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Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

citylab.com

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Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#21

Post by bronbron »

techsupporter wrote: post #14
bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

> and King County Metro is just a shit show in general. Ah, yes, I was wondering if I was going to read this here. In the same sentence that you give BART a pass for stopping at midnight and not going "everywhere," Metro gets written off completely. Even thought it has a 5am to 1am span of service, 14 night owl routes, daily express service from as far out as North (freakin') Bend, and is the most-used mode of transp…

Unless it's changed DRASTICALLY in the last couple years, yes it's a shit show.

I would frequently walk home from Fremont to Ravenna because it was 2 AM and there was no way to get home aside from getting in a cab (and good luck competing with the million other people trying to get a cab that time of night), or waiting maybe an hour for a bus to maybe come by when it was supposed to. At least in SF there was no illusion of public transportation to get me anywhere very far after midnight.

As to why it's a "shit show" as compared to other cities, Metro is constantly in limbo and notoriously unreliable. Didn't they just cut a bunch of routes because of budget shortfalls? http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am/future/service-cuts.html

EDIT: The whole reason OBA is/was even remotely popular is because of how notoriously unreliable buses are in Seattle.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#22

Post by jpatokal »

techsupporter wrote: post #14
bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

> and King County Metro is just a shit show in general. Ah, yes, I was wondering if I was going to read this here. In the same sentence that you give BART a pass for stopping at midnight and not going "everywhere," Metro gets written off completely. Even thought it has a 5am to 1am span of service, 14 night owl routes, daily express service from as far out as North (freakin') Bend, and is the most-used mode of transp…

Sorry, any public transport system that relies on buses as the backbone will be a "shit show". Buses are uncomfortable, slow, unreliable, get stuck in traffic, etc etc. "Bus rapid transit", dedicated lanes and so on ease the pain a bit, but at the end of day, they just can't compete with any service that has fully dedicated right of way.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#23

Post by jpatokal »

techsupporter wrote: post #14
bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

> and King County Metro is just a shit show in general. Ah, yes, I was wondering if I was going to read this here. In the same sentence that you give BART a pass for stopping at midnight and not going "everywhere," Metro gets written off completely. Even thought it has a 5am to 1am span of service, 14 night owl routes, daily express service from as far out as North (freakin') Bend, and is the most-used mode of transp…

Sorry, any public transport system that relies on buses as the backbone will be a "shit show". Buses are uncomfortable, slow, unreliable, get stuck in traffic, etc etc. "Bus rapid transit", dedicated lanes and so on ease the pain a bit, but at the end of day, they just can't compete with any service that has fully dedicated right of way.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#24

Post by yonran »

The methodology is described here: http://www.cts.umn.edu/Publications/ResearchReports/reportde.... They calculated the number of jobs that a random worker (assuming everyone lives in the centroid of the Census block he resides in) can get to by transit at every 10 minute threshold, multiplied by an exponential penalty with time constant 12.5 minutes. The metropolitan areas are ranked by this score. This basically says how many jobs that you can catch the bus to, given that you reside somewhere in the metro area.

This analysis is more sophisticated than WalkScore’s Transit Score; this analysis uses OpenTripPlanner to simulate trips rather than just counting the number of bus lines near a given location.

There are many related questions that are not directly answered by this report, but I think on the top of everyone’s mind is: How many apartments can you afford in commute distance from a random job? I’m guessing San Francisco would no longer rank near the top anymore. To determine whether the transit system is good enough for car-free living, one would also want a score that takes into account trips to other destinations such as bars and grocery stores.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#25

Post by apaprocki »

bronbron wrote: post #8

Having lived in Boston, SF, Seattle, and now NYC (and having visited LA on numerous occasions), not at all surprised to see this. Even considering the population differences, NYC wins by a large margin if the goal is 'best public transportation', and by proxy 'best metro area for commuters'. NYC has (by far) the best public transportation system in the US. Nothing even comes close, though obviously MTA is not perfect…

The trains are only one part of the puzzle. Where I live in Brooklyn I can walk 15 minutes to two different subway lines (DR!), but I can also bike entirely, take the ferry to two different stops that then either travel on a third subway line or let me bike share the remaining 15 blocks, drive to work in an emergency via 2 different bridges or a tunnel, or take the local car service either entirely on the same route (or Uber taxi) or half way to a fourth subway line. Amazingly all of these combinations result in the same 35 minute door to desk commute. The redundancy in the face of bad weather or emergencies is what really pays off in the end when you must get to work. If you live on a far away train line you do have public transportation, but way fewer options if something happens to take out the train (failure, snow, flooding, etc.)

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#27

Post by techsupporter »

bronbron wrote: post #21
techsupporter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and King County Metro is just a shit show in general. Ah, yes, I was wondering if I was going to read this here. In the same sentence that you give BART a pass for stopping at midnight and not going "everywhere," Metro gets written off completely. Even thought it has a 5am to 1am span of service, 14 night owl routes, daily express service from as far out as North (freakin') Bend, and is the most-used mode of transp…

Unless it's changed DRASTICALLY in the last couple years, yes it's a shit show. I would frequently walk home from Fremont to Ravenna because it was 2 AM and there was no way to get home aside from getting in a cab (and good luck competing with the million other people trying to get a cab that time of night), or waiting maybe an hour for a bus to maybe come by when it was supposed to. At least in SF there was no illus…

They cut some low-hanging fruit (and route 47) because of a budget shortfall, yes. But if you read the same link you posted, you'll see that the remainder of the cuts have been dropped. Seattle is even holding a vote in November to buy service for expansion.

As for being notoriously unreliable, I suppose we'll have to chalk it up to different circumstances. I've regularly commuted from Lake City and the CD to the Eastside for years, even during off-peak hours when there aren't any one-seat expresses, and have been late maybe twice. Metro's collection of buses seems to work great for me.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#28

Post by techsupporter »

jpatokal wrote: post #22
techsupporter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and King County Metro is just a shit show in general. Ah, yes, I was wondering if I was going to read this here. In the same sentence that you give BART a pass for stopping at midnight and not going "everywhere," Metro gets written off completely. Even thought it has a 5am to 1am span of service, 14 night owl routes, daily express service from as far out as North (freakin') Bend, and is the most-used mode of transp…

Sorry, any public transport system that relies on buses as the backbone will be a "shit show". Buses are uncomfortable, slow, unreliable, get stuck in traffic, etc etc. "Bus rapid transit", dedicated lanes and so on ease the pain a bit, but at the end of day, they just can't compete with any service that has fully dedicated right of way.

Unless you've dug a subway, how do you get people to the rail lines? Park and rides? All that does is encourage suburban sprawl to drive to a rail station.

There's no reason for buses to be uncomfortable and unreliable beyond popular perception. I've ridden trains in Dallas that have worse onboard conditions than bus routes in Seattle.

Re: Report ranks U.S. metros based on how many jobs residents can access by transit

#29

Post by bronbron »

techsupporter wrote: post #27
bronbron wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless it's changed DRASTICALLY in the last couple years, yes it's a shit show. I would frequently walk home from Fremont to Ravenna because it was 2 AM and there was no way to get home aside from getting in a cab (and good luck competing with the million other people trying to get a cab that time of night), or waiting maybe an hour for a bus to maybe come by when it was supposed to. At least in SF there was no illus…

They cut some low-hanging fruit (and route 47) because of a budget shortfall, yes. But if you read the same link you posted, you'll see that the remainder of the cuts have been dropped. Seattle is even holding a vote in November to buy service for expansion. As for being notoriously unreliable, I suppose we'll have to chalk it up to different circumstances. I've regularly commuted from Lake City and the CD to the Eas…

> They cut some low-hanging fruit (and route 47)

They cut 20+ regular routes. Even if they're "low-hanging fruit", that's a lot.

> Seattle is even holding a vote in November to buy service for expansion.

I wish for the best. Seriously. I think Metro is doomed to live in a constant state of limbo, where only serious service cuts will spur Seattleites to do anything about it. I think it's a greatly under-appreciated service in the city.

> As for being notoriously unreliable, I suppose we'll have to chalk it up to different circumstances.

That's fine, but again, OBA serves as solid proof that I'm not the only one who was frustrated by Metro's unreliability (otherwise timetables would be perfectly adequate).

EDIT: This has gotten off-track. Even if you disagree about how bad it is, Seattle public transit absolutely pales in comparison to NYC's public transportation system. I don't think that's really up for debate, and anyone suggesting otherwise I posit is delusional.

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