The claim on social media that ‘The Elizabeth Line in London moves 800,000 people daily. No highway at its busiest point moves that many people daily in North America’ certainly carries a lot of interest. Evidently its meant to point out that car usage in the USA triumphs any sense of being effective. However as the comments in both the X and Reddit sections have pointed out, this claim is not so clear cut.
One person on Reddit highlighted a report that shows just one line on the Seoul subway (Line 2) carries 1.96 million passengers a day! (Seoul Metropolitan Government News).
One X post (shown below) extols the fact the RER A line in Paris moves 1.4 million people a day.
Hayden makes a lot of good transit/transport orientated posts with a view to just how ineffective the roads are compared to public transport. He does an excellent effort and his following is commendable in terms of the awareness that is raised about the impact the roads has on the various communities of the world. He makes a lot of well founded claims and assertions in the endeavour to highlight the advantages of mass transit, waling and even cycling. Nevertheless a claim that had been made about Switzerland, I had to challenge it however because the information wasn’t right!
Hayden’s post on X about the Elizabeth line – along with a challenger to confound his claims!
The RER A line in Paris moves 1,400,000 people daily. No highway at its busiest point moves that many people daily in North America. pic.twitter.com/hsOvVlfe8O
— Antoine🔻🇫🇷 (@Antazio_) October 15, 2025
Paris wins! The Elizabeth line loses!
One definitive area that could have a valid claim however was explicitly non-discussed in these columns. This is the pollution that would arise from the equivalent number of cars the claim makes as well as the environmental impact. In none of these columns was either subject discussed! It seems everyone was focussed on comparing statistics in terms of vehicle occupants and metro passengers.
You can’t expect them to think or act rationally…You just can’t
— Dark Side (@not_rekt_11) October 14, 2025
Welcome to NYC subway pic.twitter.com/aetnCd91XO
I’m unsure of the exact connotations of this X post however it does show the roads can impact the world’s metro systems in the most unexpected ways!
In a sense this ‘wheely good example’ highlights a previous irony – this being the many once excellent transits systems of Northern America that were trashed by the various oil companies that led such a strong campaign against the excellent advantages of mass transit – and that simply for their own ill-gotten gain. America lost a lot of valuable transit systems as a result and has suffered the consequences ever since.
The roads in America are no doubt king but they do little else otherwise and many in the States have no option other than owning an automobile. This is why, for example, after the wholesale trashing of the once excellent Pacific Electric Railway system, Los Angeles made a brave attempt to procure an alternative to the roads menace – and it came up with the Blue Line – a mixed private right of way and street railway.
The Blue Line’s opening in July 1990 with the first service to Long Beach. LA Metro Source news.
The Blue Line (now the A Line) opened in July 1990 and that surprised many Americans because it was an admission of sorts that the quest to make the automobile king had failed. Ironically the Blue Line honoured the former Pacific Railway’s own light rail route (closed in 1961) between the same locations.
Los Angeles now has around 120 miles of light rail system. The A Line is the longest at 58 miles.
Those places in the States that have any transit systems are exceedingly lucky in fact. Very few have kept their original transit systems – San Francisco and Pittsburgh for example, not forgetting the classic metro systems in Chicago and New York. The best modern metro system in the States is perhaps the BART – it opened in 1972. The next system to be built – Washington DC’s – opened in 1976. Nevertheless I am sure a lot of people in the States look to Europe with envy in terms of the vast transport system opportunities that are offered! That, at least, is the sort of reflection that can be made between the intense car usage in the States and the mass transit that’s available in London!
The feature image is by the author of an Elizabeth line train at Abbey Wood on 1st October 2025.
Leave a Reply