 GreenTrack is one of the little things in transit that can make it so much more pleasant. And it's also one of the few things in the transit space that there seems to be basically no debate on. So how can we get more of it faster? What are the benefits? And why don't we already have more of it? If you're new here, make sure to follow me on Instagram as well as Twitter. And don't forget to subscribe and hit the bell icon so you never miss a video. By the way, if you like the new set that I'm in, leave a comment down below. I would love to hear your thoughts. Now I usually start by videos by describing what we're actually talking about. But GreenTrack is really simple, and it should be totally obvious, right? Well, maybe not. GreenTrack usually describes some form of tram track where there are plantings, usually grass, integrated in with the tracks themselves. That said, there are other forms of GreenTrack, which we don't talk nearly enough about. For example, Sedum track. What is Sedum? Or Sedums? I'm not really sure. This isn't R.M. Horticulture. I believe Sedums are related to succulents. Another thing I never thought I'd talk about on this channel. But they're actually a really cool option for GreenTrack. In part because they're really hard wearing and hardy so they can stand up to the abuses of being in the middle of an urban area. But at the same time, they don't look like grass. They don't have to be perfectly manicured. They have some randomness built in. And that's really helpful when it comes to making them look good even when there's a little less than ideal amount of maintenance. This means that ultra regular maintenance and imperfections are less of an issue with Sedum than with grass. Where if you're going for the golf course look, you'll see a single hole or divot really easily. Now, as it turns out, there are even more drought resistant planting options for warm weather cities. For example, in Melbourne, there is also my least favorite form of GreenTrack but still an option, artificial grass turf. Now, using GreenTrack isn't actually necessarily something that's all that new. Newer interurban networks in particular often had tracks which became kind of engulfed in plant life and surrounded by it. And this basically gave the same look as modern GreenTrack. That said, the modern tendency to install GreenTrack even down the middle of major boulevards is a bit of a newer trend. And it's rightly driven by a lot of major benefits. The most obvious benefit is aesthetics. GreenTrack just looks great and it has this sort of modern sensibility in that it mixes nature with technology. But the benefits aren't all surface depth. Two of the biggest issues modern cities face are the urban heat island effect and stormwater runoff issues. Both of these are issues created by too much asphalt and concrete in our cities, often referred to as hard surfaces because they're hard. Now the urban heat island effect describes the tendency for these type of hard materials to lead to an increased temperature which you can understand if you've been out in a parking lot for example on a hot sunny day. The urban heat island effect literally creates a heat island where urban areas can be a lot hotter than surrounding more rural and greener areas. Now stormwater runoff is a big problem because of the impermeable nature of concrete and asphalt. Water lands on them and pools or just runs right off very quickly. That water that runs off ends up in rivers and streams which can create erosion or in the sewer system. Now traditionally this was not necessarily seen as a bad thing but modern sensibilities about stormwater management are totally different than the way we approach things in the past. We've realized that trying to control nature is probably not always the most productive approach and so modern stormwater management tends to try to give water space and give it time to be absorbed or to move more slowly. Green track with its plant growth and soil can really help with that. Now there are a lot of other environmental benefits to green track as well. It really is green. Cities are often very loud and that's natural. There's a lot of stuff going on in cities. Trams are unlikely to contribute much to the loud nature of cities but they do make some noise and having green track on your tramways can be really helpful to reducing noise levels. That's because hard flat surfaces again like concrete and asphalt tend to be much better at reverberating and reflecting sound than the random all over the place nature of grass. I don't know what I'm saying. Of course the same green track can also play a really valuable role in improving urban air quality which is a massive issue especially that large cities face. Unfortunately there are barriers that exist or are at least perceived to exist with regard to green track and these are often used as excuses to not install it. Despite the fact that green track is super common in Europe and Asia even across all kinds of different climates from Athens to Stockholm to Shanghai it is not nearly as common in North America. Very few systems actually have any extensive green track despite the fact that we are obsessed with building light rail everywhere and this is one of the many ways I feel like we get substandard transit in North America even when you're not even looking at the mode we're choosing or the service level we're operating. Two tramways, one is concrete, one is green track, green track is nicer. Toronto is actually bucking this trend a bit. We're installing green track on our new Line 5 surface subway line but given the amount of trams in this city from the streetcars to the numerous new light rail lines it would be great to see a lot more green track in the future. And hopefully when tracks are reinstalled we consider putting it in in far more locations. One of the reasons that comes up a lot as to why we can't have green track is that well emergency vehicles might want to use light rail or tram right of ways to get past traffic and congested corridors which does seem like a reasonable use of these right of ways. The issue is that things like heavy fire trucks are obviously either going to get stuck or do serious damage to a nicely manicured lawn in the middle of the street. The good thing though is that like with many technologies the immediate rebuttal that we just can't do this here isn't actually necessarily valid. As it turns out you can actually have blocks embedded in your green track. Think like a fancy looking parking lot or driveway. These blocks which can be made out of concrete or composite materials mean that you have a hard surface with space in between the hard surface to have soil and greenery. This allows heavy emergency vehicles to still run over portions of the green track that they need to. You don't necessarily need them everywhere since there are some locations where you probably aren't going to have many emergency vehicles anyways. Another issue with green track is that well if it's not super well maintained it can look a bit rough but the reality is that concrete even brand new rarely looks better than green track even when it's poorly maintained and sedum track can help with this a lot. Of course this type of infrastructure is not nearly as friendly to buses though there are some cases of busways trying to do green roadway type stuff. It's usually not nearly as good as green track on trams but hey it's something. The reality of vehicles that operate on rails is that they need a very tiny contact patch with the ground and so green track is just natural for trams. There are actually lots of things possible as well. One example I really like is the Houston metro rail system which has water track where trams literally operate straight through a fountain which is super cool even if it might be a bit impractical. Whatever the track type may be making transit more attractive and using transit to help solve environmental issues in our cities especially when we're going to build it anyways is the natural thing to do. The reality is we should be doing way more of it. Thanks for watching.