10) New York. Butt ugly, smells bad, too many rats, but gets you a whole lot of places at reasonable speeds.
9) Washington, DC. Very pleasant, beautiful stations, and when working properly, fast. But its major design flaw (lack of double tracking) means that if one train goes down, the whole system gets gummed up. And it is not maintained well enough.
8) London. See New York, except I haven’t used it enough to see a rat.
7) Delhi. Modern and fast, but you sure better like your fellow human if you are going to use it.
6) Tokyo. Miraculously efficient, but see Delhi. As such, it reflects its city.
5) Kiev. Metros may have been the only economic thing the Soviets did well.
4) Seoul. Longest system in the world. Clean and reliable.
3) Taipei. Almost luxurious.
2) Paris. If i weren’t for the strikes, it would be as close to perfect as a metro system gets. The Louvre-Rivoli station is so beautiful, you wouldn’t mind waiting for a long time there. On the other hand, you rarely have to.
1) Barcelona. Goes everywhere, swiftly, cheaply, comfortably.
[Update: Hong Kong needs to be on the list too. Maybe 2.5?]
No convinced that Barcelona should be one and two position. Their platforms still look old and cramped. Paris hardly have two way escalators nor elevators that would make stations more accessable to the elderly and the handicappeds. Hong Kong and Taipei subways are similar, but because Taipei's have clean restrooms located at every station and Hong Kong doesn't, I'd put Taipei first and Hong Kong second.
ReplyDeleteArrrggghh... The previous post isn't as I remembered. The first sentence should read: "Not convinced that Paris and Barcelona should be in the one and two position." Sorry for the mistakes.
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