to set the stage for Trackless Trams, mentioning that few Americans ride public transportation, and that because of the major funding required for subway systems and the like, few cities actually have them, which is a bit strange when we're talking about New York, a city which most definitely does have a subway, but I digress. The video then goes on to talk about the 2nd Avenue subway in New York, and sort of makes the case that subways are just so expensive, but we should know better. The 2nd Avenue subway is the most expensive subway possibly ever built in the world, so if you want to make a reasonable case against subways as a whole, you probably shouldn't start with it. If you're curious why the 2nd Avenue subway is the most expensive by far, there is deep research from NYU going into the reasons, which I talked about in a previous video, I'll link it up here. The video then makes a bit of a leap and suggests that since subways are simply too expensive, we should just use buses, and this logic isn't necessarily wrong in the many cities, particularly in the global self, that have built successful BRT systems. But New York City is possibly the richest in the world. It just doesn't need the budget option, because moving most people on buses just isn't going to be practical with the high wages that drivers are rightly paid in New York City. And the city is also super dense, even in the outer boroughs, the sort of wide suburban arterials where big BRT might make sense just don't really exist in New York City, so you're not going to be able to build the bus highway type BRT that you see in Guangzhou or Bogota. Now the question is posed, why aren't buses well used in New York compared to the subway? There's many more bus lines than subway lines, which I found particularly funny. The main thing that discussion is centered on is the idea that since buses are uncomfortable, people just don't really like to ride them. And you know what, I don't totally disagree, buses can often be an uncomfortable and a rough bumpy ride, but it feels irresponsible not to mention the other issues with New York's buses that mean they get less use than they might otherwise get, notably that they're stuck in traffic a lot. And they aren't nearly as frequent as they probably should be. Toronto is a much smaller city, but runs a lot of buses and has great success doing that. But we already know these things, and it's a big part of why I say the 14th Street busway in Manhattan has been such a huge success. Just give the buses priority service, you don't need special buses, you don't need special paint, just give them priority and they'll be faster and more popular. All of this becomes the rationale for talking about trackless trams, which are officially branded ART or Autonomous Rapid Transit, which just feels silly. As far as I know, all of the existing ART systems have drivers when they're actually used in service, and the problematic implication made later in the video that trackless trams could mix in with regular traffic means they would definitely need drivers. No matter how many times Silicon Valley Powerpoint suggested, self-driving vehicles just aren't ready for prime time. And so one of the big buzzwords that keeps getting thrown out should not be here. These vehicles are not autonomous. Why is autonomous even in the name? Now of course there is the someday factor. I'm sure self-driving vehicles will be valid at some point in the future. But again, this just feels like trying to inject some Silicon Valley buzzword soup into a transit solution. We shouldn't be making massive city-shaping public transit investments based on maybe in 10 years technologies. I also do want to point out that while there are videos made kind of hilariously talking about autonomous rapid transit in North America, there's no mention of, I don't know, the SkyTrain system. A highly successful, actually autonomous system built in Vancouver that hasn't actually really been replicated anywhere else on the continent yet. Now I guess the argument made here is that since the buses are optically guided, that they're somehow special because drivers most of the time don't actually need to steer the bus. It just follows the lines painted on the road. But guided bus ways, such as the Adelaide Oban for example, have been around for a long time, as have optically guided systems that don't require concrete curbs at the edge of the track. And while these systems might help reduce the lateral sway that buses have that can be uncomfortable, the reality is they're not going to stop the up and down bumpiness and rough ride that all rubber-tired transit, from the Paris Metro to Val systems, and yes, trackless trams are all going to have because they run on rubber tires, which are filled with air. The next point that is worth addressing is that the technology is from CRRC, the Chinese state-owned rolling stock manufacturer. Now to be totally clear, it does seem like CRRC produces pretty high quality trains for the Chinese market, and perhaps some others. But the history of Chinese companies coming to North America to produce transit vehicles has been riddled with disaster. The CRRC subway trains produced for Boston, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a video on that city soon, have had tons of problems, and BYD buses produced for cities across North America have also had lots of problems. And then there is the political risk that if there's an international spat, the vehicles you just spent millions of dollars on, you might be on your own for maintaining them and getting parts. But it can be worse than just buying unreliable vehicles. These companies have in the past tried to influence transit planning decisions. For example, BYD is promoting the idea of building a monorail solution for what is Los Angeles' most important new rail line. And they seem to have been pretty successful because the option of building a monorail in Los Angeles in 2022 for public transportation is still on the table. Adopting an entirely different transit route and technology based on a vacuous planning process is just bad, especially when it relies on a technology that is not widely adopted and is quite possibly proprietary. And this is my biggest issue with the new gadget bond technology. And this isn't just fear mongering or a political thing. I made a previous video about GLT technology from Pombardier and the French trans-Lore technology. The GLT is something that more than one city spent a lot of money on, and then had tons of issues with and are now working on ripping out and replacing with bog standard trams. And the trans-Lore, which had a lot of similar problems to the GLT, has been found to not really be all that much cheaper than just a regular tram, while having tons of issues from the fact that the technology is more or less proprietary, which makes extending lines difficult, something you may want to do sometimes, as well as just having a rough ride because it rides on rubber tires. Basically, there is a real chance that your innovative technology just proves out to be a dud and that you have to actually rip the system out and waste public dollars. And before you say, multiple cities in China have adopted ART, multiple cities in China have also adopted trans-Lore, and we're not exactly rushing out to go build trans-Lore systems everywhere. Now the video mentioned that ART has been called a glorified bus, which I find really annoying. No, not the glorified bus part. Yes, the ART is just a guided bus. That's what I'm going to call it for the rest of the video. But let's not slander it for being a bus. What's funny to me is just how desperately everyone wants to suggest that it isn't a bus. It runs on rubber tires, it has big internal wheel wells, and it even has a steering wheel. It might be a nice bus, but it is a bus, and that's fine. I suggest that it might just be a nice bus because it is longer than most, as is mentioned in the video, and it has nicer suspension. But that still doesn't make it not a bus. Cities around the world have been using bi-articulated buses, that's a bus with two bends that's longer than a bus with a single bend, for a long time. And they can honestly be great, even better if they're actually powered by trolley lines overhead, which the ART isn't. And they can be great, especially if they don't have to carry their source of power along with them, which the ART does in the form of heavy batteries. The reality is they just aren't some new magical technology. Brisbane, for example, is going to be using some beautiful new Swiss-made bi-articulated buses on its busway. And it's honestly pretty great in my opinion. The funny part, though, is just the self-consciousness around calling them what they are. Instead, the project is called Metro. It's a bus. It's a nice bus. That's good. Buses are fine. What's funny to me is that at one point in the video, it's mentioned that unlike light rail, guided bus technology can easily be rerouted, since you don't need to build new tracks or whatever. That does make me sort of think of some crazy, wily coyote scheme. What if I just painted a new line and diverted the bus so that it stops directly outside of my house? But more seriously, you can't argue that it's easy to change the route on one hand while it's just like light rail on the other. Because one of the big benefits that is legitimately touted about light rail is what's known as permanence. Permanence is the idea that once infrastructure is installed, it's probably going to stick around. And a big sticking point with BRT, buses in general, is that they can be whittled down over time. You might start with a great service and lots of stations and even some dedicated lanes, but those dedicated lanes can always be converted back into general purpose ones, and stations can slowly be poorly maintained and decline. So the fact that you can easily reroute a service means that you can also easily whittle it down, and that's not a feature. To be fair, the video does do a great job highlighting that as with any surface transit option, the way you use the road space is critical. And a hard conversation is probably going to be required. Whether it's a tram or a bus or a guided bus, if you're getting stuck behind other traffic or waiting a long time at stoplights, well, you certainly haven't created rapid transit. But I would argue if you're going to have these difficult fights about road space, you might as well go all the way and actually lay the rails. When the video implies that the guided buses could mix with traffic if traffic is flowing well. That sort of suggests to me that BRT creep and the potential political allure of it is already part of the plans. The video ends with talking about how guided buses might be a great solution for New York City, particularly for neighborhoods that aren't well connected to the subway because well, subways are expensive. But herein lies the problem, with so many gadget bonds as well as Silicon Valley Tech solutions. A problem exists. Subways are expensive to build in New York. But instead of asking the underlying question of whether New York maybe just doesn't get something right about building subways, for example, why is Madrid able to build subways for a fifth the price of New York? The solution instead is to adopt an unproven technology that has promises of being a panacea and isn't widely used in the rest of the world. And that sort of reminds me of Hyperloop. How could we seriously have a conversation about spending a lot of public money on a technology that isn't broadly used or in the case of Hyperloop used anywhere and that has not proven itself at scale, which is the whole point of mass transit. Mass. This is highlighted in the video when someone makes a reference to the prior BQX plan, that would have had a light rail slash tram route operating along the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. Someone mentions with reference to the BQX that cities around the world have planned to build light rail lines and then not because they've turned out to be too expensive. But again, this is just New York City projection. Light rail is not hyper-expensive in most of the world and so most of the world doesn't go proposing plans and then not building them. Istanbul, Valencia, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Sydney, all of these cities made light rail plans and built light rail lines. I just don't see tons of plans that are proposed and then don't get built. This is a New York City problem. And in fact, when the cost of the BQX is mentioned, $1.7 billion, it doesn't even feel that high for New York. The IBX plan, which will again create an orbital rail line in New York, is going to cost a lot more than that, but it is going to use light rail. The general conclusion seems to be that light rail and subways are hard and so instead we should build guided buses, which seem like they could be easy, though they have only been built in a few cities, so they're probably just as good. The issue here is that there is no free lunch. Build a guided bus or probably just a regular priority bus line if you want. But please, don't pretend it's replacing those other things. It's still a bus and for better or for worse, it has the advantages and disadvantages of a bus. If there was some new technology that was much cheaper and better than the transit options we had today, don't you think that some of the world's leading public transit cities like Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Paris would be adopting it? The truth is there aren't any cheat codes to good transit and there probably aren't going to be any new fangled technologies that arrive that allow New York to leapfrog its way to public transit nirvana. Building public infrastructure is hard. It requires detailed long-term plans and experience public agencies who can execute those plans at low cost, which is the absolute opposite of the vapid jumping from plan to plan and technology to technology that happens so often, not just in New York, but in a lot of North American cities. And while transit is hard, it's worth it because good transit makes good cities.