Best public transportation systems in the world
I currently live in Bangkok and transport is pretty dire/awesome depending on how you see it. When I first spent more than a couple of hours here in the early 90s, public transport was basically buses, taxis, tuk tuks, motorbike cabs, riverboats, songthaews, random elephants, blah and so on. There are now two skytrain lines, an underground line and an airport link line which are all pretty ok. They are a generally sane bet in a city that thrives on chaos.
The thing about Bangkok however, is that there are about a million taxis (give or take probably hundreds of thousands). There are a lot and they are ridiculously cheap. And this was even before the heady days of Uber. It takes me about 40 minutes in a cab to get to my thrice a week day job and that costs about 110 baht. Or £2. Even with Uber. The main problem, is that in rush hour the limited public transport fills up and Bangkok turns into a colossal traffic jam. Also, if you are a tourist you will get massively ripped off and pay triple what locals and expats pay (tip – use the meter!).
I have previously lived in Hong Kong, London and Sydney so how do their public transportation systems fare?
Sydney – I never really went that far. I lived in King’s Cross for months and there are bars everywhere. I then got a shared flat in Bondi and there is a beach and bars everywhere. I was also unemployed. Occasionally I did travel around a bit and the system seemed fine. I met someone who advised that you shouldn’t travel at night but frankly it seemed safer than the King’s Cross of 1993, so maybe maybe they were just paranoid.
Hong Kong – it was a bit different when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s but Hong Kong exists about 5-10 years in the future compared to everyone else and plans accordingly. I remember the government announcing the underground system they were going to build and that it would take about 10 years. Exactly 10 years later, an entire underground system opened (the MTR). It still works like that there. Hong Kong thinks ” Where will need transport be needed in the future and how long will it take to build?” Then it builds it. Transport there is awesome.
London – Like the city, it is rough round the edges but it works. London had the first underground system in the world, so it has been desperately trying to clean up and modernise for over a 100 years. The height of some tunnels was decided on the average man plus his top hat for fuck’s sake, so cut it some slack. The tube goes to a hell of a lot of places and is bloody handy. All proper Londoners have almost the whole map in their head and can tell any tourist the best route. So it shows how often the tube is used by locals. (Routes may be debated among Londoners, however, but only by them.)
I’ve travelled to a lot of places and frankly this list could go on for hours. Most of Europe is pretty good, places I have been in India, Laos, Morocco, etc, are pretty bad. Seriously, just hire an aggressive taxi. Other places like Berlin, New York, Paris, Singapore, are pretty good. Which is just vague. So here is an infographic with the some of the best as worked out by the good people at businessinsider. Mmmmm stats….
Thanks to http://www.businessinsider.com/best-public-transportation-systems-around-the-world-2015-8 for the infographic.
