There also are a lot of tourists coming to the Christmas markets, sometimes from quite far away.
Those people either completely take public transit (they’ll be drinking anyways, so public transit is easier to get back home) or go for the park + ride offers that pop up during that time. It works pretty well.
This could be the Striezelmarkt in Dresden at the Altmarkt. look here
You could walk there from the Hauptbahnhof but there are a lot of public transit stations close by.
Is this supposed to be big? Do American cities not have festivals, concerts, parks, squares, new years parties… Or is this just low hanging circlejerk bait lol? 🤔
Underground parking garages are very common over here. Most of the times these city squares are exactly that, a huge multi-level underground parking garage because these squares are always event spaces, and they are usually city-center so even when there isnt events, people have somewhere to park when just visiting the city. Yes, there will even be long lines of traffic waiting/hoping for a spot during event periods.
With that said, they do fill up, usually fast. So most events suggest finding public transportation. This just means people park further away and then take the bus/rail/etc the rest of the way. These Markets arent just for the locals, people travel from all over to come to them. So public transportation for long-distant travel, while totally possible, isnt always as practical (sometimes nor affordable or possible) for everyone. Plus, long distance trains do sell out. We just spent most of the season traveling all over Central Europe going to various markets.
I remember in Germany they would have a “Festbuß”, festival bus, which were additional public transit routes from surrounding villages to wherever the event is happening. They are usually advertised in advance to give people additional option.
Yup, still a thing! Especially if a lot of surrounding villages are doing things, like christmas markets. Or even within a village with lots of small stops, like a bar-hopping type deal. The buses just loop, sometimes in both directions, through all the stops. They are separate from the normal transit buses, you gotta buy their specific ticket (or it’s free) and they are usually travel bus types rather than city transit buses. The inner-village ones are just passenger vans, though.
Fun fact from Germany! These giant Christmas markets actually double as parking lots outside of holiday seasons! Everything is temporarily built on top of a giant parking lot!
Furthermore these tend to be close to both major hubs (Think like a central train station!) and some other event areas that DO need the parking (like a football stadium!). That way, while the holiday markets (plural, several a year) are off, the space can also be used as parking space for sports events hosted in the adjacent stadium!
Just some amazing German efficiency for you. Oh also they frequently get used as skateparks.
Also to add (having just spent a good portion of the season going to various Christmas Markets all over Central Europe), a lot of times these central square event spaces are essentially the roofs over underground parking garages. LOTS of multi-level underground parking garages in all these cities.
Well, they’ve probably been markets for some hundreds of years before they dug a parking cave underneath. Old cities especially get increasingly cramped with time.
It’s called an event space and it can’t be occupied all year. There’s stuff going on pretty frequently but when it ain’t, it’s gonna have to be a skatepark + parking lot.
It ain’t just Christmas. There’s holiday markets for every season and even off holiday there is frequent flea markets. It’s even where popular bands will hold their concerts. Without a dedicated space like that, it’s impossible to set up these kind of markets and fairs. It’s inevitable that some days it’ll sit empty.
You try setting up a ferris wheel and rollercoaster in the cramped areas of the city. It won’t work.
As a German, I have never been to a Christmas market held in an event park. I know Christmas markets as just occupying the town square or city centre instead of a dedicated area away from it.
Event parks are in my experience usually just used for fairs, food festivals and sometimes concerts.
Yeah that’s exactly how human civilization has worked. Little known fact, athens was basically a rural town of about 200 people and each dwelling was about 2 miles apart. The ancient Egyptians are so overrated. There were about 120 of them. TV really lays it on thick with Manhattan. Only about 75 people live there in reality, and most of them live on farms!
Perhaps try giving it up, then? You can start by getting rid of your smartphone, then Internet. Electricity, plumbing… Pretty much every comfort…trade.
Oh what’s that? No, to all that? That’s what I thought. It is not civilization you dislike. You like all the sides that benefit you directly. You just have so little empathy that the idea that another human might inconvenience you for a moment with their existence is just beyond your ability to tolerate. A selfishness so extreme, being a hermit sounds enticing if it were just more convenient, eh?
No one is puzzled. This was a case of someone casually scrolling and commenting without critical thought. Which, let's be honest, we are all guilty of that and the other guy taking the opportunity to dunk with an AmEriCa Am I rIgHt???
Saying "I want to know how they deal with parking", assuming they have vast parking garages and a shrug emoji is what I interpreted as puzzled. If you're not clear it's a reference to access to public transportation.
I know. I was just saying that the American in the pic is only puzzled because they are mindlessly scrolling and posting on Twitter. When the time comes to go to an event like that they are also just as likely to take the train without much thought to it either
It's true though that many Americans have never lived in a city with functional public transportation, so they don't even consider it. I lived in a city with a decent light rail system and it wasn't really reasonable because I would have had to walk 1.5 miles across hellish intersections (or taken an uber?) to even get to a train station, and I lived in a fairly urban area.
It wouldn’t, unfortunately. My city got Amtrak service back a few years ago, and sooo many people I’ve talked to are like “I’m never taking a train again!” because they caught a delay ONE TIME, even though they don’t bat an eye sitting still daily on the interstate.
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