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I agree, I think they're not that far off overall when you think of rail + bus, but yes, SD has a slight edge.
San Diego has nearly 2X commuter rail ridership and LRT is 38 million annual riders vs. 24 million for MSP. MSP's bus advantage is only about 52 million to 48 million annual riders. If we're using ridership than San Diego crushes MSP in mass transit.
MSP has much higher transit commute ridership. Maybe people aren't aware that (a) this stuff is tracked, and (b) transit systems aren't just the most-known lines or even the largest systems.
It was 4.5% to 2.8% metro in 2019.
MSP is pretty bad, but San Diego is horrific on transit commute share.
MSP has much higher transit commute ridership. Maybe people aren't aware that (a) this stuff is tracked, and (b) transit systems aren't just the most-known lines or even the largest systems.
It was 4.5% to 2.8% metro in 2019.
MSP is pretty bad, but San Diego is horrific on transit commute share.
San Diego has nearly 2X commuter rail ridership and LRT is 38 million annual riders vs. 24 million for MSP. MSP's bus advantage is only about 52 million to 48 million annual riders. If we're using ridership than San Diego crushes MSP in mass transit.
Public transportation usage is much more in MSP's favor, as the other poster mentioned, but also I was thinking that Minneapolis has much higher ridership per mile in regards to light rail. That's the main reasoning behind my saying SD only has a slight advantage.
MSP has much higher transit commute ridership. Maybe people aren't aware that (a) this stuff is tracked, and (b) transit systems aren't just the most-known lines or even the largest systems.
It was 4.5% to 2.8% metro in 2019.
MSP is pretty bad, but San Diego is horrific on transit commute share.
Okay, so I thought about the public transportation option more than any other metric and chose MSP. There are definitely more performance metrics than ridership or transit share. I'll also point out that any statistic of SD city or region transit share is excluding a significant number of workers from Mexico (which comprise a large share of riders), so the comparison isn't the best.
Ridership: tie
Performance: From a farebox recovery perspective, San Diego does very well because it's nimble. Overall, I think they perform pretty evenly based on other metrics (e.g. on-time performance, reliability).
Coverage/service: Minneapolis, mostly because SD bus needs improvements. Minneapolis has done a great job introducing concepts like bus-on-shoulder (the most of any region), while San Diego struggles to get anything innovative done w.r.t buses. It took forever just to get simple bus lanes on El Cajon Blvd.
Options: San Diego has pretty good intra-city rail, so I'll say that wins.
MSP wins because it has a better bus system, which is the backbone of any transit system. People fixate on sexy things like rail, but buses are far more important for a region's mobility & connectivity.
Well San Diego is regarded as having the best climate in the World whereas MSP doesn't exactly have the same reputation. I tried to limit the criteria to things that could be comparable. I almost didn't list "Scenery" but many prefer lush green landscapes over dry/brown ones
The homer in me chose San Diego, but I'm a big fan of MSP because of its great neighborhoods, food (Jucy Lucy!), lakes, biking, museums, etc. I could definitely live there, but I might be a bit cold for me.
Things to do:
Nightlife (pre-2020): Minneapolis hundred times more in my opinion.
Parks and Recreation: San Diego is the best I have seen in America on this in my opinion, Minneapolis is good also.
Urbanity: Minneapolis seems to be much denser. San Diego has an extremely weak downtown for a city of it's size. The neighborhoods near downtown are decent, but nothing special. They have small suburban office parks spread around.
I don't think too many cities have a nightlife district that can go toe-to-toe with San Diego's Gas Lamp Quarter. I was there in July 2018, that was truly a great experience.
San Diego's downtown seemed rather large, it has several different distinct areas, including a nice Little Italy section, a cool restored streetcar, and a pier where you can board tourist boats. We took the boat to Coronado Island - A pretty nice island with beach and we saw basketball legend Bill Walton!
I found the neighborhoods outside of downtown very walkable. I enjoyed walking around Hillcrest and North Park areas. Lots of restaurants. Tried the California Burrito.
Well San Diego is regarded as having the best climate in the World whereas MSP doesn't exactly have the same reputation. I tried to limit the criteria to things that could be comparable. I almost didn't list "Scenery" but many prefer lush green landscapes over dry/brown ones
In addition to the lakes & water. It's absolutely beautiful. I'd love to have a lake house.
I have family in SD, and I am from Mpls and live in the burbs now. Here's my take:
Food - Not sure. Mpls is home to many world renown chefs and amazing restaurants
Culture - Culture? Not sure what this means.
Scenery - No ocean views in MN, no ocean. Also, no marine layer. This is a tossup.
Diversity - The Twin Cities have the largest Hmong and Somali populations in the US. Does this count?
Economy - Target. Best Buy. General Mills. USBancorp. 3M. Cargill.
Education - Idk, but Mpls has U of M. St. Thomas. Augsburg. St. Catherines. MCTC. Dunwoody. Macalester. Hamline. Metropolitan State. Concorida St. Paul. Bethel.
Shopping - Mall Of America? LOL
Things to do - objective. what do you like to do?
Overall Urbanity - "urbanity" is a ridiculous word. GTFO
Public transportation - ?
Brighter Future - Horribly run state in CA. Debt, COL skyrocketing... MN has much better future.
Your Overall pick -
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