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Oct. 8, 2009 When I lived in Beijing (1997-1998), the Beijing Metro had two lines. One was a rectangle about 3 miles long and 2 miles wide that looped downtown. The other was a straight line that ran west from the rectangle, so that the map of the subway system looked like a lollipop. Total mileage must have been about 30.The stations were all decent, and the ones in the fashionable neighborhoods like Chaoyang were beautiful. The subway was convenient if you were fortunate enough to have access to its somewhat skimpy coverage, which I had and had not, as I moved around town. When I returned to Los Angeles in 1999, I was pleased to find that a Metro was in operation there too, but also very skimpy. They had the blue and green lines, were just opening the red, and had not completed the gold yet. The so-called purple line is just a branch of the red line that has been renamed. Again, the LA Metro is great if you don't have to wait interminably for a bus and then roll for 15 miles to get to it, as you have to do in Santa Monica or Thousand Oaks. When I left LA, in 2004. the red and gold lines were up and running, really beautiful lines too. The Los Angeles Metro has 62 stations and 73 miles of track, now as then. My present location is New Delhi, and the 7-year-old Delhi Metro is very comparable to the Los Angeles Metro. It has 3 lines, blue, red and yellow, with 68 stations and 49 miles of track, but extensions are under way that will increase mileage to some 250 within about 10 years, so LA will be hard-pressed to keep up with New Delhi, if that is what the Golden City of the West is aspiring to do. Unlike Beijing and Los Angeles, Delhi has no artwork in its colossal stations, but they are modern and efficient. As for Buenos Aires, where I lived off and on from 2004 to 2009, the situation is not so good. The BA Metro has 74 stations, with only 32 miles of track, and most of the system is antiquated and unsightly. LA beats BA hands-down. Let's hope that LA can keep up with Delhi, as it has fallen far behind Beijing. Checking Wikipedia today, I find that the Beijing Metro now has nine lines, with 147 stations over 141 miles of track. In other words, it is twice as big as LA's. Greater Delhi has 19,000,000 people, greater LA has 15,000.000 and greater Beijing and Buenos Aires have 13,000,000 apiece, so the comparison is definitely among cities of the same magnitude. Here are the maps. Beijing Metro Buenos Aires Metro Delhi Metro Los Angeles Metro The Delhi map shows some lines that are not quite yet operative, but are scheduled for completion by the end of the year. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Visit my website here. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! 
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