Which southern cities have the best public transit systerms? Which are the worst? (largest, downtown)

[Eastern Roamer]

I don't know, the South has crappy Public Transit...

The South has lousy public transit. If Atlanta is #1, that says how bad it stinks. I wish we had transit here (Florida) like they have up North. I'd love to live in Boston, NY, or Chicago, but it's too damn cold. I hear a lot about D.C., good and bad. Transit is becoming the issue of the day. A lot of local government officials talk about it.

[Spade]

Washington DC transit is really good especially the trains. The Bus system usually runs on time and so do the trains. The website is very easy to use if you want to make a trip. If you live in DC, there will be times you don't need to use your car at all. But metro gets you to the suburbs including Old Town Alexandria and Arlington as well.

Dallas is good but they are running into cost problems to the Orange Line. However, they are rapidly expanding and have a great vision on what they want to do. The green Line is currently under construction and it will be the longest out of all lines taking you from SE Dallas through downtown to the NW suburbs. The Orange line is the line that runs from Downtown Dallas to Irving to the DFW airport. If built, that will be huge for DART and Dallas. Not to mention the commuter lines that are planned for the area.

Houston is the same way. They will be starting construction on an east-west line connecting Downtown to the Galleria and more lines are on the board to open by 2012-2013. Commuter rails are also on the board such as one from Houston to Galveston.

Don't know about Atlanta and Miami but they have nice ridership numbers but are nothing compared to the NE and Chicago obviously.

[Rwarky]

Does anyone know about public transit in Charleston, SC and San Antonio?

[ajf131]

Originally Posted by Colts

None of them.

hehehehe well put

[oc2eire]

It's not Houston, that's for sure.

[Galounger]

When Atlanta completes it's Beltline project which is well underway in the planning and land acquisition phases citizens in neighborhoods like Midtown, Virginia Highland, Little Five Points, Lindberg, Atlantic Station, West End, Inwood would be able to travel to and from one another by light rail and as far south as the airport north to Lennox Square or Doraville and East to Decatur by heavy rail.

I could see possibly living in one of those neighborhoods and not needing a car (atleast in the day and early evening) to get around and not having to rely much on the slow inconvienent bus system at all either. The Peachtree streetcar project would only make it better (although that's further off).

Atlanta metro rail has the greatest ridership of any southeastern city and more miles of track. It got a head start on other cities as it begun construction back in the 70's. It is greatly lamented however, because of it's disappointing failure to expand it's lines into many areas that riders would like to be able to go. This failure has been almost entirely due to politics not lack of planning or funding.

[Spade]

Originally Posted by oc2eire

It's not Houston, that's for sure.

But they have plans though. And it's bus system ridership numbers far exceeds the other cities in the South.

[TheProf]

Admittedly, the South has a long way to go in being considered in the same breath as transit in NE cities... That said, I'll vote: Miami. It only has a 1-line, 24-mile rapid system. The current line serves many upper-middle and upscale areas and suburbs South of downtown Miami. Also, there is a connecting commuter rail (TriRail) along with the elevated, rubber-tired Metro Mover circulating Metro riders all over downtown Miami over several routes. At 78 miles, the Tri-Rail giver metro Miami the most commuter rail in the South. Dallas has Trinity Express, but TriRail is bigger. Plus TriRail is much faster now they've double tracked the entire line. New stations abound.

My biggest gripe with TriRail is that it serves the edges of its cities and doesn't go downtown; even in Miami (where you connect to a northern station along the Metro. This means the bulk of TriRail users, esp to the bigger cities near the Southern end, is mainly auto dependent.

I can't consider D.C. as a southern city in the truest sense -- it's more Northeastern... Obviously, if it is southern, it blows every Southern transit network in the South.

[Galounger]

Originally Posted by TheProf

Admittedly, the South has a long way to go in being considered in the same breath as transit in NE cities... That said, I'll vote: Miami. It only has a 1-line, 24-mile rapid system. The current line serves many upper-middle and upscale areas and suburbs South of downtown Miami. Also, there is a connecting commuter rail (TriRail) along with the elevated, rubber-tired Metro Mover circulating Metro riders all over downtown Miami over several routes. At 78 miles, the Tri-Rail giver metro Miami the most commuter rail in the South. Dallas has Trinity Express, but TriRail is bigger. Plus TriRail is much faster now they've double tracked the entire line. New stations abound.

I looked into Miami's transit system awhile back and was really impressed. The only thing keeping me from naming it number one is it's got fewer miles of rail than Atlanta and (surprisingly to me) lower ridership.

[TheProf]

^Fewer miles of rapid (transit) rail. But remember, Atlanta (as yet) has no commuter rail as does Miami. And TriRail stretches nearly the entire length of the huge, extremely long Southland metro area. The combo of TriRail, Metro Rail and Metro mover is pretty comprehensive, though not perfect. One big flaw -- no rail or Metro Mover system to dense, Manhattan-like Miami Beach across Miami Bay.