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You have to consider Atlanta in that group...it's silly not to include it when it ridership is higher than any listed and nearly 4 times that of both Baltimore and Seattle.
If we're talking about the ease of living without a car, Atlanta is not in that group, I would say it's definitely a step below. It's ridership is impressive, especially for a Sunbelt city, but it's still extremely spread out and car-centric so almost no one lives without a car. It's much easier to live without a car in Baltimore, Seattle, or LA, not just because of their transit systems but because of their urban form as well.
Some Statistics, including Atlanta:
Total Daily Ridership:
Los Angeles: 1,914,544
Seattle: 510,900
Atlanta: 438,900
Baltimore: 370,800
Ridership as a Percentage of MSA Population:
Seattle: 14.4%
Baltimore: 13.5%
Los Angeles: 10.5%
Atlanta: 7.9%
I would definitely say LA in answer to the first question. It has a far superior rail system to any of the other cities, and that's really the key to an efficient public transit system that makes it easy to live without a car. Not to mention the bus network in Central LA is great and there's a relatively large area where its simple to live without a car (even if not that many people actually do). Baltimore and Seattle both have some central areas where one can live without a car, but much less than LA, as well as far weaker rail and bus systems. Atlanta is interesting because of it's semi-decent and well-used rail system in the midst of a city that is still extremely car-centric.
If we're talking about the ease of living without a car, Atlanta is not in that group, I would say it's definitely a step below. It's ridership is impressive, especially for a Sunbelt city, but it's still extremely spread out and car-centric so almost no one lives without a car. It's much easier to live without a car in Baltimore, Seattle, or LA, not just because of their transit systems but because of their urban form as well.
Some Statistics, including Atlanta:
Total Daily Ridership:
Los Angeles: 1,914,544
Seattle: 510,900
Atlanta: 438,900
Baltimore: 370,800
Ridership as a Percentage of MSA Population:
Seattle: 14.4%
Baltimore: 13.5%
Los Angeles: 10.5%
Atlanta: 7.9%
I would definitely say LA in answer to the first question. It has a far superior rail system to any of the other cities, and that's really the key to an efficient public transit system that makes it easy to live without a car. Not to mention the bus network in Central LA is great and there's a relatively large area where its simple to live without a car (even if not that many people actually do). Baltimore and Seattle both have some central areas where one can live without a car, but much less than LA, as well as far weaker rail and bus systems. Atlanta is interesting because of it's semi-decent and well-used rail system in the midst of a city that is still extremely car-centric.
The percentage is low due to the size of the metro area...within the city and the counties where it is present, the percentage is MUCH higher. MARTA is used regularly by city residents and it's fairly easy to live car-free within the main urban areas like Midtown/Downtown/Buckhead. It will become even easier with the planned expansions of the streetcar circulators and Beltline, each of which will connect with MARTA at several stations. There are also two recently announced expansions of heavy rail into Clayton County and further into North Fulton, and a light rail extension to Emory University.
MARTA is much better than many people on this site give it credit for being, and is often overlooked when discussing rail transit in the U.S. I realize this thread is about all forms of transit - not just rail - but it's still silly to leave Atlanta completely out of the discussion.
The scale of LA's transit system is much, much larger than Seattle's system. And because of LA's larger population, it's transit system serves more riders.
The difference between the two though is that Seattle is geographically much smaller, so it's easier to serve all of the priority zones with a bus/light rail system. LA, on the other hand, is geographically massive and would require an enormous web of transit lines to capture all of its priority zones.
Furthermore, Seattle residents generally will be taking transit to Downtown/UW, so all of our transit lines are focused on transporting residents to either of those two locations. LA, on the other hand, has MANY more destinations for its residents, so focusing all transit to feed into DTLA won't necessarily serve everyone's transit needs as a good portion of the city isn't only looking to get downtown.
It's a lot easier to plan a transit system when everyone is trying to commute into one central location. LA has many more destinations for its commuters, which therefore requires a bit of a "transit web."
Overall, I give the win over to LA. Comparing such a complicated urban area like LA to Seattle isn't really fair because Seattle is just too small (and obviously a smaller area will be easier to serve efficiently with transit).
Within the next decade you're going to see a dramatic surge in transit ridership in Seattle as the rail network is expanded dramatically. It's already higher than Atlanta or Baltimore in the absolute because it has a much better bus network than both and better land use than Atlanta. Once you bring grade-separated rail into the mix, I think that gap will widen.
Comparing Seattle and LA, as others have already said, is a bit tricky because the scale is so different. Both cities face similar challenges in that they have urban nodes (outside of the urban core) throughout the city that need to be better connected, but LA is so much bigger that it has a lot more nodes to connect. (I disagree that Seattle only has two hubs, though - aside from Downtown and UW, you've also got Capitol Hill, SLU, Ballard, Fremont, Northgate, West Seattle, and several other areas all as major destinations.)
At this point I'd choose LA because it has the better rail network, but once Seattle's rail expands it may end up pulling ahead pound-for-pound (and I don't mean in terms transit ridership share, where Seattle is already ahead, I'm talking about from the user's perspective).
The percentage is low due to the size of the metro area...within the city and the counties where it is present, the percentage is MUCH higher. MARTA is used regularly by city residents and it's fairly easy to live car-free within the main urban areas like Midtown/Downtown/Buckhead. It will become even easier with the planned expansions of the streetcar circulators and Beltline, each of which will connect with MARTA at several stations. There are also two recently announced expansions of heavy rail into Clayton County and further into North Fulton, and a light rail extension to Emory University.
MARTA is much better than many people on this site give it credit for being, and is often overlooked when discussing rail transit in the U.S. I realize this thread is about all forms of transit - not just rail - but it's still silly to leave Atlanta completely out of the discussion.
MARTA is semi-decent no doubt but it just isn't on the same level as the other three cities listed. Of course the percentage is higher in the central city, as it is in Baltimore, Seattle and LA as well. Those cities all have expansive metro areas as well. Atlanta's percentage gets dragged even lower because the walkable, urban area where one can live without a car is much smaller than in the other cities listed. A much more significant portion of MARTA ridership is park-and-ride than that percentage in any of these other cities. Absolutely Atlanta is trying hard and making great strides towards becoming more walkable, transit-friendly, and urban, but the foundation is so terribly low that its got a long way to go.
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