17 years planning.. forgets footpath 🤣

the blind backlash to human-centred walkable cities is one of the most infuriating constants in american urban development.

The dumbest part about this is how they built a train station next to a place where almost no one lives, in a town where you have nothing to do once you get there. What a waste.

What makes my blood boil is how people like John and Tony fight tooth-and-nail to "preserve the character" of miles of soulless drive-everywhere suburbia...

I saw this odd station while (sigh) driving to see some relatives nearby and thought "huh, that looks really odd in terms of placement, you've got zero chance of walking there", and sure enough ran into this video a few days later - it's neat knowing the history now. Thank you for putting time and care into curious local stuff like this!

What a heartbreaking and infuriating and embarrassing story. Great work as always, Alex.

I'm about halfway through the video. It is so incredibly depressing to hear how this good plan was destroyed. I wish we could have nice things here in the States. By all rights, we should.

This video has no business being this well done. You've done an incredible job and should be proud of it. Extraordinarily excited for anything you put out in the future.

Classic case of "That's why we can't have nice things."

The weirdest thing about the NIMBY phenomenon is that these folks don't *necessarily* have any financial, legal or political power, let alone voting majorities. Much of the time they're literally just loud, but for some reason we're too polite to ignore them.

NIMBY’s honestly amaze me with their stupidity. “NOOO how DARE you try to build a SIDEWALK here? The AUDACITY! It’ll RUIN the smalltown vibe! Now lets get back to the construction of that 9 story tall parking garage.”

People fear change. But whether they like it or not, change is inevitable as the planet continues to move forward and society evolves. Things absolutely cannot stay the same. The type of change we invoke is up to each and every one of us. Trains are the future, and so is transit-oriented development. Where frustrated drivers are stuck in traffic, trains move past with ease. Sure trains get cancelled, but it's not like the highways are perfect either with all its road work. People in Japan and France opposed high-speed rail, and now both systems are PRAISED. Rail leads to real-estate boom, towns popped up in the western US because of rail. Middletown thought they dodged a bullet, but it's only the beginning.

If people could walk there, then who would park in all those parking spots??

"Personally I think town centers are awesome, but what they proposed was a shopping destination that people happen to live in...." Dude, you just described the definition if a town centre

As a European, this was really sad to watch, but also super interesting to see there is a movement against this kind of planning in USA. Especially younger people seem to be in favour of walkability and public transit. I suppose time will tell if they will forget about it once they become older and just drive everywhere, or will they slowly manage to make America's cities more liveable?

What an incredible in depth case study. I'm a transit planner but I believe videos like these can have a much greater impact than anything I could do professionally. You have people's attention with this, so I think a great next step is to turn it into a call to action. This video sort of ends in a somewhat depressing conclusion and I think viewers would benefit from a case study where things went right. Can America still build sustainable, human focused development and how can regular folks help make that happen in their communities?

I don't understand how anyone could live in a modern suburb and say, "Yeah, this is great. We should do more of this."

But you CAN walk to any Pyongyang Metro station. The whole of Pyongyang is walkable and bicycle-friendly. Not to mention there are trams and trolleybuses too! The Pyongyang Metro began operating in 1973, a year before Seoul opened their first metro line. People may not like states dominated by one party, but at least we get things done without arguments. Look at how China grew their HSR system, now covering every province

I've lived in this area my whole life and would buy in a community like the original plan in a heartbeat. You've made an excellent video. This is such scandalously bad land use that l hope more people watch it and the story gets picked up by other media. What a wasted opportunity to build much needed housing.

Make sure everyone who lives in that region knows what they could have had if nimby's didn't take it away from them.

Interesting how private parties can have such a big influence on central planning. Understand private property is holy ground in the states but there must be some legal tools to get these things done no? This seems like anarchy to me, how do you get things done? A vision often only works when implemented in totality, can always make adjustments after.

👋 Hello from Philly! Just look at the uproar from the proposed new Sixers stadium in center city. Everyone having a heart attack about “how am I suppose to drive to the game!?” Septa, people. It’s literally ontop of a major Septa station. You literally can get on a train in a suburb and get off right at the stadium. No driving. It’s not hard. I promise.

Erm....Here in the UK the idea of building a "town" without a town centre to serve as a hub for retail, administration and public transport would be seen as a non-starter. It would never be approved in the first instance as it would be unsustainable in the long term. When we build a town we build it to be permanent and to form it's own identity and culture (well Stevenage has an identity but the only cultures it's ever produce is the STDs in the local women's knickers). What the developers wanted to build was a standard nuclear town, a town built around a centre within walking distance from the housing around surrounding it, every UK town for centuries has been built this way, I live in one of the new builds, it's about 120 years old and is the blueprint for the New Towns that copied it, cheaply, like Stevenage but the mix of a nuclear town with plenty of interior green spaces and additional local amenities within surrounding housing and industrial/commercial areas further lowering the need for car use is pretty much the standardised design here.

This is an absolutely sensational video! I just can’t understand though why we allow outspoken people (usually a small minority) who live in a community before being developed to have so much power that they get to decide on what gets developed, even though they don’t own the land but just love adjacent to it

3:55 "I don't have my degree yet, but I think those are kinda important for a town to have" 😅😅

The irony is that the so called corporate greed of developers that they accuse of equally applies to that sprawl development as much as the initial mixed use walkable town center plan that never came to be. Tho this isn't the idea reason to stop development, there just needs to be more funding for public housing that isn't out of reach for people with a median income under 40k. In Providence, our tallest high rise, an art deco building known coloqually as the the super man building has "affordable housing units" that is built for people with a median income of 40k when the city's median income is 24k.

It's funny how they think transit development will cause more traffic, as if SEPTA trains are the ones that run on highways. MAYBE if they don't want traffic in their community they should, oh I don't know...NOT have so much car-oriented infrastructure? If they took a moment to put their thinking caps on instead of yelling to a wall that if there were more people that ride trains, it would lead to LESS cars sitting in traffic (and housing near stations will allow people to walk). A developed country is where the rich use public transportation, as Gustavo Petro once said, and this has been the case in New York City and in Jersey City where people take the subway, and NJ Transit and PATH respectively to get to work (I used to live in Jersey City and my mom doesn't drive nor owns a car which wasn't a problem with Jersey City's convenient transit options). People have to stop exclaiming that transit is for the poor when in reality, it's meant to be for EVERYONE. Hence, PUBLIC! They're just mad that they're losing their privilege, glued to their cars to make them feel good.

Another absolutely amazing video! It's mind-boggling that 17 years of planning led to this level of mediocrity.

Excellent video. So, what do you think needs to be done to rehabilitate Wawa? If you were given money and control of the area, what changes would you make around the station?

Another fantastic documentary looking into TOD history and development. Videos like this are absolutely essential to understanding what qualifies as transit oriented developments, and what can be considered misinformation by politicians and planners. Keep up the great work, and continue to inspire new generations of YIMBYs!

The original plan could have been an amazing success story that made this kind of development available anywhere!

I grew up in southern Chester County. I vaguely remember hearing about this as a kid; my parents debating the necessity despite not living in its immediate area. Now I think it's a shame that the original plan fell through. Chester County has a lot of places that could benefit from a project like this. There are even walk-able towns with existing railways that could be revitalized, like Oxford or Kennett square. So much that could happen, but never will.

This is not the only case, the developers don’t really walk, and don’t have the word sidewalk in their dictionary so it is very difficult for them to include that in their planning. When you approach them and ask them about the sidewalk, they will freeze and then start violently rotating until they explode!

NIMBYs will forever make american TOD fall short of the mark unless there's some significant change that they all acknowledge... which won't happen. amazing production and looking forward to the rest of the videos

There's no sidewalks or paths leading into the airport in Grand Rapids Michigan. And the bus that goes there doesn't run on saturdays. So I literally trudged through the unkept no-man's land along the runway fencing because I don't feel I should be forced to pay an extravagant cab/Lyft fare just because the people who designed the airport were idiots. I'm sure security and the control tower people were watching me like bloodthirsty ravens the whole time but it was pretty satisfying to exercise my perfectly legal freedom....literally "exercising" it.

Local governments routinely fail on so many issues, but the worst, with the longest-lasting consequences, are zoning issues. Usually, local politicians are in bed with developers. When developers actually come up with innovative plans, the only residents who become involved are those totally lacking in imagination or common sense who throw up roadblocks to anything but boring, bleak, hideous, car-based suburbia. America is so far beyond being fixable it’s scary.

Literally cried at the end. I just wanna walk down my block to enjoy my city, take transit to go to another part of the city, and take high speed rail to visit other cities, rinse and repeat is that too much to ask for 😭

How can we get Americans to welcome new people to their neighborhood?

My conclusion: They should have hired mediators from Europe to settle the dispute. I forgot which city, in Holland or Denmark, the most bike friendly city has the fastest car commute times because people in the town are mostly biking or walking. Even in snow. It's so brilliantly done, yes even biking in the winter. I think I saw it on Not Just Bikes. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, cul de sacs are evil. I drive Uber sometimes and more than once I've been caught in a sil de sac maze trying to leave. New developments aren't on maps. When I'm escaping a huge cul de sac development I can't help being disgusted. "At least put in a centrally located mini mart so kids and people can walk or bike here. They wouldn't need all these Ubers just to get milk or beer. And it would he inside the development so the crime will be minimal. No huge lights needed and signs. Can be quaint." My dad was in the Air Force. We lived in housing on the far north side of a base in Japan. In our housing area we had a little mart with vending machines to save us the stress of being far away from milk... or gum. But no.

This is such a great video. These projects are insanely complicated and it is hard to pay attention to them over the decades and decades that they take to plan and complete. Thanks for doing the work and breaking down all of the history for us viewers. One thing I'll say is that I don't think anyone "forgot" how to do anything. A lot of the NIMBYism comes from racism and classism which is the underlying reason why most of these types of developments are opposed. If we don't discuss that when talking about why these plans failed then I think we're doing ourselves a disservice.

This is infuriating, but honestly, it is simultaneously not surprising at all. As a former Southeastern PA resident, Greater Philadelphia Area NIMBYs imo are some of the most aggressive, obnoxious, and unfortunately successful kinds of NIMBYs on par with NIMBYs in San Francisco. It's almost comical how anti-transit, anti-mixed use, and anti-pretty much anything NOT car related so many Greater Philly townships are and how they pound their chests and scream at the top of their lungs taking pride in that fact. These Middletown Township NIMBYs also REALLLYYY amped up the myth of the *BIG BAD EVIL DEVELOPER* that is so pervasive in many anti new urbanist echo chambers. Additionally, the amount of places in Philly exemplifying anti-transit oriented development, something I like to call Transit Disoriented Development is just mind numbing. See pretty much every SEPTA Regional Rail station and even many areas in the city that have SEPTA Subway stations.

Alex I'm so happy I stumbled upon your Amtrak video earlier this year when it had double digit views, your content is getting really relevant, thought provoking, and important! Keep it up!

If you can't walk to the station easily.......then the station is in the wrong place. From a Brit.

I live 3 miles from Middletown! Nice to hear urbanists talking about PA! Edit: now that I’ve seen the whole video, wow, fantastic job. This shines a light on why we never seem to make any progress in the US. My only hope is that the new generation, lead by people like us, can make a difference in our communities.

Really well researched, edited, delivered. Sad that this happened. Great video!

Very nice production value. Hugely informative. Entertaining editing. Thank you!!!

I love this channel so much. Thank you for doing this great journalistic work! Investigative Developmental journalism is sorely needed here in Philly and the surrounding counties.

Your videos are really great. The quality of production plus content is one of the best on KZfaq.

Lynwood city council recently allowed high and mid rise mixed use development around their Lynwood city center link light rail station in the Seattle area (opens 2025) I hope that this leads to a nice station area. We will have to see what becomes of it

God damn dude, im so hyped for you because with the quality you keep putting out, you're gonna keep growing your channel so much.

Top notch. I'm amazed at how quickly the quality of your work is improving (To be clear it was good to begin with.)

Finally, a fresh episode of 'Franklin'. Wait...

Do you have someone advising you whos working in film making or in journalism? These are way to good for you only being in the YT game for less than a year! Extremely impressive script, the pacing is pretty much perfect. Also, have you considered making a patreon? i would definitely support you.

We have a municipality that would soon be a city, Capas, Tarlac Province. There will be a train station on that place once the municipality will be much urbanised. Also, that will be one of the two options of the northernmost stations of still-under construction elevated North-South Commuter Railway of the Philippine National Railways.

Great video! So well made. Loved the editing and the inevitable conclusion.

Woah, you were born a year before I finished school, and here you are (hopefully) changing urban development! I wish I had had that much initiative at your age, great work! Greetings from Paris!

This video is so well made it should belong to a multi-million subscriber channel, but no, this channel only has a few thousand subscribers. Very, very good job.

i'm from very far away from wawa & i've never even been to delaware but this was an incredible incredible, amazing well-made video. you should be extremely proud of your skills, the video and i am so happy that people passionate about transit like this are involved in the next generation of transit-orientated development

.... lots of brazil, i feel very very flattered. latam feels like it slips thru the cracks in urbanist conversations so thank you!!!

What a fantastic video. Genuinely incredibly quality, I hope you go far.

The best thing you can do to fight NIMBYs is run for local zoning board. It’s so important to a community and so overlooked. In PA municipalities are so small the elections are super easy. They need good people!

i have similar master planned development in the my city, but for some reason they are still debating whether to add those bike lanes or not :/ also, it more parking than anything else :0

What a frustrating story! I didn't follow the Wawa station news closely, so thank you for covering it in detail.

holy crap. i finished the video and went to leave a like, and then i saw that you only have 9k subs. I dont think its going to stay that way for long, thank you for the well made content.

amazing video as always!

“The Geography of Nowhere” by Kunstler should be required reading. Understanding how we got here will help show the way out.

This is hands down one of the best KZfaq videos I have watched in weeks. Extremely well put together, great music and very interesting. Subscribed! Thank you!

Fantastic video. You deserve lots of support. After losing two cars to hit and runs I've come to realize how great transit and dense, human oriented neighborhoods can be, even here in LA (Koreatown/ Hollywood specifically). Subscribed.

Those complaints from locals... we hear almost literally the same things in San Francisco. Could be anywhere in America, I guess.

Wait, so would even a small corner shop be banned in one of these vast American residential only zones?

Hey man, just came across your channel and this video, and I love it! I’m a big fan of urban planning and infrastructure in general. This was a fantastic video. Very well produced. Keep up the good work!

I love this, everything about it. The history, the personalities behind the opposition to the station, and ESPECIALLY--using the Hallelujiah Chorus in your soundtrack. 100% informative, complete, with just the right light touch of sarcasm.

It's so crazy that this is how city planning works. Someone gets established in an area which was opened up to them by the government building a town or because they inherited the property - or they are old enough that they got in early. Then they gatekeep that area as hard as they possibly can to not only limit the amount of new families that can receive the same opportunity but also control whether they can have kids, or how much savings they have to spend on a home. There's no democracy, no vote for the people who live in the surrounding area and no consideration for new people who might want to live in the area because they have family there or for whatever reason. The majority have no say.

Why didn't the developer just make the plot a new town with its own town government so they wouldn't need to talk with the other government?

Alex, I’m going to post this on my Twitter feed because what you’ve said and how you’ve said it is absolutely brilliant. 👍

This is such a well done video! I’m going to share this with all my friends!

Wow! I'm from Lower Bucks County Pennsylvania, lived there 40+ years. Corwells Heights Station along the R7 line used to be a smaller station with apartments across the street and the bones of main street in a neighborhood called Andalusia wasn'ttoo far. A decade + ago they turned it into a MASSIVE Park and Ride. Just walking from the entrance where the old station was to all the way to where the new one is, is brutal.

This is the first of your videos that I have seen. Thumbs up on the production values. I found this video more insightful regarding the local situation than the Philadelphia area videos created by Reece Martin. Pennsylvania officials can't understand why the Commonwealth has problems attracting creative-class individuals: outcomes like this (and the processes that lead to them) are a significant reason. Not claiming that New Jersey is problem-free (see the glacial progress of the Glassboro-Camden Line), but there are enough state level incentives / support to make Transit Oriented Development occur in an attractive fashion. If Doug Mastriano wins the PA Gubernatorial election, this is likely the last transit project of this kind that will happen for a very long time.

VERY WELL DONE. I love videos like this but cant ever sit through one in its entirety because they lose me but this one i was able to watch all the way through.

Amazing editing and storytelling! You have earned my subscription

My uncle was a part of making sure the original plan didn't come to fruition. He works for a company that lobbies on behalf of North America vehicle manufacturers. They can't have projects that prove that personal vehicles aren't needed if we redesign towns and mass transportation.

Literally look at any number of cities on any continent around the world and none will be as unfriendly to pedestrians as American cities. Look at Buenos Aires, Bogota, Mexico City, Amsterdam, Madrid, Moscow, Johannesburg, Kigali, Nairobi, Jakarta, Singapore, Beijing, Tokyo... Among various levels of wealth, infrastructure and very different cultures, all of these places are better for pedestrians than most American cities.

Brilliant brilliant excellent video. Thanks for making this, please don't stop. Looking forward to seeing where you go from here!

Amazing video! Loved the theme song too, nice touch :)

"2002 - I'm born" F***ing wunderkind

love your videos, their super underrated since ur in philly you should collab with alan fisher

Ridiculously high quality interesting and informative video. Excellent work

You're not going to believe it, they are putting in sidewalks directly to the train station from the housing locations...

US isn't a nation designed for the benefit of the people. Move to Europe and you'll never want to go back. I'm from a rural town in eastern Europe of a whopping 5000 inhabitants in the main establishment, with 6 adjacent villages of about 2k each. 5000. Five thousand people. And it has a train station where INTERNATIONAL trains stop. Not even express or intercity. International. It's offensive for me when i hear the people in the richest nation on Earth doesn't have access to the amenities i had, in Bumfuck Nowhere. Where i grew up, if i got lost, my parents could walk all the streets in that town during a single afternoon with time to spare. I can't imagine needing to go kilometers away to buy potatoes. I could walk 500m past tens of small shops and interest points. The only people who owned cars were the ones who flipped them for profit because regular people didn't need them.

This is what a dying Empire looks like... 😢

What an awesome video! Keep it up man!

What a well put together video, great job man. Another sad story and missed opportunity thanks for NIMBY's.

OMG you got David Hamilton to be in your video!!! Such a big fan of both of you!

AAAAA Why is this story so infuriating!!!! Why cant we have nice things???

Amazing content! Keep ‘‘em coming.

Wow, just WOW. Thanks for such an insightful video.

They just need to bring the line all the way to West Chester again, no need for TOD their, it's already rather dense near the old station, though they could extend it a bit further as the town gets denser a few blocks up.

Steadfast truths about the USA: things will always disappoint, things will always underwhelm and things will always get worse. I give up and get my satisfaction by going through a massive amount of money to travel to a civilized place like Europe every year or so, such action is a matter of my mental health at this point. This country has no future.

Great video as always Alex!

What a fantastic (though sad) video! Congratulations on the good work, greetings from Brazil!