While Americans frequently ride on subways and transit lines built at the turn of the 20th century, the study finds a substantial uptick in subway construction since the 1970s and ‘80s in cities around the world. In total, the report identifies 7,886 operational subway stations and 10,672 kilometers (over 6,600 miles) of subways across 138 cities as of 2010. Of these, 53 subway systems are located in Asia, 40 in Europe, 30 in North America, 14 in South America, and just one in Africa. [...]
Although European cities are the smallest and growing at a relatively slow rate, their subway systems are larger and their service levels are higher than in any other continent. All together, European subway systems serve an average of 32,000 people per station. Over two-thirds of large European cities have subway systems, compared to less than a third in North America, less than a fourth in South America, and around 15 percent in Asia.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the study also finds that subways do not necessarily spur population growth. Even though larger cities tend to house more extensive subway systems, the study finds no correlation between the size of a system and the size of a city. Although Asia houses the majority of the world’s large cities, and South America has the largest cities on average, both continents cannot compete with subway service in Europe and North America. This may have something to do with the fact that subways in Europe and cities like New York were built before auto use was common, at a time when cities were smaller. By contrast, Asia has undergone rapid urbanization in recent years and is more reliant on its cars and roads. [...]
Although one might expect cities with more extensive transportation to be denser and more concentrated in and around their downtown cores, the study does not find this to be the case. Instead, it finds that cities with larger subway systems are less centralized. In fact, the addition of one standard subway line causes a 0.5 percent decrease in centralization (measured by the concentration of satellite light) in the city center. This effect is still quite a bit smaller than that of roads and highways, which, according to other research, account for up to a 9 percent decrease in centralization. In particular, the study finds North American cities with subway systems to be more spread out than most.
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