There are pretty good mass transit systems in Hong Kong, London, Singapore, Taipei. Bangkok's is good but it is criminally poor in coverage and overwhelmed in peak hours (which is nearly all the time). Every major Chinese city has one. Sydney's is OK too but has poor coverage in certain areas and is aging disgracefully. Paris' metro ghetto is uniquely urine-smelling and poorly maintained. Prague's is good. Berlin's is good. New York. I mean, why would you move to Japan? I don't understand why people like the place.
None of them are comparable. The density of Tokyo system is just 10x of anything else. You basically can get to any point in the city with a 30min trainride + 10 min walk, barely any waiting at all even with multiple connections.
I just lived in Tokyo for a year, and if good public transit was a main criteria for a place to live, Tokyo would be number 1 for me without a question.
That coverage is seriously liberating. Only in Tokyo have I felt so empowered to spontaneously go and do things, because it’s never an ordeal to do so.
In the US a car affords some freedom but driving feels like a chore, not to mention all of the associated costs and pains.
the stress. hate driving in a city, esp. one where pedestrians dgaf and will just walk into the road.
meanwhile I lived in Melbourne (Preston) for a bit and the trams were great. walk out, hop on the tram, into the city before too long, and then do whatchu gotta do. getting from suburb to suburb might be hard without having to go to Central and then back out, but they have busses for that.
I don’t like it that much, it’s just one of the least worst places.
Doesn’t the tube get very hot in the summer? The UK has very high taxes on airfares so even award tickets purchased with miles will have high costs which is why most frequent flyers will fly to France instead and take the train.
Chinese cities have good politics but the internet situation is a non-starter. (edit: Chinese cities have good subways! I made a freudian slip when writing).
Bangkok’s system is nice but not enough lines/coverage so you often need a Grab to supplement it. And the sidewalks are too dirty (I’ve been there 6 times so it’s not that I’m allergic to dirty sidewalks, but if I move somewhere I want to have clean sidewals)
Singapore has a very nice system but Singapore is so expensive (especially alcohol!).
Any muslim countries are a non-starter because they heavily tax alcohol to discourage consumption.
Alcohol is not too pricy in Japan, the 300 yen bar in Osaka is pretty great and it’s easy to meet friends any night. The subway system is good but the JR is too expensive compared to Jetstar or one of many many low cost carriers.
Seoul is also clean with good subway coverage, but Itaewon is too hilly if you like cycling and it takes forever to commute if you live on the other side of the city but still want the food in Itaewon.
Taipei is clean but too poor in all honesty. I expected better because of Taiwan’s dominance in tech but yeah. It does have a decent train system.
I love Malaysia but the KL train system doesn’t even go to Mont Kiara!
Sydney is a no go because AU TZ for video games is empty and many games don’t even put servers for Oceania.
> Seoul is also clean with good subway coverage, but Itaewon is too hilly if you like cycling and it takes forever to commute if you live on the other side of the city but still want the food in Itaewon.
To be fair
- There's electric bikes instantly rentable all over the city that are perfect for dealing with hills
- Itaewon is only a tiny part of the city and the huge majority of the remainder isn't nearly as hilly
- Except for Middle-Eastern (and maybe traditional "US") food, all other kinds of cuisine have at least as good if not better options outside of Itaewon
Bangkok's is still inadequate but I give them credit because they had a late start compared to most of the other cities on the list. They've built about 150 miles of rail transit within the last 25 years.
I remember when I grew up in Bangkok in the 90's and saw the pillars go up for the Skytrain, it still seemed like a pipe dream at the time.
New York's mass transit is decaying while the MTA fails to build anything but prestige projects at exorbitant cost. 'Metro ghetto', 'urine-smelling' and 'poorly maintained' is exactly how I'd describe it also.
re: New York. The only part of New York that matters is NYC and NYC subway stations are filthy and dangerous because they don’t have platform doors. The parks are nice and I love running alongside the Manhattan coast and the food is amazing, but it’s much too dirty and always looking over your shoulder to make sure no one will mug you
(and the same applies to Boston except the subway system is too tiny, you can’t even take the subway into Brookline, which is disappointing because there is good pizza there).
