Does any U.S. city have a subway system that rivals NYCs?
NYC has the largest subway system in the U.S., with 229 miles of route length. The next biggest would be the Washington Metro with 103.6 miles. The next biggest after that would be the Chicago El at 103.2 miles. The reason why NYC’s system is so extensive is because Manhattan is an island, completely surrounded by water, which means motor traffic is always bottlenecked at the major crossings (7 major bridges and 4 tunnels), so the population of NYC depends a lot more heavily on mass transit to commute into Manhattan (at least 6 million subway riders per weekday). No other means of mass transportation is more suited to New York City’s island geography than the subway.
