[nfitz]

Does the NYC stats include commuters from NJ or those coming in on the LIRR? That's the only way you can make it comparable to Toronto if you are including GO.

As the NYC stats include the note "Data shown is for the central city itself, not the metropolitan area" I would assume that it only would include trips with origins and destinations with NYC ... which means that you'd have to remove GO trips that start outside of 416 ... though you'd remove 905 trips from both the numerator and denominator for Toronto ... and my experience is that the transit modal split for those starting and ending in Toronto is higher than those coming in from 905.

 

[Swarley]

In New York City, transit mode share is ~55% in 2007.

In Toronto, transit mode share of rush hour commute downtown was ~65% in 2006 (46% TTC, 19% GO).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USCommutePatterns2006.png
http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comr..._Additional_Information_Costs___Ridership.pdf

I don't think that's a fair comparison - the TTC/GO stats are for trips into downtown, however that's defined. The graph for New York just says "city commute patterns", implying trips between all five boroughs. I bet the mode share for trips into Central Manhattan is over 65%.

Of course, this relies on the accuracy of an unsourced Wikipedia graph, so who knows.

 

[doady]

In New York City, transit mode share is ~55% in 2007.

In Toronto, transit mode share of rush hour commute downtown was ~65% in 2006 (46% TTC, 19% GO).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USCommutePatterns2006.png
http://www.ttc.ca/postings/gso-comr..._Additional_Information_Costs___Ridership.pdf

You are comparing two completely different statistics.

Toronto does not have 65% transit mode share for ALL work trips. The transit mode in Toronto for all work trips was around 34% in 2006, not even close to New York's 55%.

For the metropolitan area overall New York has 25% while Toronto has 22%.

Ridership per capita of the TTC is also lower than the local system in New York, with the TTC having around 306 boardings per capita and the MTA with 386 boardings per capita.

Even for the whole metro area, Toronto cannot beat New York. Toronto area has 181 boardings per capita compared to New York's 194.

But forget New York. Even compared to Montreal, the transit ridership of both the city proper and CMA of Toronto pales in comparison.

[B]ANNUAL TRANSIT RIDERSHIP PER CAPITA - US AND CANADA[/B]

[B]								Boardings
Rank	Urban Area		Boardings	Population	per capita[/B]
1	Montreal		743,000,000	3,316,615	224
2	New York-Newark		3,453,093,200	17,773,000	194
[COLOR="Red"]3	Toronto			858,000,000	4,753,120	181[/COLOR]
4	Ottawa-Kanata		152,000,000	946,050		161
5	Vancouver		284,132,400	1,953,252	145
6	Calgary			129,997,400	988,079		132
7	Washington		461,502,800	4,251,000	109
8	San Francisco-Oakland	427,764,500	4,170,000	103
	-Concord-Antioch
9	Boston			401,542,300	4,077,000	98
10	Winnipeg		58,100,000	641,483		91
11	Honolulu-Kailua-Kaneohe 64,976,200	744,000		87
12	Victoria		25,586,100	304,683		84
13	Chicago			603,966,200	7,702,000	78
14	Champaign		8,910,500	116,000		77
15	Philadelphia		352,923,000	5,296,000	67
16	Portland		110,634,100	1,729,000	64
17	Halifax			18,074,400	282,924		64
18	London			20,950,800	353,069		59
19	LA-Long Beach-Santa Ana	666,952,400	12,149,000	55
20	Seattle			159,698,800	3,002,000	53
21	Baltimore		105,151,300	2,149,000	49
22	North Bay		2,574,547	53,100		48
23	Hamilton		29,898,663	647,643		46
24	Guelph			5,679,575	127,270		45
25	Kitchener-Waterloo	18,718,811	422,514		44
26	Las Vegas		53,571,400	1,256,000	43
27	Pittsburgh		70,268,700	1,769,000	40
28	Milwaulkee		53,096,400	1,399,000	38
29	Cleveland		66,610,200	1,767,000	38
30	Denver-Aurora-Boulder	86,260,600	2,311,000	37
	-Longmont-Lafayette-Louisville
31	Atlanta			150,252,400	4,172,000	36
32	Peterborough		2,711,100	76,925		35
33	Thunder Bay		3,570,825	103,247		35
34	Minneapolis-St Paul	81,021,800	2,519,000	32
35	San Diego		89,924,400	2,903,000	31
36	Kingston		3,272,328	109,431		30
37	Miami			158,502,100	5,331,000	30
38	Sault Ste Marie (CAN)	1,882,773	68,084		28	
39	San Jose		39,132,500	1,649,000	24
40	St. Louis		48,902,300	2,106,000	23
41	Dallas-Ft. Worth-Arl.	82,019,800	3,746,000	22
42	Salt Lake City-Ogden	36,649,900	1,889,000	19
	-Provo-Orem
43	Sacramento		32,862,800	1,767,000	19
44	Orlando			24,807,600	1,335,000	19
45	Phoenix-Mesa		60,477,100	3,270,000	18
46	Providence		20,175,200	1,242,000	16
47	Virginia Beach		24,241,500	1,521,000	16
48	Riverside-S.Bernardino	23,322,400	1,828,000	13
49	Columbus		14,789,500	1,197,000	12
50	Detroit			47,558,500	3,931,000	12
51	Jacksonville		11,296,900	992,000		11
52	Tampa-St. Petersburg	22,992,900	2,251,000	10
53	Kansas City		14,506,200	1,454,000	10
54	Indianapolis		8,810,200	915,000		10
55	Nashville		7,465,300	984,000		8

Canadian data from 2006 and American data from 2005. 		
Some Canadian ridership and all American population totals are estimated.	
Data for some Canadian cities unavailable.

 

[Second_in_pie]

^^ I was beginning to doubt the notion that Canadians take so much more transit than Americans till that graph. Outta all the cities with over 100 boarding/capita, Canada has 5/8. Considering America has about 10x the population, meaning 10x the possibilities for transit-friendly cities, there must actually be a serious difference!

 

[doady]

And there is also the fact that larger cities should have better systems, and yet every US city is beaten at least one much smaller Canadian city, even New York (beaten by Montreal).

Interesting fact: around 33% of all transit trips in the US are on the New York City bus and subway system.

 

[kettal]

Thanks for the chart doady. Did you make it?

 

[GTS]

Great chart, took me by suprise that my home town of Montreal has a higher per capita ridership then both New York and Toronto.

 

[GTS]

Suprised that Edmonton didn't make the top 55. Was on the LRT there once in the early '90's and I've read that it has expanded since and is expanding some more presently.

 

[doady]

Edmonton is not included because I couldn't simply find the stats. I tried to find the data for Quebec City also, but no luck. Comparing US and Canadian ridership is tricky because the two countries count ridership differently, so you have find enough data counted according the same standard. The Canadian stats are not all 100% accurate, but i feel they are pretty close. With the exception of London, I am pretty sure that number is too low. It should be similar to Victoria's.


BTW, I made this a long time agao, but it was relevant to this thread so I post it here.

 

[kEiThZ]

I am stunned that Ottawa did so well with an almost completely BRT system (the O-Train is a joke really). It really demonstrates how effective a decent BRT system can be.

 

[kettal]

Hint: Federal Government jobs do not come with a provided parking space.

 

[kEiThZ]

Hint: Federal Government jobs do not come with a provided parking space.

I am aware of that being on the receiving end of said policy. It only applies in the absolute downtown core. Federal offices that are outside the core often do have parking for their employees. However, ridership in Ottawa is also fairly decent off-peak, which I am sure accounts for a good bit of higher boardings per capita. That should say something about the viability of well designed BRT.

 

[Second_in_pie]

I am stunned that Ottawa did so well with an almost completely BRT system (the O-Train is a joke really). It really demonstrates how effective a decent BRT system can be.

Ottawa is actually an example of a good BRT system in terms of ridership success. In management and route layout, it's still good, but when taking into account ridership and system growth, it's terrible. Ottawa quite simply can't continue on solely a BRT system; it needs regional rail and LRT or Subway (Subway through downtown gets my vote,) before a bottleneck singularity occurs and the transitway explodes out of mismanagement. Basically what Ottawa did is make an extensive BRT system, and then funneled everyone onto one section. This has created a huge bottleneck in the core, where the transitways are funneling everyone.

I like to compare this to Curitiba (which I endorse as having the best non-rail transit system in the world,) which has a true network. There's a dozen BRT lines that all feed into the core, but they don't combine together. Instead of bunching excellent service onto one line, they branch out to service different areas, both inside and outside downtown. This means everyone gets decent transit (and the way they run their BRT, it's closer to "excellent") and a well-oiled system that efficiently transports tens of thousands of people all around the city.

 

[Komiksulo]

And there is also the fact that larger cities should have better systems, and yet every US city is beaten at least one much smaller Canadian city, even New York (beaten by Montreal).

And Dallas being beaten by Sault Ste Marie!

 

[syn]

What frustrates me is that we keep comparing ourselves to North American cities and places like Melbourne. If you were a B student, would you compare yourself to the A student or the C student in the class?

We're not comparing ourselves to Melbourne. Melbourne is comparing themselves to us.

I understand your frustration. However I don't think anyone is happy with the system as-is. People are just aware that places like NY, Tokyo, Madrid, Seoul, etc. have some things we lack - much greater density and far more government investment in public transit.

Unfortunately such funding is not a priority for Federal or Provincial governments. How can we change that? What other solutions are there for raising subway expansion money?