Everytime I go to a new city, I'm always extremely interested in their....Public transportation system - it's really eye-opening! Just to see how the lines were developed, how they commute - you can learn so much about the city just by viewing their - public transportation system, ie their subway network.

Being a Singaporean I think visiting other rail networks present us with wonderful lessons of what we can do (and what not to do) - usually I'd take the positives; so let's go ahead with a tale of 3 Subway stations.

First up, London - the London Underground, the Tube, is the world's oldest subway network, dating from the 19th century. it's characterised by the tube-like tunnels which are really quite perfectly circular in diameter. Well, the Tube is everywhere - it stretches to all parts of London, and Londoners really love the Tube alot, so much so that I think it holds an important place in their hearts when they think of the city. it's the little things like "good service", the "mind the gap", the buskers around, that make the tube so quintessentially charming. it's just awesome. and the rail network is very extensive - the lines are named, so there's the piccadilly line, central line, northern line, victoria line, etc, and the great thing is that there is no one central station, but the network is designed so that in central london almost all stations are interchanges, between different lines; so for example Picadilly Circus is picadilly line with the jubilee line, leicester square sees the picadilly line meet the northern line, oxford circus sees the central line meeting the bakerloo line, and so on and so forth. This alleviates many congestion problems because commuters have many different ways to go from A to B - they could drop at one place, and take one line, or alternatively they could drop at another and take another line to get to their destination (which has 2 lines) - thus traffic congestion is divided pretty equally since commuters would not go to the same interchanges to change lines.
I think for Singapore we just simply have too little interchanges, only raffles place and city hall, which is a problem, since commuters will inevitably have to go there, resulting in much congestion; also it isn't efficient since commuters are essentially making a detour to the interchange to get onto the next line. perhaps some things could be learnt, for example, creating more lines so that commuters can do the hopping thing much more effectively.

Paris's METRO started in 1900, and so it's not that old as london's; it's very very extensive, and actually carries more people than the tube, according to wikipedia. the main station is chatelet, and the lines are actually numbered. everything though has a very dirty, dingy feel, since the trains are old and rickety, the tracks are full of dirt and grime, and it feels pretty unsafe - a friend of mine got pickpocketed in the Metro. for coverage, the metro is pretty unbeatable.

im now in Berlin, and so here there's the S-Bahn and the U-Bahn; the latter runs only underground while the former is mainly a surface line with some parts underground. the plus point is that it's very comfortable - the seats are big, and padded, and the trains are quiet; there are actually escalators, something you won't find in the other 2 cities mentioned. Although, and this is very controversial, it's not as well-connected as London's is; most of the lines connect at AlexanderPlatz, or in the West, Frederichstrasse, etc, and many of the times it takes quite a few stops to get from a place to an interchange, and then a few more stops to get to another, before changing back to the right lines. And then there is the little problem that the 2 'systems', the U bahn and the S bahn, have different stations even though the map explicitly states that they're at the same intersection - which leaves you with the little problem of finding out how to get from the S bahn to the U bahn. so you have to look out for the "U" or the "S". The great thing, however, is that the timings are extremely accurate, which is a real plus. STILL. It's irritating going around in circles, but oh well. berlin's a nice fun crazy city, so i can take that.