After a small interruption, Zhong Man successfully boarded the subway to the suburban airport and began a journey of nearly two hours with transfers.
There was one thing Tian Qi had been right about. Compared with surface transportation in the city, Xia City's subway system really was underdeveloped.
The most important reason for this was, of course, that in the Superconducting Era, multilayer transportation built from the ground into the sky held increasingly obvious advantages over subways requiring underground work in terms of planning, construction, adjustments, and every other cost.
Another factor that could not be ignored was safety.
Xia City's urban construction had to account for Aberrant Species invasions. Alterations to underground rock strata and water systems were therefore handled with extreme caution, and Safe Zones had been established in many vulnerable areas. This left subway lines with little room to extend freely. Moreover, the repeated Aberrant Species invasions and massacres during the city's early years had left Xia City residents with the terrible impression that subway travel was "high-risk."
In recent years, as humanity's counteroffensive into the Wilderness had basically taken shape, the accident rate on the Xia City subway had continued to decline. Even so, it still ranked among the least favored travel options.
The fewer people chose it, the less motivation the municipal government had to upgrade it. As a result, its infrastructure had remained largely unchanged for years.
Zhong Man did not like taking the subway either. Routes that should have run continuously over long distances had been fragmented by the Safe Zones, requiring frequent transfers.
Its only advantage was that it was cheap, making it ideal for Zhong Man, who had advanced herself three months' salary and nearly emptied her savings.
Another hidden benefit was that it usually was not crowded. The only problem