It's tempting to see it that way, but I read your comment and see an unfair comparison between a small city and the largest in the United States. The MTA is ugly (I love it) but let's not kid ourselves, they spend a shitload of money maintaining nearly 500 stations, probably the yearly cost of that tunnel per day.
No -- but NYC is a very large city. So comparatively, Hamburg is small.
City to city comparisons can be tricky because city borders vs metro area can be a bit arbitrary, but no matter which way you cut it NYC is vastly more populous.
