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Let's be real, only reason you made that 200,000+ list is so you can include Minneapolis.
I could have listed the top 20, but you wouldn't have liked that either because Denver and Cleveland would have been within the top 20. I could have listed the top 25, but you would have lost your sh*t because St. Paul would be part of the top 25.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dispo4
Yes it would, and it would beat your Minneapolis in the same square miles as well.
Alright, already. Sheesh.
And for starters, I think having 48 miles of rail and 38 stations might at very least be worth mentioning. BTW, have they cleaned the seats on the BART line yet? They are FILTHY.
As munchitup mentioned, walkscore's downfall is ranking cities using arbitrary city limits.
Chicago is no worse than #3 in the nation for transit. It only falls out of the top 5 because of its large municipal boundaries--it's nearly 5x larger than Boston, for example.
More car-dependent suburbs taken in = lower score
If they calculated the scores of these cities over a 20/50/100 sq miles radius, they'd yield a more accurate picture.
As munchitup mentioned, walkscore's downfall is ranking cities using arbitrary city limits.
Chicago is no worse than #3 in the nation for transit. It only falls out of the top 5 because of its large municipal boundaries--it's nearly 5x larger than Boston, for example.
More car-dependent suburbs taken in = lower score
If they calculated the scores of these cities over a 20/50/100 sq miles radius, they'd yield a more accurate picture.
I understand your point that the scores would be different in certain areas (much like walkability). However, a major part of a transit system's effectiveness is its ability to provide good coverage over a large area -- regardless of the size of the system.
The transit score is intended to take that overall coverage into account and determines an average whether you live in a better served core area or on the outskirts of town, which is very helpful in terms of overall transit comprehensiveness.
So are you saying, taking the same sq miles from the cores out Minneapolis has higher PT riders?
Usually transit usage follows density, especially once density is above 10,000 ppsm. That is the point at which walkable and bikeable lifestyles become plausible to those who don't do it out of economic necessity. Here are density maps of Houston and the Twin Cities broken down by census tract. You will notice that Houston has a somewhat larger area of moderate density. Minneapolis has a larger area of contiguous dense tracts aroud the core which are hospitable to car free living.
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