What country and city has the best mass tranit?

[Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the futre 0]

Japan's bullet train and Frances TGV is good. Amtrack sucks. THe Noreast corridor is the only highspeed rail in amrerica. I know Chicgo or anywere eles in the US has nothing on New Yorks subbway

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

The only mass transit systems I have used are Montreal, Toronto, Dayton Ohio, London UK.  I'll take Montreal for the cleanest and most efficient, but London for the widest coverage.

[bbfan02 23]

London's mass transit takes up a chunk of the traffic. The stations are overcrowded. I also take NYC. Its not as bad as London, but it is still a big part.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

I would argue with you about Chicago, Cybernetic. The system as a whole can get you almost anywhere. NY is obviously famous for its transit system but I would bet that Chgo is a pretty good match. The subway and el connection is top notch, you can go from north suburbs to deep south side in an hour and a half on 1 train. The Metra heavy commuter rail covers the 6-county area pretty extensively, and with a wealth of alternate routes there's a sure way around traffic. The el even takes you right inside O'Hare's terminals (are you listening, modders?). Add the South Shore Line electric trains to Indiana, and you have a true interstate transit system.

Portland, OR has a nice light rail system that is currently being expanded, and they keep a pretty good on-time record for both rail and bus.

BTW, I took Amtrak from Vancouver WA to Chgo, the Empire Builder. I thought it was awesome! The staff seemed genuinely nice, and helpful. No gov't employee snottiness at all, they acted as if they really loved their jobs and serving people. Also, the coffee was fantastic, which I did not expect.

[Haljackey 17,441]

I'd give Japan my vote for the best country.

For a city, I'd vote for London (England, not London Canada... It sucks here!) myself

[confused04 14]

Originally posted by: manticorefan I would argue with you about Chicago, Cybernetic. The system as a whole can get you almost anywhere. NY is obviously famous for its transit system but I would bet that Chgo is a pretty good match. The subway and el connection is top notch, you can go from north suburbs to deep south side in an hour and a half on 1 train. The Metra heavy commuter rail covers the 6-county area pretty extensively, and with a wealth of alternate routes there's a sure way around traffic. The el even takes you right inside O'Hare's terminals (are you listening, modders?). Add the South Shore Line electric trains to Indiana, and you have a true interstate transit system.

Portland, OR has a nice light rail system that is currently being expanded, and they keep a pretty good on-time record for both rail and bus.

BTW, I took Amtrak from Vancouver WA to Chgo, the Empire Builder. I thought it was awesome! The staff seemed genuinely nice, and helpful. No gov't employee snottiness at all, they acted as if they really loved their jobs and serving people. Also, the coffee was fantastic, which I did not expect.quote>

You must have stopped in the Twin Cities! My friends take the Empire builder and I've heard they've upgraded and cleaned up the train so that its even better.  Too bad it takes forever because of the vast distances (which I think many Europeans have trouble imagining).

Originally posted by: Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the futre

Japan's bullet train and Frances TGV is good. Amtrack sucks. THe Noreast corridor is the only highspeed rail in amrerica. I know Chicgo or anywere eles in the US has nothing on New Yorks subbway

quote>

What makes you say that Chicago can't compete with NY city subways? Its one thing to just say it but I've taken both and they are quite frankly pretty comparable. I personal found Chicago's elevated more enjoyable.  Amtrack sucks because no one wants to sit on the train for 15 -48 hours and fast rail from coast to coast is currently economically impractical. Not even Europe has a highspeed line 3,000 miles.

[Duke87 1,070]

Well, nice to see that you posted this in the proper forum!

Anyway, yeah, some thoughts from me:

New York: The subway system is the world's largest by several measures, and has the distinction of being the only one that operates 24/7, though it does have some obvious shortcomings (besides coverage gaps). For one, it's old, and isn't exactly the cleanest of systems. For another, the whole system is undergoing a massive overhaul and as such on the weekends there are always service alterations and interruptions to allow for the constructions. It isn't exactly the simplest of systems to navigate, either. Not every station permits a cross platform transfer without leaving and paying an additional fare (and the subway map makes no indication as to where this is the case). Also, the service patterns vary. There's rush hour service (7-10 AM and 4-7 PM, Monday to Friday), off peak service (5-7 AM and 10 AM-4 PM, Monday to Friday), evening service (7 PM-12 AM, Monday to Friday), late night service (12-5 AM, all week), and weekend service (5 AM-12 AM, Saturday and Sunday). The map tries to show all these service patterns on one map, and doesn't exactly always do a good job of it. Still, this is really only an issue for tourists and out of towners trying to make sense of it all. The locals all just know what's what and have no problem with it, and as such it isn't really considered an issue. Typical New York Attitude. The announcements in the cars have long been left to the conductor, and as such sometimes come out garbled and hard to hear through the PA system in older cars. Though, this problem is getting addressed. All the newer cars in the system have clear, fully automated announcements, which follow a set pattern. Upon entering the station, the announcement says 'This is (station name)". Once the doors open, the message for people entering is played (e.g. "This is a Bronx bound 5 express train. The next stop is 125th Street", or "This is a Pelham Bay Park bound 6 train, the next stop is Hunts Point Avenue"). Finally, you have the iconic "Stand clear of the closing doors, please!" message, followed by the typical door closing chime that all new cars since the 80's have featured. The interiors of the newer cars also have LED displays which say "this is (station name)" when in a station, and scroll through the line with its final destination, the next stop, and the time of day when in transit. Very well done, and a huge improvement.

Boston: The subway system (known locally as "the T") is relatively reliable and easy to use, although there's really nothing special about it besides that it feature's North America's oldest underground subway tunnels (New York followed a year later, though they also had els for a full 25 years beforehand).

Philadelphia: Has an utter lack of subway coverage. Two lines, which meat at City hall, and that's basically it. However, what they do have works fine. Technology is a bit dated, though. They're still using tokens.

Washington DC: If there was ever a subway system which is both good and sucky at the same time, this is it. It's relatively new, polished, and quite clean, so it looks great, though the function has a lot of room for improvement. Besides the fact that there are huge glaring gaps in its coverage, it also has this nutty fare system where rather than just paying and getting on, you have to put a ticket though a machine both upon entering and exiting, and how much you're charged depends on how far you went. Sure, it might seem fair (no pun intended) to charge people who go farther more, but this violates the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) with no real benefit. When you need a huge table full of fine print to list what the fare is, something just isn't right. You gotta love the "doors are opening" and "doors are

[DOXXP29 5]

New York has the best urban subway system that I have experienced. I personally liked the old token system, but now that they've gone to cards it makes life easier for the tourists and out of towners. Something worth noting is that the NYC system is relatively cheap as compared to many other systems. Even though it is a 100 year old system, it still operates efficiently and you can get to just about anywhere you have to go in the city. It used to be that you could literally get everything from a haircut to basic shopping needs without leaving the system as there were shops, newstands, barber shops, stationery stores and more all underground. (Not surprisingly, many homeless people actually chose to LIVE there! Some slept on the trains and others lived in the abandoned or unused tunnels where sprawling camps were established.)

Washington, D.C. has a system that Duke describes perfectly as being good and sucky at the same time, although my experiences with it over the past 30 years are definitely more on the sucky side. Yeah, for years it won awards for being clean and for its design and how it was what San Francisco's BART should have been. (I thought BART was far superior, but I haven't been to San Fran in several years.) D.C.'s system, called the Metro, IS clean. I guess so...they lock up 12 year old kids for eating a french fry in the system (I'm not making this up or exagerating!) and fellow passengers will call the cops on you for sucking on a Life Saver (even though the person was a diabetic and had to maintain her sugar levels she was still fined...happens all the time.) The station managers are useless, the majority I've encountered being both ill-informed and lazy and are loathe to allow you use of the rest room or water fountain as they are supposed to even if it is a medical necessity. At any given time, at least one quarter of the stations have either the elevator or escalators out of service which means that the handcapped are forced to exit at a different station in order to have access to an operating elevator. And these outages aren't one day deals...they last several weeks at a minimum and usually run for a couple of months at least. They had a system they recently installed called NextBus which would tell you when and where the next bus would be arriving at the station, but this system was recently taken out of service due to bugs in the software and will be down until at least the middle of next year. Trains run on a single track in each direction, even where there are several lines using one track, so delays are inevitable and express trains (in the true sense) will never be an option. Parking at outlying stations fills to capacity very early, so commuters wanting to ride the subway to work are SOL unless they want to get to the parking lot by 5:30 a.m. even though their job doesn't start until 8 a.m. Parking costs a fortune and one must buy a seperate card in order to exit the parking lot...cash is no longer accepted due to the fact that millions of dollars werer being stolen every year by the workers. But the main problem is that it really doesn't GO anywhere! Since it is the most expensive system in the country (last I looked) and fares are going up again, one would think there would be a station on every corner, but this isn't the case. Most neighbourhoods in D.C. aren't even near a subway and the ones in the suburbs can really only be reached by driving or by bus. These are the reasons that so many commuters in D.C. drive a single occupant car to work and why the commuter problem is so horrible. Crime is a constant problem with yet another carjacking, kidnapping and sexual assault happening a couple of weeks ago at a station. Fights on the trains between kids and adult riders as well as between adult riders are quite common, which isn't surprising given the egotistical nature of the area. Most adult fights are over seats since<

[GingerBlokey 30]

Well I know Im supposed to say London but its not the truth really. It is cool and it is functional but its not clean and its far too busy.

Personally it would have to be somewhere like Copenhagen or Zurich where the system is clean, efficient, quick and integrated.

[hamsterTK 93]

The only two real subways I have been on would be the ones in DC and Toronto. I was small when I was on the one in Toronto, and in DC I was stuck in a crowd and all I can really say was that I thought the stations were cool looking

About light rail, I have been on the ones in Houston and Dallas multiple times, and they are alright.

Anyways, I don't really know what city has the absolute best system, really that is something you can't answer.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

Originally posted by: Duke87

New York: The subway system is the world's largest by several measures, and has the distinction of being the only one that operates 24/7quote>

 

Actually, Chicago has 24/7 trains (like the O'Hare and Midway lines) and some main artery bus lines are 24 hour as well. With el/subway trains to both airports, a night schedule is a necessity.

CTA subway/el map

[screamingman12 30]

I would probably vote for the SF bay area. The Muni streetcars will get you pretty much anywhere in ~1 hour, and they are easy to use. However the Muni does have sevral catastrophic break downs at times (the Muni Meltdown in the late '70's, which re-appeared to an extent when the T-Third Street was opened) the BART is also pretty good, however the fact that it is mostly elevated, and in earthquake country, doesn't sound like good engineering to me( not to mention that one of the tunnels goes streight through the Hayward Fault).

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: manticorefan

Originally posted by: Duke87

New York: The subway system is the world's largest by several measures, and has the distinction of being the only one that operates 24/7quote>

 

Actually, Chicago has 24/7 trains (like the O'Hare and Midway lines) and some main artery bus lines are 24 hour as well. With el/subway trains to both airports, a night schedule is a necessity.

quote>

You're confusing "there's 24/7 service" and "the system operates 24/7" here. In New York, the entire system operates 24/7, not just parts of it. There are stations in Chicago that have no service during the wee hours of the morning (at least according to the schedules in your link). In New York, no stations are closed at night. None. And it's been that way at least since the first subway opened in 1904. I dunno about el service before that, though.

[LarksTonguesInAspic 28]

I didn't realize the whole system in NYC was 24/7, sounds fairly inefficient, financially. But that's cool, at least you can't get stranded at night. 

1904? 11 years after it opened in Chgo. We beat you on one thing!

I just had to stick up for my hometown. The rivalry continues! In a friendly way, of course. My opinion is that the two cities are more similar than anyone would admit.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: manticorefan I didn't realize the whole system in NYC was 24/7, sounds fairly inefficient, financially. quote>

Well, it's not, really. Trains only run every 20 minutes or so from midnight to 5 AM. It's the city that doesn't sleep after all!

Though, riding the subway during those hours is not always the best of ideas. It's when all the crazies come out. Due to the lower ridership, it's also when most crimes (violent or otherwise) on the subway are committed. You're also bound to encounter all he drunkards staggering home from the bars at this time. You're generally better off taking a cab, particularly if you look like anything higher up than a working class inner city dweller. Then you're just asking to get mugged.

1904? 11 years after it opened in Chgo. We beat you on one thing! quote>

Except, no you didn't. 1904 was when the first underground subway opened in New York. The southern portions of the Third and Ninth Avenue Els (which were torn down decades ago) and the Brighton Beach Railroad (which is still in use by the B and Q trains, and the Prospect Park Shuttle at its northern end) all date back to 1878. Still gotcha by 15 years. In fact, the only city with an older rapid transit system than New York is London (1863).

[The boy formerly known as Evil Muzz 27]

Well, being British I should say somewhere in Britain, but the truth is transport here sucks. As GB has pointed out, the Tube is dirty, busy and not pleasant, while the entire transit system in London (mainly London, but also across the entire UK) is totally unreliable, crowded, dirty... Not what you want from the country that was at the forefront of the invention of rail travel. I can hear Brunel turning in his grave.

That being said, the bus system locally is pretty good, they do a good job of keeping the buses clean and they are almost always on time.

My vote goes to somewhere in Europe, probably Germany. I visted Cologne recently and was incredibly jealous of their transit system. The ETA said 11:07, and the train arrived at 11:07. Not 11:06, not 11:08, but on the dot. In Britain, 11:07 could mean 11:27. The station was also incredibly clean and modern. I daresay half the nice fancy flat screen TVs they had in there would have been vandalised had it been a British station. Their underground system was also pretty clean. Of course it had it's grafitti, but I can't think of a transit system anywhere that doesn't have that sort of thing. Apart from that it ran on time, it was quick and efficient and not overcrowded.

[toxicpiano 125]

Originally posted by: The boy formerly known as Evil Muzz Well, being British I should say somewhere in Britain, but the truth is transport here sucks. As GB has pointed out, the Tube is dirty, busy and not pleasant, while the entire transit system in London (mainly London, but also across the entire UK) is totally unreliable, crowded, dirty.quote>

I'd disagree with that, I use public transport in London usually at least once a week and when it runs the service is pretty good. The tube is by far the best part of it. It takes you anywhere, I just wish they would extend it more into south London (I have to take a bus to get to a tube station). I don't really see what's so unpleasant about it, it's just a way of getting from A to B after all. It's not really dirty and it's popular so I imagine it would be crowded

[Duke87 1,070]

Ah, schedules. I know that Metro-North and the commuter rail services around New York are generally reliable. If there's a schedule interruption it's due to adverse weather (heavy snow, flooding), or technical difficulties (stalled train, power failure), and those don't happen too often. If a train says 11:07, it might not arrive at 11:07 on the dot (you can't be that precise since the time spent in a station varies with how many people get on and off, how fast the driver takes things, how long the train has to wait for a switch to be flipped, etc.), but it's still good. Anything past 11:10 would be unusual. They also make a point of never running trains ahead of schedule, so people don't miss them. If a train is ready to go at 11:12 and is scheduled to leave at 11:14, it'll sit there for two minutes and then go to make up the difference.

This only applies to the commuter rail, though, the subways don't run on set schedules. Instead they run on time spacing.Generally trains are supposed to be 2-5 minutes apart during rush hour, 5-10 minutes apart during the day, and about 20 minutes apart at night (depending on the line). These spacings are rarely adhered to with significant accuracy, though, since trains tend to get held up bit by bit along the line for various reasons. More passengers getting on/off then intended for, waiting for a train ahead to get out of the way, waiting for a switch to be flipped, etc. When you're scheduling human-operated trains that close together, you really can't have them running all that smoothly since things will kink up. Interestingly enough, though, rush hour is when the trains are most reliable. It's at night and during the weekend that things get sloppy. Sometimes if a train gets delayed enough they'll even have to make it start skipping stops so it doesn't hold up the train behind it that's caught up with it due to the delay. They always announce this, though. e.g. "Ladies and gentlemen, due to delays, this train will be skipping all stops from (station x) to (station y). There is another train directly behind us which will be making all those stops. Thank you." In the business this problem is referred to as "bunching".

In an interesting experiment, though, the L train is now completely automated: driverless and conductorless. The MTA was able to do this since the L train runs the same route all hours of the day, and never merges with any other lines, so it doesn't have to worry about a non-automated train from another line in front of it, or whether or not a given switch is in the proper position. Along with this, LED displays were installed in all the stations with the estimated times to arrival of the next two trains in each direction. Though, as many riders will tell you, those signs are not always reliable. I remember just this past Saturday I was getting on the L train at Myrtle Avenue, and the sign read "L Manhattan 2 Min; L Manhattan 10 Min". At the same time, an automated announcement came on saying "Ladies and gentlemen, the next Manhattan bound L train will depart in approximately 2 minutes", followed almost immediately by "Ladies and gentlemen, the next Manhattan bound  train is now arriving." ...except it wasn't. The sign had ticked down to 1 minute, and sure enough, a bout a minute later the train came. So in this case the sign was good, but the announcement screwed up. Though, upon arriving at 8th Avenue (the end of the line), the sign across the platform was flashing "L Brooklyn 0 Min", and the train was still sitting there. And by the time I walked halfway down the platform and got to the stairs to transfer to the A, it still hadn't budged. One blogger summed the issue up quite nicely: "that train will arrive when it damned well pleases".