Canadian transit ridership per capita

[Crawford]

Thanks for clarifying, Doady. I think you're right that APTA is the best source for comparative transit numbers.

They're far from perfect, however.

In NYC, for example, I notice that they only include one of the two main bus companies for MTA. MTA actually has two of the ten largest bus divisions in the U.S., NYCT Bus (which is #1, and listed in the APTA), and MTA Bus (which is something like #7 and is not listed).

The difference cannot be noticed "on the street" or on bus maps. The primary difference in 2009 is that NYCT Bus and MTA Bus have different union contracts (MTA Bus were all private bus lines that were subsidized by the city, but the city eventually took all of them over, but they created a new bus company so the new city drivers would not have the same generous benefits as the rest of the city bus drivers).

What this means is that the total MTA bus numbers are about 500.000 short in weekday ridership.

I'm not saying this problem is exclusive to New York, or that much can be done about these problems, but I'm just cautioning on the limitations of the APTA data.

[softee]

Nice work Doady. Go North Bay! haha

[vid]

Ontario's numbers, 2007 stats. Sortable.

North Bay is in the top five for boardings per capita and revenue boardings per capita.

[J. Will]

Originally Posted by alexjon

City of New York Population: 8.2mil
City of Toronto Population: 2.5mil
City of New York Metro Area: 6720sq.mi.
City of Toronto Metro Area: 2751sq.mi.
City of New York Metro Population: 19mil
City of Toronto Metro Population: 5.5mil

Metro Density of NYC: 2827/sq mi
Metro Density of Toronto: 2000/sq mi
City Density of New York: 27000/sq mi
City Density of Toronto: 10300/sq mi

Inner-city density is 5x metro area density in Toronto
Inner-city density is almost 10x metro area density in NYC

As it follows, service concentration seems outsized when comparing inner-city services to suburban services in NYC. It's not that Toronto has a better range, it's that it doesn't have as much area or population to cover and as such, you find that it's, I dunno, easier to run service in the metro area.

I didn't realize Toronto was so sprawly, though. I keep checking the numbers. If it had near the density of NYC, it would have 6.5mi residents!

According to your own numbers, NY Metro has higher density than Toronto Metro, yet you're trying to explain why NY Metro should have lower per capita ridership

It's funny though, someone from Seattle calling Toronto "sprawly". Seattle's (city) population density is only about 10% higher than Mississauga. It's lower than North York, and even Scarborough. And that's saying something as those are overwhelmingly suburban areas. Your "analysis" about inner-city density is ignorant anyways. Toronto's inner-city density is nearly 20k, not 10.3 as you claim. The total city density is 10.3 because a decade ago Metropolitan Toronto was amalgamated into one city. Thus massive suburbs pull the average density down. It's funny that you criticize people for talking about cities that they know nothing about when you do the exact same thing.

By your logic, small towns with low populations and little area to cover should have the highest per capita ridership. Of course, that's nonsense. The cities with high per capita ridership tend to be the larger, denser cities. Though with the exception of New York, no American metro has per capita numbers on par with Canada's major cities, even one with higher densities.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by Gordo

How is it calculated then, if you don't mind me asking? I can't see any way that an SF urbanized area calculation could only be 3.1 million, even if you're excluding San Jose (or if you're allowing water to break the UA - which is something I've seen commonly done when calculating the Bay Area UA - Marin and Solano County areas get lopped off even though there is no break in the UA other than the water - the census tracts on either side are above the threshold). One unique part of Bay Area Counties is that nearly all of the population is contiguous in all of the counties (and above the threshold for UA), so the SF-Oak MSA usually is almost equivalent to any SF-Oak UA figured.

(You would need to add in the Concord UA too if that was separate - that UA contains 7 BART stops and parts of other transit agencies that were probably included in with the ridership numbers to inflate the per capita numbers more)

I added both the Concord and Antioch urbanized areas to San Francisco. The population is now over 4 million. I distinct remember remember having done this before, so I must have posted an older version of the table.

San Jose was added also, but since is not located within the San Francisco MSA, so I made it separate. San Fran falls to #8 and San Jose debuts at #31.

[Doady]

Originally Posted by vid

Ontario's numbers, 2007 stats. Sortable.

North Bay is in the top five for boardings per capita and revenue boardings per capita.

WOW! Thanks! Doesn't really help for Toronto (Mississauga and GO stats boardings are wrong), but I can calculate for all those smaller cities add them to the table.

[alexjon]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

alexjon it has nothing to do with land area to service.
The fact of the matter is that outside of NYC city limits, suburban transit service for the most part sucks in Metropolitan NYC. Many people can not walk to bus service, and the buses that do run come at hour intravals at best on most routes.
Suburbs of NYC have very low transit usage.

This is in contrast to say Toronto or Montreal where most people even in the suburbs can walk to bus service, and in Toronto's case there are rural areas that have better bus service than many NYC suburbs.

This is what sets NYC apart from Toronto, Montreal, etc.

Only 10% of suburban NYC residents use transit to commute to work, compared to Toronto and Montreal where 15-20% take transit to work, and in the inner suburbs over 30%.

And what sets NYC apart from Toronto/Montreal is that its core is far more important than the suburbs, and even with your dire assessment, NYC is still far far far more important than Toronto/Montreal so I'm going to guess that your prediction of a crushing social collapse for lack of good suburban transit is probably not going to bear out.

But if Mississauga has higher transit than Whippany, NJ and that makes you feel better, more power to ya.

[Segun]

No two cities are alike, but anytime I see comparisons with NYC, people throw away all logic.

You can try to juke the stats to try to make it seem like it has peers, but no matter whatever suburb is part of NYC tomorrow, it doesn't overshadow the 8 Million people in the city, the density, and the transit situation inside of it. No city compares to that experience. I'm referring to the center of the city with its throngs of people using the MTA, PATH, Metro North, LIRR, Ferries, NJTransit, even down to Amtrak and Greyhound and the dozens of Independent bus coaches. Nowhere in the US or Canada comes close.

Its true that NYC has areas not served by transit well. Of course, it has some of the first car-oriented suburbs built in the world, but I dare you to find a place anywhere else in the US and Canada as well served as Jersey City or Newark. So you can't make a fair assertion when its extreme in both directions.

[dchan]

Does anybody have any experience with the term 'weighted density'?

weighted density

[J. Will]

Can anyone figure out what alexjon's ridiculous population density stats and talk of "importance" of cities have to do with the topic at hand (transit ridership per capita)? Or is it just more off-topic nonsense of his?

PS, anyone who thinks Toronto is "sprawly" because it isn't as densely populated as New York is, to put it in his own words, "brainless". No one claimed Toronto was as dense as New York, and it has nothing to do with the topic whatsoever.

[miketoronto]

The question was about what cities have higher per capita ridership.
And sorry if it gets some NYC people upset, like a couple posts above. But at the end of the day on a metropolitan wide basis, Toronto and Montreal beat out NYC. Its nothing bad, its just the stats.
And Canadian cities are higher up the list.

When it comes down to it, you can live in the farthest out suburb of a Canadian city and still get around by transit. That is why the number are higher.
It does not matter if there are 8 million people in the City of New York. At the end of the day you still have something like 10 million who live just outside the city with very little transit. That is why the numbers are low for NYC Metro.

One only need look at the stats.

Long Island Bus carries something like 108,380 riders a day in an area of about 2 million people.
Mississauga Transit(a suburb of Toronto) carries over 120,000 riders a day in an area of 750,000.

That shows right there why the stats are lower for NYC.

[alexjon]

So?

[J. Will]

So he was answering the OP's question while you were off trolling on unrelated tangents.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

But at the end of the day on a metropolitan wide basis, Toronto and Montreal beat out NYC. Its nothing bad, its just the stats.

No, you have given no stats.

Doady posted stats, which show that NYC is behind Montreal and ahead of Toronto.

Nobody has posted stats that show NYC has lower transit share than Toronto. It's just you making this claim.

Originally Posted by miketoronto

When it comes down to it, you can live in the farthest out suburb of a Canadian city and still get around by transit. That is why the number are higher.

No, that's not how the number is higher. The number is higher if there are more per capita trips taken, regardless if they're downtown or in the boonies.

Originally Posted by miketoronto

That is why the numbers are low for NYC Metro.

They're low on a metropolitan-wide basis compared to Asia or Europe, but they're easily first in the U.S. and (at worst) only behind Montreal if you include Canada.

Originally Posted by miketoronto

One only need look at the stats.

Again, you haven't given any stats. The posted stats contradict your claim.

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Long Island Bus carries something like 108,380 riders a day in an area of about 2 million people.

This is baloney. Long Island bus carries 115,000 riders in an area of 1.25 million, not 2 million people.

Long Island Bus only covers Nassau County, the less populous of the two Long Island counties.

Originally Posted by miketoronto

Mississauga Transit(a suburb of Toronto) carries over 120,000 riders a day in an area of 750,000.

Mississauga Transit definitely carries more riders than Long Island Bus but the difference isn't what you made it out to be, and Mississauga isn't really comparable to Nassau County.

Nassau County is almost completely single family homes with virtual 100% car ownership.

If you wanted to make a NYC-area comparison with Mississauga, you would have to compare denser, more apartment-oriented suburbs in New Jersey and Westchester County, NY

The relevant agencies would be NJ Transit bus in NJ or Bee Line bus in Westchester, both of which have much higher per-capita ridership than LI Bus.

And the Long Island Rail Road is the busiest railroad in North America, so that probably accounts for much of Nassau County's transit patronage.

I'm not even sure if Mississauga has any rail service. If it has some, it's very limited GO train service, but I don't which stations would be in Mississauga, and it would be nothing comparable to rail ridership in Nassau County (which, in contrast to GO suburban service, has 24/7 rail service, and is 100% electrified third rail subway-style rail).

[J. Will]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not even sure if Mississauga has any rail service.

And of course you couldn't just look it up and find out.

[Doady]

In terms of boardings, Mississauga Transit actually has 160,000 riders per weekday, not 120,000. And the population is 700,000, not 750,000. Mike, you need to get your facts checked, stop ruining this thread with your misinformation.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by J. Will

And of course you couldn't just look it up and find out.

Actually, no, I couldn't.

If you took time off from snarky one-liners, maybe you could look it up yourself.

There's no GO rail station named Mississagua on any of the lines just west of Toronto. Therefore, I have no way of knowing whether any of the GO rail stations fall within city limits.

[J. Will]

I already know the answer. Thanks though.

[miketoronto]

I don't know why people are so defensive, etc because transit service in the suburban parts of Metro NYC is not really that good.

At the end of the day NYC suburbs are less transit friendly than people might think, and transit is only used to go into Manhattan for the most part. Even in the dense NJ suburbs, bus routes are all twords Manhattan for the most part. There really is no grid for local trips, etc.

And that is why Montreal and Toronto have higher transit usage rates, because good transit service is provided metropolitan wide.

The Long Island Transportation study found that only 10% of residents on the island use transit to get to work. That is why ridership is so low. And one of the reasons for that is so few Island residents work in Manhattan, that most just drive to jobs in the suburbs. They are now looking at providing better bus service to try to capture ridership in the suburbs for trips other than going to Manhattan.

Because of such high transit service provided in the suburbs, Toronto was one of only if not the only metropolitan area in North America to actually increase per capita ridership after the 1960's. Click the link below to see.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=T_uJ...um=3&ct=result


The title of highest per capita ridership usually switches each year between Toronto or Montreal.
From the City of Toronto
"Transit Toronto’s public transit system is the second largest in North America and has the highest per capita ridership rate on the continent."
http://www.toronto.ca/invest-in-toro...r_overview.htm

[Gordo]

Originally Posted by miketoronto

And that is why Montreal and Toronto have higher transit usage rates, because good transit service is provided metropolitan wide.

Meh, I think it has a lot more to do with the suburbs of Montreal and Toronto having much more transit-friendly design and less auto-only orientation. It all comes down to design.