Public Transportation and Smart Growth

nxylas

(6,440 posts) Fri Nov 30, 2012, 04:45 PM Nov 2012

The best cities in the USA for public transportation and pedestrian friendliness

Part of a much wider quality of life survey. I think that only 35 cities were surveyed and that the rankings were for those cities. http://www.travelandleisure.com/americas-favorite-cities/2012/category/quality-of-life-and-visitor-experience/public-transportation-and-pedestrian-friendliness/resident

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The best cities in the USA for public transportation and pedestrian friendliness (Original Post) nxylas Nov 2012 OP

Cambridge MA isn't even listed, and it's better than Boston. nt Xipe Totec Nov 2012 #1

It is a T&L result within a survey unc70 Nov 2012 #2

But it is NOT a list of cities that people actually WALK in happyslug Dec 2012 #3

Xipe Totec

(44,094 posts)

1. Cambridge MA isn't even listed, and it's better than Boston. nt

Reply to nxylas (Original post)

Fri Nov 30, 2012, 04:50 PM

Nov 2012

unc70

(6,329 posts)

2. It is a T&L result within a survey

Reply to nxylas (Original post)

Fri Nov 30, 2012, 06:10 PM

Nov 2012

Only within that group of "cities".

My "town", Chapel Hill has now had fare-free buses for over ten years. It's apparently the largest such system in the world. We only charge for shuttles to sports events and concerts, and for buses that go to other towns and cities.

happyslug

(14,779 posts)

3. But it is NOT a list of cities that people actually WALK in

Reply to nxylas (Original post)

Tue Dec 4, 2012, 10:19 PM

Dec 2012

Cities with the highest percentage of people walking to work:

http://www.governing.com/blogs/by-the-numbers/walk-to-work-census-data-for-cities.html

Most are small cities, such a the first dozen on the list (The top three are the only cities with more then 10% of their population walking to work):

1. Ithaca, NY 15.4% walking to work, out of the total populations of 48,381
2. State College, PA 11.4% walk to work out of a tota pipulation of 74,188
3. Flagstaff, AZ 10.7% of the population out of a total poulation of 63,740

Only seven of the top 100 cities have populations of more then 1 Million Residents:

18. New York-Northern NJ-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA 6.3% out of 8,634,166 people
24. Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH 5.3% out of a total population of 2,303,025
54 San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA 4.3% out of total population of 2,051,756
78 Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA 3.7% out of total population of 1,696,668
79 Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD 3.7% out of total population of 2,707,951
97 Pittsburgh, PA 3.4% out of total population of 1,086,691
98 Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA 3.4% out of total population of 1,051,828
http://www.governing.com/blogs/by-the-numbers/walk-to-work-census-data-for-cities.html

http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/acs-15.pdf

Public Transportation usage:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/acsbr09-5.pdf

Since 1989, use of walking to work has DECLINE from 3.4% to 2.9%.
Single car use has dropped from 76.3% of the population to 76.1%.
Carpool use has DROPPED from 11.8% to 10.4%.

Biking to work has increase from .7% to .8%.
Public transportation usage has from 4.6% to 5.0%.
Other means has increased from .5% to .8%.
Working from home as increased from 2.6% to 4.1%.

http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_statistics/2011/html/table_01_41.html

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