Odd that I haven’t written about this sooner. Something I deal with almost daily, and something that in many ways makes my life easier. And saves me money.

The HK subway system, known here as the MTR. (Mass Transit Railway.)

Which is how most of us in the urban areas of Hong Kong and Kowloon get around, most of the time.

Quickly, with minimal fuss, at modest expense.

Like most SoCal natives, I am easily impressed by subway systems. Since we have none, and the idea of cheap, underground mass transit is something that is just alien to us, and strikes us as amazingly useful.

But HK has a better subway system than most.

It is amazingly clean, given how many people use the system every day. No graffiti on the trains, no gum on the metal seats, no trash on the tiled platforms. The floors of the cars are cleaner than that of any street here.

And the whole system is far cleaner than the dingy, dark and dirty subways in New York or Paris or London. Just miles cleaner.

I use the Island Line, which is particularly useful because it runs beneath the strip of land, here on the north side of the island, where nearly everyone lives.

Only in a few areas are you more than 200 yards from an MTR station entrance. Those areas would be in Happy Valley, south of Wan Chai … and in Mid-Levels, up the hill from the Central station.

Everywhere else …

For example, at this moment, in Wan Chai, I am no more than 100 yards from an entrance to the Wan Chai station. I can be there in 2-3 minutes from closing the front door of this apartment.

Once you enter the station (always by going below ground) … you come to turnstiles that open for you once you pass an electronic card over a sensor. It is called an Octopus card, which has “stored value” from money you have given to attendants at stations, and it can be used for purchases at grocery stores. But mostly you use it for mass transit.

So, you pass the card over the sensor, you walk through the turnstile, and now you’re with the crowds heading down to the trains — and passing those coming up from the trains.

I have to credit the local authorities with coming up with very clever traffic flow systems. Instead of an area being wide open to people coming and going — which could easily lead to congestion at gore points … the MTR people construct “lanes” via strands of tape inside the station for those coming — and going.

Now, you might well want to move more quickly than others in your lane, and that can be annoying when you can’t, but at least you’re not dodging oncoming people, as you would up on the sidewalk.

Escalators always are available for the long flights of stairs going down to the trains. In a few places, you might use three, even four escalators to go up or down. (Regular ol’ stairs are available, too, but nobody takes those except a few crazy Westerners.) Normally, escalator riders stand to the right, and that allows people in a hurry to walk/climb on the left.

You reach an open area at the train level, and several pedestrian tunnels take you to the train tunnel … where you will wait no more than four minutes for a train. Ever.

No one can fall or jump onto the tracks because glass/plastic barriers run the length of the station, and from floor to ceiling. Creating a sort of sheath that the train travels through. When the train arrives, the doors of the train open first, and then the corresponding door in the station opens a split-second later.

Even the entrance/egress from the train is well-planned. Those exiting the train do so from the middle of the doors. Those waiting to get on line up at the left and right side of the doors. And if you’re new in town, or lame, you have more help to figure this out: Arrows on the floor, where the subway door is, indicate where you should stand, and a green arrow pointing away from the doors shows where people will exit. Plus, you’ve got a female voice droning, in three languages, about this that and the other — including “please allow passengers to exit the train before you get on.”

The trains don’t go at some enormous rate of speed. They don’t have to, because stations are so close to each other, and the whole thing, from Chai Wan to Sheung Wan can’t be more than 10 miles.

Figure two minutes per metro stop. Thus, I figure eight minutes for the four stops from Wan Chai,  where I live, to North Point, where I work. Figure two minutes to walk to the station, and 4-5 from the station to the office (an abnormally long walk, actually, around here) … and I can be at work in 20 minutes.

And the cost? About 60 cents each way. You find out exactly how much you have been charged when you pass your Octopus card on a sensor coming out of the subway, and you see two illuminated numbers — one for how much you were charged (for me, about $4.5 Hong Kong, or about 55 U.S. cents) and one showing how much value remains in your card.

I don’t have to own a car, or gas it up, or repair it or insure it or park it.

I travel in a clean, air-conditioned train that rarely is as crowded (for all the people here) as Paris’s subways can be, at rush hour. And among polite passengers.

No graffiti, no crime (that I have seen or even heard of), fast, efficient and almost utterly inoffensive.

One more added bonus: Each stations has multiple points of entry from the streets. This is big, in Hong Kong, because it rains buckets six months a year. Thus, you can get into a station … and now you’re in a sometimes vast underground network of walkways. (Central is particularly big.) You are dry, and have access to stores and shops … and can walk entire blocks (if you think of the street grid, above) without getting wet, crossing a street or dealing with oncoming pedestrians.

The only complaints I can muster about the Hong Kong subway? They probably should have slightly more frequent trains during the day … it doesn’t run late enough (it shuts down at about 1 a.m. nearly everywhere) … the advertising video panels on the walls are a little annoying … and I’m about done.

Anyway, it’s a great system, and costs nearly nothing. It is a nearly perfect answer for basic transportation in greater Hong Kong, but especially here on the north side of Hong Kong Island.

Would this work in Los Angeles? No. Because we are far too spread out. I have no plan to fix L.A. transit, actually, because most of us live in distant suburbs and in single-family homes.

I just know this system works really well.