DFW & Houston -- Low Transit Ridership

From: The Transit Pass
September 14, 2009

Here are the most total rides per day (for the first quarter of 2009), according to the American Public Transportation Association.

1. New York (MTA/Long Island Railroad/Staten Island Railroad): 10,758,600
2. Chicago: 1,635,700
3. Los Angeles (MTA/DOT/RRA): 1,608,300
4. Washington, DC: 1,421,200
5. Detroit (including Flint): 1,322,100
6. Boston: 1,217,500
7. Philadelphia: 1,145,100
8. San Francisco: 1,060,900
9. Atlanta: 487,900
10. Seattle: 449,700
11. Baltimore: 408,900
12. Miami: 349,900
13. Portland: 323,000
14. Houston: 307,700
15. Denver: 292,100

It is exciting that there are eight metropolitan areas in the United States transporting over 1,000,000 rides per day. However, there are several major metropolitan areas that are missing from this list.

The following are the top 17 largest metropolitan areas and their populations according to Wikipedia. I cut off at 17 as these are all metropolitan areas of 3,000,000 people or more.

1. New York: 19,006,798
2. Los Angeles: 12,872,808
3. Chicago: 9,569,624
4. Dallas: 6,300,006
5. Philadelphia: 5,838,471
6. Houston: 5,728,143
7. Miami: 5,414,772
8. Atlanta: 5,376,285
9. Washington, DC: 5,358,130
10. Boston: 4,522,858
11. Detroit: 4,425,110
12. Phoenix: 4,281,899
13. San Francisco: 4,274,531
14. Riverside/San Bernardino/Ontario: 4,115,871
15. Seattle: 3,344,813
16. Minneapolis: 3,229,878
17. San Diego: 3,001,072

The cities from the population list that are most conspiculously missing from the ridership list are Phoenix (214,000 rides per day) and Dallas (217,000 rides per day) as well as Houston’s low ridership.

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