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Welcome to UrbanNews #33. In this episode –
00:00 – Intro
00:19 – New trams for Zagreb, Croatia
01:24 – Bridge collapse in Dresden, Germany
02:37 – Street reconstruction in Granollers, Spain
04:11 – Metro project in Krakow, Poland
05:41 – Railway development in Concepcion, Chile
06:53 – First high-speed train to produce in Turkey
07:38 – Restoration of the subway line in Kyiv, Ukraine
09:13 – Residents saved the tree in Kłudzice, Poland
#cityforall #urbannews #publictransport
Sources:
Zagreb to Receive New Trams: Major €200 Million Investment in Transport
https://www.koncar.hr/en/news/agreement-signed-for-purchase-and-sale-20-trams-between-koncar-and-zagrebacki-elektricni
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-bridge-in-dresden-collapses-into-elbe-river/a-70185172
https://www.granollers.cat/obresavsantesteve
https://www.krakow.pl/aktualnosci/286101,29,komunikat,prezydent_przedstawil_plan_budowy_metra_w_krakowie.html
https://www.diarioconcepcion.cl/ciudad/2024/08/26/biotren-efe-abre-licitacion-para-alargar-andenes-en-toda-la-linea-2.html
https://x.com/EFETrenesChile/status/1828538929324122315
https://x.com/DiarioConce/status/1828460208202371582
https://www.dailysabah.com/business/transportation/turkiyes-national-high-speed-train-to-undergo-track-tests-in-2025?gallery_image=undefined#big
https://www.transport-publiczny.pl/wiadomosci/kijow-naprawil-tunele-metra-wraca-ruch-84665.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawFQETVleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdDy4XbGSykNuiDmJdr-gNQuafQw48XC2c6peS4LF6_UZcGYy4V4VYwvXQ_aem_r2ZlLPVTK5NZfnExVga3QA
18 Comments
In my city of Kraków it will, in fact, be the light rail with tracks shared with trams, as "Line A" project was lost the project bid with premetro one.
Woohoo! Always nice to see a new metro getting built. Also I think the new Zagreb trams look a LOT better than the old ones
Thanks for putting the new about Granollers
have you covered the new 4 tri-articulating electric bus thats being tested in istanbul? its has been getting tested for a couple of months, would be cool if you covered that when it went into service/the municipality announced it would be procuring more of them
2:08 the traffic is fine! No gridlock.
The lines are rerouted over the bridge west of the collapsed one
the cracow metro isn’t that good of an idea because the light rail/underground tram tunnel idea has enough capacity already and wasting money on more tunnels outside the city centre is worse than building more of them in the city centre. also idk how cracow wants to maintain the tunnelled sections when it kinda fails to maintain the tram infrastructure already (tho it’s improving) and the massive service cuts during vacations
Thanks for covering the news about Dresden. By the way, as you can see in the last picture the city recently turned one car lane on the bridge into a temporary bike lane. I was really glad to see this bike lane test happening, but now it probably won't be continued because the whole bridge probably needs to be demolished.
Note for the Dresden Bridge: The bridge in general was under reconstruction since 2019, yes. But the bridge is split in 3 parts. 2 car bridges and the tram/pedestrian/bicycle bridge. The latter collapsed. The car bridges' reconstruction was finished. But the tram part wasn't repaired yet. Works should have started next year.
2:31 A small addition: on the photos you can see that the bridge consists of three segments. Two for cars in each direction and one for trams and pedestrians.
The two segments for cars were repaired in 2019 and 2021. The tram section was scheduled to be repaired next year.
Yaaay Granollers mentioned! : D
It seems like an improvement, although it is so disappointing that containers in the Bcn region so often are situated so pedestrians have to stand in the bike lane to throw their garbage…
(in avenues as wide as this one, the obvious solution would be to only leave one low-capacity lane in each direction for the whole avenue, not two/one+turn lane/one+onstreet parking as per the proposal)
About Kraków, I think a part of the opposition to the project may be because there isn't really that much metro in Poland (there's something in Warsaw, but not that much and most polish people never used it anyway), so it's a big change and naturally a lot of people will be wary of it, no matter if it makes sense or not.
Another thing is polish culture, that is still very car centric. There was this car craze after fall of comunism (now that people could actually buy them) and it didn't really went away yet. I personally knew people that chose to wake up two hours earlier every day just to get a parking spot at work instead of taking a tram, that had a stop literally in front of their doorway and a stop in front of their office and during the rush hours was faster than driving…
So, while I'm not judging Cracow's project (it may or may not make sense), I would suggest to take into account that part of the criticism may be just a very human distaste for change and lack of proritization of public transportation in the minds of a lot of people.
My Grandparents are from Granollers and this wasn't a city I was expecting here! Glad to hear they are doing something about the street, it's unpleasant to walk, bike AND drive there…
Tbh I am not sure the one subway line will solve Kraków transport problems. Maintenance of the subway is expensive and ppl in Kraków (and Poland) don’t like to pay taxes. Currently city makes everything to make car owners happy: 10 PLN for monthly parking permit, low fines for disobedience of road signs, cars-first infrastructure… The subway would work if it would be 3 lines and transfer hubs made for people who do use the public transportation.
Kraków definitely needs a metro. You would definitely agree if you ever tried taking the trams during peak hours. Also they should really place the central metro station at Bagatela Theatre instead of the the current proposal because otherwise the ridership is gonna suffer
Hi, I'm from Kraków. Yes, we need high capacity transit faster and better than trams, but the problem is the price of all of that. Honestly it would be better for that money if they build three tram tunnels, instead of one metro line, but majority of voters wants metro because it's metro like in Warsaw. We are on debt 1.5 B $
🌲
Great to see smaller cities like Granollers here! The last part about water, although it may not seem that impressive, is really important.
Catalonia is has just passed a huge drought period (maybe it isn't even fully finished yet), and it's predicted that droughts will be a lot more common in the next decades, so improvements on water management are really necessary.
The news about Kyiv reminds me a lot about line 7B in Madrid.
It has to go through intense maintenance every 1-2 years due to the poor construction on difficult soil (hydrologically). It's also caused lots of troubles and damages to the buildings on top of the tunnel.