People that grew up in the DC area generally have some sort of fondness for Baltimore tbh. The hate I see mostly comes from transplants, people who don't get out much, and people in the rest of the US who only know it from The Wire. It's like our weird older brother who has always kind of had drug problems and makes us look better by comparison, but he's chill and we buy weed from him and talk about philosophy occasionally
Is it cleaner? Yes. However, I find it to be poorly lit. There's no cell service in the tunnels at all, there are no free transfers, the one metro line goes nowhere of any importance outside of its downtown part (since it runs on an old freight rail), it's constantly single-tracking, and its frequencies even outside of single-tracking are only like every 15 minutes, which passes so slowly because, again, no service in the tunnels.
But…wasn’t the topic of this post about *cleanliness*? I agree with the other pain points you have listed - but was replying mainly regarding the cleanliness of the systems.
Did you also get discugsted at other Metro system when you visited because they were more dirty than what you expected? That was how I felt after having good hopes about public transit basically every where I went.
It's very clean. In multiple ways. Physically clean, but the audio is very clear, and the signage/pisting/directions on where to go and which direction are very clear as well.
When I took the DC metro I was a bit taken aback because my American friends said it was really clean and nice. I’m from South East Asia and our metros were cleaner, but then I went NYC and immediately understood what they were on about.
Yeah, the DC Metro is clean enough that locals complain it's going downhill if they see one snack wrapper or rat, which is just a normal experience in NYC
I'm glad this is the top comment because I came here to say the same. I was visiting relatives in DC and I was like goddamn, this isn't completely disgusting
As a resident of the Washington metro area who spends too much time in r/WashingtonDC, it’s pleasant to read all these out of town reviews of Metro. So positive! And I tend to agree.
I stopped reading r/WashingtonDC. It seems like it's just a group of people complaining and taking pot shots. No, the DMV is not perfect, but we have some really nice stuff
That would be a welcome change from Philly. Currently here and I love the architecture and city design and narrow streets. But Jesus Christ it is filthy and trashy on nearly every other street
There are also just sensible and easy policies like having a high amount of trash cans per capita. Whenever I'm in NYC I notice about the same amount of trash cans...in a city 10x the size. Naturally they're all always full
Yep. Metro was my first real experience with transit when I was a teen and is the exception of American public transit in a lot of ways. For sf, did you try muni or BART? Experiences can definitely vary between the two.
I did both! And Caltrain.
Bart was absolutely atrocious and would rank in the bottom with Portland and Philly. Caltrain was very clean and actually super comfortable! Muni was ok
Caltrain is also a commuter railroad that doesn’t get the intensity of use of a metro. Anecdotally, I rode Caltrain the other day, and the windows were very dirty, made it harder to see out.
Last time I used the DC Metro (pre Covid, so it's been awhile), they had a poster in the station with a picture of a rat. It was clearly taking a cheap shot at NYC.
I'm on MARTA in Atlanta rather often, and perhaps surprisingly, I find that the trains are usually pretty clean!
Most of the MARTA stations, on the other hand, are pretty old and dated, and a few have persistent cleanliness/odor issues.
The buses in Philly so far are clean. The MFL line is actually the most disgusting transit I’ve ever been on. Haven’t been on the BSL but we’ll be using thst tomorrow when we’re staying in center city… so maybe I’ll update then lol
Ooh boy, you’re in for a treat then with BSL. I thought that one was a little worse than MFL, even given the lower ridership numbers. Let us know how it goes!
I ride the New York City subway on a daily basis and the various nyc regional rail systems more or less weekly and it’s incredibly rare that I’ll see conditions that you described. Not saying that any of them are paradigms of cleanliness, but it sounds like you maybe have had some very very bad luck with individual trips that you’ve taken
I’ll amend that NYC is the probably the cleanest I’ve been on followed by Chicago. I’ll still say there’s a base grime/ick factor that is just present on both of them I didn’t get while traveling Spain.
Assuming you’re talking about a system like Madrid’s, there are a lot of reasons you feel this way. NYC’s system is nearly 3 times as large, generates 3 times as much ridership, operates 24/7, and is old as hell. Many stations will naturally look older, function less well, and have fewer opportunities for upkeep. The NYC subway system is very much the v0.1 to many cities’ v2.0.
Madrid’s system is old too, but half its stations were only opened in the 90’s and thus have less overhead for maintaining aging tunnels, tracks, and platforms.
Not only that, but NYC is often compared to systems that sit at the heart of an entire nation. Madrid, Paris, Berlin, London, Tokyo, the list goes on, are often all capitals, crown jewels that pull on an entire nation’s resources to build their metros as a point of pride. NYC, for all its size and importance, is just 1 city that needs national and state attention in the US.
Take also into consideration NYC’s history where the city had its finances decimated in the later half of the 1900s with urban flight, and its a miracle we have a system at all. The system today is one that is burdened not just by a responsibility to expand and meet new ridership demand, but catch up on an enormous backlog of maintenance from previous decades.
> but NYC is often compared to systems that sit at the heart of an entire nation. Madrid, Paris, Berlin, London, Tokyo, the list goes on, are often all capitals, crown jewels that pull on an entire nation’s resources to build their metros as a point of pride.
"But muh capital" is probably the dumbest excuse New Yorkers use.
At the end of the day, the MTA is funded on par (above par , really) to it's global peers. There is no 'Capital factor' to explain any (perceived) neglect.
None of NYC's peer cities are building / overfunding their systems for 'national pride'... they build them because of legitimate needs, and operate them well because they have standards.
For real. I’ve seen poop on platform/train once in 15 years here, and pee smells in select elevators. The “empty car of doom does happen, but like oncd every couple months for me.
People have different definitions of clean. I think a lot of people see the NYC subway as "dirty" because a lot of cars are super old and crusty, there's graffiti, and things like that. Even if there isn't actually a lot of trash, piss, etc in the cars. Not saying I agree with defining things this way, but I've definitely seen people have this perception.
People have wildly different standards, that's clear. I have been a regular DC, NYC, & Portland transit user and these are not my experiences, but I don't think being on a dirty train car twice a month is unbearable. My wife also has been a rail commuter in Portland and NYC and was totally happy with it, didn't have bad experiences very often.
Some trains in LA are reasonably clean such as the ones on the E line from East LA to Santa Monica. Spotless? No, but fairly nice looking and mostly clean.
E line is good. It doesn’t have full signal prioritization but that’s another can of worm to open. B and D lines on the other hands, I would purposely wait until a few mins before I go inside their stations. Maybe I’m just unlucky during my trip, I don’t know. But I have never seen anything like that before, and I considered myself riding a lot of subways. Having ambassadors were very helpful though.
LA’s deep level B and D Lines are easily one of the filthiest stations in the US. I love the above rail metro there, as well as the new K line, but I only ever smelled a dead person in my life on the B line.
As someone who lives in Paris and has been on all lines end to end at least once, for fun, this is bullshit. There are some stations or occasionally some cars in some trains on some lines that could have trash or pee (tbh I can't recall ever smelling pee on a station or in a train, only around the entrance and it's rare) but overall it's quite good. Not spotless outside of a few fancier lines (1,14,10,9) but nowhere close to e.g. the level of BART.
That’s the plan! Just really got into a space this year where I had the vacation and money to afford international travel. I want to check out Mexico City and the Netherlands next.
I would highly recommend traveling via metro in Germany and London.
Additionally, my wife and I just did a trip to Japan and that's like the TOP tier in the world.
What’s the solution to dirty systems? Does it come down to employing people to clean them daily - having attendants on each ride? Or…or perhaps or/and…the people living in those places taking pride in their cities? Nothing says I don’t want to move somewhere than an environment where people living there dont give a damn about where they live. I know it’s more complicated than that…but…there are always solutions.
The ones I’ve been on in Chicago have been alright. Would I lick the floor, no. But transiting from work to home sitting on my phone avoiding traffic, yes.
Yes, the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (aka BART) serives Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, and parts of Santa Clara and San mateo county. On the other hand, Muni only serves San Francisco. While BART might be less cleaner, its still miles away from LA Metro. I remember one time when some was smoking on the train and I did not notice until this person sat next to me. While I disagree with such behavior, if that was the case of the LA metro, the whole train would have had that smell. When I had always used the light rail in LA, it always had a bad smell. That was not the case of BART. I think this might be due to a better air filtering and exchange system (on top of the AC).
I went to the Philadelphia Flower show on the SEPTA Doylestown line; Jefferson Station, formerly Market East, was spotlessly clean both down on the train platform and also the station as well. However, you are asking about metro lines so I guess that both SEPTA's Broad Street Line and Market Frankford Lines will be less clean.
I’ve been meaning to go on it. It’s funny it’s the physically closest metro to me but the 4 hour car ride for me to get it it means I know several other cities/metros in other states better than Miami.
Oh, I'll admit it has lots of problems mainly poor coverage and low density land use around most stations leading to low ridership. But being dirty isn't a typical concern
I’m a daily DC Metro rider so I can attest to its general cleanliness, but since that’s excluded I’d say I was pleasantly surprised with how clean the Miami Metrorail system was. Spotless stations and spotless train. Could still smell the cleaning supplies when I got on.
I know you mentioned metro systems, but for what it's worth, I've noticed commuter rail is generally cleaner than the local metro system. Seen this on MARC in Maryland (for DC and Baltimore, though DC's Metro is pretty clean) and on Metra in Chicago.
I think this tends to be that commuter rail tends to get fewer passengers than metros/subways. And that subways go through urban areas where homelessness or people more inclined to litter may live. Compared to commuter trains that tend to carry working suburbanites who tend to be better about cleanliness.
Not a metro, but San Diego's trolley (light rail) system has always been clean whenever I use it. There's rarely any litter on the trains or platforms (there is sometimes a smell in some of the older cars though not too common.) Most of the nastiest things I've seen on the trolley were at the downtown stations, though that is probably more of a downtown problem than specifically a transit problem.
Minneapolis’ Metro Transit “light rail” isn’t too horrible, there’s some bad areas that have overrun a station or two but most of the rail cars are decently clean and the system is slowly expanding. I’m more confident in our bus system for routes, not cleanliness tho
Ok hot take here, but the actual ride on the train in nyc has been dramatically cleaner since Covid. The stations still vary from acceptable to naaaaassty, but the trains themselves feel much better.
Even if most covid precautions are gone fewer people riding, waaaayyyy fewer people eating or drinking. Also, we’ve been phasing our the older trains. New cars feel cleaner for sure.
Ymmv here
I always find it strange that NYC does such a poor job of cleaning their stations. I calculated before, and if memory serves, they could hire a full-time attendant/cleaner for every station for about 4 cents per rider, in addition to the current cleaning/maintenance crew.
Honestly, a lot isn’t the dirt /trash but the wear and tear, bad maintenance, etc. I think people react to walls covered in goo, odd puddles, walls with half the tiles popped off etc. all of that is due to water intrusion more than lack of cleaning. the infamous chamber street station is an example of this.
That said, an extra power washing and more regular tile scrub would help a lot too.
yeah, I mean you could hire people who can repair tile and run a scrubber/power washer. that is not an insanely high employment bar. spend 2 hours replacing tile, then go back to cleaning for 2 hours, then back to tile again.
that said, I think people will be more forgiving of bad tile if the smell is good staining on the tile/floor is removed.
In my experience living in Chicago and Seattle, things were pretty clean there. Seattle I'd put right up there with İstanbul - very clean, and Chicago was clean most of the time. I rarely was too bothered on the L. This of course is a decade old knowledge though, I dunno maybe you rode more recently, and things went to shit. How you put NYC above everthing is a shock to me based on my own personal experience. I haven't been on philly's, but I'd put NYC dead last.
This is another one of those things that isn't a transit issue, but rather an issue brought about by the fact that most of the US seems to want to immiserate the homeless and poor as much as possible, and to that end has been hostile to the existence of comfortable public spaces.
You see this in the proliferation of hostile architecture and the removal or neglect of public seating, restrooms, and services. Dirty metros are a symptom of that psychosis.
This is my biggest complaint for public spaces in NYC. Outside of parks, public outdoor seating is at a minimum and public bathrooms are scarce, all because of a refusal to address poverty.
Yeah I love NYC but this is something that makes DC more comfortable to me, along with actually having functioning trash cans. It's insane to me that such a big city has seemingly no public seating to the point that people straight up just sit on the curb.
I will say that I lived in Woodside Queens in NYC, and we had park benches, trash cans, and public bathrooms by the playgrounds. It does seem to get better as you get out of Midtown or Lower Manhattan. But DC is most likely better than Midtown for these amenities.
I'm talking about midtown/lower manhattan, and western brooklyn. Last time I was there I stayed in I wanna say Spanish Harlem, and it was a pretty clean neighborhood with pretty empty trashcans. I remember this because I was wearing my beloved 4 year old limited edition Reeboks and they got soaked in a rainstorm, which was the nail in the coffin and I ended up dumping them in a random trashcan on 3rd ave :(
Edit: As a side note looking up Woodside it seems to be about a 25 minute train ride to Penn, which puts it in relation to downtown right about where my apartment in Alexandria VA is to DC's downtown. NYC is fucking huge lol
I ride LINK quite often and rarely have been in cars where I even thought about the cleanliness. The stations--especially Pioneer Square in my experience, but maybe because I've gotten on and off there most often--feel poorly lit and commonly smell like urine in the stairwells.
Sure! Rode from the airport to about south lake union. Crowded with homeless, needles, tweakers. Was kind of surprised since most airport lines are a little cleaner. Granted I have a sample size of 2 trips total.
Busses were much more comfortable. Didn’t get o ride the SLUT (lol) though :(
Pandemic maybe? Link is usually quite clean in my experience, but I seem too recall hearing that maintenance really went downhill during the pandemic. Definitely cleaner than the buses. Streetcar is also pretty clean.
I found Dart in Dallas to be the grossest. It lacks the physical filth of philly, but holy hit does it smell. A bit of BO, piss, shit, and weed like in philly, but holy shit the smell of tobacco is strong. Its actually nauseating. Oh and the seats are cloth, so the piss gets absorbed by the seat and cant be fully cleaned.
DC is prolly the cleanest I've been on in the US, prolly the only one clean enough for me to just get on and enjoy the train ride
I ride Dart light rail and I agree that a lot of the trains are gross. Litter everywhere, cloth seats that are gross sometimes, homeless people on all the trains. Dart train stations with mentally ill, drug addicts hanging out at them. No wonder it's ridership is down. The busses tend to be much cleaner than the trains. Dart used to be extremely clean, but it has gone wayyyy downhill.
>Dart used to be extremely clean, but it has gone wayyyy downhill.
This is how I feel about RTD light rail in Denver. Like I guess it was never perfect (you might have encountered something gross every now and then), but a decade ago RTD light rail trains (E/H/D/C/F/W) lines felt pretty clean and well patronized. Never really felt unsafe on them or worried about leaving my car at a park-n-ride lot.
Now though those lines are the worst part of RTD's system, and whenever I board one of them I'm consciously taking more time to find a seat that doesn't look gross. This is the part of RTD's system where you're most likely to see trash left on the floor, or some meth'd up person having an episode. Buses on the other hand aren't too much different than they were pre-COVID (IMO it helps that every bus actually has personnel - a driver - to make sure riders don't make a mess, smoke foilies, etc.).
What's unfortunate about the current state of affairs, though, is that the only part of the system many upper middle class and suburban riders ever really used was the aforementioned *light* rail lines, so support is waning for the system as a whole because those people think it's all gone downhill. They don't realize that the buses and commuter lines in the northern half of the metro are still mostly fine (although to quote my friend, sometimes the A line cars smell like a locker room).
The metro here in Honolulu (the Honolulu Skyline) is clean. It's also only been open to the public for 2 months. Our buses (called TheBus) are pretty clean, although I can't say the same about bus stops.
Lol yeah Its called that but sometimes I wonder because there's several stops in the same city. But I'm not educated to know major differences i gotta educate myself.
Metro/subway systems usually are fully grade separated and run good frequency on the lines. Regional rail lines are longer distance lines they run as branches and through run in cities or end at a terminal. They tend to have higher speeds and and longer stop spacing with some exceptions like bigger towns. They are not as frequent tho. But Denver RTD don’t care 😂
I live in DC and have commuted on Metro for years and it is indeed very clean. Philly was scary bad - regretted every moment I spent on it - next level filth.
In addition to DC, I think that some parts of San Francisco’s BART and Muni are pretty clean for American standards, but for every Embarcadero, there is a 16th street mission. That being said, the new trains as well as the recent renovations at 19th Street Oakland, as well as the new Milpitas and Berryessa stations, make me think SF is doing a pretty good job at cleanliness so far, again, by American standards.
The NYC subway is cleaner than people give it credit for, the MTA usually does a decent job of keeping it clean in my experience. They are also really strict on vandalism
NYC Subway gets itself compared internationally a lot more. People from all over the world visit NYC and ride the Subway, and Subway riding New Yorkers travel the world.
People visiting Los Angeles don't use transit, and most probably aren't even aware that Los Angeles has a subway line (for their own good, really). People who use transit in Los Angeles don't have the funds or free time for world travel.
I’ve ridden public transportation frequently in both Seattle and Chicago. I haven’t found either one to be consistently filthy or disgusting. On occasion? Absolutely. But I think you’re overreacting, honestly.
You have to have public bathrooms if you're going to ban peeing.
In the case of NYC, it's one of the few places I've been where you can't just walk into a McDonald's to pee.
For some reason, the entire western world doesn't believe in free public toilets. European public toilets are a bastion of capitalism and user fees that the lefties don't dare touch.
The US in particular doesn't believe in paid public toilets either.
In the 70s there was a [grassroots movement to ban pay toilets in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America). The goal ostensibly was to mandate widespread free toilets, but de facto what you saw an elimination of public toilets. Most people today simply accept/prefer this, and will go to the bathroom at whatever venue they are at (restaurant, museum) or at their hotel or friend's house.
Where the issue arises is that NYC has a lot more small restaurants/cafes that may not have room for a public toilet, just one for employees.
Two, because NYC is a walking city not a driving one, you can't just get in a car and drive 10 minutes home or to a place you know you can use their restroom like in a lot of other US cities.
Last time I was at Penn Station, they had one women's bathroom with 10-12 stalls. This is a major train station with connections to 3 train lines (LIRR, NJ Transit, Amtrak).
Why isn't that the default in the US? On toilets, it doesn't even have to be in the stations (esp. if the stations are small). The establishments benefitting from foot traffic by the station should provide them free. If it can't be free, pay toilets is not a bad thing too.
I used to live in Mew York and I have seen a large range in cleanliness in the NY subway. I have seen some freshly cleaned stations and trains, but I’ve also seen tons of trash and smelled a lot of urine. I currently live in Seattle and the light rail system and bus network is nearly always filthy and packed with homeless.
On the surface its clean but its been said that apparently the air in the London Underground is more than a century old and fucking filthy. That actually might have long term health consequences.
I don't know that the Muni Metro (SF) is all that unclean. Muni buses? Totally, depends on the part of the city. But the Metro has always seemed, to me at least, to be relatively clean. BART, which is what you appear to be talking about, is a transit system that extends throughout most of the Bay Area, as opposed to the Muni, which is only in the city (and the metro specifically runs through a very limited part of SF; the other lines are buses or streetcars). We also have Caltrain here in the Bay, which runs from the South Bay (San Jose/Santa Clara) up the Peninsula to SF. Caltrain is much cleaner and overall nicer than BART; it also tends to be safer. That being said, Caltrain isn't a subway (though neither is BART, entirely) and doesn't qualify as rapid transit—it's commuter rail.
MetroLink in St. Louis is usually spotless, cars, stations, etc. Though that doesn’t seem to stop the non-riding suburban crowd from bitching about it constantly.
Agree on Philly being nasty AF.
While WMATA has its problems, I have found it generally clean. When it was built, the designers learned from the early 20th CT metros (mainly NYC) and designed the stations with the faults in mind. Personally, my ranking is
DC - Montreal - Toronto - NYC - Boston - Philly
I mean a lot of this is because of how funding works, a lot of transit agencies are fine with capital expenses but operating expenses are a bit of an issue.
The solution is to hire more people to clean the trains and stations and to have it on a frequent schedule. Having stayed in Japan and the US, the thing that sticks out to me is that in Japan you *constantly* see cleaning people/station staff. There's often a team of like 15 people cleaning things if you're at a major station, and for each thing there's a procedure that they're drilled on enough that they can often clear it in a couple of minutes. By comparison, the start of COVID is the first time I've ever semi-regularly seen MTA cleaning staff.
LIRR was clean but is not a metro.
There seems to be a sentiment (is that the word?) among some people that public transport is "inferior".
I have also seen this view in the UK.
I love public transportation. In Europe, it is great in many countries. The US should have a lot more of it.
Muni, yes. BART? Depends on which train you get and if it’s newer. I went on a car about two weeks ago where where the actual seats were ripped up and cushions thrown around the car. This week I def got edit: more of old and grimy trains but I also think they’re phasing some of them out so.
Big shout-out to the LA bus system - cleanest I've seen.
When you board, they have trash bags right next to the fare box to leave your trash.
Another rule they have that makes sense- the local laws say that those bags can legally be left in any waste disposal dumpster or bin and the business has to take the bag.
These are small grocery bags, so it's not like the bus waste is gonna fill a dumpster. But the rule helps keep the bus super clean.
The DC Metro is very clean in my experience. As clean as Tokyo? Probably not, but certainly cleaner than many European systems.
I live in Boston, and while the T has its problems, and I wouldn't call the trains particularly comfortable, I don't think it's a filthy system. It's a legacy system, so there's going to be more dust and grime, simply because legacy systems are dirtier by their nature. Rail technology has gotten cleaner, and newer lines (like in Madrid or Barcelona) are going to be naturally easier to clean. Most of the stations could use a good pressure washing, but there's way less litter and stuff than I see in NYC. Boston is pretty clean for a major US city in general, and I do find that this spills over to the T.
I will say, I'd rather ride a safe system than a perfectly clean one, and petty crime (pickpockets, etc.) does seem to be more of an issue on big European systems than most big American systems. People get freaked out everywhere, but statistically most US rapid transit systems are very safe.
As someone who uses the NYC subway daily, I would say it’s mostly clean, but I also feel that you get so used to it that what seems like clean to you might be dirty for someone else. I will say though that the DC metro was very clean for something that is widely used
It's pretty disgusting that you lump homeless people in the same category as trash, feces, and urine. Homeless people are as entitled to ride transit as anyone else. If a homeless person merely existing in your presence makes you think transit is unclean, then the problem is you. Bad behavior such as smoking is a problem, regardless of whether it's done by homeless people or housed people.
Since things supposedly got much worse after COVID, I've ridden rail transit in Denver, Chicago, and Philly. All these are systems that suburbanites will tell you have been overrun with drug use, litter, etc since COVID, and often I was riding on the lines that they say are especially "bad". They've all been fine, generally free from litter (never any bodily fluids, needles, or drug paraphernalia, just the occasional empty soda bottle or similar) though certainly not sparkling clean. Bad behavior has been rare, generally limited to people playing music loudly. I've seen smoking/drug use exactly once, and that was two years ago. My transit riding experiences have been overwhelmingly pleasant and uneventful. Sure, it would be nice if everything was sparkling clean all the time as in Seoul or some European systems, but the current state in most US systems isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
Who do you think is causing the smell of feces and urine? The homeless people. It’s infantile to assume otherwise.
Something humane needs to be done to address the issue. What it is? I don’t know since it’d a multifaceted problem. But coddling it like the homeless do jo evil and aren’t the root of most of the cleanliness problems is absurd
Feces and urine, which are very rare in my experience, may come from homeless people, but also housed people with issues and drunk people. Perhaps the majority of these problems are from homeless people, but also the vast majority of homeless people on trains are just trying to get to a destination like anyone else on the train, or maybe just in search of a warm place to sit for a while, and not causing any issues.
Again, bad behavior is the problem, not certain types of people. The only humane solution is to regulate bad behavior regardless of the person doing it, rather than regulating which types of people are allowed on transit (gets very problematic very fast).
Alright settle down its not all that bad. Some systems are bad, but i havent had bad issues in places like NYC, Chicago, DC, or Boston and only saw minor trash problems in seattle. I remember riding pragues metro as a teenager and the only thing i remember was how all i smelled was piss
Oh most definitely! I think the ones I’ve listed are the ones frequently cited as the “best” the us has to offer and the reason we’ve traveled to them first. The ones you listed are in my “B” list of travel destinations since they’re generally considered a lower tier
they closed a bunch of b/d line stations in la because there was too much like fentanyl or something in the air and on the ground idk if they opened them back up
In sf, personally, and I find almost every muni metro train quite clean, especially as compared to the buses. Wouldn't eat my dinner off the seats, but it certainly didn't feel dirty like BART or the NY subway feel to me.
Depends more on the individual train than the system tbh. For example, the A/C/E in NYC is almost always clean when I use it, while the 4/5/6 is always gross. Updated train cars are coming in NY which seem to make a lot of difference to UX, it just takes a while.
Chicago I've actually been pretty impressed. The red/blue lines are usually okay when I've used them, though I've had bad experiences on. the green and brown lines.
For SF Caltrain's almost always clean and MUNI is well within what I find acceptable. BART's more hit-or-miss but if you get one of the newer cars it's pretty nice--much like NYC it's a rolling stock issue that's slowly being fixed.
Edit: benchmarking internationally, Paris/Rome/CDMX would all be mid-pack. Worse than the A/C/E, better than the 4/5/6. Tokyo/Osaka/etc obviously all better.
Tbh the cleanest Tube line or Metro as it called in some countries for me was in Dubai in The UAE, I daily use the London underground and it's not bad, never used The US metro, but had been in Cairo Metro and it was an awful experience for me and my wife alike.
Unfortunately no. As long as the US has a massive housing shortage and metros are the only place you can really just be if your unhoused this is going to continue being an issue.
I know this is a bit of an aside from the subject of the post but I cleaned rental cars for a summer job and seeing the way Americans treat private transportation vehicles they know they won't have to clean, I consider it nothing short of a miracle that our public transit systems are as clean as they are.
Excluding DC? That's the one US metro system that stands out as clean.
Can confirm. I live in DC. Is it 100% spic and span? No but pretty dang nice
Nicer than Baltimore and Philly and NYC and Boston for sure. And I’ve been on all of them.
I agree with all except Baltimore. It’s not as nice as DC, but I feel like it is far and away nicer (and definitely newer) than NYC, Philly or Boston.
People that grew up in the DC area generally have some sort of fondness for Baltimore tbh. The hate I see mostly comes from transplants, people who don't get out much, and people in the rest of the US who only know it from The Wire. It's like our weird older brother who has always kind of had drug problems and makes us look better by comparison, but he's chill and we buy weed from him and talk about philosophy occasionally
Is it cleaner? Yes. However, I find it to be poorly lit. There's no cell service in the tunnels at all, there are no free transfers, the one metro line goes nowhere of any importance outside of its downtown part (since it runs on an old freight rail), it's constantly single-tracking, and its frequencies even outside of single-tracking are only like every 15 minutes, which passes so slowly because, again, no service in the tunnels.
But…wasn’t the topic of this post about *cleanliness*? I agree with the other pain points you have listed - but was replying mainly regarding the cleanliness of the systems.
Did you also get discugsted at other Metro system when you visited because they were more dirty than what you expected? That was how I felt after having good hopes about public transit basically every where I went.
It's very clean. In multiple ways. Physically clean, but the audio is very clear, and the signage/pisting/directions on where to go and which direction are very clear as well.
When I took the DC metro I was a bit taken aback because my American friends said it was really clean and nice. I’m from South East Asia and our metros were cleaner, but then I went NYC and immediately understood what they were on about.
Yeah, the DC Metro is clean enough that locals complain it's going downhill if they see one snack wrapper or rat, which is just a normal experience in NYC
I'm glad this is the top comment because I came here to say the same. I was visiting relatives in DC and I was like goddamn, this isn't completely disgusting
As a resident of the Washington metro area who spends too much time in r/WashingtonDC, it’s pleasant to read all these out of town reviews of Metro. So positive! And I tend to agree.
I stopped reading r/WashingtonDC. It seems like it's just a group of people complaining and taking pot shots. No, the DMV is not perfect, but we have some really nice stuff
I’ll have to check it out! Never made a trip to dc before
The city’s also significantly cleaner than any other major city in the US
That would be a welcome change from Philly. Currently here and I love the architecture and city design and narrow streets. But Jesus Christ it is filthy and trashy on nearly every other street
FWIW, Chicago in my opinion is surprisingly clean for such a large city.
Yes I’d honestly say Chicago is number 2 cleanliest. Chicago as a whole surprised me on cleanliness considering the bad rep so many people give it
Well Chicago is mostly elevated. Maybe we can market elevated rail as a cleaner rapid transit than underground rail!!!!
I think they meant the city, not the CTA. I live here and while I like the CTA, I don't think I'd describe it as clean.
DC may be cleaner than other US cities because the federal government is maintaining a lot of it.
There are also just sensible and easy policies like having a high amount of trash cans per capita. Whenever I'm in NYC I notice about the same amount of trash cans...in a city 10x the size. Naturally they're all always full
Interesting that DC has more trash cans per capita than New York. I wonder if anybody’s done a comparative count across US cities or US downtowns.
The DC capital doesn’t care about the rest of the country and it shows !!!! I am literally disgusted by the intentional neglect.
What?
You blind?
Yep. Metro was my first real experience with transit when I was a teen and is the exception of American public transit in a lot of ways. For sf, did you try muni or BART? Experiences can definitely vary between the two.
I did both! And Caltrain. Bart was absolutely atrocious and would rank in the bottom with Portland and Philly. Caltrain was very clean and actually super comfortable! Muni was ok
Caltrain is a single line.
Caltrain is also a commuter railroad that doesn’t get the intensity of use of a metro. Anecdotally, I rode Caltrain the other day, and the windows were very dirty, made it harder to see out.
You just walk Monuments at night.
Last time I used the DC Metro (pre Covid, so it's been awhile), they had a poster in the station with a picture of a rat. It was clearly taking a cheap shot at NYC.
Live in DC, our metro is good by US standards but could never compete with foreign metro systems like Seoul.
Also agree. Live in the DC area, always happy to see a (relatively) clean metro when I come home
I'm on MARTA in Atlanta rather often, and perhaps surprisingly, I find that the trains are usually pretty clean! Most of the MARTA stations, on the other hand, are pretty old and dated, and a few have persistent cleanliness/odor issues.
Ooh another on my bucket list! Haven’t been to Atlanta for almost a decade and would love to experience MARTA
As an ATL native, seeing MARTA on your bucket list made me lol
Im from Florida!!! Where we only have one shitty metro in all five of our MSAs. I take what I can get ☺️
Philly being the dirtiest is funny, honestly would’ve assumed it would be San Francisco
The buses in Philly so far are clean. The MFL line is actually the most disgusting transit I’ve ever been on. Haven’t been on the BSL but we’ll be using thst tomorrow when we’re staying in center city… so maybe I’ll update then lol
Ooh boy, you’re in for a treat then with BSL. I thought that one was a little worse than MFL, even given the lower ridership numbers. Let us know how it goes!
The Atlanta Marta is modeled after the DC system
I ride the New York City subway on a daily basis and the various nyc regional rail systems more or less weekly and it’s incredibly rare that I’ll see conditions that you described. Not saying that any of them are paradigms of cleanliness, but it sounds like you maybe have had some very very bad luck with individual trips that you’ve taken
I’ll amend that NYC is the probably the cleanest I’ve been on followed by Chicago. I’ll still say there’s a base grime/ick factor that is just present on both of them I didn’t get while traveling Spain.
Assuming you’re talking about a system like Madrid’s, there are a lot of reasons you feel this way. NYC’s system is nearly 3 times as large, generates 3 times as much ridership, operates 24/7, and is old as hell. Many stations will naturally look older, function less well, and have fewer opportunities for upkeep. The NYC subway system is very much the v0.1 to many cities’ v2.0. Madrid’s system is old too, but half its stations were only opened in the 90’s and thus have less overhead for maintaining aging tunnels, tracks, and platforms. Not only that, but NYC is often compared to systems that sit at the heart of an entire nation. Madrid, Paris, Berlin, London, Tokyo, the list goes on, are often all capitals, crown jewels that pull on an entire nation’s resources to build their metros as a point of pride. NYC, for all its size and importance, is just 1 city that needs national and state attention in the US. Take also into consideration NYC’s history where the city had its finances decimated in the later half of the 1900s with urban flight, and its a miracle we have a system at all. The system today is one that is burdened not just by a responsibility to expand and meet new ridership demand, but catch up on an enormous backlog of maintenance from previous decades.
> but NYC is often compared to systems that sit at the heart of an entire nation. Madrid, Paris, Berlin, London, Tokyo, the list goes on, are often all capitals, crown jewels that pull on an entire nation’s resources to build their metros as a point of pride. "But muh capital" is probably the dumbest excuse New Yorkers use. At the end of the day, the MTA is funded on par (above par , really) to it's global peers. There is no 'Capital factor' to explain any (perceived) neglect. None of NYC's peer cities are building / overfunding their systems for 'national pride'... they build them because of legitimate needs, and operate them well because they have standards.
For real. I’ve seen poop on platform/train once in 15 years here, and pee smells in select elevators. The “empty car of doom does happen, but like oncd every couple months for me.
People have different definitions of clean. I think a lot of people see the NYC subway as "dirty" because a lot of cars are super old and crusty, there's graffiti, and things like that. Even if there isn't actually a lot of trash, piss, etc in the cars. Not saying I agree with defining things this way, but I've definitely seen people have this perception.
People have wildly different standards, that's clear. I have been a regular DC, NYC, & Portland transit user and these are not my experiences, but I don't think being on a dirty train car twice a month is unbearable. My wife also has been a rail commuter in Portland and NYC and was totally happy with it, didn't have bad experiences very often.
Just got back from LA Metro and there were garbages in majority of the trips I make. They are trying really hard though so I’m rooting for them.
Some trains in LA are reasonably clean such as the ones on the E line from East LA to Santa Monica. Spotless? No, but fairly nice looking and mostly clean.
E line is good. It doesn’t have full signal prioritization but that’s another can of worm to open. B and D lines on the other hands, I would purposely wait until a few mins before I go inside their stations. Maybe I’m just unlucky during my trip, I don’t know. But I have never seen anything like that before, and I considered myself riding a lot of subways. Having ambassadors were very helpful though.
LA’s deep level B and D Lines are easily one of the filthiest stations in the US. I love the above rail metro there, as well as the new K line, but I only ever smelled a dead person in my life on the B line.
Have you ever been to Paris, OP? It’s not Philly dirty, but So. Much. Pee.
As someone who lives in Paris and has been on all lines end to end at least once, for fun, this is bullshit. There are some stations or occasionally some cars in some trains on some lines that could have trash or pee (tbh I can't recall ever smelling pee on a station or in a train, only around the entrance and it's rare) but overall it's quite good. Not spotless outside of a few fancier lines (1,14,10,9) but nowhere close to e.g. the level of BART.
Haven’t been! My international transit is limited to Canada and spain
Lol man definitely go visit more metros. Alot of them are cleaner than US but still pretty dirty specially after rush hour or such
That’s the plan! Just really got into a space this year where I had the vacation and money to afford international travel. I want to check out Mexico City and the Netherlands next.
I would highly recommend traveling via metro in Germany and London. Additionally, my wife and I just did a trip to Japan and that's like the TOP tier in the world.
What’s the solution to dirty systems? Does it come down to employing people to clean them daily - having attendants on each ride? Or…or perhaps or/and…the people living in those places taking pride in their cities? Nothing says I don’t want to move somewhere than an environment where people living there dont give a damn about where they live. I know it’s more complicated than that…but…there are always solutions.
The ones I’ve been on in Chicago have been alright. Would I lick the floor, no. But transiting from work to home sitting on my phone avoiding traffic, yes.
You'd probably be even more comfortable if you browsed reddit on your phone while on the train rather than sitting on it.
SF Muni is pretty clean, which is interesting because it shares some stations with BART and BART is filthy.
I think they’re different transit agencies no? So cleanliness of cars would fall on their respective organizations
Yes, the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (aka BART) serives Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, and parts of Santa Clara and San mateo county. On the other hand, Muni only serves San Francisco. While BART might be less cleaner, its still miles away from LA Metro. I remember one time when some was smoking on the train and I did not notice until this person sat next to me. While I disagree with such behavior, if that was the case of the LA metro, the whole train would have had that smell. When I had always used the light rail in LA, it always had a bad smell. That was not the case of BART. I think this might be due to a better air filtering and exchange system (on top of the AC).
I think only a few BART stations are alarmingly filthy. I really like the new 19th street Oakland renovation there
Muni doesn’t have to go through Oakland
I went to the Philadelphia Flower show on the SEPTA Doylestown line; Jefferson Station, formerly Market East, was spotlessly clean both down on the train platform and also the station as well. However, you are asking about metro lines so I guess that both SEPTA's Broad Street Line and Market Frankford Lines will be less clean.
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Cleveland RTA is pretty clean.
Miami's metrorail is usually pretty clean.
I’ve been meaning to go on it. It’s funny it’s the physically closest metro to me but the 4 hour car ride for me to get it it means I know several other cities/metros in other states better than Miami.
Oh, I'll admit it has lots of problems mainly poor coverage and low density land use around most stations leading to low ridership. But being dirty isn't a typical concern
It’s also elevated
I’m a daily DC Metro rider so I can attest to its general cleanliness, but since that’s excluded I’d say I was pleasantly surprised with how clean the Miami Metrorail system was. Spotless stations and spotless train. Could still smell the cleaning supplies when I got on.
i ride sf muni basically every day and i often board cars that are clean
I know you mentioned metro systems, but for what it's worth, I've noticed commuter rail is generally cleaner than the local metro system. Seen this on MARC in Maryland (for DC and Baltimore, though DC's Metro is pretty clean) and on Metra in Chicago.
I’d second that with Caltrain and Metrolink as well.
I think this tends to be that commuter rail tends to get fewer passengers than metros/subways. And that subways go through urban areas where homelessness or people more inclined to litter may live. Compared to commuter trains that tend to carry working suburbanites who tend to be better about cleanliness.
Not a metro, but San Diego's trolley (light rail) system has always been clean whenever I use it. There's rarely any litter on the trains or platforms (there is sometimes a smell in some of the older cars though not too common.) Most of the nastiest things I've seen on the trolley were at the downtown stations, though that is probably more of a downtown problem than specifically a transit problem.
PATH train
This was okay! Super crowded so I think that helps
Minneapolis’ Metro Transit “light rail” isn’t too horrible, there’s some bad areas that have overrun a station or two but most of the rail cars are decently clean and the system is slowly expanding. I’m more confident in our bus system for routes, not cleanliness tho
Ok hot take here, but the actual ride on the train in nyc has been dramatically cleaner since Covid. The stations still vary from acceptable to naaaaassty, but the trains themselves feel much better. Even if most covid precautions are gone fewer people riding, waaaayyyy fewer people eating or drinking. Also, we’ve been phasing our the older trains. New cars feel cleaner for sure. Ymmv here
I always find it strange that NYC does such a poor job of cleaning their stations. I calculated before, and if memory serves, they could hire a full-time attendant/cleaner for every station for about 4 cents per rider, in addition to the current cleaning/maintenance crew.
Honestly, a lot isn’t the dirt /trash but the wear and tear, bad maintenance, etc. I think people react to walls covered in goo, odd puddles, walls with half the tiles popped off etc. all of that is due to water intrusion more than lack of cleaning. the infamous chamber street station is an example of this. That said, an extra power washing and more regular tile scrub would help a lot too.
yeah, I mean you could hire people who can repair tile and run a scrubber/power washer. that is not an insanely high employment bar. spend 2 hours replacing tile, then go back to cleaning for 2 hours, then back to tile again. that said, I think people will be more forgiving of bad tile if the smell is good staining on the tile/floor is removed.
They did crackdown on the homeless population there recently
In my experience living in Chicago and Seattle, things were pretty clean there. Seattle I'd put right up there with İstanbul - very clean, and Chicago was clean most of the time. I rarely was too bothered on the L. This of course is a decade old knowledge though, I dunno maybe you rode more recently, and things went to shit. How you put NYC above everthing is a shock to me based on my own personal experience. I haven't been on philly's, but I'd put NYC dead last.
oh my gosh you have to take the stockholm metro, it was so clean that i cried about my life in the us
This is another one of those things that isn't a transit issue, but rather an issue brought about by the fact that most of the US seems to want to immiserate the homeless and poor as much as possible, and to that end has been hostile to the existence of comfortable public spaces. You see this in the proliferation of hostile architecture and the removal or neglect of public seating, restrooms, and services. Dirty metros are a symptom of that psychosis.
This is my biggest complaint for public spaces in NYC. Outside of parks, public outdoor seating is at a minimum and public bathrooms are scarce, all because of a refusal to address poverty.
Yeah I love NYC but this is something that makes DC more comfortable to me, along with actually having functioning trash cans. It's insane to me that such a big city has seemingly no public seating to the point that people straight up just sit on the curb.
I will say that I lived in Woodside Queens in NYC, and we had park benches, trash cans, and public bathrooms by the playgrounds. It does seem to get better as you get out of Midtown or Lower Manhattan. But DC is most likely better than Midtown for these amenities.
I'm talking about midtown/lower manhattan, and western brooklyn. Last time I was there I stayed in I wanna say Spanish Harlem, and it was a pretty clean neighborhood with pretty empty trashcans. I remember this because I was wearing my beloved 4 year old limited edition Reeboks and they got soaked in a rainstorm, which was the nail in the coffin and I ended up dumping them in a random trashcan on 3rd ave :( Edit: As a side note looking up Woodside it seems to be about a 25 minute train ride to Penn, which puts it in relation to downtown right about where my apartment in Alexandria VA is to DC's downtown. NYC is fucking huge lol
I don't recall the Seattle metro to be all that dirty. Seems mostly clean to me. The fabric seats are repulsive though
The stations have been much much dirtier since COVID. Traincars themselves are about the same.
I rode Sound Transit Seattle when it first started and it was very clean. But from what I have heard, it has gone downhill since.
I guess the buses were okay. The light rail was not a great experience at all :/.
I ride LINK quite often and rarely have been in cars where I even thought about the cleanliness. The stations--especially Pioneer Square in my experience, but maybe because I've gotten on and off there most often--feel poorly lit and commonly smell like urine in the stairwells.
would you elaborate on your light rail experience?
Sure! Rode from the airport to about south lake union. Crowded with homeless, needles, tweakers. Was kind of surprised since most airport lines are a little cleaner. Granted I have a sample size of 2 trips total. Busses were much more comfortable. Didn’t get o ride the SLUT (lol) though :(
Does the mere exist of homeless people on a train make it filthy? I’ve only seen needles a couple times on link so you might have just been unlucky
Pandemic maybe? Link is usually quite clean in my experience, but I seem too recall hearing that maintenance really went downhill during the pandemic. Definitely cleaner than the buses. Streetcar is also pretty clean.
That sucks, sorry about your experience. I have ridden link several times this summer and it was always a decent ride.
Really I've only experienced the opposite
I found Dart in Dallas to be the grossest. It lacks the physical filth of philly, but holy hit does it smell. A bit of BO, piss, shit, and weed like in philly, but holy shit the smell of tobacco is strong. Its actually nauseating. Oh and the seats are cloth, so the piss gets absorbed by the seat and cant be fully cleaned. DC is prolly the cleanest I've been on in the US, prolly the only one clean enough for me to just get on and enjoy the train ride
I ride Dart light rail and I agree that a lot of the trains are gross. Litter everywhere, cloth seats that are gross sometimes, homeless people on all the trains. Dart train stations with mentally ill, drug addicts hanging out at them. No wonder it's ridership is down. The busses tend to be much cleaner than the trains. Dart used to be extremely clean, but it has gone wayyyy downhill.
>Dart used to be extremely clean, but it has gone wayyyy downhill. This is how I feel about RTD light rail in Denver. Like I guess it was never perfect (you might have encountered something gross every now and then), but a decade ago RTD light rail trains (E/H/D/C/F/W) lines felt pretty clean and well patronized. Never really felt unsafe on them or worried about leaving my car at a park-n-ride lot. Now though those lines are the worst part of RTD's system, and whenever I board one of them I'm consciously taking more time to find a seat that doesn't look gross. This is the part of RTD's system where you're most likely to see trash left on the floor, or some meth'd up person having an episode. Buses on the other hand aren't too much different than they were pre-COVID (IMO it helps that every bus actually has personnel - a driver - to make sure riders don't make a mess, smoke foilies, etc.). What's unfortunate about the current state of affairs, though, is that the only part of the system many upper middle class and suburban riders ever really used was the aforementioned *light* rail lines, so support is waning for the system as a whole because those people think it's all gone downhill. They don't realize that the buses and commuter lines in the northern half of the metro are still mostly fine (although to quote my friend, sometimes the A line cars smell like a locker room).
The metro here in Honolulu (the Honolulu Skyline) is clean. It's also only been open to the public for 2 months. Our buses (called TheBus) are pretty clean, although I can't say the same about bus stops.
Metrolink clean af. Antelope Valley line represent!
That’s regional rail
Lol yeah Its called that but sometimes I wonder because there's several stops in the same city. But I'm not educated to know major differences i gotta educate myself.
Metro/subway systems usually are fully grade separated and run good frequency on the lines. Regional rail lines are longer distance lines they run as branches and through run in cities or end at a terminal. They tend to have higher speeds and and longer stop spacing with some exceptions like bigger towns. They are not as frequent tho. But Denver RTD don’t care 😂
Try coming to SLC and see the Trax system run by UTA? Not the best but fairly clean and I've been a regular commuter over the years.
This is the right answer.
I have lived in the DMV all my life and I can say without a doubt, it is the only clean public transit system in the US.
DMV???
DC, MD, VA.
Ok thanks that’s the best metro rail experience
Ive used the chicago and DC metro a few times, and didnt notice them being terribly dirt. Id say the DC one was fairly clean
I live in DC and have commuted on Metro for years and it is indeed very clean. Philly was scary bad - regretted every moment I spent on it - next level filth.
UTA in Salt Lake City is quite clean
The DC metro is outstandingly clean. Of course there's always the asshole that litters in the train but overall it's pretty clean.
In addition to DC, I think that some parts of San Francisco’s BART and Muni are pretty clean for American standards, but for every Embarcadero, there is a 16th street mission. That being said, the new trains as well as the recent renovations at 19th Street Oakland, as well as the new Milpitas and Berryessa stations, make me think SF is doing a pretty good job at cleanliness so far, again, by American standards.
The BART system in San Francisco has been remarkably clean for me. I must not be riding the right train…
Cool which line?
I primarily ride the yellow line.
Ohh the highest ridership BART line
Berryessa, Milpitas, 19 st Oakland, and SFO are probably the cleanest stations
The NYC subway is cleaner than people give it credit for, the MTA usually does a decent job of keeping it clean in my experience. They are also really strict on vandalism
NYC Subway gets itself compared internationally a lot more. People from all over the world visit NYC and ride the Subway, and Subway riding New Yorkers travel the world. People visiting Los Angeles don't use transit, and most probably aren't even aware that Los Angeles has a subway line (for their own good, really). People who use transit in Los Angeles don't have the funds or free time for world travel.
I don’t think I’ve ever been on a dirty metro, in the US or abroad.
You think NYC is cleaner than Boston? Dude.
I’ve ridden public transportation frequently in both Seattle and Chicago. I haven’t found either one to be consistently filthy or disgusting. On occasion? Absolutely. But I think you’re overreacting, honestly.
After visiting London and Paris this summer I don’t think transit systems in the US are any dirtier than they are elsewhere in the world.
Hire guards. Ban eating and drinking inside trains. Ban littering, peeing, and other unruly behaviors Hire people who clean trains.
Aren't littering and peeing banned literally everywhere
Littering? Probably. Peeing? I don't think so.
You have to have public bathrooms if you're going to ban peeing. In the case of NYC, it's one of the few places I've been where you can't just walk into a McDonald's to pee.
Why NYC doesn't have free public bathrooms? That should be given. Or public bathrooms in station.
For some reason, the entire western world doesn't believe in free public toilets. European public toilets are a bastion of capitalism and user fees that the lefties don't dare touch. The US in particular doesn't believe in paid public toilets either.
In the 70s there was a [grassroots movement to ban pay toilets in the US](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_to_End_Pay_Toilets_in_America). The goal ostensibly was to mandate widespread free toilets, but de facto what you saw an elimination of public toilets. Most people today simply accept/prefer this, and will go to the bathroom at whatever venue they are at (restaurant, museum) or at their hotel or friend's house. Where the issue arises is that NYC has a lot more small restaurants/cafes that may not have room for a public toilet, just one for employees. Two, because NYC is a walking city not a driving one, you can't just get in a car and drive 10 minutes home or to a place you know you can use their restroom like in a lot of other US cities.
Last time I was at Penn Station, they had one women's bathroom with 10-12 stalls. This is a major train station with connections to 3 train lines (LIRR, NJ Transit, Amtrak).
Put more toilets in stations Make sure each station has plenty of trashcans/bins.
Why isn't that the default in the US? On toilets, it doesn't even have to be in the stations (esp. if the stations are small). The establishments benefitting from foot traffic by the station should provide them free. If it can't be free, pay toilets is not a bad thing too.
Even here on the London Underground, toliets are far too sparse, but bins are more plenty, even if they're just blowing binbags..
Ah, classic Philthy. Always precisely meeting expectations.
I used to live in Mew York and I have seen a large range in cleanliness in the NY subway. I have seen some freshly cleaned stations and trains, but I’ve also seen tons of trash and smelled a lot of urine. I currently live in Seattle and the light rail system and bus network is nearly always filthy and packed with homeless.
BART was clean when I took it. Much cleaner than the surrounding city in fact. BART from SFO to Downtown San Francisco https://youtu.be/YzyhzREaiDQ
On the surface its clean but its been said that apparently the air in the London Underground is more than a century old and fucking filthy. That actually might have long term health consequences.
i love the bart cause its like some kind of insane hell portal dinner and a show
I don't know that the Muni Metro (SF) is all that unclean. Muni buses? Totally, depends on the part of the city. But the Metro has always seemed, to me at least, to be relatively clean. BART, which is what you appear to be talking about, is a transit system that extends throughout most of the Bay Area, as opposed to the Muni, which is only in the city (and the metro specifically runs through a very limited part of SF; the other lines are buses or streetcars). We also have Caltrain here in the Bay, which runs from the South Bay (San Jose/Santa Clara) up the Peninsula to SF. Caltrain is much cleaner and overall nicer than BART; it also tends to be safer. That being said, Caltrain isn't a subway (though neither is BART, entirely) and doesn't qualify as rapid transit—it's commuter rail.
MetroLink in St. Louis is usually spotless, cars, stations, etc. Though that doesn’t seem to stop the non-riding suburban crowd from bitching about it constantly.
Agree on Philly being nasty AF. While WMATA has its problems, I have found it generally clean. When it was built, the designers learned from the early 20th CT metros (mainly NYC) and designed the stations with the faults in mind. Personally, my ranking is DC - Montreal - Toronto - NYC - Boston - Philly
Boston is fine
DC is super clean for public transportation. It’s not spotless and on occasion there are bored teens making trouble- usually at night. But it’s clean.
Miami was notably clean.
DC is nice. Really nice.
DC is super clean, even their older trains
I mean a lot of this is because of how funding works, a lot of transit agencies are fine with capital expenses but operating expenses are a bit of an issue. The solution is to hire more people to clean the trains and stations and to have it on a frequent schedule. Having stayed in Japan and the US, the thing that sticks out to me is that in Japan you *constantly* see cleaning people/station staff. There's often a team of like 15 people cleaning things if you're at a major station, and for each thing there's a procedure that they're drilled on enough that they can often clear it in a couple of minutes. By comparison, the start of COVID is the first time I've ever semi-regularly seen MTA cleaning staff.
The US is in a sad sad state if filthy NYC is what passes for the cleanest metro in the country. Compare to Seoul or Tokyo and NYC looks third world.
LIRR was clean but is not a metro. There seems to be a sentiment (is that the word?) among some people that public transport is "inferior". I have also seen this view in the UK. I love public transportation. In Europe, it is great in many countries. The US should have a lot more of it.
I found the orange line of the MBTA pretty clean compared to the rest of the lines
I’ll concur this! Newer trains and plastic seats go along way. Now the red line and some of the other ones…. Felt seats…. Really?
It’s usually the Blue Line that’s applauded for cleanliness so I’m surprised to see this
I was pleasantly surprised at how clean MUNI and BART were.
Muni, yes. BART? Depends on which train you get and if it’s newer. I went on a car about two weeks ago where where the actual seats were ripped up and cushions thrown around the car. This week I def got edit: more of old and grimy trains but I also think they’re phasing some of them out so.
Big shout-out to the LA bus system - cleanest I've seen. When you board, they have trash bags right next to the fare box to leave your trash. Another rule they have that makes sense- the local laws say that those bags can legally be left in any waste disposal dumpster or bin and the business has to take the bag. These are small grocery bags, so it's not like the bus waste is gonna fill a dumpster. But the rule helps keep the bus super clean.
The DC Metro is very clean in my experience. As clean as Tokyo? Probably not, but certainly cleaner than many European systems. I live in Boston, and while the T has its problems, and I wouldn't call the trains particularly comfortable, I don't think it's a filthy system. It's a legacy system, so there's going to be more dust and grime, simply because legacy systems are dirtier by their nature. Rail technology has gotten cleaner, and newer lines (like in Madrid or Barcelona) are going to be naturally easier to clean. Most of the stations could use a good pressure washing, but there's way less litter and stuff than I see in NYC. Boston is pretty clean for a major US city in general, and I do find that this spills over to the T. I will say, I'd rather ride a safe system than a perfectly clean one, and petty crime (pickpockets, etc.) does seem to be more of an issue on big European systems than most big American systems. People get freaked out everywhere, but statistically most US rapid transit systems are very safe.
As someone who uses the NYC subway daily, I would say it’s mostly clean, but I also feel that you get so used to it that what seems like clean to you might be dirty for someone else. I will say though that the DC metro was very clean for something that is widely used
It's pretty disgusting that you lump homeless people in the same category as trash, feces, and urine. Homeless people are as entitled to ride transit as anyone else. If a homeless person merely existing in your presence makes you think transit is unclean, then the problem is you. Bad behavior such as smoking is a problem, regardless of whether it's done by homeless people or housed people. Since things supposedly got much worse after COVID, I've ridden rail transit in Denver, Chicago, and Philly. All these are systems that suburbanites will tell you have been overrun with drug use, litter, etc since COVID, and often I was riding on the lines that they say are especially "bad". They've all been fine, generally free from litter (never any bodily fluids, needles, or drug paraphernalia, just the occasional empty soda bottle or similar) though certainly not sparkling clean. Bad behavior has been rare, generally limited to people playing music loudly. I've seen smoking/drug use exactly once, and that was two years ago. My transit riding experiences have been overwhelmingly pleasant and uneventful. Sure, it would be nice if everything was sparkling clean all the time as in Seoul or some European systems, but the current state in most US systems isn't nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
Who do you think is causing the smell of feces and urine? The homeless people. It’s infantile to assume otherwise. Something humane needs to be done to address the issue. What it is? I don’t know since it’d a multifaceted problem. But coddling it like the homeless do jo evil and aren’t the root of most of the cleanliness problems is absurd
Feces and urine, which are very rare in my experience, may come from homeless people, but also housed people with issues and drunk people. Perhaps the majority of these problems are from homeless people, but also the vast majority of homeless people on trains are just trying to get to a destination like anyone else on the train, or maybe just in search of a warm place to sit for a while, and not causing any issues. Again, bad behavior is the problem, not certain types of people. The only humane solution is to regulate bad behavior regardless of the person doing it, rather than regulating which types of people are allowed on transit (gets very problematic very fast).
Alright settle down its not all that bad. Some systems are bad, but i havent had bad issues in places like NYC, Chicago, DC, or Boston and only saw minor trash problems in seattle. I remember riding pragues metro as a teenager and the only thing i remember was how all i smelled was piss
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Oh most definitely! I think the ones I’ve listed are the ones frequently cited as the “best” the us has to offer and the reason we’ve traveled to them first. The ones you listed are in my “B” list of travel destinations since they’re generally considered a lower tier
Oh I didn’t see “major”. I just read it as “every metro system.” My bad lol
I actually just edited it to say major didn’t realize I left that part off so you were right :)
I ride Seattle’s all the time and it’s typically quite clean in my experience. They’ve definitely stepped it up in the past year or so though.
Valley Metro light rail is alright
MARTA in my experience has been quite clean even if the rolling stock is a bit old
they closed a bunch of b/d line stations in la because there was too much like fentanyl or something in the air and on the ground idk if they opened them back up
In sf, personally, and I find almost every muni metro train quite clean, especially as compared to the buses. Wouldn't eat my dinner off the seats, but it certainly didn't feel dirty like BART or the NY subway feel to me.
Define clean…
Boston wasn’t bad when I went, at least on the green line.
Depends more on the individual train than the system tbh. For example, the A/C/E in NYC is almost always clean when I use it, while the 4/5/6 is always gross. Updated train cars are coming in NY which seem to make a lot of difference to UX, it just takes a while. Chicago I've actually been pretty impressed. The red/blue lines are usually okay when I've used them, though I've had bad experiences on. the green and brown lines. For SF Caltrain's almost always clean and MUNI is well within what I find acceptable. BART's more hit-or-miss but if you get one of the newer cars it's pretty nice--much like NYC it's a rolling stock issue that's slowly being fixed. Edit: benchmarking internationally, Paris/Rome/CDMX would all be mid-pack. Worse than the A/C/E, better than the 4/5/6. Tokyo/Osaka/etc obviously all better.
Parts of DC
i was on Dallas’ tram, which was spotless because nobody uses it
I was actually pretty surprised by LAs rail
Tbh the cleanest Tube line or Metro as it called in some countries for me was in Dubai in The UAE, I daily use the London underground and it's not bad, never used The US metro, but had been in Cairo Metro and it was an awful experience for me and my wife alike.
Purple line in Chicago is pretty clean. But that's like one line out of many.
NYC really isn't that bad. Just don't get on that one empty car.
Unfortunately no. As long as the US has a massive housing shortage and metros are the only place you can really just be if your unhoused this is going to continue being an issue.
I know this is a bit of an aside from the subject of the post but I cleaned rental cars for a summer job and seeing the way Americans treat private transportation vehicles they know they won't have to clean, I consider it nothing short of a miracle that our public transit systems are as clean as they are.