SmartAsset looked at the ridership of public transportation in every U.S. city with a population of more than 175,000 people (136 cities) to find the best transit systems.
The Top 10 Best Transit Systems are:
- Washington, DC
- San Francisco, Calif.
- Boston, Mass.
- Chicago, Ill.
- New York, N.Y.
- Seattle, Wash.
- Jersey City, N.J.
- Pittsburgh, Pa.
- Philadelphia, Pa.
- Oakland, Calif.
What it Means to Be the Best Transit System
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority is the second largest system by ridership in the U.S. It is made up of buses handling 130 million trips and a below-ground subway, known as Metro or Metrorail, handling more than 200 million trips per year.
But it’s not just size that matters. The typical D.C. commuter spends 36 minutes traveling to work each day, which is 10 minutes below the average for the 136 cities in SmartAsset’s study.
It is also 8.6 minutes slower than a typical driving commute time, but that difference is smallest among the cities with a significant percentage of the population relying on transit.
Methodology
SmartAsset used U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Communities Survey, the American Public Transportation Association’s Ridership Report and ridership data from transportation authority websites.
The following metrics quantified the efficiency, availability and quality of each city’s transit system:
- The average commute time
- Percentage difference between average commute times of car commuters and transit users
- Percentage of commuters who use public transit
- Total number of commuters who use public transit
- The difference between the citywide median income and the median income of transit users
After ranking each city, SmartAsset averaged the numbers by giving half-weight to the total commute time for transit users and full weight to the other four metrics, and then calculated a score based on that average.
Washington D.C. had the best overall average ranking, scoring a perfect 100. The lower scores corresponded to lower average rankings. This methodology for finding the best transit systems is able to account for factors like when driving is faster than public transit.
Learn more about the study and the Top 10 best transit systems on the SmartAsset website.