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This is a good list for rapid transit only (I would assume for LA you are including the LRT). Although I'm not sure Atlanta's system is busier than Los Angeles'. Boston's T is always really busy, particularly the Green Line - but to compare it with LA, the other system I am familiar with, the buses get nowhere near as busy. Including the bus systems is where LA really catches up to the pack (and where Chicago puts itself in the lead).
Here is my list, which includes all forms of PT, including buses.
1.) Chicago
2.) Washington
3.) San Francisco
4.) Philadelphia (interchangeable with 5)
5.) Boston (interchangeable with 4)
6.) Los Angeles
7.) Portland
8.) Seattle
9.) Miami
10.) Cleveland? San Jose? San Diego? Dallas? Houston? No idea.
Seattle should be ahead of Portland if we're talking about all transit.
This is from 5 years ago when the ridership was lower, but this is a typical rush hour scene or on a weekend when trains are running only ever 10-12 minutes. Red line at Metro Center.
This is from 5 years ago when the ridership was lower, but this is a typical rush hour scene or on a weekend when trains are running only ever 10-12 minutes. Red line at Metro Center.
The Metro is busy, no question. Gallery Place and Metro Center are jammed at rush hour. Chicago is the same way as well, There have been times in Chicago where I have had to wait for 3 trains so that I could finally board. I have not experienced that in DC yet, though it is noted the DC trains typically have larger cars than chicago.
The Bus situation is the same in Chicago, each one is jammed pack and it is not unusual to wait for several to go by before one has space.
The Metro is busy, no question. Gallery Place and Metro Center are jammed at rush hour. Chicago is the same way as well, There have been times in Chicago where I have had to wait for 3 trains so that I could finally board. I have not experienced that in DC yet, though it is noted the DC trains typically have larger cars than chicago.
The Bus situation is the same in Chicago, each one is jammed pack and it is not unusual to wait for several to go by before one has space.
Yea Chicago's train are a lot smaller than any other systems, especially DC's.
Chicago's subway cars are 48 feet long, 9.4 feet wide, and 12 feet tall.
DC's subway cars are 75 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 11.8 feet tall.
The Metro is busy, no question. Gallery Place and Metro Center are jammed at rush hour. Chicago is the same way as well, There have been times in Chicago where I have had to wait for 3 trains so that I could finally board. I have not experienced that in DC yet, though it is noted the DC trains typically have larger cars than chicago.
The Bus situation is the same in Chicago, each one is jammed pack and it is not unusual to wait for several to go by before one has space.
Chicago's gotten crazy the past year or two. I regularly have to wait for 1-3 trains to pass even as far north as Sheridan, 6-7 stops before you even get downtown. Same with the Brown Line, it's crushed most days before it even gets to Belmont.
Back in early 2008 the Brown Line was reporting around 69,000 rides per weekday. As of last month it was averaging 114,000 per weekday.
Chicago has a lot of low usage on the west and south sides, particularly the Green and Pink Lines. If you look at just the downtown subway/Loop stations as well as the O'hare branch of the Blue Line and the north side Brown/Red/Purple line stations you'll see that's 602,000 out of the 788,000 train boardings in September.
That just shows how jammed up the north side/downtown areas are when not even counting the west Blue, south Red, Pink Green or Orange lines.
Ridership overall has increased over 100,000 rides per weekday since 2008. Luckily that's produced a much larger than anticipated surge in operating revenues. They're spending hundreds of millions right now on multiple projects.
* Running 17 more round-trip trains on busy lines during rush hour as of December 1st to help with extreme overcrowding
* $34 million replacement of 11,500 feet of track around the Loop elevated
* $86 million rebuild from the ground up the north side red line stations as well as viaduct replacements and slow zone removal
* $425 million project completely replacing the entire track structure of the south branch of the red line (shutting the whole thing down) shaving 20 minutes off a round trip from 95th to Roosevelt.
* $66 rebuild of track structure on Brown/Purple lines from downtown through north side in 2013
* New infill station in the west loop just opened
* New infill station on the far north side just opened
* New infill station to begin construction in the south loop
* $200 million Wilson Station rebuild as well as viaduct rebuild and building improvements to complex around the station
* Grand Red Line subway station rebuild
* Clark/Division Red Line subway station rebuild
* 706 new rail cars being delivered introducing AC propulsion and braking technology
* 1,000 buses recently purchased to be delivered
* 410 electronic displays recently fixed to bus stops across the city that announce in real-time how many minutes until the next buses arrive at that stop, which buses they are and their destination
* Finished installing 3,000 cameras across the CTA as well as hiring 50 additional officers to patrol the system
Starting this winter they're rolling out Ventra, which is stated to be the first open payment system by a large transit system in the USA. You can either tap your debit cards which have chips, the CTA cards (like Chicago card's) and they're setting it up to be able to tap your cell phone. Instead of magnetic stip cards at vending machines they will spit out tap cards as well for single rides, one-day, refillable, etc.
It's really great to see them doing all these improvements all at once. I've been here 11 years and have certainly never seen this much activity on the CTA.
Chicago's gotten crazy the past year or two. I regularly have to wait for 1-3 trains to pass even as far north as Sheridan, 6-7 stops before you even get downtown. Same with the Brown Line, it's crushed most days before it even gets to Belmont.
Back in early 2008 the Brown Line was reporting around 69,000 rides per weekday. As of last month it was averaging 114,000 per weekday.
Chicago has a lot of low usage on the west and south sides, particularly the Green and Pink Lines. If you look at just the downtown subway/Loop stations as well as the O'hare branch of the Blue Line and the north side Brown/Red/Purple line stations you'll see that's 602,000 out of the 788,000 train boardings in September.
That just shows how jammed up the north side/downtown areas are when not even counting the west Blue, south Red, Pink Green or Orange lines.
Ridership overall has increased over 100,000 rides per weekday since 2008. Luckily that's produced a much larger than anticipated surge in operating revenues. They're spending hundreds of millions right now on multiple projects.
* Running 17 more round-trip trains on busy lines during rush hour as of December 1st to help with extreme overcrowding
* $34 million replacement of 11,500 feet of track around the Loop elevated
* $86 million rebuild from the ground up the north side red line stations as well as viaduct replacements and slow zone removal
* $425 million project completely replacing the entire track structure of the south branch of the red line (shutting the whole thing down) shaving 20 minutes off a round trip from 95th to Roosevelt.
* $66 rebuild of track structure on Brown/Purple lines from downtown through north side in 2013
* New infill station in the west loop just opened
* New infill station on the far north side just opened
* New infill station to begin construction in the south loop
* $200 million Wilson Station rebuild as well as viaduct rebuild and building improvements to complex around the station
* Grand Red Line subway station rebuild
* Clark/Division Red Line subway station rebuild
* 706 new rail cars being delivered introducing AC propulsion and braking technology
* 1,000 buses recently purchased to be delivered
* 410 electronic displays recently fixed to bus stops across the city that announce in real-time how many minutes until the next buses arrive at that stop, which buses they are and their destination
* Finished installing 3,000 cameras across the CTA as well as hiring 50 additional officers to patrol the system
Starting this winter they're rolling out Ventra, which is stated to be the first open payment system by a large transit system in the USA. You can either tap your debit cards which have chips, the CTA cards (like Chicago card's) and they're setting it up to be able to tap your cell phone. Instead of magnetic stip cards at vending machines they will spit out tap cards as well for single rides, one-day, refillable, etc.
It's really great to see them doing all these improvements all at once. I've been here 11 years and have certainly never seen this much activity on the CTA.
Great info! I haven't lived in Chicago since 2008 (currently live in DC); planning on moving to Chicago early next year, so it is great to see all of the upgrades going on with the CTA.
Would have no problem with that, I doubt it adds on much, and DC is still ahead in ridership, but to say DC is almost double in Chicago in population ridership is not the real picture. You add only 48,999 to rail ridership from Baltimore subway (probably some other systems there also) and add on the 3-4 million folks that are there in reality, plenty of them driving in, going to park and rides, and already adding onto those DC totals... Driving around DC metro this summer I saw quite a few park and rides, which I'm sure connect into DC, then subsequently get on the wmata to connect again to their offices. They are high b/c you have those additional 3-4 million folks in the area. That ~50k is similar to outside areas in the Chi Burbs but DC metro is multipolar.
They are both the 2-3 no matter how you look at it though, there is definitely a gap from NYC, then a gap from Chi/DC ...
Baltimore has
49K metro ridership
28.5K light rail
...which makes it
-----------------------------
77.5K rail ridership
280K bus ridership
(rough estimate)
-----------------------------
The point is to say that the CSA is more than just a worthless add on to DC.
Additionally, did anyone else include the true suburban municipalities that have bus systems, like Prince George's, Loudoun County, Fairfax connector, and ART (Arlington County) are being missed in the total bus ridership. I'm not going to do the math, but it's on the internet somewhere. I think everything together adds to the DC CSA transit count.
The Metro is busy, no question. Gallery Place and Metro Center are jammed at rush hour. Chicago is the same way as well, There have been times in Chicago where I have had to wait for 3 trains so that I could finally board. I have not experienced that in DC yet, though it is noted the DC trains typically have larger cars than chicago.
The Bus situation is the same in Chicago, each one is jammed pack and it is not unusual to wait for several to go by before one has space.
You are comparing apples and oranges. Chicago's CTA doesn't have the capacity to move the amount of people DC's WMATA can. The trains don't come as frequent and are not nearly as large. The comparison is really apples and oranges. The technology is also night and day from each other.
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