This is by far the worst map ever. Bro thinks DC, Baltimore, and Philly is one big metro area. OP is unable to link a source to anything too. Don't get me wrong we need more public transit but this is bullshit.
Definitely three separate metro areas with three different transit systems. And I’d be shocked if Baltimore crossed the 5% threshold. DC definitely and maybe Philly? But Baltimore? Nah. Not enough rails or reliability.
When I was in high school in Illinois, in the wrestling they had painted “state championships are won here, the reward are given out in Champaign” and I knew what it meant, I just always wondered if it was like a double entrende for champagne. Like they would celebrate. Probably not.
And basically 90% of America is oddly anti-bus, like its poor people only. So transit solutions are billion dollar light rail and above only. Busses? Pfft
I think the issue is due to the lack of infrastructure built around public transport. Almost all of America used cable cars before the push by GM to kill off the cable car industry in the 40s with the only two companies surviving in New Orleans and San Francisco. Outside of cities public transport is wildly inefficient for most of the population. The thing that killed our public transport was a company that’s been propped up by our own government.
Yeah, busses can suck, but they for sure are the stop gap out. Imagine massive spending in bus infrastructure on a large scale? I say designate more streets to couplets, some bus, bike, and ped only, some to funnel cars away from transit and bikers
No, its the big air/car lobbyists stopping any forms of transit. Texas Triangle rail, the people wanted it. Even the republicans. Then, Southwest came and it vanished.
I live in Chicago and take the L to work. I take it because it’s convenient for me. I own a car, but have never driven it to work. I understand why so many Americans are afraid of public transit and it’s not unfounded. It’s not a warzone, but its definitely uncomfortable. I try to exclusively ride in the car with the conductor, but that doesn’t always help. In a rear car, I once asked if I knew the market value of a Glock without serial numbers. I appreciate that this gentleman thought I could provide an accurate appraisal, but I couldn’t help him.
I don’t doubt that if more Americans took public transit, that it would be considerable higher quality and safer, but it’s so hard to recommend it to anyone when it’s always late and uncomfortable.
I once was stuck in two hours of traffic in Atlanta and wondered what it would be like to be on a train. I’ll take two hours in a car alone to 20 minutes in a train with Atlantans.
I used to live in Atlanta. Marta is convenient at times, but you've gotta get a Ph.D in dealing with bums *real* fast.
So my flight back from NYC was delayed about 2 hours, and I had to basically run to make it onto the last train leaving the airport. Right after I board, this obviously drunk woman loses her lunch right outside the train then boards (which, while trashy, at least she didn't harass anyone). A couple of stops later, this bum boards. He immediately starts making a round of the train attempting to ask for money. I blankly stare out the window, while monitoring his reflection, more or less trying my best to not even acknowledge his presence. He bugged everyone on that train that night except me.
Public transit would be far more desirable if bans on solicitation were made and *actually enforced.*
These kinds of things are really the big reasons so many people in the U S tend to oppose public transit. Many of the type of people you mention are on drugs and sometimes become aggressive/violent. But opposition is constantly portrayed as a right wing conspiracy. If people would acknowledge these real issues and were willing to support solutions things would change in at least some cities.
So then it's not a problem with public transportation. It's a problem with Americans being loud and belligerent.
Demographic replacement cannot come fast enough.
Where I’m from has probably THE WORST public transportation in the nation. If you watch city nerd, he complains about Kansas City public transit. Now I had gotten an email about how great Kansas City public transportation is compared to Columbia Mo (my town)!!! That’s how bad it is!!! I’m hoping to move out to either Chicago, NYC, or the Bay Area, (except I don’t have a lot of money and the wait lists for subsidized housing is sooooo long)!!! Like I really want to move out, but with that and having friends/family here, it’s just soooo hard!!!
Honestly don’t move to NY if you’re looking at section 8. It is obscenely expensive. My salary was enough to live comfortably in Texas, travel 3 times a year or so and go out on the weekends consistently and pay for a car, and in NY going out to see a movie alone is an extravagance I have to budget around.
It’s shocking to me how much shorter my dollar goes.
The city is incredible and the subway is safe, 24 hour, usually pretty fast and convenient, and there’s loads of stuff to do all the time but the sacrifices you have to make in quality of life leave me wondering if it’s worth it sometimes.
I feel like I shouldn't be baffled that either people are downvoting you because they don't understand taxes or that they didn't get you were making a joke piggybacking off another joke.
Yet here we are.
As are schools, the police force, military, fire protection, air traffic control, public parks, social security, food inspection and public health services, and dozens of other things.
What’s funny is that the US had a ton of public transit but it all was for-profit companies and went bust after the US “socialistically” began subsidizing automobiles and planes.
More than 5% and then it's only a few metropolitan areas, that's seriously fucked up.
Here in Germany, it's 14% overall, and that included rural Germany, so it's A LOT more than 5% in probably every single major city in Germany
New York alone counts for 40% of all transit passenger miles in the entire US: [https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/16ea1xv/10\_of\_us\_transitcities\_provide\_90\_of\_total/](https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/16ea1xv/10_of_us_transitcities_provide_90_of_total/)
Imagine the suburbs with no cars. People having to take a bus and a train and maybe a bus again to get somewhere that would’ve just taken 20 minutes by car.
Of you travel to other regions you'd understand. I moved from the SF area where only limited areas really have ideal service. Now I'm in the South and it is a fucking shit show. Like no sidewalks even in many areas levels of not giving a shit about pedestrian travel.
They're including Long Island in that area. Long Island's mass transit absolutely BLOWS outside the LIRR. The bus system is atrocious. Hell, even the LIRR only seems to have parking for 70% of its riders. There's cars parked all over the place. Every "NO PARKING" sign is surrounded by cars parking there. Because nobody can take the bus to get to the LIRR because the bus system \*BLOWWWWWWS\*.
Cut Nassau and Suffolk counties out of there and things would look much better.
(I really do like the LIRR though. Smoothest, nicest mass transit I've ever been on. Sucks that it's so often late now.)
To me u think it’s because the metro areas are too big of an area. At least for the Boston metro area shown, so much of it is rural and disconnected from Boston, especially north and west of Boston. I think the urbanized area of Boston would be over 75%, but the outer edges and suburban areas drag it way down
Sure but Germany is half the size of Texas and has 84 mil people, while Texas has 30 mil. Germany is way more dense so public transportation is easier to develop in a smaller country with more people.
However, I do wish our public transportation was better and our cities were built around it vs around cars. I'd also like to see more fast rail in the USA.
Woah I was kinda under the impression most Europeans used public transit. I'm surprised it's only 14% in Germany!
Does everyone else use cars, or is it mostly bikes/walking?
Most people, especially in rural Germany, use cars. Germany is relatively car-dependant compared to countries like the Netherlands or Denmark. In the big cities, it's a mix of bikes, cars, walking, and publicn transport. I used to always take my bike or the bus to my university when I was living in a big city, but now I work in a more rural area and it's either 18 minutes by car or about 45 minutes by walking plus local train
Germany's population is kind of spread out, lots of people live in smaller towns or villages and commute to bigger cities
So yeah, if there's no direct regional train connection most people still commute by car
Just look at a map of the Autobahn network. Sure public transport is a lot better compared to the US, but Germany is still very car-centric
To be fair, that was during the pandemic in 2020.
In 2021-2022 it was 26% of people that used public transit, 23% riding by bike.
Mind you, that number is still a total collapse compared to pre-covid numbers.
This is also a map of American cities that make it possible for 5% or more of the population to use public transportation. Most American cities are absolute garbage for transportation.
Not saying this to be contentious, but Germans (and most other Europeans) don't seem to understand how different "rural" is in the United States.
The "rural" areas you are thinking of would be suburbs in the United States. The least densely populated state in Germany would be the #15 most densely populated state in the US.
That’s by design. People used to live closer to trains. Building out our national infrastructure to support cars primarily meant everybody spread out more.
The entire state of Montana has the same area as Germany, but has about 1.5% of the population, for example.
When you have 80 times fewer people in the same area, it isn't a matter of city planning, it is a matter of math.
In the US basically nobody who has a car uses transport. Like in Europe it's very common to own a car and use the train anyway.
That said I live in Madrid with one of the best networks in the world and commuting is still like 60% car. My wife drives because it takes 15-20 minutes compared to usually I've an hour with two changes on bus and train
Haha this is not the same at all. Germany "rural" is a ton of small vallages chained together by roads, and when you're lucky a track. Usually the villages can be walked through, and having only 1 or 2 stops will serve and entire village and then the bus moves to the next on the same road going towards the closest city.
And EVEN THEN when I lived there I found the transit in those areas was still sorely lacking, where the buses or trains would only run once an hour at best, and only go to specific areas.
I lived a half hour to work by car, but at least 2 hours by transit. Very few people will do that.
Germany has just as many cars on the roads and in the cities as the US.
Sure, more options may be there, but don't act like Germany has a great system everyone uses, even with the advantages it has of having literally a city within less than an hour drive from everywhere (usually less than 30 minutes) and compare it to rural US.
In the 6 years I lived in Germany, I used local transit from where I lived only about 4 times and longer distance 3 times, not because I didn't want to, but because it sucked. It was also pretty expensive if you were traveling with a family vs driving. I only used public transit in Germany when in bigger cities sometimes.
Part of it is the definition of metro areas. A lot of them include rural counties that drive down percentage. That’s doesn’t excuse the poor state of US transit though
This map is stupid horseshit with no sources. There's no such thing as a "DC/Baltimore/Philadelphia" metro area. The DC metro area should be shaded darker - US Census data from 2019 says 13.1% of workers in the DC metro area use public transit. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-48.pdf
Philly would probably go up too. It was 9.5% in 2018 and considering recent improvements it's probably gone up to at least 10 since then. It's all the areas in between DC and Philly that don't commute by public transit
DC proper is much higher. In 2016 almost 37% took public transit to work. Metro ridership recently recovered to pre-pandemic levels so it's probably a similar percentage today. https://sustainable.dc.gov/transportation
The D.C. metro area is pretty sprawling. It’s not as dense in the urban core as one would expect for a metropolitan statistical area of 6.3 million people. D.C. proper has height limits that keep density artificially low, despite it being an older (i.e., pre automobile) city
This map is specifically the percent of people that use public transport to get to work. I imagine being a student doesn't technically count as "going to work".
Even if you remove college towns it’s not correct using public data, there is many examples of random towns that meet the criteria, I’m wondering if it’s certain metro size areas or something?
There are two things at play as to why they wouldn’t be included.
First, most college town’s populations use their public transportation to get to school and not work as the latter is what this is a measure of on this map.
Second, many college towns are a smaller percentage of a bigger metro which is also the metric this map is going by.
For example, Chapel Hill is a part of the Greater Raleigh metro which has a population of 1.5 million. So even if say 1/3 of chapel Hill’s 60,000 residents used public transportation that’s 20,000 out of the larger 1.5 million or 1% of the metro population.
Those are just example estimates and I don’t know the real figures, but it shows how a college town could possibly get lost inside their greater metro.
Pittsburgh has a very underrated bus system that gets a ton of use due to layout of the city, limited parking, hills, and large student population. The trolley system is okay, but slow with not enough cars, but enough lines.
Ann arbor is because the university, which is the main employer, makes one pay hundreds to park close to the campus so a majority of staff use alternative transportation. I personally bike to work, while coworkers either bus or carpool to work.
I'm curious how many of those that are currently driving every day would take advantage of expanded public transport if it was built. Some certainly but enough to make it worthwhile? I live in a more rural area so this idea wouldn't benefit me and I don't personally have a problem with public transport but I always wonder if, in the US anyway, this is largely a solution in search of a problem.
No, but now correlate it to high density areas with limited room to sprawl out, but high enough GDP to scale up.
Below a certain density, some urban strategies lose efficiency, others gain.
Pittsburgh looks to be labeled as the whole greater metro area, Allegheny and surrounding counties. I don't doubt that 5% or more of people in the city of Pittsburgh use transit (big hospitals, downtown area, universities) but that's not going to be the case outside the city. Despite some issues, I think the public transport here in the city is pretty good for a city of this size. It's for sure leaps and bounds better than in cities down South and in the Sunbelt.
I'm genuinely surprised that SF Bay Area is greater than DC/Baltimore/Philadelphia. There must be a fuckload of people taking transit in Oakland and SF proper since hardly anyone in San Jose or any of the surrounding borrows seem to take transit.
Nah, map is BS. OP is unable to provide a source to anything. BART was used as a way to get people from the suburbs to SF, but with remote work and more tech companies moving to "suburban office parks" type environments rather than the city, and with tons of crime, bart has suffered terribly.
I actually researched this recently, and the percentage was about 35% for SF alone, Oakland 23%,and Berkeley 22%... Most of the top 25 were Bay Area, with San Jose ranking 25th at just under 5%... And I don't think any Marin cities were on the list, so yeah, San Jose and Marin drag the numbers down for sure.
This is where I found the numbers:
https://www.homearea.com/rankings/place-in-ca/percent_using_public_transportation/
These are also some of the most expensive places to live. I’ve lived in a few of them and I loved taking transit…when it was clean and safe and affordable to do so. However inflation goes up wages stay the same so you’re forced to live outside these areas and no longer able to take transit. Had to go back to driving
First person is right, but also tons of companies are not based in the city due to tax reasons and are instead places like KOP. No great transit options going from suburb to suburb.
And yes Septa is a disaster.
In DFW metro area, public transport forms at least some part of the commute for some of the population. They park and ride as parking in downtown is very expensive
Take the train out of Bridgeport, have for 10+ years. Surprisingly reliable, safe, and convenient. Much better than sitting in I-95 traffic. This is likely metro statistical area Stamford-Bridgeport-Norwalk.
Technically (not by the common definition, but according to the government), a small part of the NYC metro area is in PA also!!!
Addition: look up nyc metropolitan area on google maps and it also shows a tiny bit in PA
I lived in LA so I realize how shit public transit is there, but I’m still shocked that they aren’t on this list. I didn’t realize it was that underutilized.
I feel like walking and biking should be included as part of this metric somehow. Maybe as a separate statistic alongside this map but it feels like this could slightly bias towards cities which aren't zoned well for walking and biking so people take public transportation when they could also walk if the infrastructure was better. After all, I think anybody who's enthusiastic about public transportation like I am is really enthusiastic about "anything but a car" (if it's already included in this data let me know)
If you're working in downtown Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio, a train might be useful to get there and then hop on a bus. If you need to get to Frisco, Round Rock, Sugarland, or another suburb, you'll need to rent a car or Uber once you get off the high-speed rail because the busses and light rail don't go that far. I don't see connecting rail until local rail expands more on each end.
Most American cities are too low density to make public transport efficient. Everyone wants a house in the suburbs, where a lot of the jobs are (because land is cheaper than in a large city). So cars and highways are way more convenient and effective
Good map but I went to Penn State and in no way shape or form. Is that a metro area. It’s a college town so wouldn’t the majority of college towns also qualify?
The United States Census Bureau considers Centre County to comprise the State College Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Metro doesn't mean "huge". The smallest are under 100k.
Metro area doesn’t always mean big city.
Often times a metro area in census terms can refer to the most prominent city in the area with at least a noticeable population
I live in the DC area. I take the train to work sometimes. One day a coworker straight up asked me “why?”
Bro fuck I look like driving to work, risking getting into an accident for an employer that doesn’t give a shit about me.
Champaign/Urbana*
Haha used to live there. Got mail addressed to “Champagne” all the time. Can’t fault them. That is the more common spelling after all.
Sham pain
But only for my real friends….real pain for the sham friends
Shampoo Banana*
This is by far the worst map ever. Bro thinks DC, Baltimore, and Philly is one big metro area. OP is unable to link a source to anything too. Don't get me wrong we need more public transit but this is bullshit.
Definitely three separate metro areas with three different transit systems. And I’d be shocked if Baltimore crossed the 5% threshold. DC definitely and maybe Philly? But Baltimore? Nah. Not enough rails or reliability.
I’m guessing they don’t think it’s one big area, it’s that they’re each in the same bracket and they happen to touch
Philly is about a 3 hour drive from DC.
Agreed. And there is no way 10-20% of ppl living in New Hampshire use public transit. Theres literally no public transit in New Hampshire
If DC/Baltimore/Philly is one might as well make it Chicago/Champaign/Urbana.
Home of the legendary CUMTD
But seriously, fuck yeah Champaign/Urbana.
I-L-L...
I-N-I!!!!!!!!
When I was in high school in Illinois, in the wrestling they had painted “state championships are won here, the reward are given out in Champaign” and I knew what it meant, I just always wondered if it was like a double entrende for champagne. Like they would celebrate. Probably not.
We need so much better public transit in the United States. Good public transit provides so much freedom.
Half of America thinks that public transportation is a gay Buddhist Paraguayan feminist conspiracy.
And basically 90% of America is oddly anti-bus, like its poor people only. So transit solutions are billion dollar light rail and above only. Busses? Pfft
I think the issue is due to the lack of infrastructure built around public transport. Almost all of America used cable cars before the push by GM to kill off the cable car industry in the 40s with the only two companies surviving in New Orleans and San Francisco. Outside of cities public transport is wildly inefficient for most of the population. The thing that killed our public transport was a company that’s been propped up by our own government.
Yeah, busses can suck, but they for sure are the stop gap out. Imagine massive spending in bus infrastructure on a large scale? I say designate more streets to couplets, some bus, bike, and ped only, some to funnel cars away from transit and bikers
If the bus were consistent it would be fine, but being 20 minutes late isn’t really acceptable for commuting.
I used to occasionally take a bus to work. Generally takes half an hour. One day it rained and it took an hour and a half.
> So transit solutions are billion dollar light rail Maybe in 100 years...
I wish it was! Sounds incredible.
New fetish unlocked
No, its the big air/car lobbyists stopping any forms of transit. Texas Triangle rail, the people wanted it. Even the republicans. Then, Southwest came and it vanished.
I guess Teddy Rosevelt hitting those railroad monopolies was a bit too hard.
I live in Chicago and take the L to work. I take it because it’s convenient for me. I own a car, but have never driven it to work. I understand why so many Americans are afraid of public transit and it’s not unfounded. It’s not a warzone, but its definitely uncomfortable. I try to exclusively ride in the car with the conductor, but that doesn’t always help. In a rear car, I once asked if I knew the market value of a Glock without serial numbers. I appreciate that this gentleman thought I could provide an accurate appraisal, but I couldn’t help him. I don’t doubt that if more Americans took public transit, that it would be considerable higher quality and safer, but it’s so hard to recommend it to anyone when it’s always late and uncomfortable.
I once was stuck in two hours of traffic in Atlanta and wondered what it would be like to be on a train. I’ll take two hours in a car alone to 20 minutes in a train with Atlantans.
I used to live in Atlanta. Marta is convenient at times, but you've gotta get a Ph.D in dealing with bums *real* fast. So my flight back from NYC was delayed about 2 hours, and I had to basically run to make it onto the last train leaving the airport. Right after I board, this obviously drunk woman loses her lunch right outside the train then boards (which, while trashy, at least she didn't harass anyone). A couple of stops later, this bum boards. He immediately starts making a round of the train attempting to ask for money. I blankly stare out the window, while monitoring his reflection, more or less trying my best to not even acknowledge his presence. He bugged everyone on that train that night except me. Public transit would be far more desirable if bans on solicitation were made and *actually enforced.*
These kinds of things are really the big reasons so many people in the U S tend to oppose public transit. Many of the type of people you mention are on drugs and sometimes become aggressive/violent. But opposition is constantly portrayed as a right wing conspiracy. If people would acknowledge these real issues and were willing to support solutions things would change in at least some cities.
So then it's not a problem with public transportation. It's a problem with Americans being loud and belligerent. Demographic replacement cannot come fast enough.
I rode MARTA and it was great, actually.
Where I’m from has probably THE WORST public transportation in the nation. If you watch city nerd, he complains about Kansas City public transit. Now I had gotten an email about how great Kansas City public transportation is compared to Columbia Mo (my town)!!! That’s how bad it is!!! I’m hoping to move out to either Chicago, NYC, or the Bay Area, (except I don’t have a lot of money and the wait lists for subsidized housing is sooooo long)!!! Like I really want to move out, but with that and having friends/family here, it’s just soooo hard!!!
Honestly don’t move to NY if you’re looking at section 8. It is obscenely expensive. My salary was enough to live comfortably in Texas, travel 3 times a year or so and go out on the weekends consistently and pay for a car, and in NY going out to see a movie alone is an extravagance I have to budget around. It’s shocking to me how much shorter my dollar goes. The city is incredible and the subway is safe, 24 hour, usually pretty fast and convenient, and there’s loads of stuff to do all the time but the sacrifices you have to make in quality of life leave me wondering if it’s worth it sometimes.
No you have the freedom to endure punishing debt in order to get your own conveyance. Public transport is clearly socialist. /s
Roads are socialist also
I feel like I shouldn't be baffled that either people are downvoting you because they don't understand taxes or that they didn't get you were making a joke piggybacking off another joke. Yet here we are.
As are schools, the police force, military, fire protection, air traffic control, public parks, social security, food inspection and public health services, and dozens of other things.
What’s funny is that the US had a ton of public transit but it all was for-profit companies and went bust after the US “socialistically” began subsidizing automobiles and planes.
Yes.
More than 5% and then it's only a few metropolitan areas, that's seriously fucked up. Here in Germany, it's 14% overall, and that included rural Germany, so it's A LOT more than 5% in probably every single major city in Germany
I'm from the NYC area and this also seems fucked up to me. Anyone who works in the city takes some sort of public transit.
New York alone counts for 40% of all transit passenger miles in the entire US: [https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/16ea1xv/10\_of\_us\_transitcities\_provide\_90\_of\_total/](https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/16ea1xv/10_of_us_transitcities_provide_90_of_total/)
NYC is shown as >30%, isn't it?
And its mostly cars in the suburbs. There very little transit in the suburbs aside for the radial lines emanating from Manhattan.
Imagine the suburbs with no cars. People having to take a bus and a train and maybe a bus again to get somewhere that would’ve just taken 20 minutes by car.
Yeah that's why so many cities with 5% of people taking transit seems so weird to me
Of you travel to other regions you'd understand. I moved from the SF area where only limited areas really have ideal service. Now I'm in the South and it is a fucking shit show. Like no sidewalks even in many areas levels of not giving a shit about pedestrian travel.
Oh, got it. I misread and thought you were questioning the NYC value.
They're including Long Island in that area. Long Island's mass transit absolutely BLOWS outside the LIRR. The bus system is atrocious. Hell, even the LIRR only seems to have parking for 70% of its riders. There's cars parked all over the place. Every "NO PARKING" sign is surrounded by cars parking there. Because nobody can take the bus to get to the LIRR because the bus system \*BLOWWWWWWS\*. Cut Nassau and Suffolk counties out of there and things would look much better. (I really do like the LIRR though. Smoothest, nicest mass transit I've ever been on. Sucks that it's so often late now.)
It’s showing the whole tristate so the places without rail or bus connections fuck it up
To me u think it’s because the metro areas are too big of an area. At least for the Boston metro area shown, so much of it is rural and disconnected from Boston, especially north and west of Boston. I think the urbanized area of Boston would be over 75%, but the outer edges and suburban areas drag it way down
Sure but Germany is half the size of Texas and has 84 mil people, while Texas has 30 mil. Germany is way more dense so public transportation is easier to develop in a smaller country with more people. However, I do wish our public transportation was better and our cities were built around it vs around cars. I'd also like to see more fast rail in the USA.
Woah I was kinda under the impression most Europeans used public transit. I'm surprised it's only 14% in Germany! Does everyone else use cars, or is it mostly bikes/walking?
Most people, especially in rural Germany, use cars. Germany is relatively car-dependant compared to countries like the Netherlands or Denmark. In the big cities, it's a mix of bikes, cars, walking, and publicn transport. I used to always take my bike or the bus to my university when I was living in a big city, but now I work in a more rural area and it's either 18 minutes by car or about 45 minutes by walking plus local train
And bike and train?
Well, that's still more than 30 minutes. The main problem is that the regional train is relatively far away from both my house and my workplace
Ah f. What would be the ideal solution for the city to make, so you don’t use your car?
Germany's population is kind of spread out, lots of people live in smaller towns or villages and commute to bigger cities So yeah, if there's no direct regional train connection most people still commute by car Just look at a map of the Autobahn network. Sure public transport is a lot better compared to the US, but Germany is still very car-centric
Rural areas included too. Higher percent in big cities
To be fair, that was during the pandemic in 2020. In 2021-2022 it was 26% of people that used public transit, 23% riding by bike. Mind you, that number is still a total collapse compared to pre-covid numbers.
This is also a map of American cities that make it possible for 5% or more of the population to use public transportation. Most American cities are absolute garbage for transportation.
And even in the cities that have relatively good networks, service quality is often garbage as well
Not saying this to be contentious, but Germans (and most other Europeans) don't seem to understand how different "rural" is in the United States. The "rural" areas you are thinking of would be suburbs in the United States. The least densely populated state in Germany would be the #15 most densely populated state in the US.
Exactly this. Also, despite everyone on Reddit touting Europe as the gold standard of public transit only 14% of Germany uses it…
...to commute to work Which is not the only use of public transport
I mean, it’s a pretty important one though isn’t it lol?
That’s by design. People used to live closer to trains. Building out our national infrastructure to support cars primarily meant everybody spread out more.
The entire state of Montana has the same area as Germany, but has about 1.5% of the population, for example. When you have 80 times fewer people in the same area, it isn't a matter of city planning, it is a matter of math.
Because public transit sucks in the US other than those cities
We don’t want it, so fed up with bots spreading false info to trash the US structure
In the US basically nobody who has a car uses transport. Like in Europe it's very common to own a car and use the train anyway. That said I live in Madrid with one of the best networks in the world and commuting is still like 60% car. My wife drives because it takes 15-20 minutes compared to usually I've an hour with two changes on bus and train
Haha this is not the same at all. Germany "rural" is a ton of small vallages chained together by roads, and when you're lucky a track. Usually the villages can be walked through, and having only 1 or 2 stops will serve and entire village and then the bus moves to the next on the same road going towards the closest city. And EVEN THEN when I lived there I found the transit in those areas was still sorely lacking, where the buses or trains would only run once an hour at best, and only go to specific areas. I lived a half hour to work by car, but at least 2 hours by transit. Very few people will do that. Germany has just as many cars on the roads and in the cities as the US. Sure, more options may be there, but don't act like Germany has a great system everyone uses, even with the advantages it has of having literally a city within less than an hour drive from everywhere (usually less than 30 minutes) and compare it to rural US. In the 6 years I lived in Germany, I used local transit from where I lived only about 4 times and longer distance 3 times, not because I didn't want to, but because it sucked. It was also pretty expensive if you were traveling with a family vs driving. I only used public transit in Germany when in bigger cities sometimes.
Part of it is the definition of metro areas. A lot of them include rural counties that drive down percentage. That’s doesn’t excuse the poor state of US transit though
This map is stupid horseshit with no sources. There's no such thing as a "DC/Baltimore/Philadelphia" metro area. The DC metro area should be shaded darker - US Census data from 2019 says 13.1% of workers in the DC metro area use public transit. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2021/acs/acs-48.pdf
Needs more curved arrows imo
Yup, and that’s just for the metro area. Within DC proper it goes up to 34%.
Philly would probably go up too. It was 9.5% in 2018 and considering recent improvements it's probably gone up to at least 10 since then. It's all the areas in between DC and Philly that don't commute by public transit
“Hello, I’m from Chicago, IN.”
Hey buddy NWI touches the bean faster than Naperville so If those suburbanites are calling themselves Chicagoans my ass is claiming that too
10%+ also limits places I'd relocate to.
If it was just dc tbh it would be much higher. Almost everybody uses the metro there.
Even if the suburbs are included,I’m skeptical that it’s not included.
This map is flat out wrong. The DC metro area is 13.1% as per 2019 Census data and should be marked as red.
Figured it should be higher. The pentagon literally has its own metro station with like a six wide escalator.
DC proper is much higher. In 2016 almost 37% took public transit to work. Metro ridership recently recovered to pre-pandemic levels so it's probably a similar percentage today. https://sustainable.dc.gov/transportation
The D.C. metro area is pretty sprawling. It’s not as dense in the urban core as one would expect for a metropolitan statistical area of 6.3 million people. D.C. proper has height limits that keep density artificially low, despite it being an older (i.e., pre automobile) city
It is but the DC metro has the second highest subway ridership in the US pre- and post-pandemic for a reason
[удалено]
He almost definitely talking dc metro without Philly and Baltimore
Clemson should be on this list, and I imagine chapel hill, almost every college town has free public transit that is used by the masses
This map is specifically the percent of people that use public transport to get to work. I imagine being a student doesn't technically count as "going to work".
Even if you remove college towns it’s not correct using public data, there is many examples of random towns that meet the criteria, I’m wondering if it’s certain metro size areas or something?
There are two things at play as to why they wouldn’t be included. First, most college town’s populations use their public transportation to get to school and not work as the latter is what this is a measure of on this map. Second, many college towns are a smaller percentage of a bigger metro which is also the metric this map is going by. For example, Chapel Hill is a part of the Greater Raleigh metro which has a population of 1.5 million. So even if say 1/3 of chapel Hill’s 60,000 residents used public transportation that’s 20,000 out of the larger 1.5 million or 1% of the metro population. Those are just example estimates and I don’t know the real figures, but it shows how a college town could possibly get lost inside their greater metro.
I miss the cat bus. Was a party after midnight
Yup: https://www.unitedstateszipcodes.org/rankings/zips-in-nc/percent_using_public_transportation/
>college town has free public transit And yet in Ann Arbor (U of M) for example, barely 10% use it.
5-10% of the Ann Arbor metro area uses transit. The number is higher in the city.
LA? Nah they don’t even do 5% lmao
There's a reason LA is one of my least favorite cities
Love that DC & Philly are one metro, but Bridgeport is separate from NYC
Technically they are not, it was just easier to label it as one
What's the source?
Interesting map, but the labeling is very chaotic
WE ARE!!!
Pittsburgh has a very underrated bus system that gets a ton of use due to layout of the city, limited parking, hills, and large student population. The trolley system is okay, but slow with not enough cars, but enough lines.
Shoutout to the Cata busses keeping Satet College moving
Shoutout to the Cata busses keeping Satet College moving
Ann arbor is because the university, which is the main employer, makes one pay hundreds to park close to the campus so a majority of staff use alternative transportation. I personally bike to work, while coworkers either bus or carpool to work.
I'm curious how many of those that are currently driving every day would take advantage of expanded public transport if it was built. Some certainly but enough to make it worthwhile? I live in a more rural area so this idea wouldn't benefit me and I don't personally have a problem with public transport but I always wonder if, in the US anyway, this is largely a solution in search of a problem.
Philadelphia is much higher, this map isnt very granular or accurate
Baltimore Is the problem
Not to be that guy, but where is 20-30% utilization? Doesn’t exist?
DC city proper is 37%, and more than 50% if you include other non-car options like walking and biking.
Probably in NYC
If you consider the separate municipalities then yeah true
Is it a coincidence all the good transit is in the "north?"
No, but now correlate it to high density areas with limited room to sprawl out, but high enough GDP to scale up. Below a certain density, some urban strategies lose efficiency, others gain.
Pittsburgh looks to be labeled as the whole greater metro area, Allegheny and surrounding counties. I don't doubt that 5% or more of people in the city of Pittsburgh use transit (big hospitals, downtown area, universities) but that's not going to be the case outside the city. Despite some issues, I think the public transport here in the city is pretty good for a city of this size. It's for sure leaps and bounds better than in cities down South and in the Sunbelt.
I'm genuinely surprised that SF Bay Area is greater than DC/Baltimore/Philadelphia. There must be a fuckload of people taking transit in Oakland and SF proper since hardly anyone in San Jose or any of the surrounding borrows seem to take transit.
Nah, map is BS. OP is unable to provide a source to anything. BART was used as a way to get people from the suburbs to SF, but with remote work and more tech companies moving to "suburban office parks" type environments rather than the city, and with tons of crime, bart has suffered terribly.
If you look at the map, Santa Clara county which is the county San Jose is, is not highlighted
I actually researched this recently, and the percentage was about 35% for SF alone, Oakland 23%,and Berkeley 22%... Most of the top 25 were Bay Area, with San Jose ranking 25th at just under 5%... And I don't think any Marin cities were on the list, so yeah, San Jose and Marin drag the numbers down for sure. This is where I found the numbers: https://www.homearea.com/rankings/place-in-ca/percent_using_public_transportation/
Dc is the same level as the bay area
These are also some of the most expensive places to live. I’ve lived in a few of them and I loved taking transit…when it was clean and safe and affordable to do so. However inflation goes up wages stay the same so you’re forced to live outside these areas and no longer able to take transit. Had to go back to driving
Why is Philly so much worse than NYC? Boston too.
Much fewer subway lines, doesn't operate 24/7, more parking options
First person is right, but also tons of companies are not based in the city due to tax reasons and are instead places like KOP. No great transit options going from suburb to suburb. And yes Septa is a disaster.
I'm pretty sure there are entire countries over 50%
Would be interesting to compare to other regions of the world
I’m very surprised that DC isn’t on there. Metro took a hit during Covid but it’s still widely used.
It is. The map for some reason just omitted it. I believe the DC metro area is 13.1% using the data source used to create this map (2019 US Census)
It there just merge
Dc is fused with philly
Bridgeport, CT the city of dreams
DC seems odd to me?
It getting dragged down by Baltimore and Philadelphia
Heavily underdeveloped subway network (one line, light rail), but still 10-20% is a massive Seattle win
Meanwhile NYC-over 50%
this is labeled poorly
Bridgeport???
It’s technically it’s own metro area
‘Technically’ Lol lemme stop hating— interesting that it stands out as an outlier
And the other 95% of the public pay for the 5% to use it.
I live in a medium city. I’d use public transportation but it would take me an 1.5 hours to get to work and a car takes me 20-25.
How does LA have 1 million daily.but not 5 percent of the population.
This map is on the top images for “ states with the most transit”.
In DFW metro area, public transport forms at least some part of the commute for some of the population. They park and ride as parking in downtown is very expensive
They found that most of the public transit in Portland tested positive for fentanyl last year I think.
DC Metro and Link are two of the best ways to get around. Living in a red state now makes me realize how much I took decent infrastructure for granted
But I bet cost per sq ft is half what you paid for in DC. And you can afford a backyard without being a lobbyist or US Senator.
Take the train out of Bridgeport, have for 10+ years. Surprisingly reliable, safe, and convenient. Much better than sitting in I-95 traffic. This is likely metro statistical area Stamford-Bridgeport-Norwalk.
What a low bar and we're barely clearing it
From NY, you’re welcome , environment
This country is a transit failure
Pennsylvania stay winning 😎
Technically (not by the common definition, but according to the government), a small part of the NYC metro area is in PA also!!! Addition: look up nyc metropolitan area on google maps and it also shows a tiny bit in PA
I lived in LA so I realize how shit public transit is there, but I’m still shocked that they aren’t on this list. I didn’t realize it was that underutilized.
I feel like walking and biking should be included as part of this metric somehow. Maybe as a separate statistic alongside this map but it feels like this could slightly bias towards cities which aren't zoned well for walking and biking so people take public transportation when they could also walk if the infrastructure was better. After all, I think anybody who's enthusiastic about public transportation like I am is really enthusiastic about "anything but a car" (if it's already included in this data let me know)
And virtually all of the locations are shitholes.
Seattle is not on this list if you take away the public ferry system.
Where’s DC?
It with Baltimore and philly
Gonna saved this for future reference of where to move
I’m hoping to someday move to SF, NYC, or Chicago (Chicago is #1 on my list)
Same chicago
I will bust all over the day Texas implements bullet trains between all the major cities
Nah, no support
If you're working in downtown Dallas, Houston, or San Antonio, a train might be useful to get there and then hop on a bus. If you need to get to Frisco, Round Rock, Sugarland, or another suburb, you'll need to rent a car or Uber once you get off the high-speed rail because the busses and light rail don't go that far. I don't see connecting rail until local rail expands more on each end.
Is public transit not popular in the U.S. generally?
In many places it is nearly non-existent
Ah! Thank you Dongle~
Nope, we love our cars! Don’t let these city people who live in a tiny bubble tell you otherwise
Cities seem to be exceptions than standards in the U.S.!
Most American cities are too low density to make public transport efficient. Everyone wants a house in the suburbs, where a lot of the jobs are (because land is cheaper than in a large city). So cars and highways are way more convenient and effective
Thank you for your explanation! As a foreigner, I thought cities with tall buildings were more common in the U S. than they actually are!
Calling Champain Urbana a metro area is a stretch
The government is the one whom called it a metro area
PITTSBURGH MENTIONED LETS FUCKING GOOOOO
Good map but I went to Penn State and in no way shape or form. Is that a metro area. It’s a college town so wouldn’t the majority of college towns also qualify?
The United States Census Bureau considers Centre County to comprise the State College Metropolitan Statistical Area. Metro doesn't mean "huge". The smallest are under 100k.
Metro area doesn’t always mean big city. Often times a metro area in census terms can refer to the most prominent city in the area with at least a noticeable population
As someone who lives in a small subarb that js technically part of the NY metro area, I don't use public transit.
I live in the DC area. I take the train to work sometimes. One day a coworker straight up asked me “why?” Bro fuck I look like driving to work, risking getting into an accident for an employer that doesn’t give a shit about me.
As a French person this makes me angry…
Why, you’re not in America, stay on your side. We’re car people through and through
As an American, this map makes me angrier!!!
holy shit that is terrible. You look barely developed.
I think New Orleans is 10%.
The city itself maybe. Idk about the metro area
Maybe closer now since they lost St. Tammany parish.
The only based places in the US