pacomartin
pacomartin
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June 3rd, 2011 at 7:24:57 PM permalink
Brooking's Institute rated the 10 best and 10 worst cities for public transportation

10 Best, $1 is the best
1 Honolulu, HI
2 San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
3 Salt Lake City, UT
4 Tucson, AZ
5 Fresno, CA
6 Denver-Aurora, CO
7 Albuquerque, NM
8 Las Vegas-Paradise, NV
9 Provo-Orem, UT
10 Modesto, CA

10 Worst, #1 is the worst
10 Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA
9 Richmond, VA
8 Greenville-Mauldin-Easley, SC
7 Birmingham-Hoover, AL
6 Knoxville, TN
5 Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA
4 Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, OH-PA
3 Augusta-Richmond County, GA-SC
2 Palm Bay-Melbourne-Titusville, FL
1 Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown, NY

It did strike me that the ten best are all out west, while 9/10 of the worst are on the east coast.

I wonder why New York City didn't make the ranking? I thought that was our city most dependent on mass transit.
DJTeddyBear
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June 3rd, 2011 at 8:25:54 PM permalink
Cool.

I often comment that Vegas has a great bus system. It's nice to know it's not just me that thinks that way.
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buzzpaff
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June 3rd, 2011 at 9:07:30 PM permalink
It did strike me that the ten best are all out west, while 9/10 of the worst are on the east coast.

Could it be that cities out west have streets laid out in straight lines while cities back east grew up along stage routes? I lived in Denver and streets are neat and orderly for the most part. Grew up in Baltimore and streets just zigzag all over the place.
Wavy70
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June 3rd, 2011 at 9:45:52 PM permalink
Poughkeepsie (29k)-Newburgh (28k) -Middletown, NY (28k)?
Between the three towns with a combined population of less than 90k the real question is why they have a public transportation system at all.
I have a bewitched egg that I use to play VP with and I have net over 900k with it.
SanchoPanza
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June 4th, 2011 at 4:19:06 AM permalink
Quote: pacomartin

Brooking's Institute rated the 10 best and 10 worst cities for public transportation
I wonder why New York City didn't make the ranking? I thought that was our city most dependent on mass transit.


Unless they explained their criteria, it amounts to not much more than one of those "10 best places to live" or "10 best places to have a drink and an affair " work-ups in an effort to jerk up sales, buzz and publicity.
It's sad that usually respected "think tanks" have to resort to such pap.
wschmrdr
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June 4th, 2011 at 5:30:16 AM permalink
Public transportation? What's that? I grew up in the middle of nowhere, you'll have to fill me in. :D

I'm sure NYC didn't make it because as much as it isn't "good", it isn't bad, either. I know I have to find somewhere outside the city to park and then take a railroad in, should I ever venture below that imaginary line extending the northern PA border.
AZDuffman
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June 4th, 2011 at 8:32:30 AM permalink
One reason out west could be better is because of legacy issues. Hire in WPA the local transit authority was created out of 6 then-sturggling companies that all were foreced to sell. So you had streetcars here, busses there, even a train at one point. Over 45 years it has merged in nicer but some stuff is still set as 6 compamnies doing it on their own, not as one big mega-carrier setting up a system. BTW: It needs to be re-privatrized. NYC is probably even worse in that regard.

That being said the high ratings out west suprise me. In PIT I almost always have worked with at least one person who fairly-heavily relied on taking the bus. In Phoenix not only did I never work with any, but barely anyone I knew could tell you where a bus stop was or what the fare was.

Perhaps another reason people like it better out west is back east it is almost always a "spokes-to-hub" system and next to useless for all but travel to the central downtown areas whereas out west cities are more sprawled and not as prisoner to that system?
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boymimbo
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June 4th, 2011 at 8:43:34 AM permalink
Agree with AZ. Most western US cities are spacious and only about 100 years old, while eastern US cities are well established and hundreds of years old.
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pacomartin
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June 4th, 2011 at 9:59:09 AM permalink
Quote: Wavy70

Poughkeepsie (29k)-Newburgh (28k) -Middletown, NY (28k)?
Between the three towns with a combined population of less than 90k the real question is why they have a public transportation system at all.



Usually when they refer to an area like Poughkeepsie -Newburgh -Middletown, NY they mean the two county area (Dutchess and Orange county), which has a population of 700K on a million acres of land. In comparison Westchester county is nearly a million people on 275 thousand acres of land.

But yes, when your density is lower than 1 person per acre, the usefulness of public transportation is minimal. You just need buses to connect some poor areas to industrial parks and shopping malls.
thecesspit
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June 4th, 2011 at 10:04:49 AM permalink
I'm surprised Portland, Oregon isn't on there. I thought their public transport was great when I visted the last two times.
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crazyiam
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7outlineaway
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June 4th, 2011 at 2:46:09 PM permalink
Quote: thecesspit

I'm surprised Portland, Oregon isn't on there. I thought their public transport was great when I visted the last two times.



Yeah, I'd easily put Portland on there and leave Denver off for now. Denver will be very, very good in 5-10 years as they complete two or three more major light rail lines. One is going out to the airport and another is going west to Lakewood and Golden.

I'd like to know what the methodology was here. Some reasons why the bigger cities might have been left off could have been lack of a unified network (San Francisco) or unpleasant vehicles and facilities (Chicago).
pacomartin
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June 4th, 2011 at 5:19:45 PM permalink
Quote: 7outlineaway

I'd like to know what the methodology was here. Some reasons why the bigger cities might have been left off could have been lack of a unified network (San Francisco) or unpleasant vehicles and facilities (Chicago).



The claim is that the think tank provides a comprehensive database that provides the first comparable, detailed look at transit coverage and connectivity across and within the nation’s major metro areas. They looked at 371 transit systems in the 100 largest metropolitan areas.

The criteria was what is the city's ability to get the largest percentage of it's people to work in 90 minutes or less via public transportation. It did not consider any factors such comfort, safety, price, connectivity to airports, or alternative uses such as tourism or getting to a sports facility.

So in analyzing New York Statistical Area they gave it the widest possible geographic definition, which includes the city, most of New Jersey, all of Long Island, several counties in New York state,part of Connecticut, and even one county in Pennsylvania. Then they penalized it because it is difficult to get to jobs in the suburbs in less than 90 minutes.

Honolulu had a huge advantage since they defined the metro area as less than the island of Oahu. Since most people live and work in the city and Pearl harbor, it's a lot easier to get a suburban job in Honolulu than a suburban job in greater New York or Chicago.

They don't appear to have weighted the city and suburban jobs, by the number of jobs. They just averaged the access to city and suburbs. No wonder the east coast couldn't get a high ranking. Their systems are all designed to get people from the suburbs to the city core.

New York City was ranked #12, and Portland Oregon was ranked #13. Chicago got a terrible ranking of #46 mostly because you can't get to suburban jobs in 90 minutes. But Chicago is ten times the population of Honolu.

So, once again a major think tank gives us a ranked list of questionable value. I am sorry I posted the list without reading the report.
7outlineaway
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June 4th, 2011 at 7:13:50 PM permalink
Quote: pacomartin

They don't appear to have weighted the city and suburban jobs, by the number of jobs. They just averaged the access to city and suburbs. No wonder the east coast couldn't get a high ranking. Their systems are all designed to get people from the suburbs to the city core.

New York City was ranked #12, and Portland Oregon was ranked #13. Chicago got a terrible ranking of #46 mostly because you can't get to suburban jobs in 90 minutes. But Chicago is ten times the population of Honolu.



This would seem also to penalize cities that don't have a unified system (as transferring from one system to another takes time, and the length of any one route is limited by geography, among other reasons). Chicago has three systems and in the SF Bay every county is independent in addition to Muni and Bart. OTOH everything in the sprawling Denver area is RTD.

It is certainly true Chicago public transportation is decent for getting to and from the downtown area, but horrible for trying to go between suburbs. That doesn't make it useless, but the infrastructure was built 100 years ago for the commuting patters of the day.
progrocker
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June 4th, 2011 at 8:40:40 PM permalink
I'm surprised no Texas cities are in the Worst list. I've always heard that Arlington was the largest city (by population) in the country without any bus system whatsoever.
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s2dbaker
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June 4th, 2011 at 8:48:57 PM permalink
Quote: Wavy70

Poughkeepsie (29k)-Newburgh (28k) -Middletown, NY (28k)?
Between the three towns with a combined population of less than 90k the real question is why they have a public transportation system at all.

Those three towns are very far apart from each other. Heck, Poughkeepsie is across the Hudson and Middletown is call Middletown because it's in the middle of nowhere. I find it impossible to believe that they share a public transit system. No wonder it's the worst!
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pacomartin
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June 5th, 2011 at 10:15:38 AM permalink
Quote: s2dbaker

Those three towns are very far apart from each other. Heck, Poughkeepsie is across the Hudson and Middletown is call Middletown because it's in the middle of nowhere. I find it impossible to believe that they share a public transit system. No wonder it's the worst!



To evaluate Honolulu Brooking Institute study used one transit system, the City and County of Honolulu Department of Transportation Services. It sort of explains why they were ranked #1

To evaluate the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA they used 21 different public transit systems

To evaluate the Poughkeepsie-Newburgh-Middletown region, the Brookings Institute used an amalgamation of five public transit systems
1) City of Poughkeepsie Transit [part of Dutchess county]
2) Dutchess County Division of Mass Transportation
3) Middletown Transit [part of Orange county]
4) Newburgh Beacon Bus Corporation [part of Orange county]
5) Village of Kiryas Joe [part of Orange county]

The bus service of Kiryas Joel (less than 700 acres populated with 5000 of mostly poverty stricken Hasidic Jews frequently from Hungary) must service women who are not permitted to drive, and also provide transport to nearby cities and jobs. The village has 8 miles of roads.

So there is no county-wide public transport system for Orange County, NY.
FleaStiff
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June 5th, 2011 at 2:18:28 PM permalink
All public transportation is bad.
Usually its Weirdos, Winos and Whackos riding it, or noisy brats or old people taking forever to get on and off.
People who become bus drivers are probably those who were declared just marginally too polite to work at the DMV.
NandB
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June 8th, 2011 at 1:31:25 AM permalink
Quote: Wavy70

Poughkeepsie (29k)-Newburgh (28k) -Middletown, NY (28k)?
Between the three towns with a combined population of less than 90k the real question is why they have a public transportation system at all.



Not only that they are many miles and a river apart. If Kingston, NY made the list, I'd have no qualm.

N&B
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NandB
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June 8th, 2011 at 1:37:40 AM permalink
Therefore no study and ranking. Pure stat spin. Last I heard zero is a number, and where a value is expected to be 1 or more, zero should raise a red flag.

N&B
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