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The REAL question is which metro over 1 million has ADEQUATE mass transit?
To the OP's question. I elect Birmingham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Jacksonville, Tampa, Kansas City, Los Angeles (but they are improving), Las Vegas, Detroit... I'm quite sure there are many more.
Los Angeles doesn't belong on this list. It has a top 10 system in this country, and arguably just outside the top 5. Yes it should be better for a world class city but still really is far from the worst over 1 million. And as you note it is rapidly improving.
There are many US cities over 1 million. However I elect my hometown of Kansas City as the worst. It has been bad as long as I can remember, and after 34 years on this planet, it has only got slightly better. No real plans for a rail system, buses appear infeauent, almost never see a bus on the road, etc. I can't fathom any city having a worse public transit system. It's almost something you would expect out of a small town.
Looks like this is the closest that your city could have, but that sounds like wishful thinking on your part eh?
^ that's all commuter rail and it's been in the works since the 1980's. As you can see that the county to the southwest is not even part of the planning and with 600,000 people and many commuters and destination office parks, it makes little sense to plan regional transit without that county (Johnson County). That is one reason why KC can't get any sort of regional transit going. The entire metro won't work together. The other reason it will probably never happen is metro KC has super high sales taxes and the state of Missouri (or Kansas for that matter) does not fund transit like most states do. There is no way to fund such a system without state help and with the sales tax already way to high to raise again.
KC needs central city fixed guideway transit more than regional commuter rail anyway. They are building a streetcar line, but streetcars are slow and don't really have the capacity to be the core of a large transit system. But that's the route KC is going which I guess is better than 20 more years of studies.
I would go with Miami. Public transit in that city and metro area is bad.
Considering it's growing pretty fast and can be considered a World Class city, it's severely lacking when it comes to mass transit. Especially when compared to cities like Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, DC.
Comparedto other cities in the world, most of those cities PT are probably deemed inadequate. I'm not taking it personal at all (there's a couple people who claim I bash Houston at every given chance) but to say Houston transit is so much worse than say Atlanta, Dallas or Phoenix is a wash because, those cities transit options are so much worse than even much smaller cities in other countries.
To me this is about "Hey, my city has terrible transit options, but which ones are worse?"
I've never explored Dallas but don't they have commuter rail trying to imitate light-rail, all the while having no light-rail? If so, that doesn't sound impressive.
Are you really putting Atlanta on that list? I'm not sure if you realize it, but we do have a 48-mile heavy rail system with 4 lines that transports 227,000 riders per day along with a bus system that has 200,000 riders per day...and a streetcar that is just ready to open the first of several planned lines. Atlanta is ranked pretty high among U.S. rail systems.
If we are talking about overall metro areas (and not just city limits) then Atlanta easily wins this. A study by Times Magazine a couple years ago showed metro Atlanta had the lowest percentage of residents with acess to public transit of any metro area of over 1 million and around 8th worst overall (only small southern metro areas such as Greenville SC and Knoxville TN were worse. Quite a few counties in metro Atlanta have absolutely no transit of any kind (Fayette County GA even voted down shuttle buses for the elderly and disabled).
Makes no sense to put public transit in areas where density barely reaches 2k ppsm and plenty of Atlanta suburban areas are that sparse.
Citywise, Atlanta is underrated(The central 50 square miles or so has about 20+ stations alone as far as rail is concerned), but it lacks in the metro department simply because the region is just too sprawly and you can't expect rail to go to every suburb.
I would go with Miami. Public transit in that city and metro area is bad.
Considering it's growing pretty fast and can be considered a World Class city, it's severely lacking when it comes to mass transit. Especially when compared to cities like Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco and Washington, DC.
There are so many cities with worse public transit than Miami. The metro mover is nice, so is the metro rail. I have no problems getting around the city when I don't feel like using my car.
There are so many cities with worse public transit than Miami. The metro mover is nice, so is the metro rail. I have no problems getting around the city when I don't feel like using my car.
So San Diego is terrible but Miami is nice
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