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Mass Transit Wars

20sb seems to be primarily American, but probably less anti-mass-transit than most Americans.  Many of us live (or have lived) in cities with awesome public transportation systems and judge the cities we visit, in part, by the strength of their systems.

 

SO, what city (not just in the US...) do you think has the best public transportation system?

 

I have a vague feeling that I participated in a thread like this a while back, so forgive me if I'm being redundant.  I figure that thread is long deceased and new threads are easier to jump into (or maybe that's just me?) and mostly I'm too lazy to search...

Tags: bus, mass, metro, rail, subway, tram, transit, transportation, underground

Views: 174

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sweeney on December 14, 2011 at 7:46am

The simplicity of the color-coded system in DC is definitely one if its major strengths.  To be fair, the District itself isn't that big, so it is feasible for it to have fewer lines and still get you anywhere you need to go. (Within the city limits... the MD/VA suburbs that are still very much part of the metro area are another story.)

I do love the DC Metro though.  It's my favorite US system.

Permalink Reply by Ginny on December 13, 2011 at 2:20pm

Boston's would be way better if it ran pat 12:30.  They claim they don't have the money but why not raise fares after 12:30.  I'd pay!  They keep it pretty clean, at least compared to NYCs system.

I've heard good things about DC's but I've never been.

Permalink Reply by Nagehan on December 14, 2011 at 8:40am

NEW YORK CITY! Represent :) haha! I swear I don't think this city would live to see another day (I know for a fact it wouldn't because when MTA went on strike at one point, NO ONE could get around)

Permalink Reply by Christina on December 16, 2011 at 3:38am

What about Berlin? I feel like it was so easy to get around that massive place thanks to the Metro, and it's pretty clean and efficient and easy to use even if you can pronounce those longgggg Strasse names.. I could just be partial to it because I loved Berlin so much...


Paris too, it was super easy to get around. What time does it stop running at night.

BART in the SF Bay Area kinda (really) sucks (mostly because it stops running so early and isn't very widespread for how huge the Bay Area is).

Permalink Reply by Sweeney on December 16, 2011 at 7:38am

I don't really remember much about the particulars of Berlin's system, except that Berlin is where we acquired our rolling suitcase (our backs were hurting and we put both backpacks in there so we could trade off with the suitcase... it wasn't really a good plan) and I remember lugging it up a lot of stairs.. but I'm pretty sure we never had to walk very far from any of the station stops... but I also vaguely recall feeling that the system was less intelligible than it could have been... maybe it was just poor maps?  Not sure.

Budapest has that problem.  It's an awesome system -- the trains/trams/buses collectively get you anywhere you could possibly want to go, but approaching the system as an outsider is a bit of a mess.

Permalink Reply by Melissa Brander on December 19, 2011 at 8:53pm

Sooo I know this thread is old but I was reading through it and saw that the city I think has the best transportation system didn't get a mention. Hands down, of all the cities I've been in, it's Seoul, South Korea. Reliable, easy to understand, relatively cheap, all the buses and the subway connected and you can use the same card and there's almost nowhere you can't go in the city (I can't think of a single place when I was there that I went that wasn't easily accessible by public transit). Even outside of the city, the public transit system in Korea as a whole is pretty uniform and easy to access. 

Permalink Reply by Heather on December 28, 2011 at 1:48pm

That's what I've heard. One of my majors is Korean and I plan to go to Seoul for a month after I graduate with my MBA in International Business (and get my Bachelor's in Korean).

 

I'm super excited.

Permalink Reply by Melissa Brander on January 5, 2012 at 6:44pm

Oh nice! Just get a t-card (I think that's what they're called - so much slips away already) and the nice thing is you can fill them at so many places - almost every Family Mart will fill them and you can fill them at the stations of course and it's so nice because the subways and the buses all use the same card. Just make sure you don't accidentally get one for a kid haha because I almost did that. (It was a color I wanted more than the other one - I didn't realize the standard ones came in different colors depending on like kid, adult, etc. though you can get them in designs too).

Permalink Reply by Heather on December 28, 2011 at 1:46pm

The Pacific Northwest has great transit systems. I take the bus every day to and from work. I work in Seattle, WA.

Permalink Reply by c.apricio.us on December 30, 2011 at 10:57am

I don't think I've ever lived somewhere that has tolerable and functioning public transit.  Cincinnati had one plus that students could ride for free, but it was widely disregarded because you couldn't freaking get anywhere; it was next to impossible.  St. Louis metro (and Madison County Transit) has a lot of buses, but they're never on time and they're so spread out throughout the day that you may as well walk to where you're going (or know which stop they're going to hit).

San Diego, though, is by far the worst of all the places I lived.  It would take you about 3-4 times LONGER using public transportation than it would to just freaking drive where you were going.  Most pointless systems ever.  Same goes for LA and most of Southern California.
I'll be using Sydney's a lot and, after Boy teaches me the ropes, I'll be able to comment on that. 

Permalink Reply by Melbourne on my mind on January 4, 2012 at 5:43pm

Oh Jeez. Sydney's PT is pretty much a nightmare. Sure, it gets you where you're going and the trains are pretty reliable. But it's indescribably expensive (last time I was there, it was almost $20 for a one day travel pass), and you need a different card thing for each of the modes of transport because they're run by different companies. Or maybe it's just a different card thing for the ferries. It annoyed me to no end last time I was there, that's for sure! 

That said, their trains are double decker, so you don't end up playing inadvertent games of Sardines during peak hour quite as much as you do in Melbourne!!

Permalink Reply by Jessica on January 7, 2012 at 9:43pm

I was impressed by Tokyo's transportation system. My dad worked there for a year and a half and my family went to visit him for a week. From his apartment we could walk to a subway that took us practically anywhere we wanted to go. Probably what impressed me most had more to do with the Japanese people than with the transportation system itself. For example, the subway was very clean because no one litters in Japan; there are these drink vending machines everywhere but you stand next to it and have your drink and then throw it away, you don't walk and drink or eat. People pack in really close, which sounds like a bad thing, but it's more like "There's a bazillion people, let's all work together to make sure everyone who needs to get on can." But because of that, they have separate cars for women and children if they don't feel comfortable crammed in with all the businessmen (since that's mostly who's on it). Like a lot of things in Japan, the public transportation system just seemed so logical and built around people's actual needs and habits.

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