The Urban Heartbeat Global Commute: Recent Episodes
Steven Bishop
Urban Heartbeat is taking you on a global commute to see what’s happening in the world’s greatest cities. Hear locals from all corners of the globe discuss how they get around in their own city. There's some handy travel tips in there as well for those who are keen to visit the places we chat about.
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Paris. Do we even need a reason to talk about this city? One of the most visited places on the planet is also home to an abundance of public transport options and features one of the world's oldest metro systems. In fact, the word "Metro" was first used for the Paris train system, named after "The Paris Metropolitan Railway Company" (Compagnie du chemin de fer metropolitain de Paris), so you could argue that Paris invented the Metro system. There is always something happening on the Parisian rails, and born and bred Parisian Nathalie is here to talk all things Paris transport with us.
Check out her French language school "Cosmopoli French" if you are keen to learn a little French to help you on your travels.
Content Warning: The topic of sexual harassment is discussed between 10:00 minutes - 12:30 minutes. Please skip through this part if you find this material triggering.
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You'd have a hard task ahead of you if you were asked to find a more visually stunning city than Rio. This is an incredible intersection of mountains, the ocean, rainforests and an urban blend of glitzy buildings alongside vertical labyrinths in the form of communities (favelas). Joining us to tell us all about all the happenings on the Rio subway network, we are chatting with Patricia, a proud Carioca (person from Rio). She's sharing some local subway history, some hilarious subway stories and some hot tips for how you can spend the perfect day in one of the world's hottest cities. Content Warning: An incident of unwanted sexual harassment is discussed in this episode between minutes 17:30-18:30.
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As one of the most chaotic places in South America, if not the world, Buenos Aires is a mishmash of so many things. South America meets Europe, rich meets poor, beautiful meets ugly, disorganised meets organised and chaos meets calm. We spoke with local friend of the show Fernando in November 2020, who as you will hear reflected on what had been a different time in this usually bustling metropolis. Fernando gives some great tips of how to experience the extremities of BA, and what to expect at a "combination station" (where you change train lines).
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Beijing is a carefully laid out city, and it needs to be to cater to its approximate 21 million residents. One of those born and bred residents is Kai, a lover of tennis and sports in general. He's sharing with us his experiences of commuting in the Chinese capital, which has over 700km of metro tracks and six major ring roads keeping people moving across the city. Hear some of the unique happenings on the Beijing Metro and enjoy some giggles along the way with this 1 in a billion character.
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On this episode we chat with Damali, a Brooklynite who has spent her fair share of time on the NYC Subway in her life. Hear all about what it's like taking one of the world's biggest subway networks. Damali shares insight into what it was like being in NYC in the summer of 2020 as the city was recovering from a tumultuous spring, and the differences in travelling around the city from pre-pandemic to mid-pandemic.
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