WalkScore releases first ranking of of U.S. city transit systems

[M II A II R II K]

New Ranking of Transit Systems


April 26, 2012

http://cdn.walkscore.com/images/walk-score.png

Read More: http://blog.walkscore.com/2012/04/new-ranking-of-transit-systems/

Methodology: http://www.walkscore.com/transit-score-methodology.shtml


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To compute our rankings, we calculated the Transit Score of over 1 million locations in the largest 25 cities that provide open public transit data (hey Atlanta and Phoenix you’re among the largest cities that don’t provide open public transit data!).

- Transit Score measures how well a location is served by public transit by assigning a “usefulness” value to nearby transit routes based on frequency, route type, and distance to the nearest stop on the route. Type an address into Walk Score to get your personal Transit Score. City scores are calculating by applying the Transit Score algorithm block-by-block throughout the city using a population-weighted methodology.

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City Profiles: http://www.walkscore.com/transit/

http://i.imgur.com/2MYuq.png

[Via Chicago]

Looks about right. Portland's ranking is kind of surprising though. I havent visited but I was always under the impression they had pretty decent transit...only being one point ahead of Milwaukee is surprising.

[mhays]

Those roughly match actual commute mode splits. Seattle looks right.

[bobdreamz]

Interesting rankings to say the least. I'm quite surprised Miami is ranked so high since so many complain about the system but the bus service covers the county pretty thoroughly including the suburbs.

[Steely Dan]

Portland's ranking is kind of surprising though. I havent visited but I was always under the impression they had pretty decent transit...only being one point ahead of Milwaukee is surprising.

yeah, the portland - milwaukee thing kind had me do a double take too. we hear all the time about portland's efforts to become a transit city with its ever expanding light rail system, yet milwaukee, a city that is almost never heard about on the transit front because of its complete lack of any rail system, manages to score only 1 measly point behind portland with a 100% bus-only system.

that seems odd to me.

[brickell]

Keep in mind this seems to be city limits. Not sure how that affects Milwaukee/Portland, but it's certainly a factor in the higher than expected score for Miami.

My own personal transit score - 33 :shuffle:

And as above, you can search for score by address or neighborhood.

[jg6544]

MUNI rail in SF is o.k. and the trolley cars are fun, but the buses are just as awful as buses are in most places. When I lived in SF, having to deal with those slow, unreliable, filthy buses drove me to get a car for the first time in a decade. DC has much better mass transit than SF.

[K 22]

LA's score may go up since they have a light rail line opening along a very underserved corridor this weekend.

I'm a little surprised Miami got a higher score than LA and that New York BARELY beats SF.

[CentralGrad258]

Seems like a pretty fair ranking, as far as these things go.

[schaalman]

Ummm.....like, where's Atlanta?

[Steely Dan]

Ummm.....like, where's Atlanta?

read the first post in its entirety.

[s.p.hansen]

According to Walk Score, Salt Lake City has a walk score of 97/100 and a transit score of 73; I guess Salt Lake City (the city vs. the metro) is just too small to make the bill.

[CyberEric]

I'm marginally surprised that SF got second, I live here and I exclusively use public transportation and I think we are a lot more than 1 point behind NY. And Boston 6 points behind SF seems a little off, I have only visited Boston a few times, never lived there, but it seems like it's about even with SF in terms of transit.

I was surprised to see Chicago so low, and to see Seattle ahead of Portland too.

[brickell]

I'm a little surprised Miami got a higher score than LA and that New York BARELY beats SF.

Like I said, it's about the municipal limits.

Miami - 35sq miles
LA - 469sq miles

SF - 47sq miles
NYC - 302sq miles

You're always going to get better scores for this kind of stuff for the smaller municipalities that are the core of their cities.

[Chef]

yeah, the portland - milwaukee thing kind had me do a double take too. we hear all the time about portland's efforts to become a transit city with its ever expanding light rail system, yet milwaukee, a city that is almost never heard about on the transit front because of its complete lack of any rail system, manages to score only 1 measly point behind portland with a 100% bus-only system.

that seems odd to me.I think there is a tendency to romanticize rail transit, especially among urbanism geeks.

Buses may not be cool but they are utilitarian and get the job done. There isn't really that much difference between having no rail lines or one or two. I don't have a car so I use transit a lot but light rail accounts for maybe 2% of my trips. A good bus system is probably more important for a mid sized city than rail. Obviously both would be better.

[emathias]

I'm marginally surprised that SF got second, I live here and I exclusively use public transportation and I think we are a lot more than 1 point behind NY. And Boston 6 points behind SF seems a little off, I have only visited Boston a few times, never lived there, but it seems like it's about even with SF in terms of transit.

I was surprised to see Chicago so low, and to see Seattle ahead of Portland too.

Portland's reputation for good transit doesn't really reflect the reality on the ground in most of the non-tourist neighborhoods. That said, when I was in high school, I could get from a suburb 20 miles west of Portland to a neighborhood 6 miles east of downtown relatively easily.

Chicago gets hurt for several reasons, some absolute, some relative.

A relative reason that hurts them is that it's city limits are far larger than San Francisco (at least five times bigger), and bigger than D.C. (by almost four times). Boston and Seattle are similarly comparing a much smaller slice of their metro areas relative to Chicago. The metro areas for SF and DC are still over half as big as Chicago, though, so those smaller limits on the central city make direct comparisons to the larger central city of Chicago fraught with error. Comparisons with Philly are appropriate, as are comparisons with New York.

If the transit-score was weighted, it would make the rankings a little more realistic as for how they impact actual users. As an extreme example, if 90% of the population of a city lived within a 2 minute walk of a train station, but only occupied 5% of the land area, that city might have a terrible transit score even though 90% of people would enjoy great service.

Another reason Chicago is "hurt" in the ranking is that we have either heavy rail or buses. Portland's streetcars get a 1.5 multiplier increase even though they are measurably slower than buses. Same with San Francisco's cable car's and Muni streetcars.

If you measured Chicago by a central half-million people along the lake-front in an area of size comparable to Washington, Boston or San Francisco, I think you'd end up in the mid-70s.

Two other things hurt Chicago's score somewhat - the large number of "L" stations in the middle of expressways, meaning you have to walk further to get to them (people keep telling me that doesn't matter, but here's empirical evidence it does), and the bus frequency service cuts that occurred a couple years ago, reducing the number of buses per week in their calculations.

[Troll]

can someone tell me why the discussion area is constantly filled with threads exclusively about american cities, when there is a perfectly functional american subforum?

[Jonboy1983]

I guess Pittsburgh either doesnt' provide open transit data, or we're talking about city-propers here and not metros (in that case, I believe the city would rank around 60th or lower). In any event, I wouldn't expect Port Authority to score very high -- and that's before the proposed massive 35% reduction in service.

[ChiSoxRox]

I guess Pittsburgh either doesnt' provide open transit data, or we're talking about city-propers here and not metros (in that case, I believe the city would rank around 60th or lower). In any event, I wouldn't expect Port Authority to score very high -- and that's before the proposed massive 35% reduction in service.

It's due to city proper populations, meaning Pittsburgh isn't on the list because the city proper is simply too small. The site gives Pittsburgh a transit score of 55, between Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

[peanut gallery]

I like these maps.

San Francisco:
http://cdn.walkscore.com/images/sf-transit-score-large.png

Seattle:
http://cdn.walkscore.com/images/seattle-transit-score-large.png

Boston:
http://cdn.walkscore.com/images/boston-transit-score-large.png

All sourced here (http://www.walkscore.com/transit-score-methodology.shtml).

[CyberEric]

Portland's reputation for good transit doesn't really reflect the reality on the ground in most of the non-tourist neighborhoods. That said, when I was in high school, I could get from a suburb 20 miles west of Portland to a neighborhood 6 miles east of downtown relatively easily.

Chicago gets hurt for several reasons, some absolute, some relative.

A relative reason that hurts them is that it's city limits are far larger than San Francisco (at least five times bigger), and bigger than D.C. (by almost four times). Boston and Seattle are similarly comparing a much smaller slice of their metro areas relative to Chicago. The metro areas for SF and DC are still over half as big as Chicago, though, so those smaller limits on the central city make direct comparisons to the larger central city of Chicago fraught with error. Comparisons with Philly are appropriate, as are comparisons with New York.

If the transit-score was weighted, it would make the rankings a little more realistic as for how they impact actual users. As an extreme example, if 90% of the population of a city lived within a 2 minute walk of a train station, but only occupied 5% of the land area, that city might have a terrible transit score even though 90% of people would enjoy great service.

Another reason Chicago is "hurt" in the ranking is that we have either heavy rail or buses. Portland's streetcars get a 1.5 multiplier increase even though they are measurably slower than buses. Same with San Francisco's cable car's and Muni streetcars.

If you measured Chicago by a central half-million people along the lake-front in an area of size comparable to Washington, Boston or San Francisco, I think you'd end up in the mid-70s.

Two other things hurt Chicago's score somewhat - the large number of "L" stations in the middle of expressways, meaning you have to walk further to get to them (people keep telling me that doesn't matter, but here's empirical evidence it does), and the bus frequency service cuts that occurred a couple years ago, reducing the number of buses per week in their calculations.

That makes sense to me. It's amazing how often municipal boundaries skew data and evidence.

Those colored maps are fantastic!

[Jonboy1983]

It's due to city proper populations, meaning Pittsburgh isn't on the list because the city proper is simply too small. The site gives Pittsburgh a transit score of 55, between Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Ok that's what I thought. The score of 55 tho is rather surprising. I'm sure that won't be the case if those monsterous transit cuts go into effect in September.

I know they're planning on a Delaware riverfront line from South Philly all the way up Delaware Avenue/Columbus Blvd toward the Frankford neighborhood. I wonder how much that will impact the transit score...

[CityKid]

I thought the same about NYC being only 1 point ahead of SF (I've lived in both for a few years each) and then I realized that NYC includes both Queens and Staten Island.

[fflint]

I put in my address and got a 100% rating--"Rider's Paradise: 36 nearby routes: 21 bus, 15 rail, 0 other."

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

Same here! 100 riders paradise. they even list the expo line which doesnt open till saturday

51, 47, 4, 0

[ltsmotorsport]

San Jose above Sacramento kinda surprised me. I've heard mixed things about VTA, but never experienced it personally.

[fflint]

San Jose above Sacramento kinda surprised me. I've heard mixed things about VTA, but never experienced it personally.
I've only glanced over the criteria used so I can't speak for the listmakers, but I've lived in both cities and can take a stab at why. Both cities have comparable light rail systems, nominally focused on their downtowns, but San Jose's bus system carries twice as many riders and has better coverage and service hours--the busiest line runs 24/7, for example. Both cities have commuter railroads into downtown stations (and share Capitol Corridor service), but San Jose's three lines combined provide more frequency and longer service hours than Sacramento's two, especially due to Caltrain service. Sacramento has seen one of the steepest drops in ridership since the recession started, according to APTA stats, perhaps because of all the service cuts.

[J. Will]

My address has a 98 walk score, and a 100 transit score. If I take the measurement from a nearby intersection about a 3-minute walk from my apartment, I get 100 for both walk and transit score.

[ltsmotorsport]

I've only glanced over the criteria used so I can't speak for the listmakers, but I've lived in both cities and can take a stab at why. Both cities have comparable light rail systems, nominally focused on their downtowns, but San Jose's bus system carries twice as many riders and has better coverage and service hours--the busiest line runs 24/7, for example. Both cities have commuter railroads into downtown stations (and share Capitol Corridor service), but San Jose's three lines combined provide more frequency and longer service hours than Sacramento's two, especially due to Caltrain service. Sacramento has seen one of the steepest drops in ridership since the recession started, according to APTA stats, perhaps because of all the service cuts.

Well, that all makes sense then. Didn't know about the bus service and somehow Caltrain slipped my mind when I posted.

And the service cuts to RT have definitely hurt. We did however just restore service until 11pm (not late, but something) and the starting spur of the Green Line is opening in the near future (although without a very real destination). Baby steps for the capitol city trying to come out of the recession.

[Ch.G, Ch.G]

Is Austin really that bad?

[emathias]

My address has a 98 walk score, and a 100 transit score. If I take the measurement from a nearby intersection about a 3-minute walk from my apartment, I get 100 for both walk and transit score.

The address I use, which is numbered 156 on my street, yields a 95 walking score and 100 transit score. But my building is actually addressed 156-158, using the same door for both addresses. If I put in 158, my walk score goes up to 97! Transitscore is 100 for either.

[novawolverine]

I thought the same about NYC being only 1 point ahead of SF (I've lived in both for a few years each) and then I realized that NYC includes both Queens and Staten Island.

I agree. SF being one point behind was a head scratcher.

Although, I have to say, as a person raised in Queens, the transit there is not nearly as bad as in Staten Island. A lot of places w/o the subway nearby have pretty decent bus service.

[pdxtex]

portland transit is service is excellent and widespread, too bad it usually freaks on wheels. maybe its a west coast thing, im not sure but we have the downright trashiest transit patrons ive ever seen, and ive ridden alot of transit around the country.....

[seaskyfan]

portland transit is service is excellent and widespread, too bad it usually freaks on wheels. maybe its a west coast thing, im not sure but we have the downright trashiest transit patrons ive ever seen, and ive ridden alot of transit around the country.....

Do you think that will get better once the free rail zone ends?

Our Ride Free Area ends in September and I'm looking forward to it.

[pdxtex]

^^^ i hope so. and its already been proven that there are direct correlations between those who commit crime on transit and fare evasion. at least charging everybody and hopefully enforcing those rules with inspectors will cut down on some unruliness. but, thats the problem with open platforms and lax inspection. anybody can get on and probably get a free ride 80 percent of the time as it is right now.

[destroycreate]

When Seattle gets all of its U.C. new rail/streetcar lines completed, how comprehensive of a transit system do you think they'll have compared to the Bostons, San Franciscos, and NY's?

[seaskyfan]

When Seattle gets all of its U.C. new rail/streetcar lines completed, how comprehensive of a transit system do you think they'll have compared to the Bostons, San Franciscos, and NY's?

We have a long ways to go in order to get close to any of those cities.

The light rail as approved by the voters in the latest ballot measure will go from Lynnwood in Snohomish County down to a location that's still to be determined in South King County and then from Downtown Seattle over the I-90 floating bridge to Bellevue then out to Redmond. My understanding is they will likely operate the light rail as two lines - one north-south and the other from the eastside through Downtown and probably to Northgate via the University of Washington - so everything from Northgate through Downtown will be served by both.

The commuter rail will open a southern expansion next year (to Lakewood in Pierce Co) and service frequency will be improving but the Tacoma/Lakewood and Everett Lines are the only commuter rail lines currently and there aren't current proposals for others.

In terms of the streetcars the only one that's paid for aside from the SLUT in South Lake Union is the First Hill Streetcar that just started construction (connecting Capitol Hill and First Hill to King St. Station and Pioneer Square via the International District and Little Saigon).

The big missing pieces in the City are connections across North Seattle and service to Ballard and West Seattle (the old monorail proposal). I think we really need to get that going to really have decent service inside the city with additional expansions in higher density suburban areas. Here's a link to a map from a group working on a Seattle Subway:

http://seattlesubway.org/vision/

I think completing this with additional streetcar service would start getting us closer to some of those older cities. Our density is significantly lower than all three at this point - so good old fashioned buses aren't a bad solution for right now.

There will likely be a new ballot measure for "Sound Transit 3" in the next few years.

[mhays]

Seattle's bus-focused system still beats a lot of rail-intensive systems in per-capita ridership. The fondest dream of LA, Denver, Portland, and some others is to have Seattle's commute transit share, not to mention commute pedestrian share.

That said, we're not doing well at all by world standards. Frankly just ok vs. our very limited competition.

[CyberEric]

That map of Seattle's proposed rail looks good. I'm happy they are making an effort.

I'm curious, what kind of speeds are they seeing on these lines? Those are some long distances to cover.

[mhays]

The current light rail line varies. The part in the Downtown Transit Tunnel has to be as slow as the tunnel buses, which are slow always, and much worse when a wheelchair comes along. (The buses will go away after one of the expansions, not sure which). The surface sections might be faster than that, with relatively few crossings vs. other surface systems. It gets up to freeway speeds on a stretch next to I-5. There are other elevated or tunnel stretches where it's pretty fast.

[seaskyfan]

That map of Seattle's proposed rail looks good. I'm happy they are making an effort.

I'm curious, what kind of speeds are they seeing on these lines? Those are some long distances to cover.

The map is a vision promoted by a citizen's group. The gray lines are the current approved Link buildout. I think we'll likely see at least something across North Seattle in the next Sound Transit ballot measure but I'm not sure when that would be. There's also interest in funding development of subways by the City but that might be unlikely given what happened with the monorail proposal.

The current Link route covers a little over 15 miles of route in 36 minutes which includes serving 13 stations.

[mhays]

The monorail proposal went down due to the lower revised estimate of tax collections based on the funding mechanism the voters passed. The voters would love rail to Ballard and West Seattle. With Sound Transit, it would need sub-area equity, so the other parts of the metro would need their share. Getting light rail farther north and south would be a start. More service on Sounder Commuter Rail would be another, maybe with some track improvements northward, etc.

[seaskyfan]

^ I think any non-Sound Transit rail proposal is going to have to overcome concerns about what happened with the monorail. Not saying it's impossible, just a lot harder.

[jaxg8r1]

Seattle's bus-focused system still beats a lot of rail-intensive systems in per-capita ridership. The fondest dream of LA, Denver, Portland, and some others is to have Seattle's commute transit share, not to mention commute pedestrian share.

That said, we're not doing well at all by world standards. Frankly just ok vs. our very limited competition.

Only using ACS data. Otherwise, for the service area data its as follows:
http://www.ntdprogram.gov/ntdprogram/cs?action=showRegionAgencies&region=0
2010 Data
King County Dept of Transportation
Service area population: 1,931,249
Annual unlinked trips: 113,637,312
Per Capita: 58.84

Sound Transit
Service area population: 2,734,764
Annual unlinked trips: 23,404,762
Per Capita: 8.56

Portland Trimet
Service area population: 1,512,490
Annual unlinked trips: 104,339,822
Per Capita: 68.98

Obviously Seattle is a larger city with a superior bus system, a larger and more populated/visited core, etc. But its hardly Portland's "fondest dream" to catch Seattle in transit use.

I suppose if you are comparing the city of Seattle versus the city of Portland then you perhaps can make a decent case using ACS data, but the city limits of Portland are hardly comparable to Seattle's. Seattle's downtown/core employment and population base are significantly larger than Portland's as well, so there is that...

[mhays]

Yes, I'm referring to the ACS commute share. The difference is too large (19% to 11% for residents of city-of, and something like 6% vs. 7.9% for metro) to be mostly about city limits, but centralization of jobs is certainly a big factor. Another factor is that Seattle has denser core neighborhoods.

[Columbusite]

Not surprised to see Columbus 2nd to last on the list. In the winter even the busiest routes are sometimes an hour late Downtown when they start hourly intervals at 9PM-12PM while other buses are maybe 10-15 minutes late in the same weather conditions. If you don't have money to hang out at a bar up the street to wait for the next bus then you are SOL. You'd have to live in a neighborhood bordering Downtown for COTA to be bearable: at least you could walk home in the time it would take the next bus to show up late. That and residents shot down light rail twice and were indifferent at best in their reaction to a streetcar on the main drag which would have connected the touristy neighborhoods together along with Downtown (with a stop a couple blocks away from a hockey arena and baseball stadium) and OSU including the highly regarded Wexner Center.

Milwaukee is surprising on this list as well. I was also surprised to see the higher ranking they got for cycling infrastructure compared to other Midwestern cities: only Minneapolis ranked better. If the top transit cities list were to include cities just a smidgen smaller Minneapolis would've been a shoe in.

[LtBk]

Columbus is a transit black hole. Amtrak doesn't even serve the city, which is pretty stupid.

[Columbusite]

Well, not really. If they tried, they would have to derail into the convention center where union station used to stand. Currently, there is nowhere for Amtrak or any train to stop even if they wanted to, so it's pretty smart that they don't bother. Transit-wise it's made no significant progress for years, similar to its oft compared sister city Indianapolis. If Columbus had gone forward with the streetcar it would be debuting this year with a 2nd line planned as the next phase, but instead chose to reign as one of the worst large cities for transit: if this were that list they'd be the runner up. Would have been interesting to see what impacts the streetcar would have had on High St and on connecting bus routes vs. the status quo, but oh well: no more guessing needed. :cool: