We were tipped off to this by Gothamist, and boy does it smell of BS.
Virgin Vacations (as in British based Virgin Atlantic Airlines) rated the top 11 Underground Transit systems in the world. Well whada you know, London’s Tube came in at #1. A little bias don’t you think?
The New York City Subway didn’t even rank in the top 5! It crawled in at number 7. Booo. The Russians even beat us (coming in at number 3)!! At least they have something going right over there.
Ok, so if you were rating based on cleanlyness and security, well then we’re shocked we even made the list. But in terms of how well the sytem gets you around the city, you would think the NYC subway would have ranked higher. For that matter, NYC is the only one with a 24 hour system! Surely that earns some points somewhere.
Anyway, check out the clearly Euro-Favored rankings here.
SUBWAYblogger 
Actually, Virgin Vacations is an American based company (if I remember correctly they are based out of Washington). They have a sister company called Virgin Holidays which is the one based in London. Cool list though – thanks for the tip…
LikeLike
Their chairman is a knight ferchrissakes (Sir Richard Branson), they may as well be a British company.
NYC’s has way more stations and covers way more area than any of those. And as far as 24hr, I guess everyone in those places work 9-5. Pity them.
LikeLike
Having ridden 4 of those systems (London, Paris, NY, and Montreal), I will definitely say the Underground kicks the ass of the rest. Paris has lots of stations, but is generally pretty bad. I’d put it lower than others I’ve been on that didn’t make the list (Chicago and Boston). NY is convenient and huge, but it still isn’t as good as London. Montreal is Cute.
LikeLike
Okay. Having lived in both London and NYC (latter part), and been to Germany… I can say that I think this is biased. Yes the tube is cleaner, older ladidadida…..NYC’s subway is Dirty! very very Dirty, but it runs 24 hours, and it has character!- something the tube needs to realise is important, especially since the taxis are soo freaking expensive in the city. And who wants to take one when you’re pissed and out of money…Also I liked the L1 etc in Hamburg. It was clean, ran just as late as in NYC and fast. This survey doesnt seem to have clear cut rules on what makes a certain subway system better than the other. So how exactly did these systems get ranked? on what criteria?
LikeLike