Why our metro is the best in the world. And there is no comparison with authority at all

Not long ago we talked about why our roads are not as good as in America. Wait, but does this apply to all roads? On the ground there are various factors, but underground… There the picture changes completely.

In the rating of traditional metros, the Moscow transport network confidently enters the top 3. And St. Petersburg is on the border of the top ten. Many stations of the capital’s metro can be called a work of art. But in America, that very, unattainable, the situation is much worse.

So why is our metro so much better than its overseas counterpart?

Briefly

• How the metro appeared in Russia
  How the subway appeared in America
  The Real Problems of the American Subway
  The Broken Windows and Subway Theory
  Why the Russian metro is better than the American one
  Is there a winner?

How the metro appeared in Russia

Russia received the new form of transport with a delay from other advanced countries. While England and America got their metro back in the 1860s, the first station in Moscow appeared only in 1935.

There were projects to build a subway even before the Revolution – the city was growing quickly. However, the upheavals of 1917 and then the Civil War did not contribute to the development of transport. And the nation of Moscow from 1915 to 1920 decreased by half. By 1925, the teacher’s indicators soon outlined a transport crisis in the capital.

However, the first projects, including those from Siemens-Bauunion, were not in demand. The city, which was being restored, was catastrophically short of funds. But after the transport collapse in the winter of 1931, Stalin sharply asked Lazar Kaganovich, the first secretary of the Moscow Central Committee, to carefully ask questions about the construction of the metro. Here it was only possible to take and execute.

Subbotnik was a common thing in the 1930s, and the construction of the metro was not an exception

The first 13 views of the Moscow metro opened on May 15, 1935. This preceded large-scale construction work. Engineers involved in various methods of laying lines created a whole domestic school of metro construction. The finishing of the same approach gave birth to a new direction in architecture. The first line was created as convenient as possible for both passengers and mobile services. Thus, the high standard of the Soviet, post-Soviet and Russian metro was formed.

During the war, the metro also began to serve as a shelter, while it continued to be built! In 1944, construction of the Circle Line began. In September 2023, there were already 263 metro stations in Moscow, with 69 works having been opened over the past 12 years.

From 1935 to 1955, the metro bore the proud name of Lazar Kaganovich

The Moscow metro is the main transport artery of the capital. But other Russian cities also have millions of metros. In St. Petersburg, it was opened in 1955 (72 stations), in Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Samara and Yekaterinburg, the metro appeared back in the Soviet Union, and in Kazan in 2005.

The metro in St. Petersburg also meets high aesthetic requirements.

The Omsk metro was mothballed, in Perm, Rostov and Ufa everything stopped at the design stage.

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How the subway appeared in America

When talking about the disappeared subways, the consequences inevitably rely on the experience and history of the New York subway. After all, it is this system that carries out more than ¾ of all transportation. New York grew rapidly, becoming the largest city on the continent already at the end of the 18th century. So the transportation problem was expected.

The New York subway was first above ground (1863), then elevated (1868), with cable and steam traction, and then gradually went underground (1904), becoming electric. Even today, only 60% of the tracks in the “subway” are underground.

This is what the New York subway is like

Today, the New York City subway is a very complicated and complex transportation system. In terms of review (472), it is second only to Beijing. Trains operate on 29 routes, which are still being upgraded to accommodate the requirements of stops, local and express trains. The schedule is applied according to the time of day and days of the week. For us, it looks quite confusing, but you can get used to it.

But the metro operates 24 hours a day all year round – this is what makes it unique.

The history of the development of the New York subway is connected with the participation of various world companies and governments that united and changed owners. They developed their lines, and integration between them was naturally difficult. Even today, the main operator is the city transport company MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority), but at the same time, the city has a high-speed road PATH, connecting Manhattan with the suburbs. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is already responsible for it.

The Way is part of the New York City subway system.

There are 12 cities in America with a subway, including Honolulu and the exotic Hawaii. Of the large systems, we note Chicago with 145 stations and Washington with 102 stations. Chicago and Boston got their subway at the end of the 19th century, and Philadelphia got it in 1907.

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The Real Problems of the American Subway

Despite the fact that the New York subway is considered the third in the world in terms of passenger transportation, this network has a number of ossified problems. The maintenance of a large facility and its constant reconstruction requires funds that are so common in the city, cannot be fully thought out. As a result, the subway is gradually deteriorating and clearly cannot show its appearance.

Photos of Chambers Street Station are downright scary

The number of operators has changed so often that there are now dozens of types of trains in the military fleet! Of the 6,200 carriages, only 1,400 can be considered comfortable.with air conditioning and the necessary ventilation. And the appearance of both the private carriages and the settings are desirable, there are problems with lighting. The schedule is not followed, and at night it is generally unsafe to enter the subway.

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The Broken Windows and Subway Theory

The broken windows theory directly affected the president of the subway. American sociologists claimed that if minor offenses were overlooked, it would provoke criminals responsible for new and more serious crimes.

In the 1970s, subway crime and murders increased so much that the occupancy rate of this type of transport fell by 20%. In 1985, the head of the New York subway, David Gunn, decided to fight graffiti in the cars. Every day, the drawings were washed off, and at night, new ones appeared. Only clean trains left the depot. And one day, the vandals showed that their work led to nothing and did not damage the cars.

In the 1970s, New York City looked like this

At first, the graffiti problems were more or less solved. In the 1990s, the authorities took over the area, starting to arrest people even for minor offenses, including fare evasion. The crime rate in the city dropped sharply, and the metro was cleaned up.

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Why the Russian metro is better than the American one

The metro can be assessed from the point of view of economics, passenger flow and other remote places from consumers. Let’s try to derive an assessment based on understandable simple passenger functions and features.

📍 Timetable and trains. We are lucky that our subway train travels along a quiet route, stopping at every station. In America, there is a different approach – there are often express trains stopping at large stations. If you need to get to a smaller station, the consequences await your local train, and this can take much longer. And the schedule also changes, which is difficult for us to understand. The 24-hour operation of the York subway is an obvious trump card, after all, it is better not to show up there at night in New.

The American scheme seems more complicated, and there is much more to consider.

Trains to Moscow run strictly on schedule during peak hours with intervals from 2 minutes to a minute. In a New York train you can wait 7 minutes. And the carriages are usually old and shabby – the main thing is food. We have a new generation train – studying the subject and entertainment on the road.

📍 Internet. Today, being in a city without Internet or falling out of it for a while is a problem. In Moscow, it has been solved quite successfully – stable and fast access to the Internet is available in almost all carriages while traveling. In America, the Internet can only be caught at stations. This helps to color the wait.

Trash on the van is a common sight in New York City

📍 Garbage. think that our metro is very clean. The difference with the representative is obvious. There you can find household waste not only on the tracks, but also right on the platforms, and rats scurry about in the garbage. The walls gradually become moldy, and the metal rusts. A similar picture is found not only in York, but also in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington. Utility workers are not coping with this problem, the war with rodents in general seems unreliable. And cleaning in the 24-hour mode of operation of the facility is not so simple.

📍 Temperature. Air conditioning appeared in British underground carriages back in the 1950s. Trains are quite cool in summer, but stations are stuffy. A survey of Moscow metro passengers showed that every second person is either too cold or too hot. The Moscow metro has problems with ventilation, as well as with air cooling – the network was not originally designed for such passenger traffic. So this problem seems to be universal. New stations and updated carriages provide passengers with normal air.

There is no luxury nearby in New York

📍 Decor. The Moscow metro is called the most beautiful in the world. Some station opens underground museums, this interferes with functionality. The approach was chosen back in Soviet times – the people of the young country needed to be cultured. The design of the metro turned the common man to feel part of a new progressive society.

But in New York, practicality was put at the forefront. The modesty there is so modest that it can easily be mistaken for poverty. No stucco, chandeliers or rare marble – ceramics, metal and glass are in fashion. At the next station in Manhattan it looks really beautiful.

And in Manhattan there are some pretty decent stations.

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Is there a winner?

If we compare such indicators as beauty, cleanliness, technology (Internet access) and ease of use, then our metro clearly wins against the president.

But we shouldn’t belittle our overseas competitor. Still, subway perform your role pragmatically, without wasting extra resources on passenger comfort. And there aren’t any, these resources – the New York subway is unprofitable.

However, Moscow is still growing and growing to the level of its competitor in terms of the number of branches, taking into account the operational length of the lines.

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