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I only listed systems with light rail and without heavy rail rapid transit, so Cleveland doesn't qualify.
I haven't ridden St. Louis but I have ridden Sacramento and I don't think that it's top 10. Maybe it could be instead of Charlotte?
What's your list?
OK, I didn't realize you were only listing LRT-only cities (although, technically Denver's electric commuter rail is an HRT-type operation)... I also wasn't just targeting you, but that those 3 cities -- Cleveland, St.L, and Sac, (Pittsburgh, barely -- only you) haven't been mentioned at all in this thread, which is weird because 3 absolutely are among the best transit networks in this country, esp for mid-size major metros. Buffalo, San Jose, and NOLA deserve some love, too.
OK, I didn't realize you were only listing LRT-only cities (although, technically Denver's electric commuter rail is an HRT-type operation)... I also wasn't just targeting you, but that those 3 cities -- Cleveland, St.L, and Sac, (Pittsburgh, barely -- only you) haven't been mentioned at all in this thread, which is weird because 3 absolutely are among the best transit networks in this country, esp for mid-size major metros. Buffalo, San Jose, and NOLA deserve some love, too.
Aren't Denver's commuter lines considered commuter lines by the FRA and don't they operate using FRA compliant equipment and signaling? I wouldn't think that they are any more of a rapid transit hybrid than SEPTA or even LIRR.
I do think that other cities deserve a mention. That's why I made this subcategory. There would probably need to be a category for under 2 million metros to get to those others.
Since no one is saying it. DC still subsidizes transit for riders and now not just Federal workers. Now to most residents if bill is approved one final step.
Proposal advances to give D.C. residents $100 a month for transit.
The passed Bill would give D.C. adults and pre-kindergarteners $100 in monthly SmarTrip credits to use on the Metro as well as regional bus systems that use SmarTrip. Federal employees who receive transit subsidies would not be eligible. Students enrolled in D.C. schools already receive unlimited transit fare through the city’s Kids Ride Free program.
DC workers already get subsidized to ride its transit.
About 185,000 people, or 44%, of people in D.C. who use Metro would qualify for the credits, the D.C. Council Budget Office said in a report.
The bill was created to help lower-income residents with transportation costs while helping to stabilize Metro, which is facing a nearly $200 million operating shortfall next year because of fares lost to telework.
Metrorail ridership has risen about 10% since Labor Day but is less than half of pre-pandemic levels. The transit system is facing a budget shortfall amid rising telework during the pandemic.
Budget officials this month projected a nearly $185 million funding gap next year because Metro will have used up federal coronavirus aid.
Annual funding shortfalls are projected to grow to $527 million the following year, widening each year unless there are significant increases in revenue or funding, Metro officials said last week. The “D.C. for Metro” bill, meanwhile, would cost the city between $54 million and $163 million in transit credits — depending on usage among recipients.
With the fund, “millions” of dollars will go toward bus infrastructure “by creating new bus routes, reducing time between buses, building more dedicated bus lanes, and other improvements to make buses work better.”
If ridership increases by this .... perhaps other cities will. So many broke may not be as DC.
More...
Fare evasion in D.C. is rising. Money troubles are pushing Metro to confront it.
Evasion has proliferated during the pandemic and is a visible reminder to many riders of revenue Metro is not collecting.
That's an interesting way to go about both trying to fund the DC metro and trying to get more people to ride. The $100 every month without rollover seems reasonable to get ridership up, but places a kind of upper bounds on abuse as there's a maximum number of rides / fare possible to use up before riders pay and a known number of accounts registered in the program.
In some ways it's like the converse of what MTA in NYC has opted to do with the OMNY payment system as that one is instead going for a system that *after* a set number of rides every week, also with no rollover, the fare becomes free which I think doesn't seem to make as much sense in that there's no upper bound and would appear to be more vulnerable to abuse. It also presumably after a certain point induces demand which might not be great if there are capacity issues, though that's not the case post pandemic. I think overall, I like where DC's system is headed more. I think it's even cleaner than reduced fare programs.
I do wonder about what the over under on fareless transit systems will be in the US. The WP article doesn't address it directly, but does sort of bring up the idea of how they were originally going to limit the roll-out of this program, but then found the means-testing to do that selective process was by itself too expensive to be workable so that made me think of fareless transit (often marketed as free transit). The act of running the infrastructure to collect fare and to run payment compliance by themselves cost some money and if the idea is that there are multiple other benefits to using transit, then perhaps that can work out. It's being done in a few places at large, but I don't know if we'll ever see a substantially sized transit system in the US give it a go.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Losfrisco
L.A. being relegated to "probably in the top six this decade" is pretty funny considering they are #1 in Light Rail and #2 in bus ridership right now. Their per capita heavy rail ridership now is higher than D.C. or Chicago and they're only getting ready to flip the "on" switch on a subway running under the densest corridor in the western U.S.
The secondary cities are the most interesting group to me. The rallying cry of big cities with little to no transit is often "WELL, EVERY CITY NOT NAMED NEW YORK HAS TERRIBLE TRANSIT...WHAT"S YOUR POINT?"
To believe that though, you need to believe that Portland's 60 miles of state of the art light rail are insufficient for a 2.5 million metro area, or that San Diego's 65 miles and multiple commuter lines are insufficient for a 3.3 million metro. Similar story for Denver and Atlanta.
Baltimore's lukewarm showing across the board is somewhat of a head scratcher, but they are in the northeast club so no one is looking too hard to find shortcomings, they'll get the benefit of the doubt for having good transit that a Denver or Atlanta would never get.
Relegated isn't the right word there. It's obvious that NYC overall is at the top for now and over the course of this decade, but the next six positions are competitive and LA being competitive in that small tier would be weird to call "relegated". Light rail and bus ridership is great, but I was thinking of the system as a whole, and there's something off about LA having highest per capita heavy rail ridership which I think must be a typo on your part as there is no way that's true. You maybe meant to say system-wide ridership per mile though I think that's a bit goofy as it can set a bad precedent for aborting future expansions. I don't think saying terrible for non-NYC US transit systems is the right word either, but US cities compared to those of other developed countries generally have comparatively much worse transit than systems of equivalent metropolitan sizes in many other developed countries. I think that next tier is interesting, and that's why I brought it up, but they are arguably very much insufficient for their metropolitan area sizes given how low the modal shares of transit are
Baltimore's transit system woes of recent times partially stem very directly with the election of Larry Hogan and his attitude towards Baltimore and mass transit. There was an incredibly rare alignment of leadership on multiple political levels to actually give go ahead to really large transit infrastructure projects and Hogan's government actively "derailed" those plans as MarketStEl has also pointed out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2Easy
Here's my somewhat knowledgeable and experienced attempt at ranking public transport in cities that don't have heavy rail paid transit. Ridership totals are from APTA 2019Q4 and due not include all agencies, just the ones listed for each city. Totals include bus, light rail, commuter rail, on demand, etc. Ferries are not included. Only cities with light rail transit are ranked.
1. Seattle (681,000) - already at the top due to its excellent buses, it's greatly expanding rail
2. Portland (310,000) - I haven't ridden here but both observation and APTA statistics show busy trains and buses
3. Denver (406,000) - greatly expanded system, decent buses (?), popular train to the airport
4. San Diego (282,300) - good bus and rail coverage, but spread out city makes some places still hard to get to
5. Salt Lake (155,500) - decent service for a city that's smaller than you think makes the top 5.
6. Dallas (227,200) - good rail coverage that few use.
7. Minneapolis (249,300) - haven't ridden here, so maybe too low?
8. Phoenix (205,000) - pre-pandemic bus frequencies and coverage were surprisingly good. One of the better sunbelt cities.
9. Houston (298,000) - I feel like the rail was built on the cheap with few grade separations making it feel like a streetcar.
10. Charlotte (73,000) - poor bus frequency, poor ridership, maybe shouldn't be top 10. Austin and Pittsburgh would probably rank higher.
Makes sense, and I get why it's not arranged just purely on raw ridership numbers. I tend to weight that in as part of it. These numbers are city limits ridership, right? Also, why leave out heavy rail? If it's to leave out the big hitters, the unfortunate thing is that it leaves out a couple of other places that should be in this tier or two as well such as Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, and San Juan.
Aren't Denver's commuter lines considered commuter lines by the FRA and don't they operate using FRA compliant equipment and signaling? I wouldn't think that they are any more of a rapid transit hybrid than SEPTA or even LIRR.
Yes, you are right about that. But Denver's commuter rail is also not LRT (as some folks -- not you -- refer to it as such). In truth, Denver's commuter rail is darn-near rapid transit, operationally. Un-bundled, I believe it maintains the highest frequency, esp the Airport line, of any commuter rail system in this country, even matching or besting several HRT and LRT systems.
Makes sense, and I get why it's not arranged just purely on raw ridership numbers. I tend to weight that in as part of it. These numbers are city limits ridership, right? Also, why leave out heavy rail? If it's to leave out the big hitters, the unfortunate thing is that it leaves out a couple of other places that should be in this tier or two as well such as Miami, Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, and San Juan.
Fair point by you and by TheProf. There's no reason to omit those other cities aside from my admittedly arbitrary criteria. I just looked at it as a way to rank a top tier of one set of criteria as opposed to ranking "the best of the rest". If I included cities with heavy rail, then LA, Atlanta and Miami would be in my top 16 with the previously mentioned NYC, DC, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and SF being the top 6.
The APTA numbers are by transit agency, not city, but I only included the agency ridership totals for the primary city in the metro. APTA listed two agencies for Seattle, but every other city only had one.
In general I think that too many cities emphasize rail over buses due to perception issues. Atlanta has a heavy rail rapid transit system, but the bus service looks subpar to me. Same for Charlotte, but light rail. Imo buses should be the backbone of most cities with only a few exceptions. If your city has poor bus service and has light rail or wants to have it, you're doing it backwards.
Relegated isn't the right word there. It's obvious that NYC overall is at the top for now and over the course of this decade, but the next six positions are competitive and LA being competitive in that small tier would be weird to call "relegated". Light rail and bus ridership is great, but I was thinking of the system as a whole, and there's something off about LA having highest per capita heavy rail ridership which I think must be a typo on your part as there is no way that's true. You maybe meant to say system-wide ridership per mile though I think that's a bit goofy as it can set a bad precedent for aborting future expansions. I don't think saying terrible for non-NYC US transit systems is the right word either, but US cities compared to those of other developed countries generally have comparatively much worse transit than systems of equivalent metropolitan sizes in many other developed countries. I think that next tier is interesting, and that's why I brought it up, but they are arguably very much insufficient for their metropolitan area sizes given how low the modal shares of transit are
Right, I figured it was a typo. Like I said before over and over again, it's not a good idea to fixate on a singular metric like that, because it belies the very different sets of conditions that can make that true and is vulnerable to being used against transit expansion. In this case, part of the reason is because the LA rapid transit system is currently pretty limited. It's quite possible that as it expands that the ridership per mile will go down during some worthwhile expansions but fixating on that alone is a terrible reason to put the kibosh on such. I feel like this has been communicated to you repeatedly, but you don't seem to understand it. Sometimes it doesn't seem like you actually have that much interest in mass transit or good ways to go about improving such in general, but instead seem bent on trying to argue for your identified home team regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
Here's my somewhat knowledgeable and experienced attempt at ranking public transport in cities that don't have heavy rail paid transit. Ridership totals are from APTA 2019Q4 and due not include all agencies, just the ones listed for each city. Totals include bus, light rail, commuter rail, on demand, etc. Ferries are not included. Only cities with light rail transit are ranked.
1. Seattle (681,000) - already at the top due to its excellent buses, it's greatly expanding rail
2. Portland (310,000) - I haven't ridden here but both observation and APTA statistics show busy trains and buses
3. Denver (406,000) - greatly expanded system, decent buses (?), popular train to the airport
4. San Diego (282,300) - good bus and rail coverage, but spread out city makes some places still hard to get to
5. Salt Lake (155,500) - decent service for a city that's smaller than you think makes the top 5.
6. Dallas (227,200) - good rail coverage that few use.
7. Minneapolis (249,300) - haven't ridden here, so maybe too low?
8. Phoenix (205,000) - pre-pandemic bus frequencies and coverage were surprisingly good. One of the better sunbelt cities.
9. Houston (298,000) - I feel like the rail was built on the cheap with few grade separations making it feel like a streetcar.
10. Charlotte (73,000) - poor bus frequency, poor ridership, maybe shouldn't be top 10. Austin and Pittsburgh would probably rank higher.
For light rail only, if I'm reading page 3 of this APTA report right, light rail ridership in the US for the last year has been:
1. San Diego
2. Los Angeles
3. Boston
4. Seattle
5. Portland
6. Dallas
7. San Francisco
8. Newark
9. Denver
10. Philly (barely beating Houston)
Right, I figured it was a typo. Like I said before over and over again, it's not a good idea to fixate on a singular metric like that, because it belies the very different sets of conditions that can make that true and is vulnerable to being used against transit expansion. In this case, part of the reason is because the LA rapid transit system is currently pretty limited. It's quite possible that as it expands that the ridership per mile will go down during some worthwhile expansions but fixating on that alone is a terrible reason to put the kibosh on such. I feel like this has been communicated to you repeatedly, but you don't seem to understand it. Sometimes it doesn't seem like you actually have that much interest in mass transit or good ways to go about improving such in general, but instead seem bent on trying to argue for your identified home team regardless of whether it makes sense or not.
I don't have a problem "fixating" on that metric because I think it is a good snapshot of the efficacy of that system, and that LACMTA ultimately made the right call by emphasizing light rail (also paying homage to the legacy transit system) and surgically placing heavy rail where it would look and feel like a big city rapid transit.
In between the "red car" era and the modern "Proposition A" borne Metro, there were calls for a 145 mile underground subway-all the way to Warner Center from what I understand. Had those calls succeeded, Metro would likely resemble the BART of today in terms of being a "suburban subway."
So that's one reason I watch numbers like ridership per mile for rapid transit.
I don't have a problem "fixating" on that metric because I think it is a good snapshot of the efficacy of that system, and that LACMTA ultimately made the right call by emphasizing light rail (also paying homage to the legacy transit system) and surgically placing heavy rail where it would look and feel like a big city rapid transit.
In between the "red car" era and the modern "Proposition A" borne Metro, there were calls for a 145 mile underground subway-all the way to Warner Center from what I understand. Had those calls succeeded, Metro would likely resemble the BART of today in terms of being a "suburban subway."
So that's one reason I watch numbers like ridership per mile for rapid transit.
LA is the exception to the rule among Second Subway Era heavy rail metros — all the others are hybrids at best. Washington does combine a core-city circulator network with "remote vehicle storage" for suburbanites traveling into the urban core, but most of the systems/lines — BART, MARTA, Baltimore Metro, Miami Metrorail — perform the commuter function more than they do the circulator function (though Miami's people mover does graft a downtown circulator onto the suburban commuter elevated at the Government Center point of contact).
Boston, a First Subway Era legacy system, got a Second Subway Era commuter system tacked onto it between 1957 (Riverside Green Line) and the 1970s (Red Line South Shore Extension, Orange Line to Malden Center; the Red Line extension to Arlington Heights got truncated at Alewife). Its hub-and-spoke layout no doubt helped make this decision something of a no-brainer.
LA ended up getting a more traditional three-tier system: Metrolink commuter rail, two heavy rail subway lines, four light rail lines and a BRT route. All of the latter serve as city circulators more than commuter routes.
I also consider the systems in San Diego, Seattle, Dallas and Buffalo "light metros" in that they generally operate on their own rights-of-way (as opposed to in reserved medians with crossing gates) and have rapid-transit-style station spacing, even if (as in three of the four cities) they run in the street downtown. Dallas is building a downtown subway to take the pressure off the street-running section. Buffalo is unique in that it runs at-grade in a downtown street, then goes into a subway for service to the outlying districts.
The other interesting thing is, more cities got heavy rail rapid transit in the Second Subway Era (Atlanta, Baltimore, LA, Miami, San Francisco/Oakland, Washington DC) than in the First (Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia; Cleveland comes in between the two eras). And where only one currently running light metro — Newark, NJ (1937) and one fast LRT line (Cleveland Shaker Rapid, late 1920s) — opened in the First Subway Era, we have five cities (Buffalo, Dallas, San Diego, St. Louis, Seattle) with them now, and even more with faster LRT lines (Baltimore, LA, Minneapolis-St. Paul).
Rochester, NY, holds the dubious distinction of being the only city in the country to have opened an LRT subway (1927) and closed it (1956). Cincinnati never finished the heavy rail subway it started in the late 1920s.
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