Paris is a marvel for its density and well-planned routes. But some of the lines are more like underground light rail compared to e.g. the Lexington line, which on its own carries like 1/3 of the passengers of Paris or London.
The London Tube trains I've been on felt like a subway for midgets compared to the 10-foot wide BMT trains. They stop running at night. One of the only times I've missed a flight was due to a London Tube delay.
The new Chinese subways really put the US to shame, quiet, double glass doors, video screens everywhere, cell phones work everywhere, very cheap, very dense and very crowded.
The NY subway is pretty reliable and fast. Apps like Moovit and Citymapper make it pretty easy to get where you want as quickly as possible. Train Time coverage and wifi coverage could be better, the latter is improving. It could be nicer but all I can say is if you think the New York subway is bad now, you should have tried it in the 70s.
Edit: I'd add that an Oyster-type payment system would be nice. Also, a couple of MTA alumni have led systems in London, Hong Kong, Toronto, other cities, so NY is probably not at the very bottom in best practices. Bottom line is you can get anywhere quickly and reliably at all hours, if not always in luxurious style, and you don't need a car to live here. So I'll take it, until your driverless taxi can deal with NY traffic and get there faster.
There are no escalators or elevators except for a few stations, and the trains rattle and shake as much as NYC. Not to mention the narrow trains running on standard gauge, created like that on purpose so the federal government wouldn't take it over and run their own trains.
Line 14 is the only one which would qualify as a modern transportation system.
So maybe that indicates that more, smaller lines are the way to go? Passengers don't care how many passengers each line carries, they care about being able to make their journeys.
> The London Tube trains I've been on felt like a subway for midgets compared to the 10-foot wide BMT trains.
You get used to it. They're small but again that's not inherently a problem. (Being overcrowded is a problem - I don't know how NY or DC compare on this front)
> They stop running at night.
As of a few months ago there's now limited service on friday/saturday nights. But yeah, all-night running is absolutely something NY has over other subways. How much of a priority that should be is a judgement call of course - it's achieved by four-tracking the lines, so if you didn't need all-night running you could have ~twice as many lines (build the same number of tunnels, but spread them across the city better) for the same price.
> One of the only times I've missed a flight was due to a London Tube delay.
Anecdote != data - how do the statistics on late running compare?
https://osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093016/14s23.pdf http://www.straphangers.org/statesub14/
https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/london-underground-perfor...
Tube reliability was a bit of a crisis at one time during reorgs but seems to have improved
http://urbs.london/strikes-are-a-commuting-disaster-but-what...
Indeed, taking luggage on the tube during rush hour is a truly painful experience.
[1] And it's worse in many ways too, such as the lack of express tracks.
London's Night Tube is a very recent thing (August 2016) and only covers a few lines, Madrid Metro closes at 0130 and reopens at 0600, Paris Metro closes at 0115 and reopens at 0530 (with exceptions: 5 lines are open all night on new year's eve and 2 festivals, and since 2007 it closes at 0215 on fridays, saturdays and holiday eves)
The NYC is subway is old, but it's not like they haven't had any time to work on it. From what I've read, it's mostly attributable to mismanagement at the MTA — misdirected funds, union squabbles, lack of political will, lack of imagination, outright corruption.
NYC is admittedly extremely time-consuming (and therefore expensive) to dig, but all the things that could have modernized the subway and made more it convenient and accessible wouldn't require digging more tunnels.
The other systemic problems — lack of modern signaling, lack of parallel tunnels — are harder and more expensive to solve, especially without disrupting commuters.