Someone asked the Antiplanner to comment on this list of the supposed ten best transit cities in the nation. The list includes, in order, New York, Denver, Los Angeles, Boston, Seattle, Portland, Washington, San Jose, Honolulu, and Salt Lake City.
This is supposed to be for students, but it must really be for students who lack analytical skills. To the Antiplanner, a transit system is a good system if it carries a lot of people. If it is not carrying a lot of people, it doesn’t matter how pretty their trains are, it doesn’t deserve to be on anyone’s ten-best list.
The list is correct that New York is number one. Washington and Boston, despite having increasingly decrepit rail systems, also deserve to be on the list. Honolulu? Absolutely. Denver, Los Angeles, San Jose? Not hardly. Portland, Salt Lake City? Marginal.
Here are some actual numbers showing the percentage of motorized passenger miles carried by transit in 2008 (2009 data not available yet) and percentage of commuters who take transit to work:
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Transit's Share of Travel
| Online Rank | % of Travel | Rank | % of Commuters | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 1 | 10.4 | 1 | 32.6 | 1 |
| San Francisco | 5.8 | 2 | 17.7 | 2 | |
| Washington | 7 | 4.5 | 3 | 17.7 | 3 |
| Boston | 4 | 3.4 | 6 | 13.9 | 4 |
| Chicago | 3.7 | 5 | 13.2 | 5 | |
| Philadelphia | 2.6 | 8 | 10.7 | 6 | |
| Seattle | 5 | 2.8 | 7 | 10.0 | 7 |
| Honolulu | 9 | 4.0 | 4 | 9.5 | 8 |
| Baltimore | 1.7 | 13 | 8.0 | 9 | |
| Pittsburgh | 1.4 | 14 | 8.0 | 10 | |
| Portland | 6 | 2.3 | 9 | 7.6 | 11 |
| Los Angeles | 3 | 1.8 | 11 | 6.8 | 12 |
| Denver | 2 | 1.8 | 12 | 5.5 | 13 |
| Cleveland | 1.2 | 16 | 4.7 | 14 | |
| Milwaukee | 0.9 | 19 | 4.3 | 15 | |
| Las Vegas | 1.2 | 17 | 4.1 | 16 | |
| Salt Lake | 10 | 2.0 | 10 | 3.5 | 17 |
| San Diego | 1.4 | 15 | 3.4 | 18 | |
| San Jose | 8 | 1.1 | 18 | 3.4 | 19 |
Notice that San Francisco-Oakland, Chicago, and Philadelphia aren’t even on the online list even though they score much higher than Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake, and San Jose.
This list does not include all of the best performing transit regions. At 9.7%, Boulder scores just below Seattle and well above Honolulu on the commuting index, but because its transit system is the same as Denver’s we don’t have a share of total travel number. At 9.2%, Atlantic City also scores high on commuting but because its transit system is partly private and unsubsidized, it doesn’t appear in the National Transit Database. Madison and Iowa City score high (7.1%) on commuting but not so high (1.0%) on total travel. Bremerton, WA; Bridgeport, CT; and Concord, CA all do very well on commuting, but they are really suburbs of other urban areas.
Boulder, Madison, and Iowa City are all universities towns. If this web site is trying to recommend universities based on (among other things) transit, they should have looked at these and other university towns rather than just the top 50 cities. So much for the analytical skills of the modern university graduates.
It’s amazing, once you leave New York, the percentage cuts in half then drastically declines. Only a few of these cities even have a million (or more) people. Yet every city wants similar scale level of transit as New York (as to how these smaller cities will pay for this immense construction is beyond me). Several of these cities are small, a fraction of New York’s size and level of infrastructure, not to mention tax revenue. So the small cities think to pass any tax they can get to bolster the money to pay for rail. Whole counties end up paying for a city’s project and people wonder where county money went. Shouldn’t Chicago be on the list? Or might it have something to do with the fact that it’s decrepit rail system is on the verge of collapse, it’s was only a matter of time before they took it off the list anyway.
Quoting the article that The Antiplanner linked above (with emphasis added):
Washington, D.C. may have the worst traffic congestion in the U.S., but it also has one of the best and busiest public transportation systems in the country. Approximately 37% of Washington-area commuters take public transportation to work. The Metro is a popular option among commuters, thanks to its reputation as one of the cleanest and most efficient subways systems in the world. The Metro has a large daily ridership, which consists of 910,100 trips per day. Metrobuses, the DC Circulator and Capital Bikeshare are other popular and convenient forms of public transportation in and around the nation’s capital.
Wrong. About 37% of people headed inbound to downtown D.C. and part of adjoining Arlington County, Virginia in the morning peak ride Metrorail. When other modes of transit are added, the percentage of trips on transit in that morning commute is closer to 50%.
And “there they go again” with the “clean and efficient” business (apparently only electric transit vehicles on steel rails can be “clean and efficient”).
As The Antiplanner correctly pointed out in the table above, the percentage of trips region-wide by transit is much, much smaller.
Washington’s Metrorail carries 793,515 passengers in weekday ridership; that is assuming those people commute to and from so wouldn’t that number be roughly cut in half? (June 2011, weekday statistics). Where as Metrobus carries 439,424 weekday riders according to an August 2009 WMATA statistical report (again assume cut in half as they are to and from commuters). In a previous post, the Antiplanner stated that the Washington Metrorail system cost about $17.6 billion adjusted in recent dollars never mind the cost of maintenance, operation, capital costs not to mention it’s future inevitable rebuild now that Metrorail is aging faster than Regis. At the start of construction of Washington’s Metrorail system, the capital cost was estimated by its managers as being $2.55 billion. Antiplanner also reported that between 1990 and 2000, the DC urbanized area gained 133,000 jobs. The number of commuters taking Metrorail to work grew by just under 21,000, but the number taking the bus to work fell by 45,000 for a net loss to transit of more than 21,000. Meanwhile, nearly 165,000 new single-occupancy vehicles were on the road. The reason transit lost so many commuters is that most of the new jobs were in the suburbs. Metrobus could have cheaply been established to take suburban workers to job centers. He also pointed out how Metrorail has done little to help the overall recovery of downtown DC. Downtowns all over the country went through a disreputable phase in the 1970s, and except for Detroit almost all of them recovered, rail or no rail, which makes me wonder how much money we would have saved without it.
LazyReader wrote:
Washington’s Metrorail carries 793,515 passengers in weekday ridership; that is assuming those people commute to and from so wouldn’t that number be roughly cut in half? (June 2011, weekday statistics).
Sounds reasonable, and yes, I agree with you regarding round trips (of all sorts, not just commuters).
Where as Metrobus carries 439,424 weekday riders according to an August 2009 WMATA statistical report (again assume cut in half as they are to and from commuters).
Also sounds reasonable, but we really should include all transit bus service in the Washington region, which also includes the City of Alexandria DASH; Arlington County ART; the District of Columbia’s Circulator; City of Fairfax CUE; the Fairfax (County) Connector; Loudoun County’s Commuter Express; Maryland Transit Administration Flyer bus service; Montgomery County Ride-On; Prince George’s County THE BUS; PRTC’s OmniRide and OmniLink (which serve Prince William County and the Cities of Manassas and Manassas Park); and several private operators that run along the I-95/I-395 corridor as far south as Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
In a previous post, the Antiplanner stated that the Washington Metrorail system cost about $17.6 billion adjusted in recent dollars never mind the cost of maintenance, operation, capital costs not to mention it’s future inevitable rebuild now that Metrorail is aging faster than Regis. At the start of construction of Washington’s Metrorail system, the capital cost was estimated by its managers as being $2.55 billion.
Regarding construction cost, the (non-adjusted for inflation construction cost (excluding extensions to Largo Town Center and to Dulles Airport)) was about $10 or $11 billion, so adjusting for inflation, the Antiplanner’s number is pretty reasonable. WMATA clung to that $2.55 billion estimated cost for many years in the 1970’s, even when it became clear that the real cost was going to be vastly higher. The U.S. Department of Transportation, under President Carter, ordered a re-evaluation of the entire Metrorail system be done because of ballooning costs, but the entire system was eventually completed, long after Carter had left office.
Antiplanner also reported that between 1990 and 2000, the DC urbanized area gained 133,000 jobs. The number of commuters taking Metrorail to work grew by just under 21,000, but the number taking the bus to work fell by 45,000 for a net loss to transit of more than 21,000. Meanwhile, nearly 165,000 new single-occupancy vehicles were on the road. The reason transit lost so many commuters is that most of the new jobs were in the suburbs. Metrobus could have cheaply been established to take suburban workers to job centers. He also pointed out how Metrorail has done little to help the overall recovery of downtown DC. Downtowns all over the country went through a disreputable phase in the 1970s, and except for Detroit almost all of them recovered, rail or no rail, which makes me wonder how much money we would have saved without it.
Metrobus lines were not established (for the most part) because of the high cost of same, and in many places, those county and municipal bus system replaced Metrobus service because of cost.
All of this brings up a very important point – location of private-sector employment centers is not dictated by proximity to rail transit stations. For company executives making these decisions, being a short drive to a major airport trumps being near a rail station.
All of this brings up a very important point – location of private-sector employment centers is not dictated by proximity to rail transit stations. For company executives making these decisions, being a short drive to a major airport trumps being near a rail station.
As near as I can tell, most private companies locate their offices based on:
(1) very nearby location of residences of top company officers, preferrably in the same town, and to hell with the rest of the employees and their commutes.
(2) prestige value of the location in showing off to clients and bragging to their neighbors (generally other executives and professionals) – thus the high rents of trophy skyscrapers and trophy suburban offices in ritzy towns with fancy restaurants readily available.
I have seen many companies relocate themselves to the middle of nowhere in the suburbs, much to the detriment of current employees and prospective new employees, because the new office was 5-15 minutes from the homes of the Chairman, CEO, CFO, Executive VP, etc. Sometimes company offices make multiple moves further and further out into the suburbs as their officers continue to move upscale in the housing market. Other times lateral moves will occur if one group of officers at a company from one suburban area is replaced by another group from a different suburb of the region.
Offices are clearly not located on convenience factors in general, otherwise every company would locate as close as possible to the center of the region served by the office – i.e. downtown.
Airport locations are coincidental to office locations. The truly important factor is the distance of the corporate officers homes from the airport, not the office. The officers want a quick drive to the airport from their homes if they are making lots of trips, but do not want to live in the flight paths of the runways, since that is downscale. The location of the officers houses near the airport then drives an office location near the airport.
Except of course, Washington D.C. has no skyscrapers thanks to the 1910 Heights of buildings Act. The city is chock full of low or mid rise buildings. The law serves to serves to restrict building heights to the width of the adjacent street plus 20 feet more. City leaders have criticized the height restriction as a primary reason why the District has limited affordable housing and traffic problems, though I doubt that if the city had higher buildings affordability would improve. One of the tallest real buildings in D.C. is the 160-foot Cairo apartment building, on Q Street built in 1894; a pretty building. Opponents of amending the law claiming to preserve the character of the city, I’ve been to D.C. which is littered with enough concrete boxes to make a blind person rub his eyes. It wasn’t until the mid 20th century when “Big Government” grew in the city that the architectural garbage started to grow with it. Small government means fewer needed office space and more space for people to live.
Does anyone know what the actual criteria were that were used to devise this list? It is not readily apparent from the article.
You can’t be serious about the lack of expensive high rise buildings hurting DC. What would high rise buildings do to change the 60% high school drop out rate, the 70% fatherless kids, and the extremely corrupt government and school system?
Visitors to DC are just shocked on how the most powerful city in the world turns into a third world nation in just a couple kilometers from the White House.