h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

So, which are the good public transport systems and which are the bad ones? A few comments from my own personal experience:

New York subways - They should just fill the entire system with concrete, preferably with most of the denizens still in it. I always had the feeling I was taking my life in my hands walking into one of those ratholes.

Boston subways - A bit run down in spots, but in others delightfully well preserved. People are much better behaved than in New York.

Los Angeles buses - Buy a car. The bus will never get you anywhere on time. (I moved out of L.A. before the L.A. subway was open).

Seattle buses - OK if you don't mind waiting for stupid liberals to strap bicycles to the front.

Here's an addition to your list.

The Atlanta subway system known to locals as Marta is probably worse than the LA system. As a means for getting from point A to point B it is about as effective as sitting in place and waiting for it to come to you, although you may get there sooner by this method.

I've sent in suggestions to the public transportation board that they replace Marta with a huge train that travels in a circle and only has one stop. I haven't heard back from them yet, I hear that they are taking it into major consideration.

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Sounds a bit like the circle line over here on the London underground. Most of the circle line isn't actually under ground, but it's close enough. There seem to be enough things stopping it from running, so perhaps it was illegal or something...

The Newcastle Metro - swift, cheap, mostly overground. Connects most of the places you would want to go. All it needs is a branch line out to the Cheviot Hills.

Yay! It's true - the Metro is the best. The only problem I find is getting on at South Gosforth station to go into town. The train tends to sit there a while because it's a connecting station so you get to the station and the train is waiting there, you patiently buy a ticket from the machine, and slowly walk across the bridge. As soon as you think "sod it, it's going to go any second" and break into a run, one of two things happen:
1. The train immediately pulls away leaving you doing that arms-flailing-slowing-down-just-missed-the-train thingy, or:
2. You get to the train puffing and panting and it sits there for at least another two minutes leaving you looking like a bit of a pillock.
The only way to combat this is to walk slowly towards the train at all times (try not to startle it) if you miss it - hey! Shit happens. If you get on and it pulls away seconds later - everyone thinks you're the Fonz or something.

we have no subway in tampa just buses that only run in the day

i can neither afford nor desire a car ... if we keep cluttering the envornment and the roads with inividual gas cars we will suffocate

I don't think the city would put that much money into a subway... although, they're worth it, economically. BTW, could you please update your page? Pretty Please??

I think that what makes a good public transport system is mostly affected by the people you have to share your particular mode of transport with. Granted, a filthy fifteen-year-old bus isn't pleasant at all, but even the newest air conditioned vehicle is hell on wheels when it is filled with unpleasant people.

The weather has an impact too, especially if you are on one of the few modes of transport that still permit smoking. How people can smoke at all is a mystery. How they can smoke when the weather is particularly damp I really cannot conceive.

However, the worst experience of all has to be sharing a bus with schoolkids going to a particular school near Portchester railway station. If you know the school, you'll probably agree. Personally, I could hurl several of the little b****rds off the bus at high speed, but that sort of thing is apparently not politically correct, so it's not allowed.

So far this year, there have been four fights, one stabbing, any number of kids carrying alcohol, and several instances involving eggs. No wonder the school's kids were barred from using the bus service for a time last year. (This ban was lifted due to public pressure on the bus company because the kids would be 'vulnerable'. Yeah, right.)

Annoyed
of Portsmouth

Easily the best in the world is Berlin.

Surface fleet of buses, S-bahn urban trains, U-bahn underground: I have only ever once seen Berlin public transport at less than perfect.

This was the weekend of the hung election for the Kanzlerei, where the right-wing woman candidate Angela von Thatcher was stuck in a tie with the more progressive candidates.

The whole government sector around the Reichsstag was so totally clogged with the world's news crews, radio, TV and press, that there was no way any traffic could get around. Of course this had a knock-on effect on the city's buses,so that buses taking fifteen minutes to negociate what is normally two or three minutes around the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate, werre making everything else late, and normally mild-mannered Berliners were fuming and fulminating at the bus stops because their buses were a whole twenty minutes late... (with we two Englanders cheerfully telling them that this is normal for Manchester, to which we were hearing variations on a theme of "mein liebe Gott")... the point being, Berliners are normally so spoilt because they have such a good bus service, that on the day it screws up, they get very near to civic strife and mutiny...


but Oh! for Berlin-quality buses in Manchester and not bloody Stagecoach or crappy useless First...

Best in the world.

I think Singapore has one of the best public transportation systems in the world, if not the best, and believe me I have tried a few different one around the world.

When I was in Singapore there were loads of busses, which were clean, frequent and relatively inexpensive. The busses normally linked up with the Singapore MRT, at various interchange stations throughout the island, at these interchanges, you could switch to the MRT or switch to another bus route. The bus routes all go through the housing estates and you were never more than 10 minutes away from a bus stop whereever ou were on the island. The fares were reasonable, and the same ticket could be used on the MRT or the busses. Most busses had air-conditioning, and the MRT was fully air-conditioned.

The only time the system broke down was due to a broken line on one of the main MRT lines, but it was soon put right and everything got working again very quickly and smoothly.

I wonder if its the same now, probably as the Singapore people seem to be very efficient at such things.