Top Underground Transit Systems in the World
Virgin has gone and listed what it feels is the top 11 underground transit systems in the world and for once I don’t agree with them.
The top 5 are:
– London
– Paris
– Moscow
– Madrid
– Tokyo
Now I’m a Londonder at heart and there isn’t any chance in hell the Tube could be considered number 1 and here’s why..
Ask any Londoner why they hate the tube and you’d get a flurry of responses along the lines of:
– It’s expensive. Currently the Tube is more expensive to travel on than the Vienna Express
– Punctual and The Tube aren’t words that you can use to describe it.
– It doesn’t run past 1am and when it does, you end up waiting longer for the train than most men grow facial hair
– It’s dirty
– The tube is on strike more times than welsh coal miners in the 80’s
– It’s hotter than an oven in the summer.
It’s good to see Asia making up a large chunk of the Top list, but where is Bangkok and the BTS/Skytrain? The Skytrain/BTS compared to the Tube is amazing. Not only is there airconditioning but it’s punctual, fast and overall very cheap to travel on.
Here’s to more mass transit systems like the BTS/Skytrain, hell anything is an improvement over a 100 year old creaky tube
And for those interested in how our other Metblogs feel, check out:
Until I wrote about Toronto’s subway woes and whether the new porkpie line will meet our transit needs, I had no idea the London Underground was so hated. One person told me he never thought he’d come across anybody who thinks the Underground is a good example. Well, it may be dirty, noisy, hot, expensive, and unreliable, but at least it covers the city, unlike Toronto’s which is filthy, hot in the stations (or freezing in parts during the winter) and in a few of the old trains, expensive, unreliable, mostly wheelchair-inaccessible, and completely, totally, and unbelievably inadequate. It isn’t surprising that we didn’t make it to the top 11, but Montréal did.
Now that’s kind of funny because without wanting to wax lyrical. I’d swap my readybrek to do the skytrain over the NORTHERNLINE any day of the week. … sigh.
Oh, and the underground in London stinks. Loads of history not much charisma :)
what about Hong Kong & the octopus?
BTS is not cheap considering the cost of living in Thailand.
And it’s not that punctual (no timetable) comparing to Japan’s one.
Japan’s metropolitan rail transit system rules.
Singapore’s MRT is one of the most efficient and cheapest in the world.
I groan everytime i back home to Perth, ohhhh nooo 30min to next train and $3.50 to get to my freinds place ahhhhh.