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Another way to define "busy" is as the proportion of the population who use public transit.
According to that measure the list is:
New York NY 1.87 mil 54.6%
Washington DC 94,260 37.7%
San Francisco CA 124,738 32.7%
Boston MA 80,141 31.7%
Philadelphia PA 139,247 25.9%
Chicago IL 293,703 25.3%
Baltimore MD 48,252 18.9%
Seattle WA 51,259 17.0%
Oakland CA 27,114 16.5%
Portland OR 34,195 13.3%
Now guys plz dont get into a agrument about what busy means i shouldve never brought it up.
Anyway here is my list in order from best to....
1. New york(of couse)
2.Chicago
3.D.C.
4. Boston
5. Philly
6.Seattle
7. Balitimore
8. Portland
9.Miami
10.Cleveland
11.St. Louis
I don't think that really is a good measure. If DC added 100,000 residents but not any additional transit riders, has the system become less busy??
Obviously this is not a perfect measure. But your argument, while clever, is not as clear-cut as it might seem. If DC added 100K residents, one can assume it put them somewhere and most likely added some infrastructure as well, which may include more public transportation. If none of the new 100K residents use public transport, indeed it has become less busy.
Another way to define "busy" is as the proportion of the population who use public transit.
According to that measure the list is:
New York NY 1.87 mil 54.6%
Washington DC 94,260 37.7%
San Francisco CA 124,738 32.7%
Boston MA 80,141 31.7%
Philadelphia PA 139,247 25.9%
Chicago IL 293,703 25.3%
Baltimore MD 48,252 18.9%
Seattle WA 51,259 17.0%
Oakland CA 27,114 16.5%
Portland OR 34,195 13.3%
Or that could be the completely wrong way to look at ridership. Why not look at raw numbers... If people more people are on the ground or in their car, it still doesn't negate the sheer amount riding public transit and can also mean their other modes of transportation are inferior or inconvenient to use.
That wikipedia link is wrong, The El system is 224 miles (only off by over 100...) and weekday el ridership is 788k. Which leads me to question the validity of all the other cities.
It lists NYC as having 232 miles of track, NYC has over 800 miles of track, off by over 600 miles.
Obviously this is not a perfect measure. But your argument, while clever, is not as clear-cut as it might seem. If DC added 100K residents, one can assume it put them somewhere and most likely added some infrastructure as well, which may include more public transportation. If none of the new 100K residents use public transport, indeed it has become less busy.
What? No... It is equally busy. On what planet does your logic work on? If DC added 5 million more people and all of them drove a Mercedes Benz their transit system would remain at the same level of business.
Honestly I don't give a crap which system is most busy, busy is sometimes a bad thing, having to wait for a 2nd or 3rd train to come because the first two are full at rush hour isn't fun. But seriously, you gotta get a grip on your critical thinking skills.
That wikipedia link is wrong, The El system is 224 miles (only off by over 100...) and weekday el ridership is 788k. Which leads me to question the validity of all the other cities.
It lists NYC as having 232 miles of track, NYC has over 800 miles of track, off by over 600 miles.
One possibility is that they're counting trackage differently--are they counting total miles in the system and putting double/triple/quadruple as part of that total mileage or each? Do they count interlined tracks twice for each service? Those things could radically change the stats.
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