Who Has A Subway?

Buffalo Metro Rail's University station

What constitutes a subway is pretty simple: a passenger train operating below ground, in a tunnel. Sometimes, though, commentators will equate any kind of heavy rail metro – or even light rail, gasp! – to a subway network, regardless if it goes underground or not. For our purposes, we include any kind of rail subway with two or more stations – heavy rail metro, light rail, streetcar, commuter rail – as a subway. Here's a simple list of metropolitan regions that currently operate a subway network in the U.S. and Canada (info on exact subway segments of the Mexico City Metro is unavailable), followed by systems that incorporate a single subway station. By our count, there are 18 subway systems in the two nations, along with another four light-rail systems with a single subway station. That amounts to 619 total stations. They are arranged by the year their first subway station opened, from oldest to newest, with the year opened and number of unique subway stations in parenthesis (cities with multiple subway systems are noted as appropriate):

Subway Networks: Boston, Mass. (1897; 28 stations [11 green] [10 red] [4 blue] [3 orange]); New York, N.Y. * (1904;  231 stations [30 IND 8th Ave] [12 IND Concourse] [14 IND 6th Ave] [25 IND Queens Blvd] [16 IND Fulton St] [13 IND Crosstown] [15 BMT Canarsie] [5 BMT Nassau St] [14 BMT Broadway] [31 IRT Broadway] [10 IRT Eastern Pkwy] [18 IRT Lexington Ave] [2 IRT Jerome Ave] [7 IRT Pelham] [1 IRT White Plains Rd] [3 IRT Flushing] [2 42nd St Shuttle] [4 Rockaway Park Shuttle] [1 Franklin Ave Shuttle] [6 PATH] [2 LIRR/MNRR at Grand Central Terminal, Penn Station]) Philadelphia, Pa. (1907; 44 stations [23 Broad St/Spur] [9 Market-Frankford] [5 PATCO] [5 Trolleys] [2 Regional Rail]); San Francisco, Calif. (1918; 19 stations [10 MUNI] [9 BART]); Newark, N.J. (1935;  6 stations [4 City Subway] [2 PATH]); Chicago, Ill. (1943; 18 stations [9 Red Line] [9 Blue Line]); Toronto, Ont. (1954; 59 stations [26 Yonge/University/Spadina] [28 Bloor Danforth] [5 Sheppard/Yonge]); Cleveland, Ohio (1955; 2 stations – RTA Red Line); Montreal, Quebec (1966; 68 Stations – Montreal Metro, all subway); Washington, D.C. (1976; 47 stations [16 Red Line] [17 Blue Line] [10 Green Line] [4 Orange Line]); Edmonton, AB (1978; 6 stations – ETS); Atlanta, Ga. (1979; 10 stations [6 Red/Orange Lines] [4 Blue/Green Lines]; Baltimore, Md. (1983; 8 stations – Baltimore Metro); Buffalo, N.Y. (1985; 8 stations – Metro Rail); Pittsburgh, Pa. (1985; 5 stations – PAT); Vancouver, B.C. (1985; 12 stations [4 EXPO Line] [8 Canada Line]); Los Angeles, Calif. (1993; 18 stations [14 Red Line] [2 Purple Line] [2 Gold Line]); St. Louis, Mo. (1993; 2 stations – MetroLink)l Seattle, Wash. (2009; 5 stations – Central Link)

Single Subway Stations: Portland, Ore. (1998 – Washington Park); Dallas, Texas (2000 – Cityplace/Uptown); Minneapolis, Minn. (2004 – Airport/Terminal 1 Lindberg); San Diego, Calif. (2005 – SDSU Transit Center)

NOT Subway Networks: Miami Metrorail (1984); San Juan Tren Urbano (2004); Honolulu HART (2017)  

*The total number of unique subway stations is our estimate, but we'd be glad to clarify the number, given the complexity of the city's network.