Can’t comment on the price but as someone who loved the subways in South Korea, NYC subways struck me as filthy, really loud, and ridiculously late. In South Korea they show up on the dot every few minutes from like 6AM to 10PM seven days a week. (They’d be running 24/7 if not for cab drivers.) In NYC I couldn’t believe that they can sometimes be half an hour late! You’re just supposed to stand around at the fucking station for half an hour? And they were so loud I had to plug my ears.
In most parts of the US you’re lucky if there’s a bus at all, that it decides to show up on the day you want to take it, and that it comes more often than once every 4 hours