Average Subway Speeds by Route

HRT_ScheduleSpeeds_Full_Rev by tracktwentynine

This was from 2010, but not much has changed. The is slower due to making local stops along Broadway. And the is probably faster, owing to its reroute from the slower BMT tunnels to the faster IND ones; the was no slouch, beating both the and in their prime, and not far behind the other express routes.

The San Francisco BART and Washington Metro aren't surprising. I've ridden a few of the lines on the Washington Metro, and taken the San Francisco BART between the San Francisco International Airport and Union Square. The speed comes mostly from the spacing between stations and the relatively straight tracks that the trains run on, and it shows in the New York City subway system too:

• The 42 Street has only 2 stops, so it basically makes a half-mile run without stopping until the terminal.
• The Rockaway Park has more stops, but all the stops between the termini are concentrated within the southern half of the line. It's 1.5 miles from Broad Channel to Beach 90 Street, the first stop going southbound, but 1.25 miles the rest of the way.
• The is fast, owing to the few station stops between Main Street–Flushing and Queensboro Plaza, but the curves and station stops from Queensboro Plaza to Hunters Point Avenue probably reduces the average significantly.

What really surprises me is that the Chicago L possesses the fastest route on this list, given that a cursory Google search for photos of the Chicago L turns up pictures like this:

CTA loop junction [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], by Daniel Schwen (Own work), from Wikimedia Commons

Where do you think the would end up on this list? How far up on the list would the move once phases Ⅰ and Ⅱ open up?