 This is Berlin, Germany and this is such a diverse and unique city where you can see the impact of Soviet and capitalist policies all in one place. Berlin was a divided city deep in the Soviet sector during the Cold War. After the wall came down, you can still see the artifacts of the old West and East transportation planning in the trams, the buses, and the cycling networks that crisscrossed the city. As the city reinvents itself for the 21st century and beyond, you can still see many remnants of the transportation system that was once divided. Today I'm going to give you a tour of Berlin, Germany by train, by walking, and cycling, and then we are going to give Berlin a human mobility score. We are in Berlin Central Station and it is a monstrosity. There's five levels in total, two of which is used for trains, and the other three for shopping and dining. And there's an office building connected to this whole complex. From here you can catch trains to Munich and Hamburg all on the high-speed rail network. We're now going up the stairs to check up the other set of tracks on the top of this station. This place is absolutely huge. Built in 2005 as an incredible station layout with five different levels and we're standing on the top level with six tracks across. This is one of six elevators connecting the five levels of the train station. It's very cool and check out this view. The whole station was supposed to cost 410 million euros, but it's absolutely beautiful and I don't want to know what the cost overruns are. Berlin is committed to increasing accessibility by lowering many of its curbs around transit stops, 30 million euros in bicycle infrastructure investment per year, 100 kilometers of bicycle highways, 15,000 bicycle parking spaces, instituting 30 kilometer an hour streets, and 30 new place streets around the city. We are right down the street from Checkpoint Charlie, which is where East and West Berlin met at the wall. Started on August 29, 2020, this 550 meter street experiment consists of a bike lane right down the middle. It used to be a four lane road with plenty of traffic and now it is completely quiet and there's space for kids and whole families to come out and play. When this experiment is over the street will then be converted into a pedestrian only zone with the two streets along the sides being bicycle streets or Fahrradstraße in German. Double decker buses are a great way to experience your city whether you're a tourist or a local. I love sitting on the front of these double decker buses it's like you're driving the bus but you don't have a steering wheel and enjoy the view. This video is brought to you by Urban Mobility Explained and if you love learning about urban mobility check out their new courses completely free at urbanmobilitycourses.eu. Link in the description below. Alexanderplatz Station is one of many in the S-Bahn network. It is the third largest and you can catch both the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn trains plus a few trams and night buses from here. There are nine lines of 24-hour trams that run in the network. These 24-hour services are designated by the M symbol in front of the route number. The iconic yellow tram network mostly serves East Berlin whereas the West is served by underground metros and the S-Bahn system. This is a relic of a cold war where the West Berlin government invested more heavily in roads and underground rail and the East Berlin government invested in trams. We're in the iconic teal blue underground platforms at the Alexanderplatz Station. A cool tidbit for you is that this station was completely closed during the Cold War because the trains from Western Germany would come through here and go back out West therefore the Eastern Germans had no access to this station. Double decker bike parking is such a great idea but I rarely see these outside of the Netherlands. In Berlin I'm surprised there's not more because some of the bike parking especially around the train station is quite packed. The whole bike parking situation in front of Alexanderplatz is a bit of a mess making it quite difficult to find the bike parking space when you're looking for your train. You know this place could use some double decker bike racks right here it would really clean up the space and allow for more bike parking. And now I'm going to unlock one of these rental bikes from Donky Republic with my phone and we'll take you on a ride through Karl Marx Alley. This grand avenue was constructed in 1952 and it has space for six lanes of traffic, a large grassy median plus we still got all this space for a wide bike lane. Along with the 89 meter right of way you also have these gigantic roundabouts that are dotted throughout Karl Marx Alley. Hey look who I found it's Karl Marx himself. For this massive roundabout they found a pretty intuitive way to deal with cycling traffic around it. There are signals at each crossing but you get routed up to the sidewalk and you get separated from the six lanes of cars that go around. I appreciate how they've taken such a militarily inspired streetscape and made it into something that's relatively pleasant to bike down. This bike counter shows that there is almost 800,000 cyclists using this bike lane this year. I wonder how wide it is. It looks to me like it's whoa look at that it must be like five meters it's insane. And that brings us to the end of this tour of Berlin Germany and now it is time to give the city a human mobility score. For transit I really enjoyed the grand entrance to the city through the main train station. It is just an absolutely massive structure. I had a wonderful time riding in the very front of the double decker bus and I enjoyed riding the tram through the city. The iconic yellow livery of the Berlin transit system is also so cool. You can identify buses and trains from very far away especially when you can hop in and out of the U-Bahn system it's literally everywhere you go. For all these reasons I give Berlin a transit score of five out of five. For cycling riding through the city is generally a very pleasant experience but there are discontinuities in the bicycle infrastructure network where it goes from five meters wide all the way to nothing. Cycling down Karl Marx Alley was a unique experience through its 89 meter wide right of way and it's like five six meter wide bike lane. The bike share system had plenty of options but it was overwhelming at times to choose which one and to have all the apps on your phone. Shared bikes and scooters were generally parked neatly in its place but there are some streets where they were scattered about. For all these reasons I give cycling a four out of five. I thought walking through the city and as many unique neighborhoods were a great experience. There are some great urban nature around the river pass and the museum islands but walking along these very wide roadways make for a noisy experience. I was especially impressed by the Frederikstraße street conversion which will be a future pedestrianized street. For all of these reasons I give walking a four out of five. So that gives Berlin, Germany a human mobility score of 13 out of 15. Leave your thoughts below subscribe and I will see you in the next city.