British engineers were the first to come up with the idea of putting railways underground to free up space in city centers. Using a tunnel boring machine invented by Marc Brunel, a tunnel was dug under the Thames, and in 1863, the London Underground welcomed its first passengers.
The second metro system on the European continent was built in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1896, and since then, the only circular line, consisting of 15 stations, has not been expanded.
The world’s first subway
In the US, the subway first appeared in New York: in 1868 as an elevated railway and in 1904 as a full-fledged underground railway. At the same time, work was underway on the Chicago subway, which opened in 1892.
The world’s longest subway
The Shanghai subway holds the record for length: 14 lines stretch over 500 km. The subway in China’s second-largest city appeared only in 1993, but it is being built in record time: in 2007, 70 stations and 92 km of new lines were opened at once! The Beijing Metro, opened in 1969, ranks second in length (442 km). Chinese metro builders have ambitious plans: to increase the number of lines from 15 to 28 and 1,050 km of track by 2020!
The New York subway has the largest number of lines — 36. In addition, trains run on 25 routes. For example, express trains only stop at certain stations, while shuttle trains run back and forth on the same route between a limited number of stations. The total number of stops in the New York subway is 472.
In contrast to megacities, there are small European cities that can also boast of having a subway, such as Lausanne (Switzerland) and Rennes (France). The two lines of the Lausanne metro stretch for 13.7 km, while its French counterpart, consisting of a single line, is even shorter, at only 9.4 km.
The most expensive metro in the world
The Stockholm metro is considered the leader in terms of fare cost — a single ticket can be purchased for 36 kronor. However, traveling on the Swedish underground is worth it: some stations feature galleries, colorful stained glass windows, and frescoes, while others are decorated in the form of grottoes with fountains and streams. The Swedish capital’s metro is also one of the most convenient for passengers: a well-designed system of signs and electronic displays informing passengers of the train route and arrival time helps travelers easily find their way around.
A trip on the Copenhagen metro is also not cheap (27 kroner), and the fine for traveling without a ticket is 750 kroner, or 100 euros. So, in which city can you ride the subway as much as you want?
A ride on the Mexico City metro costs just 3 pesos, which is why this mode of transport is popular among the poor in the Mexican capital. In the evenings, women and children are given priority access to separate carriages. The cheapest metro in the world is located in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.
The busiest subway system in the world
The largest number of passengers — 8.5 million — descend into the Tokyo subway every day. The peak load falls on Shinjuku station, through which 3.64 million people pass every day, but at other stations (285 in total), passenger traffic is so dense that it is even necessary to resort to the help of special subway employees who push people into the cars — this position is called “oshiya.”
The Seoul subway is used by 6.9 million passengers daily, followed by Beijing (6.74 million) and Moscow (6.73 million). The top ten busiest subway systems also include Shanghai, Guangzhou, New York, Mexico City, Hong Kong, and Paris.
Rapidly expanding metro systems
China is the absolute record holder in subway construction: over the past five years, 13 cities with populations of over one million have acquired subways. In 2012, subways appeared in the cities of Suzhou, Hangzhou, Kunming, in 2013 — in Harbin and Zhengzhou, in 2014 — in Changsha, Wuxi, and Ningbo, a year later — in Nanchang and Qingdao, and last year — in Nanning, Fuzhou, Dongguan, and Hefei. Thus, to date, 28 major cities in China already have a metro system, and construction is underway in Changzhou and Changchun — in the latter, in addition to light rail transport.
Long-running metro
Copenhagen is the only European capital with a metro that runs around the clock. This change in schedule took place in 2009. However, you will have to wait up to 20 minutes for a night train, while during rush hour the interval between trains is only two minutes.
No other city in Europe can boast a more daily round-the-clock metro service. In Berlin, Stockholm, and Vienna, trains only run 24 hours a day on Fridays and Saturdays. In other capitals, such as Warsaw, Madrid, London, Paris, Prague, and Athens, stations close later than usual on weekends and the day before.
On the American continent, there is only one city where subway trains run continuously: New York. In Chicago, the two busiest lines operate around the clock, and in Los Angeles, the subway closes at 5 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays instead of 2 a.m.
The most beautiful subway in the world
One could argue at length about this, citing examples of the most unusual and colourfully decorated metro stations in the world. For example, passengers at the Toledo station of the Naples metro compare it to a starry sky or the seabed thanks to its lighting system and mosaic ceiling. The Arts et Métiers station in Paris, located near the Museum of Arts and Crafts, was designed in an urban style: its ceiling is made in the form of gears.
The Champ-de-Mars station in Montreal is best visited on clear days, when the sun’s rays shine through the colored stained-glass windows, and the dome of multicolored glass at Formosa Boulevard in Kaohsiung, China, is beautiful at any time of day thanks to its bright lighting.
The walls of the platform hall at Prague’s Malostranská station create an optical illusion: from one angle, the decorative elements in the form of circles appear convex, from another — concave. The design of Bockenheimer Warte in Frankfurt can also be considered an art object: when creating the design, Petr Zbigniew Pininski drew inspiration from the works of René Magritte.