Top 10 Mass Transit Cities (living, better, places, America)
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It's often difficult to disaggregate urban and suburban riders anyway. NYC has 9 million daily subway riders but the city only has around 8.3 million people. That means that there are a lot of people commuting into the city and riding the subway.
Transit user stats are given by number of rides taken, the numbers can't distinguish between repeat riders. 9 million riders does not mean 9 million separate people. A transit user usually makes 2, sometimes more trips. So, 9 million riders means at most 4.5 million individual users. Also, 22% (830,000) of NYC workers live outside the city limits.
Walk access to transit is preferable for several reasons. If somebody can walk to transit, they may be able to not have a car, or only have, say, one car for two adults. Walk access is better environmentally, most of the pollution cars generate is when they first start up. It also means that transit stations don't have to have these big moats of parking around them, and use up a bunch of land.
Ridership is a good metric, but service is even better. How much transit service did the transit agency make available? So here is annual transit vehicle miles per capita for the big urbanized areas (from the APTA fact book). It includes all systems serving the area. Each bus or train car counts as one vehicle.
Urbanized Area Vehicle Miles Per Capita
1. New York 51.9
2. San Francisco-Oakland 45.2 (does not include San Jose)
3. Washington 41.9
4. Honolulu 39.2
5. Seattle 38.8
6. Salt Lake City 35.9
7. Denver 28.7
8. Chicago 27.9
9. Portland 27.4
10 Boston 25.9
11. Minneapolis-St. Paul 23.6
12. Pittsburgh 22.8
12. San Antonio 22.8
14, Philadelphia 21.7
15. Los Angeles 21.5
16. Charlotte 21.1
17. Austin 20.9
18. Atlanta 20.8
(all UZAs with over 500,000 population and 20 vehicle miles per capita included)
Mostly, not a real surprising list. Salt Lake City, Denver, and Charlotte have all been developing/expanding light rail. I suspect that Philadelphia's relatively poor showing has to do with weak service levels in the suburbs. Atlanta is known for having a weak bus network connecting to its heavy rail, probably accounting for its relatively weak showing.
You could say that the top 10 cities on this list are the top 10 transit cities.
Walk access to transit is preferable for several reasons. If somebody can walk to transit, they may be able to not have a car, or only have, say, one car for two adults. Walk access is better environmentally, most of the pollution cars generate is when they first start up. It also means that transit stations don't have to have these big moats of parking around them, and use up a bunch of land.
Ridership is a good metric, but service iso even better. How much transit service did the transit agency make available? So here is annual transit vehicle miles per capita for the big urbanized areas (from the APTA fact book). It includes all systems serving the area. Each bus or train car counts as one vehicle.
Urbanized Area Vehicle Miles Per Capita
1. New York 51.9
2. San Francisco-Oakland 45.2 (does not include San Jose)
3. Washington 41.9
4. Honolulu 39.2
5. Seattle 38.8
6. Salt Lake City 35.9
7. Denver 28.7
8. Chicago 27.9
9. Portland 27.4
10 Boston 25.9
11. Minneapolis-St. Paul 23.6
12. Pittsburgh 22.8
12. San Antonio 22.8
14, Philadelphia 21.7
15. Los Angeles 21.5
16. Charlotte 21.1
17. Austin 20.9
18. Atlanta 20.8
(all UZAs with over 500,000 population and 20 vehicle miles per capita included)
Mostly, not a real surprising list. Salt Lake City, Denver, and Charlotte have all been developing/expanding light rail. I suspect that Philadelphia's relatively poor showing has to do with weak service levels in the suburbs. Atlanta is known for having a weak bus network connecting to its heavy rail, probably accounting for its relatively weak showing.
You could say that the top 10 cities on this list are the top 10 transit cities.
Sir all the buses throughout the metro area connect to heavy rail in Atlanta. Including the grta express buses which is one reason why our ridership with heavy rail is over 250.000 riders a day. More people are using transit in Atlanta than half of that list u made.. whos in the top 10 for most used transit systems
Walk access to transit is preferable for several reasons. If somebody can walk to transit, they may be able to not have a car, or only have, say, one car for two adults. Walk access is better environmentally, most of the pollution cars generate is when they first start up. It also means that transit stations don't have to have these big moats of parking around them, and use up a bunch of land.
Ridership is a good metric, but service is even better. How much transit service did the transit agency make available? So here is annual transit vehicle miles per capita for the big urbanized areas (from the APTA fact book). It includes all systems serving the area. Each bus or train car counts as one vehicle.
Urbanized Area Vehicle Miles Per Capita
1. New York 51.9
2. San Francisco-Oakland 45.2 (does not include San Jose)
3. Washington 41.9
4. Honolulu 39.2
5. Seattle 38.8
6. Salt Lake City 35.9
7. Denver 28.7
8. Chicago 27.9
9. Portland 27.4
10 Boston 25.9
11. Minneapolis-St. Paul 23.6
12. Pittsburgh 22.8
12. San Antonio 22.8
14, Philadelphia 21.7
15. Los Angeles 21.5
16. Charlotte 21.1
17. Austin 20.9
18. Atlanta 20.8
(all UZAs with over 500,000 population and 20 vehicle miles per capita included)
Mostly, not a real surprising list. Salt Lake City, Denver, and Charlotte have all been developing/expanding light rail. I suspect that Philadelphia's relatively poor showing has to do with weak service levels in the suburbs. Atlanta is known for having a weak bus network connecting to its heavy rail, probably accounting for its relatively weak showing.
You could say that the top 10 cities on this list are the top 10 transit cities.
Walk access to transit is preferable for several reasons. If somebody can walk to transit, they may be able to not have a car, or only have, say, one car for two adults. Walk access is better environmentally, most of the pollution cars generate is when they first start up. It also means that transit stations don't have to have these big moats of parking around them, and use up a bunch of land.
Ridership is a good metric, but service is even better. How much transit service did the transit agency make available? So here is annual transit vehicle miles per capita for the big urbanized areas (from the APTA fact book). It includes all systems serving the area. Each bus or train car counts as one vehicle.
Urbanized Area Vehicle Miles Per Capita
1. New York 51.9
2. San Francisco-Oakland 45.2 (does not include San Jose)
3. Washington 41.9
4. Honolulu 39.2
5. Seattle 38.8
6. Salt Lake City 35.9
7. Denver 28.7
8. Chicago 27.9
9. Portland 27.4
10 Boston 25.9
11. Minneapolis-St. Paul 23.6
12. Pittsburgh 22.8
12. San Antonio 22.8
14, Philadelphia 21.7
15. Los Angeles 21.5
16. Charlotte 21.1
17. Austin 20.9
18. Atlanta 20.8
(all UZAs with over 500,000 population and 20 vehicle miles per capita included)
Mostly, not a real surprising list. Salt Lake City, Denver, and Charlotte have all been developing/expanding light rail. I suspect that Philadelphia's relatively poor showing has to do with weak service levels in the suburbs. Atlanta is known for having a weak bus network connecting to its heavy rail, probably accounting for its relatively weak showing.
You could say that the top 10 cities on this list are the top 10 transit cities.
Wow, that doesn't seem to jive vey well with personal experiences at all aside from NYC on top.
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okie dokie
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