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If your idea of outstanding mass transit is buses, then you aren't anywhere close to the level you and other Seattle homers think you are.
A robust bus system is absolutely necessary for any American city not named New York to have an outstanding transit system. Think of London. More people ride the bus in London than take the Tube. And I think that's also the case in almost every American city besides NYC. IMO outside of NYC the smaller the ratio of bus riders to train riders, the less healthy the system is on the whole. Even DC and Chicago should have more bus riders.
A robust bus system is absolutely necessary for any American city not named New York to have an outstanding transit system. Think of London. More people ride the bus in London than take the Tube. And I think that's also the case in almost every American city besides NYC. IMO outside of NYC the smaller the ratio of bus riders to train riders, the less healthy the system is on the whole. Even DC and Chicago should have more bus riders.
I think Boston is close to 2:1 Subway/Bus ridership but I think the MBTA doesn’t count Silver Line rides as Bus Riders and 2 of the 3 busiest routes are SL routes.
But Pittsburgh is a really Good example of a good Transit system with minimal rail.
A robust bus system is absolutely necessary for any American city not named New York to have an outstanding transit system. Think of London. More people ride the bus in London than take the Tube. And I think that's also the case in almost every American city besides NYC. IMO outside of NYC the smaller the ratio of bus riders to train riders, the less healthy the system is on the whole. Even DC and Chicago should have more bus riders.
I would argue that even NYC needs a robust bus system to have an outstanding transit system. Also, many would argue that with minimal expansion over the last 50 years and a system in disrepair, NYC’s system doesn’t qualify as an outstanding transit system (compared to its peers around the world) either way.
I never made any claims about the sufficiency or not of MSP's transit. That always seems to be your approach when replying to criticism about how perfect Seattle is. From what I hear, your homeless problem is out of control, drug use is rampant and housing costs have skyrocketed, pricing many people out of home affordability.
You are quite a defensive little thing...
You must have me confused for someone else. My posts usually point to Seattle as somewhere between the top cities and the rest, and I certainly agree that our street behavior is a problem.
Or maybe you can point to a post like what you're accusing?
I would argue that even NYC needs a robust bus system to have an outstanding transit system. Also, many would argue that with minimal expansion over the last 50 years and a system in disrepair, NYC’s system doesn’t qualify as an outstanding transit system (compared to its peers around the world) either way.
It defines a full service mass transit system as 1)operating at least every 30 minutes, 2) 7 days a week/24 hours a day. It shows maps of cities like Columbus that have zero lines meeting this criteria, then Denver/Portland with basic coverage but huge portions of the cities lacking this coverage, D.C. having about 2X the coverage of those cities, and then Toronto with 3X the every 30 mins, 24/7 coverage of D.C.
So the issue isn't really bus vs rail, but frequency of coverage that determines ridership.
It defines a full service mass transit system as 1)operating at least every 30 minutes, 2) 7 days a week/24 hours a day. It shows maps of cities like Columbus that have zero lines meeting this criteria, then Denver/Portland with basic coverage but huge portions of the cities lacking this coverage, D.C. having about 2X the coverage of those cities, and then Toronto with 3X the every 30 mins, 24/7 coverage of D.C.
So the issue isn't really bus vs rail, but frequency of coverage that determines ridership.
I think I read somewhere that Colfax Ave Bus Routes carry more passengers than any of the Denver rail lines.
Last edited by btownboss4; 04-04-2019 at 07:39 PM..
OK fair enough. Just wondering is there much TOD and residential growth around the Metrorail stations outside of the core?
Yes. Brownsville Station, Santa Clara and others. Naturally due to Miami's population density and their desperation to build more vertical spaces, tod growth and transit villages are popping up all over the county and metro.
As a visitor to San Diego, I beg to differ. It doesn't go anywhere I wanted to go. No rail to any of the beaches, no rail to Hillcrest, no rail to get you to Balboa Park, no rail connection to the airport. Good for commuters to get from inland suburbs to downtown, and the one nice option for me was its line to the border. But when I was there, I had to use Uber to get to any of the real points of interest that a common visitor to the city would want to get to. That's not a great mass transit city.
Rail does not automatically equal good transit. San Diego has plenty of good bus routes with convenient access to major attractions, including all of the most popular beaches. Also, literally every north county beach town has a rail station. I nice day trip if you plan it. The daily pass is only $5 for bus/trolley. Pretty good deal compared to renting a car and paying for parking. Also, what exactly is so difficult about taking a 5-10min bus ride to the airport? Those buses often run more frequent than the trolley and I guarantee you they will be less crowded once the Blue Line riders start going up to UTC.
Almost all of San Diego's main attractions are close to downtown. The only big exceptions being Legoland and the "Safari Park".
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Again with Miami, no rail to the beach, you know... where a ton of people want to go. Why? Both Miami and San Diego are very tourism driven, one would think that Mass Transit would bring you to the main attraction where traffic is heavy and parking is difficult.
The majority of mass transit trips are commuters, Monday-Friday. Understandably, the focus of limited transit monies should cater to this group more than random tourists using transit outside of commuting hours.
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And please don't suggest a bus, any city will have bus lines, but you need comprehensive rail coverage to be a serious transit city.
Or just have very high quality bus lines (e.g. Bus rapid transit).
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I voted for Atlanta, it's a great system. The only thing that perplexes me is why would they put the new Braves stadium in the suburbs (seems like a reverse trend as far as ball parks go), no less in a county that rejected MARTA. That's just odd.
Atlanta's is the best of this list, but just barely, which is pretty sad since it has heavy rail. As a tourist I don't particularly care for it. It does it's job, but is pretty week compared to its siblings of that era (BART and WMATA).
Middle
Miami (heavy rail + straightforward bus routes along street grids)
San Diego (best inter-city, best connections around downtown)
Denver (decent all-around, good connections outside downtown)
This one's a stumper... I really can't choose. All have some qualities, although San Diego is the clear loser in my book:
San Diego's trolley gets twice the number of riders per mile as Denver and Dallas, so I'd hardly call it the "clear loser". San Diego also has the best intercity rail of all options.
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