[greggman]

What I don't like about this chart it it doesn't show how bad the USA's public transportation is relative to places like say Tokyo, Singapore, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Helsinki, etc. They're night and day better than NYC which itself is night and day better than SF.

[bluerobotcat]

I think the subway in NYC is pretty great, though by no means perfect.

Amsterdam doesn't have great public transportation. It would drive me insane when I lived there (Indische Buurt / Science Park). Their system of public transportation relies a lot on connecting between bus/tram/subway/railway, but I never found the connections to work well. The frequency of most lines is also pretty darn bad.

Unfortunately a lot of people living in Amsterdam are fine with the sorry state of their public transportation because they feel the Amsterdam mindset is to ride a bike. (There's a lot of truth to that, of course, but the reality is that a lot of non-white Amsterdam-born people rely on public transportation.)

Stockholm's public transportation seemed fine last time I was there, but it's definitely not better than NYC. When I visited a university there, I had to take a subway + bus. Buses suck! Nevertheless, the connection was not bad overall.

The great thing about the subway in NYC is the how the stations are spread out on the map. There are a lot of stations and you will find them in sensible locations. The fact that the subway is operational 24/7 is also amazing. That's a lot more unusual than some people give credit for. You don't even find that in Singapore or Hong Kong or London or Paris. What's less than great is the reliability and the frequency of the trains to/from Brooklyn.

Going from one point in Brooklyn to another also sometimes requires going through Manhattan, which makes the trip take too long.

Another sore point is communication. The signs are confusing and there are virtually no CRTs/LCDs to guide you (if Paris and Brussels can handle the vandalism, so should NYC). The verbal announcements are often confusing or wrong (multiple times, late at night, I heard 'train X was canceled' just as it arrived). A lot of the time you can't even properly hear them. The train models are also incredibly outdated.

Unfortunately, in NY, buses are no good alternative because they are always late and absurdly slow. I always suspected they were intended foremost for old and disabled people since they accelerate very slowly after a stop and seem to stop every block.

I have never been to Helsinki, Tokyo, or Berlin.

One subway system I want to mention is the Beijing one. It's by no means perfect, but the frequency of the subway is just amazing. At many–perhaps most–stations a train stops every one or two minutes. My patience for waiting for trains never recovered after living there.

[netcan]

It's tricky comparing public transport in your city to public transport in cities you visit as a tourist. Tourists don't travel during peak hours. They aren't as bothered (so they don't notice) a 10 minutes delay because they're not in a rush. They don't frequent residential areas so they may not experience the trickier journeys. A lot of cities are great from getting from suburbs to residential areas, but getting from one residential area to another is hard.

[free652]

Um how did you compare that? Amsterdam public transports sucks, so I question your other cities also.

I have been to Paris/London (multiple times) and their system sucks comparing to NYC. In NY I can get easily from point A to point B anywhere in the city aside from SI.

NYC has 24hours subway service, it's hard to beat that.

[taurath]

Exactly, if we're "stacking up" why not against international cities?

[tzs]

Other countries have legal, political, cultural, and social environments that differ significantly from the US. Finding out that something works better in London or Paris than it does in Seattle is interesting as trivia, but because of those environment difference usually doesn't tell much about how to improve that thing in Seattle.

Finding out that San Francisco does something better than Seattle does teach something about improving it in Seattle, because the legal, political, cultural, and social environments are much more similar.

Hence, domestic comparisons are more interesting, as they suggest more achievable improvements.

[tormeh]

Indeed, no knowledge can be gained from the outside world. Those parts of the world run on magic and stinky cheese.

[pessimizer]

>Other countries have legal, political, cultural, and social environments that differ significantly

The same is true within the US. It is neither legally, politically, culturally, nor socially homogenous. Learning how to improve public transportation in Seattle would be more productive if you studied Amsterdam than if you studied Memphis or Baton Rouge.

[reillyse]

However comparing internationally shows how far behind the US is on this front, and how much they need to improve.

No point giving pats on the back all round when nobody is even attempting to change the "legal, cultural and social" environment.

[bronson]

2nd paragraph: the data came from National Transit Database (NTD) and the American Community Survey (ACS). These data sets are USA-only.

[masklinn]

Surely other countries have comparable datasets?

[company]

What are you talking about? NYC public transportation system is one of the best in the world and its 24 hours.