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Well here's the raw ridership data broken down by riders per MSA in the year. not saying its the best possible but probably better than anything else. it doesn't take into account effeciency of the systems, but probably does take into account the popularity of the systems and the commitment to them from local govts. With the caveat that Pittsburgh and Bufflao are not midwest, but were included in this thread as being close enough to include.
Data is from APTA.
Chicago - 50.7 riders per MSA popluation per year
Pittsburgh -27
Minneapolis - 24.5
Buffalo - 23
Milwaukee - 21
Cleveland - 16
St. Louis - 14.5
Columbus - 9.5
Cincinnati - 6.9
Detroit - 5.3
Indianapolis - 4.7
I think this report is enlightening.Milwaukee for example has pretty high Passengers/revenue mile compared to the others.
Cities near the bottom have an underutilized system (eg more service/rider) while the higher ones (except Atlanta which is reflective of mode share) more people are using less service.
So for example despite Milwaukee having 50% more ridership it actually has a less actual service than Columbus.
Last edited by btownboss4; 10-18-2019 at 09:26 PM..
I think this report is enlightening.Milwaukee for example has pretty high Passengers/revenue mile compared to the others.
Cities near the bottom have an underutilized system (eg more service/rider) while the higher ones (except Atlanta which is reflective of mode share) more people are using less service.
So for example despite Milwaukee having 50% more ridership it actually has a less actual service than Columbus.
Well I didn't read the details but Milwaukee has a lot more ridersip then Columbus, and they seem to be well over it in the other areas, so what do you mean by having less service?
Well I didn't read the details but Milwaukee has a lot more ridersip then Columbus, and they seem to be well over it in the other areas, so what do you mean by having less service?
Service as in service hours. So the total amount of hours busses run in a year. So if they run 250 busses 18 hours a day for 365 days that’s 1.6 million service hours. Columbus actually runs 10% more bus-hours than Milwaukee.
Service as in service hours. So the total amount of hours busses run in a year. So if they run 250 busses 18 hours a day for 365 days that’s 1.6 million service hours. Columbus actually runs 10% more bus-hours than Milwaukee.
Oh got it. thats an efficiency ratio. It is tough to get those midwest cities to use it. Indy and Columbus perfect eamples. Cincy not much better, even though people on c-d bring it as example of urbanity. They're just much more of a car culture. I guess Detroit is a given in the same way.
Pgh and Buffalo are northeast, so they are outliers. but Milwaukee kinda stands out for usage in midwest outside of Chicago. but Minneapolis/St Paul is also decent and will probably grow. I'm guessing St. Lous' numbers will stagnate or fall in the near future.
I think this report is enlightening.Milwaukee for example has pretty high Passengers/revenue mile compared to the others.
Cities near the bottom have an underutilized system (eg more service/rider) while the higher ones (except Atlanta which is reflective of mode share) more people are using less service.
So for example despite Milwaukee having 50% more ridership it actually has a less actual service than Columbus.
That report comes from my hometown's MPO, the Mid-America Regional Council, and it shows that Kansas City has some catching up to do to rise to the levels of Minneapolis/St. Paul or Pittsburgh, the two cities discussed here that KC "aspires" to match.
One thing that I think will be interesting to watch in this regard: Both the new mayor of Kansas City, Mo., and the head of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority are on record as supporting a plan to make the buses free to ride citywide, much as the streetcar is free to ride now.
Given how little of the KCATA's operating budget is paid for out of fares (it's something like 8 percent), this idea makes more than a little sense to me.
They'd have to beef up bus service, though, to really reap the rewards.
_Buster: By "riders per MSA population" did you really mean "riders per 100,000 MSA population"?
That report comes from my hometown's MPO, the Mid-America Regional Council, and it shows that Kansas City has some catching up to do to rise to the levels of Minneapolis/St. Paul or Pittsburgh, the two cities discussed here that KC "aspires" to match.
One thing that I think will be interesting to watch in this regard: Both the new mayor of Kansas City, Mo., and the head of the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority are on record as supporting a plan to make the buses free to ride citywide, much as the streetcar is free to ride now.
Given how little of the KCATA's operating budget is paid for out of fares (it's something like 8 percent), this idea makes more than a little sense to me.
They'd have to beef up bus service, though, to really reap the rewards.
_Buster: By "riders per MSA population" did you really mean "riders per 100,000 MSA population"?
Hi, no its just riders divided by MSA pop. for example Milwaukee had about 32 million annual riders, divided by about 1.5 million MSA population = 21. These are rough numbers, rounded off.
Yeah I know Buffalo and Pittsburgh “aren’t Midwest” but whatever they fit in this class of cities better than the old Northeastern cities.
So my list is
Chicago- Obviously, just way of everyone else’s CTA bus and CTA rail alone would be the best systems in the Midwest
Minneapolis St Paul: Not only do they have light rail but they have a pretty rodbust system of busses including high frequency routes that do not trrminate Downtown which are a big asset IMO.
Pittsburgh: Perhaps one of the best bus systems (like Seattle) in the country with 3 busways and a Small LRT network it’s a solid 3
Then I think it gets messy
Cleveland/Buffalo: Cleveland would be up with Pittsburgh if it hadn’t let its Bus system degrade so much over the last decade, bit both have some exclusive ROW rail and Buffalo has substantial Bus Ridership while Cleveland even considering its bigger size has better rail.
Milwaukee: Slightly better ridership than Cleveland and a bit under Buffalo per capita but that’s more due to the lack of interstates making driving less attractive and an overall more cohesive urban core than Milwaukee County Transit actively doing anything of their own doing
St Louis: similar to Cleveland but a longer trunk line means less rail service to the core.
Then after this the only Transit system worth mentioning is Columbus which is at least really trying to become a legit option for commuting and has seen an increase in ridership the last few years and is approaching 20 mil riders/year which is the APTA cutoff for “large Transit systems”
Wow.
What does that say about transit in the midwest when cities outside of the region have to be added in order to have a substantive thread and the "emerging capital of the midwest" Columbus is barely an addendum to the discussion...
I would say Pittsburgh, but because its not in the midwest I won't. The RNC specifically mentioned Cleveland's mass transit as a factor in their selection so I will go with Cleveland (also one of few heavy metro rail cities in the country).
Probably because overall the city and thus the core of the service area is losing population.
Also a side effect of young professionals replacing working class or poor people is that wealthy people might use Public transit for commuting but not everyday travel.
Places like Boston and New York have seen peak hour ridership increase while overall ridership drops because 2 people making 4 trips each were replaced by three people making two trips each.
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