Reading passage
For much of the nineteenth century, cities such as London struggled with streets that were crowded with horse-drawn vehicles. The world's first underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway, opened in London in 1863 to ease this congestion. On its first day, around 40,000 passengers travelled between Paddington and Farringdon, and the line was widely praised as a triumph of engineering. Many of these early passengers had never travelled faster than a horse could run. Although the trains were pulled by steam locomotives, which filled the tunnels with smoke, the railway was an immediate commercial success because it was faster than any transport on the surface.
The earliest tunnels were built by a technique known as cut and cover. Workers dug a huge trench along the street, built the railway inside it, and then covered it over so that houses and roads could be rebuilt on top. This method was cheap but extremely disruptive, and thousands of buildings had to be demolished. Special steam locomotives were designed to condense their own steam, yet the air in the tunnels remained unpleasant, and some drivers refused to work underground for long periods.
A breakthrough came in 1890, when the first deep-level line powered by electricity opened in London. Electric traction produced no smoke, so tunnels could be built far below the ground using a circular shield, which gave rise to the nickname the Tube. Because deep tunnels passed under buildings instead of through streets, construction caused far less damage on the surface, although it was technically demanding and expensive.
Other cities soon copied the idea. Budapest opened the first underground line on the European mainland in 1896, Paris followed with the Metro in 1900, and the New York subway opened in 1904. Moscow's metro, opened in 1935, became famous for stations decorated like palaces, with marble walls, chandeliers and statues. The Soviet government wanted the stations to demonstrate the achievements of the state to ordinary passengers.
The main reason cities invest in metros is capacity. A single metro line can move up to 60,000 passengers per hour in each direction, far more than a bus lane or a tram line, and it does so without taking space from congested roads. Metros also offer reliable journey times because they never get stuck in traffic, which makes them attractive to commuters and valuable for the wider economy.
Building a metro, however, is among the most expensive projects a city can undertake. Costs often exceed 200 million dollars per kilometre when tunnels must pass beneath a dense historic centre. Unexpected obstacles, such as buried rivers, old foundations or unexploded bombs, can delay work for years. Most metros never cover their costs from fares alone, so governments usually pay for construction and treat cheap tickets as a public service. For this reason, many medium-sized cities choose cheaper alternatives such as light rail or bus rapid transit instead.
In recent decades, automation has transformed metro operation. The first fully driverless metro opened in Lille, France, in 1983, and today driverless trains controlled by computers run in cities from Singapore to Dubai. Automation allows trains to run more frequently and safely, and it lowers operating costs, although some passengers feel uncomfortable travelling without a driver.
Today, metros form the busiest transport systems on the planet. The Shanghai metro, which opened only in 1993, has grown into the longest network in the world, with more than 800 kilometres of track. In Tokyo, trains are so crowded at rush hour that station staff are employed to push passengers through the doors. Around 160 cities now operate metro systems, and together they carry tens of billions of passengers every year, a figure that continues to rise as more people move into urban areas.
Looking ahead, metro systems face the challenge of rising demand and ageing equipment. Many lines built before 1914 still carry millions of passengers every day, and modernising them without closing the network is difficult. Engineers are introducing new signalling that lets trains run closer together, while some cities are building entirely new lines. Most experts agree that, as urban populations grow, the metro will remain the backbone of city transport.