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I've taken metros in cities across all of North America, the Caribbean and through Asia.
And hands down, the sketchiest I have experienced thus far is in Philadelphia, PA followed by (and I almost want to tie it) Baltimore, Maryland. And the BART in the Bay Area. I live in NYC and though I have most certainly had my wild, interesting, sketchy experiences taking the metro in NYC, I don't always feel so unsafe. Mainly because the city does a decent or okay job of having cops around the stations and because its the bloodline of the city. Therefore, its always busy and it can be easier to evade some weirdos OR people will actually sometimes band together (believe it or not) to rid of a troublesome person.
However, Philadelphia's SEPTA is just not safe from my experience and its always filled with crazies and/or troublemakers. On top of that, I'm always on my P's and Q's because of empty it can be even during rush hour. No one wants to take SEPTA and if you go to certain stops, especially the infamous Alleghany Ave, you can see exactly why.
Baltimore is sketchy with lots of weirdos and people I'm wary of but overall, I never experienced anything bad. Though, I did some rambunctious teenagers who were trying to mess with me but for whatever reason decided not to take it further. The severe lack of the subway usage also says something.
I don't mind BART so much but I did see a lot of drunks and drug addicts go on the train and create some issues.
What metro station have you been too that made you feel uneasy? unsafe? Wary?
I commuted on the Baltimore Subway for six years, between 1994 and 2000, and other than the time that service was snarled due to a derailment, and the other time that we had a huge blizzard and the above-ground portion shut down, I never had any problems. But back then, the line averaged around 50,000 riders per weekday, and the peak-hour service tended to draw a professional working crowd. But ridership fell off a cliff during COVID and has not recovered. It's down to about 5,000 per weekday now, and from what I hear, the professionals are gone. All that's left are the troublemaker school students and the dregs. I haven't ridden the thing in years and have no intention of doing so ever again.
To me, New York feels sketchier than all the others. I think at least in part this is because the stations are so badly designed, with all kinds of blind corners behind which lurks who-knows-what. For all of Baltimore's woes, the system was designed to feature open sight lines and few hiding places, so at least it's got that going for it.
New York. Followed by St Louis. Actually I have had very little trouble with Rapid Transit lines so I continue to use them in cities I visit. Saves a lot of money compared to limos.
NYC subway was its sketchiest until the early/mid-1990s. Then it became relatively safe and now it is backsliding since the beginning of COVID19 as it is getting more and more dangerous with random attacks on passengers.
I avoid all subways in the US, except in my home city of Boston where the subway ("the T") is not too clean or picturesque, but at least is safe and reliable. Subways in Asia are wonderful, and I remember most Euro subways from my youth as ranging from okay to wonderful, though people are telling me to avoid using some stations/lines in Paris and London (I don't know; the last time I tried was 40 years ago, and there were no problems).
I'd second Philly, I don't even understand how that many walkers get in there, or why they don't get rousted.
Ironically developing countries often have the nicer metros (MedellÃn, Panama City) my theory being labor is cheap so they can afford to have more security cracking heads of undesirables.
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