Part of the issue with this topic (comparing transit in Canada, the US and Europe) is in disentangling culture and competing modes (mostly cars) from the actual transit service. Cultural differences such as whether or not transit is seen as a respectable option or solely for the poor can have a big effect on ridership as can the availability of other options. If it's cheaper and/or faster to use cars in one place than another due to massive investment in car infrastructure, then that will attract a lot more people to driving. But neither factor are the actual transit service or infrastructure. So if you want to compare the transit systems you can't do it just by comparing ridership which is affected as much or more by those other things.
So if you want to compare transit achievements such as a city having a rail line capable of carrying a certain volume of riders, mentioning that another city has just as many total riders but on buses isn't really relevant. A city that puts together the money and political will to upgrade its infrastructure to make the experience better for those riders deserves to be recognized. If anything, it deserves more credit for doing it without having more riders than a city who didn't do it since it didn't view higher order transit as something to only built when forced.
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
Don't ask people not to debate a topic. Just stop making debatable assertions. Problem solved.
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