New York City’s public transit is long over-due for repairs and suffers from over-crowding largely due to the city’s ever-growing population. On Monday, for example, New York commuters shared videos and photos of rain pouring into subway platforms, creating waterfalls in some stations.
NYC’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not in great shape, but in like most US cities, the situation has been dire for decades.
Two nonprofit research institutes, the Center for Neighborhood Technology and TransitCenter Center for Neighborhood Technology, have created a project that quantifies the state of public transit in cities across the country.
The institutes created a metric called the AllTransit Performance Score for subways, light rails, bike shares, and buses in US cities and towns. Using open data from 7,236 cities, researchers looked at factors like affordability, access to jobs, frequency of service, quality, and number of stops. The goal is to encourage policymakers to improve public transportation.
The researchers compiled an ultimate ranking of public transportation in all of these cities and towns. On the site, you can filter by zip code and population.
Here are the top cities with at least 250,000 residents.
17. St. Paul, Minnesota
There are 271,861 jobs located within a half-mile of transit in St. Paul.
16. Seattle, Washington
Seattle has over 416,000 jobs accessible with a commute of less than 30 minutes.
15. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
More than 138,000 Pittsburgh residents live within a half-mile of public transit.
14. Oakland, California
There are more than 418,000 jobs located within a half-mile of transit in Oakland.
13. Portland, Oregon
Portland's public transit services 3,781 trips on average per week.
12. Minneapolis, Minnesota
In Minneapolis, there are 167,407 households within a half-mile of transit.
11. Miami, Florida
Over 423,00 of Miami residents (99% of all commuters) live within a half-mile of public transit.
10. Newark, New Jersey
99% ofNewark'spopulation lives within a half-mile of transit.
9. Baltimore, Maryland
There are 313,115 jobs located within a half-mile of transit in Baltimore.
8. Long Beach, California
In Long Beach, over 470,000 residents live within a half-mile of a transit stop.
7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia has over 371,000 jobs accessible with a commute of less than 30 minutes.
6. Chicago, Illinois
More than 2.7 million Chicago residents live within a half-mile of public transit.
5. Jersey City, New Jersey
Public Transportation costs just 10.1% of what an average household earns per year in Jersey City.
4. Washington, DC
Over 644,000 DC residents live within a half-mile of public transit.
3. Boston, Massachusetts
Subways and buses in Boston make over 8,000 trips in an average week.
2. New York, New York
New York City and San Francisco are tied for the best subways, buses, and bike share in the country.
NYC has 19 transit routes within a half mile of an average block and over 1.37 million jobs available within an average 30-minute commute.
This is particularly impressive considering the city has over 8.4 million residents.
1. San Francisco, California
99% of San Francisco's population lives within a half-mile of transit, and 11.1% commute by walking in addition to taking other forms of public transportation.