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Comment by chimeracoder | Hacker News Reader

> How about beating Europe or Asia?

London is the only city in Europe that even comes close to offering what NYC alone does in terms of public transit.

Even Berlin, the second largest city in the EU, has pitiful public transit in comparison.

Berlin has 26 subway lines. Some of them (S-Bahn) interconnect with intercity rail, so there are times when you can transfer from a subway to a train on the same platform.

I would really like to know what makes you think Berlin public transit is "pitiful"...

There's a subjective side to this argument, I suppose, but having lived in both cities I'd argue that Berlin's public transportation is _at least_ a couple orders of magnitude better than NYC's.

The U-Bahn / S-Bahn / Deutsche Bahn / Autobus / Tram inter-connectivity are at least on par with what NYC has to offer (adjusted for geographic factors and population density), and that's before getting into KPIs like on-time arrival percentages, individual line uptime, and peak hour commuter congestion. And then there's the more intangible differences, which are nevertheless important to humans - like vehicle cleanliness, station upkeep... the list goes on and on.

Compare the Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Penn Station. Or the U1 to the L, or the J/M/Z. Or peak-hour Alexanderplatz to Union Square. Or the M29 to... I don't know... the NYC bus of your choosing. My god. Throw whatever numbers you want out there as a counterargument, but I know which I'd prefer in just about any scenario.

I think London has a greater ridership (5m tube, 6m bus) than NY (5m subway, 3m bus - http://web.mta.info/nyct/facts/ridership/). Buses really are the secret to how London gets around.

You must be joking. Have you seen the public transportation in Munich? Budapest? Berlin?

http://www.muenchen-touristeninformation.de/MVV-Schnellbahnn...

http://www.hungarybudapestguide.com/wp-content/uploads/detai...

https://www.s-bahn-berlin.de/pdf/VBB-Liniennetz.pdf

Ever been to Paris ? London's transit is fairly bad compared to it. Or to Lyon (which is vaguely SF's size) ?

> Ever been to Paris ? London's transit is fairly bad compared to it. Or to Lyon (which is vaguely SF's size) ?

I have. As of 2010 (before Cuomo's tenure began), New York had unambiguously better public transit overall than Paris, in addition to serving a city with four times the population of Paris.

Cuomo is doing his best to "fix" that, but in 2018, I'd still take NYC over Paris as far as public transit is concerned.

I have lived in both cities but I'm French so probably biased. The transportation system in Paris is overall much better. Denser, more lines, cheaper, and unlike New York it keeps growing. It's also more reliable (even though it has its share of issues).

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