Comment by TuringNYC
9 hours ago
I cant speak to all this, but as an American doing a lot of work in London, wow transportation is incredibly great. Shockingly impressive. Traveling to London, and getting around London, and doing a lot of meetings in a small trip, is easier than anywhere in the US now because of how beautifully their transit system works (despite occasional delays which can be expected.)
The rollout of the Elizabeth Line from Heathrow airport is also eye-opening. In NYC we speak about new subways lines with hundred-year plans (recall the 2nd ave subway extension) but in London the smoothly operating Elizabeth Line seemed to be introduced out of thin air.
The Elizabeth Line, formerly known as Crossrail, is a lot more similar to the hundred year plan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail
My dad was a tunnels engineer and worked on Crossrail feasibility studies at several points in his career across decades.
London is is many ways one of the less impressive subway systems simply because much of it is so old, with small trains running in Victorian era tunnels. Not as bad as the Glasgow one, which feels like travelling on a 2/3 scale model of a subway with alarmingly narrow platforms.
It is however a point of contention within the UK that London public transport is better than public transport in almost every other city, due to being properly nationalized.
> Not as bad as the Glasgow one, which feels like travelling on a 2/3 scale model of a subway with alarmingly narrow platforms.
For anyone who's not aware, the Glasgow Subway is literally smaller - the track gauge is 4ft (85% of standard gauge), and the rolling stock (trains) is similarly scaled down, to the point that you probably have to duck if you're over 6ft.
I remember that one of Stockholm's train line is also endearingly tiny too?
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Budapest subway is something similar, too.
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Very true. If you really want to see rail lines materialise out of thin air, go to any major cities in China.
It's a pretty extensive system and the pretty new Elizabeth Line is great. But if you take something like the Piccadilly Line in from the airport, you probably shouldn't have a lot of luggage because a lot of stations just have stairs and platforms are often at a significant offset from the underground cars. (The double decker busses also work pretty well although they're not generally my default.)
The Piccadilly Line was opened in 1906 for gods sake, forgive them for not catering to people with 3 suitcases very well! That's part of the reason we built the Elizabeth Line, to enable a better transport option for people coming into heathrow.
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> a lot of stations just have stairs
Very few, if any. They may not have escalators (Covent garden, for eg., but no-one in their right mind uses that - just use Leicester Square and walk on the street) but there are almost always ways of getting up to the street, and assistance is signposted for people with problems.
> platforms are often at a significant offset from the underground cars
Not sure what you mean here - mind the gap? Typically less on the Piccadilly than some other lines - Bank on the Central is particularly scary.
Based on living 30-odd years in London, most of it using the Piccadilly line on my daily commute and to get to LHR.
Sounding like a TfL groupie here, but it is a pretty good transit system, given geographic and budgetary constraints.
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To americans, London public transport feels amazing. To rest of Europe, its lets say OKish
I've lived in and visted many other cities in Europe. Public transport is often much cheaper than London, but there's few examples where I'd really say it was /better/. Can you think of an example?
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To people who have to commute to London, particularly if it's not a mainline train, it's tragically bad and overpriced. Train outages happen on a daily basis, the fare is very expensive compared to mainland Europe and the quality is quite a bit worse.
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I feel that's more "US public transport being bad"
Right as an American this reads like "American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing etc..
I'm with you. Tokyo is incredible. It's the only large city I've ever been to where I left thinking, "I'd love to live there."
Transportation in Japan is a whole other level compared to my experiences in Germany and Austria.
I've never been to England, though, so can't make that comparison.
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> American who's never been to large Asian cities like Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing
30% of all Americans have never left the North Western hemisphere.
A big problem in America is the entrenchment that is happening. People are becoming so polarised there is no common ground left for discussions and people aren't open to new ideas or thinking.
I genuinely feel I can't even discuss this with many Americans. They stalwartly believe car culture is superior in every single aspect, any deviation from this narrative is simply met with 'you don't understand'.
I recall in Ireland they asked an American on public TV what he thought of one of the few pedestrians only streets in Dublin (Liffey Street). He pointed out that he would be sorry for the loss of the trade on that street for the business involved compared to if cars were allowed to drive on it. It's then pointed out they make way more money since the transition as it's a city centre location with enormous footfall.
He just counters that's not possible and cited some example in the US.
As I understand it the US car lobby had a big hand in designing modern America, in such a way that for most cities it really isn't possible to use anything else.
On the other hand a lot of European cities were laid out in the time of horse and cart.
There was a big argument on my local (American) Nextdoor recently because someone encountered a line of cars on a road that had recently had a bike lane added to it. People were outraged about bike lanes. And not just in the sense that they had to pay (via taxes) for something they didn't feel was useful. The fact that the lane even existed was an affront. They seemed to actually believe that the bike lane caused delays for cars merely by existing.
I think it is widely known that public transport in the US is god awful. Public transportation is lovely in most European countries, IMO.
It isn’t universally awful in the US. Washington, DC’s system is great and should be the cornerstone of any revitalization that isn’t so reliant on the federal government.
Thanks, good to know! How are the trains across the country though?
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It's pretty good in NYC. I heard it's nice in Boston too.
Compared to rest of US? Maybe. Compared to Europe? Absolutely not.
If they ran the suburban rail more frequently Boston would have a phenomenal system.
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Its good in NYC for american standards. For european standards the NYC subway is abominable. The smells, the grime, the homeless, its honestly like visiting the 6th ring of hell. Source: I am a european living in NYC.
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I've visited Paris and London a few months ago as a tourist.
I am really impressed by London public transport, both the classical red double deck buses and the subway.
Thin air? It was delivered 3 years late and cost £5bn more than it should have. While projects like HS2 to the North are scaled back. The UK uses other parts of the county as a piggy bank to fund London projects.
I have a dog in this fight as I'm quite close to the public transport industry in the North and it's pretty disheartening to see politicans use us as some sort of "policy win" and then never follow through with it. Manchester only recently got devolved powers meaning the region did not have to get approval from Westminster on how they use their money and the bus and tram system has completely improved in the sapce of a couple of years (unified tickets, tap and go) with the suburban rail to come into that this year.
What is also interesting is that London's productivity growth is falling compared to Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. So those cities that aren't getting the fancy new train lines are actually performing better.
> The UK uses other parts of the county as a piggy bank to fund London projects.
it's the exact opposite
This is demonstrably false. The data shows the exact opposite.
Transport spending in London was £1,313 per capita in 2023/24, compared with just £368 per head in the East Midlands[0] - nearly 4x the investment. Over the decade to 2022/23, if the North had received the same per person transport spending as London, it would have received £140 billion more[1]. The East Midlands got just £355 per person, the lowest of every nation and region[1].
Yes, London generates a fiscal surplus, but that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. London receives the highest investment spending for both economic and non-economic areas, relative to population size[2]. In 2022, infrastructure construction spend in London was £8.8 billion, whilst Scotland came second with £3.6 billion[3].
It's circular logic:
* invest heavily in London
-> infrastructure drives productivity
-> higher productivity generates more tax revenue
-> claim London 'subsidises' other regions
-> use this to justify more London investment.
Infrastructure investment enhances productive potential[4], but all other regions are systematically denied it.
London has returns on investment because it's the only place that actually gets proper investment. You can't starve regions of infrastructure for decades, watch their productivity stagnate, then point to London's tax surplus as proof they are subsidising others, that's fucking stupid.
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[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1134495/transport-spendi...
[1] https://www.ippr.org/media-office/ippr-north-and-ippr-reveal...
[2] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn06...
[3] https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity...
[4] https://www.bennettschool.cam.ac.uk/blog/what-role-infrastru...
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Although Yes CrossRail was partly funded by a levy on London homes and businesses, London get's more funding per capita for public transport than anywhere else in the country
Imagine what we achieve if we invested London levels of money in transport across the rest of the country
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> What is also interesting is that London's productivity growth is falling compared to Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. So those cities that aren't getting the fancy new train lines are actually performing better.
What data is this based on?
It's based on the Centre for Cities report: "How productive are the UK's big cities?" which mentions Liverpool's, Leed's and Manchester's productivity growth and The State of London Report 2025 which reports London's productivity decline
https://www.centreforcities.org/publication/how-productive-a...
https://data.london.gov.uk/blog/the-state-of-london-report-2...
3 years late is practically early in UK infrastructure! HS2 was originally due to open in December! We're a decade off at least.
Some bits about the service can be pretty astounding.
I used to live near the Central line. The station near home was open air and the exit was at the very end of the platform, so I always wanted to make sure I entered the train from the correct end. Service on the Central line is frequent enough (24 trains per hour off-peak), that, if I hopped off the train from the wrong end, the time it took me to walk the length of the platform was long enough for the next train to arrive.
Hah, the joys of optimising your morning commute on the Underground.
“If I stand here on the platform, then the door will open right in front of me, and I’ll be exactly at the exit of the next platform where I need to change…”
Yeah or “the signs all say to walk down this long passage, and then back via a circuitous route for flow control, but my destination is actually 100 feet away through this unmarked passage so I’ll just go that way” situation at Bank
I've lived in London for a decade, and feel incredibly lucky to have access to the transit here - having lived in Aus, NZ and Canada previously.
It's not perfect. It's late sometimes, pollution sucks, and often crowded - but people here who like to criticise it really don't recognise how much better they have it than lots of other places.
Same with travel from here to Europe (by train), is just awesome.
> Under the project name of Crossrail, the system was approved in 2007, and construction began in 2009. Originally planned to open in 2018, the project was repeatedly delayed [...] The service is named after Queen Elizabeth II, who officially opened the line on 17 May 2022[...].
I wouldn't say thin air, exactly.
>> I wouldn't say thin air, exactly.
Fair but have you seen how long things take in the US? The original proposal for the 2nd ave line was in 1920 and they have only managed to deploy four stops. I read about it in the news when I was in 5th grade and still read about it now, 40yrs later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway
Similar for the Hudson tunnel which is supposed to allow commuter trains to function w/o the current madness...
The Elizabeth Line was unbelievably expensive to build; that's how the UK did it.
>> The Elizabeth Line was unbelievably expensive to build; that's how the UK did it.
Fair. But what is also expensive is every single citizen taking $100 Uber rides to the airport, like in NYC. In NJ, the transit service has become so volatile and sporadic and opaque that people have reduced NJTransit use for Newark airport in favor of simply driving.
That cost doesn't show up on government books, so we can pretend it doesn't exist. The joys of decentral planning.
Wrong, $100 Uber rides boost employment and the economy! (Just ignore the impacts of congestion, wasted time, road spending)
But it is also really good. I love the completely enclosed platforms, ie shielded from the track and train by a glass wall/doors, like the Jubilee line, but all the way to the ceiling. This makes it both safe and very quiet.
Though the platforms are huge, as the trains are long, you have to really make a conscious decision on which exit to use as they come up very far from each other. Unlike other tube stations, where if you don't pick the most optimal exit, you just have to cross the road.
It's a massive investment in the areas near its stations.
having done a lot of work on it in a previous career, I can confirm that it was born out or no shortage of blood, sweat and signalling snafus.
And for a city that wants to be a global startup hub, that kind of frictionless mobility matters way more than people realize
Many European cities have this. London has the biggest, though. And Asian cities. Paris has a metro, Berlin has a metro, Tokyo has a metro, many cities in China but that information is a bit less accessible.
China built an entire national high speed rail network while America was waiting to see if the Hyperloop was anything.
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