What city has the best mass transit?

[slobake]

The best I have ever seen is in London. The Tube is amazing.
San Francisco is fair
Boston was pretty good
Dublin was pretty good
I'm not familiar with New York
Mass transit in L.A. is pretty bad
I hear Chicago is pretty good
There are so many places I haven't been. Tokyo? Paris? Beijing, Rome?
What's the best mass transit you have ever seen?
Oh and "Mind the gap"

 

[Killed_by_Death]

Singapore

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

 

[Gorn]

I only know New York public transit and it works well but there are massive sections of the outer boroughs with very few options. It would take several busses just to get to the subway from where I live.

 

[12bass]

London, Paris, New York, and Berlin were good, but I found Barcelona's color-coded subway the easiest to navigate.

 

[GIBrat51]

Of all the major cities I've ever been in - I'd have to say London. The Frankfort Rhein-Main metropolitan area's system in Germany is very good, too. Philadelphia's system is also good; I've had as little to do with NYC as possible, but the little experience I've had with theirs was mostly positive. Las Vegas? In the casino area, it's marginal, at best. Elsewhere? You better not be in a hurry, and be prepared to walk a mile or two, on at least one end of your trip...

 

[slobake]

San Francisco is pretty good but it is a pretty small city geographically. We also have our subway system called BART that connects outlying cities all over the Bay Area.

 

[slobake]

I have also been wondering. Will mass transit ever replace individual transit? We are a care culture here in the U.S and I don't like the idea of giving up my car. It gives me freedom to go where I want when I want.
What if mass transit were available to take me where I want when I want at a reasonable price? I think mass transit would be less expensive for all of us. It has to be cheaper to move 100 people in one vehicle than it is to move 100 people in 50 vehicles. There would also be no individual car insurance to pay.
Will it ever happen? Probably not until fossil fuels and other forms of power/fuel become too expensive to be practical for the average person. There are probably other reasons it won't happen but that discussion could get into politics too quickly and that would not be good.

 

[Gaolee]

Seattle's is currently abysmal, but improving a little. Of the cities I have lived in and spent a fair amount of time in, New York is the best. I have not lived in London, but my wife grew up there, so we have visited a fair amount. The tube is close to as good as the subway, but you run into the same problems with access to areas beyond the train system. Both cities have other commuter rail systems that work well, with the rail corridor between Boston and Washington, and then out Long Island as the kicker. It isn't cheap, but it is a whole lot cheaper than a car. I don't know much about Paris or Tokyo. Philadelphia's mass transit goes where I need it to go, but I don't need to go very many places in Philadelphia. Same with BART. I have had to go other places in the Bay Area for a variety of reasons, and mass transit wasn't an option. LA's mass transit is a black hole where time goes to die. Then again, LA traffic is where time goes to die all around. My son lives in LA and doesn't like it that much. If he wasn't there, I probably wouldn't go there unless somebody was paying me.

I really enjoy riding the motorcycle, and I use the van for hauling stuff a few times a week. Other than that, I think mass transit makes a whole lot more sense for most people, including me.

 

[slobake]

Seattle's is currently abysmal, but improving a little. Of the cities I have lived in and spent a fair amount of time in, New York is the best. I have not lived in London, but my wife grew up there, so we have visited a fair amount. The tube is close to as good as the subway, but you run into the same problems with access to areas beyond the train system. Both cities have other commuter rail systems that work well, with the rail corridor between Boston and Washington, and then out Long Island as the kicker. It isn't cheap, but it is a whole lot cheaper than a car. I don't know much about Paris or Tokyo. Philadelphia's mass transit goes where I need it to go, but I don't need to go very many places in Philadelphia. Same with BART. I have had to go other places in the Bay Area for a variety of reasons, and mass transit wasn't an option. LA's mass transit is a black hole where time goes to die. Then again, LA traffic is where time goes to die all around. My son lives in LA and doesn't like it that much. If he wasn't there, I probably wouldn't go there unless somebody was paying me.

Yup, I grew up there and headed out as soon as I could. Not meaning to insult anyone who lives in L.A. it just wasn't the place for me. If someone has found a home there that is good.

 

[Gaolee]

Yup, I grew up there and headed out as soon as I could. Not meaning to insult anyone who lives in L.A. it just wasn't the place for me. If someone has found a home there that is good.

Well, that would not be my son. He lives there for professional reasons, but I'm pretty sure he would either head to New Orleans or come back to Seattle if he could find the same kind of work. I'm also not sure how long he would like New Orleans. It's a great place to visit at certain times of the year, but I wouldn't want to be there in August, for example.

 

[slobake]

 

[two fingers]

Mass transit would never work in my area. We are too rural. Even if you had enough trains to connect the towns, you would have to have an amazing bus system to get people from the train to their ultimate destination.

Boston has a great system to me. The people in the T jackets are very helpful as well.

 

[Obese Chess]

I have also been wondering. Will mass transit ever replace individual transit? We are a care culture here in the U.S and I don't like the idea of giving up my car. It gives me freedom to go where I want when I want.
What if mass transit were available to take me where I want when I want at a reasonable price? I think mass transit would be less expensive for all of us. It has to be cheaper to move 100 people in one vehicle than it is to move 100 people in 50 vehicles. There would also be no individual car insurance to pay.
Will it ever happen? Probably not until fossil fuels and other forms of power/fuel become too expensive to be practical for the average person. There are probably other reasons it won't happen but that discussion could get into politics too quickly and that would not be good.

I love my car but I'm also a firm proponent of public transit. If I lived in a city with a more robust system I'd take it everywhere. As it stands, the places you need to drive to in Portland (the suburbs) aren't really designed for transit, and you can walk/bike most everywhere else.

 

[slobake]

I love my car but I'm also a firm proponent of public transit. If I lived in a city with a more robust system I'd take it everywhere. As it stands, the places you need to drive to in Portland (the suburbs) aren't really designed for transit, and you can walk/bike most everywhere else.

I like Portland. Great place for cycling and Powell's books rocks. Is the downtown transit free?

 

[Obese Chess]

I like Portland. Great place for cycling and Powell's books rocks. Is the downtown transit free?

Nah, but it's really cheap. If I have to use it I only need it for an hour or two, that's like $2.50 - I think a day pass is like $7, a monthly pass is $25 or so.

 

[Killed_by_Death]

books rocks

 

[slobake]

Seattle's is currently abysmal, but improving a little. Of the cities I have lived in and spent a fair amount of time in, New York is the best. I have not lived in London, but my wife grew up there, so we have visited a fair amount. The tube is close to as good as the subway, but you run into the same problems with access to areas beyond the train system. Both cities have other commuter rail systems that work well, with the rail corridor between Boston and Washington, and then out Long Island as the kicker. It isn't cheap, but it is a whole lot cheaper than a car. I don't know much about Paris or Tokyo. Philadelphia's mass transit goes where I need it to go, but I don't need to go very many places in Philadelphia. Same with BART. I have had to go other places in the Bay Area for a variety of reasons, and mass transit wasn't an option. LA's mass transit is a black hole where time goes to die. Then again, LA traffic is where time goes to die all around. My son lives in LA and doesn't like it that much. If he wasn't there, I probably wouldn't go there unless somebody was paying me.

I really enjoy riding the motorcycle, and I use the van for hauling stuff a few times a week. Other than that, I think mass transit makes a whole lot more sense for most people, including me.

Back in the 1920's there was a great transit system in LA.

Pacific Electric - Wikipedia

"Pacific Electric, also known as the Red Car system, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.

The system shared dual gauge track with the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge Los Angeles Railway, "Yellow Car," or "LARy" system on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles (directly in front of the 6th and Main terminal), on [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], and along Hawthorne Boulevard south of downtown Los Angeles toward the cities of Hawthorne, Gardena, and Torrance."

 

[Obese Chess]

Whoa!

 

[S-Bigbottom]

Back in the 1920's there was a great transit system in LA.

Pacific Electric - Wikipedia

"Pacific Electric, also known as the Red Car system, was a privately owned mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electric railway system in the world in the 1920s. Organized around the city centers of Los Angeles and San Bernardino, it connected cities in Los Angeles County, Orange County, San Bernardino County and Riverside County.

The system shared dual gauge track with the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) narrow gauge Los Angeles Railway, "Yellow Car," or "LARy" system on Main Street in downtown Los Angeles (directly in front of the 6th and Main terminal), on [Invalid or Expired Link Removed], and along Hawthorne Boulevard south of downtown Los Angeles toward the cities of Hawthorne, Gardena, and Torrance."

Portland used to have 583 Electric Trolleys that could take you almost anywhere with 40 lines and over 300 miles of track until the 50's. They yanked most of the track and went to buses, over the last 20 years they are trying to redo the electric tram system. This map is from 1943.

I love this shot of the Mt. Tabor streetcar cruising where it is now dense businesses and houses. ca1946.

 

[DirtDog]

We had better mass transit in this city (light rail/streetcars) 50 years ago. It's pretty awful right now (all bus transitway with stupid routing and major pinch points downtown, unreliable schedules at best); there's more light trail development happening (back to the future, literally using some of the same rail rights of way from 50 years ago!), but they're building it backwards and about 30 years too late. /rant.

Not only that, 9 times out of 10, you can get there by car in half the time for half the cost (incl. fuel and parking).