Of Top Ten Global Cities For Public Transportation, None - Zero - Are Located In The United States
When it comes to the best public transit systems, cities in Asia and Europe claim all the top spots. Hong Kong ranked first based on factors including distance to public transit, affordability, operating hours, crowding and commute speeds, according to a new study from the Oliver Wyman Forum, a think tank affiliated with the consulting firm by the same name, and the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies. Hong Kong’s mass transit railway was cited for its low fares, limited delays or service disruptions, and for supporting itself financially.
Zurich, Stockholm, Singapore and Helsinki round out the five best cities for public transit, with Zurich boosted by its investment in transportation and an advanced master plan.
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Scandinavian cities — including Oslo, Helsinki and Stockholm — dominate when it comes to environmental sustainability. Oslo, for instance, has invested in a comprehensive network of electric vehicle charging stations. And like Hong Kong, the city has many areas that don’t allow cars. The report also gives credit to Oslo’s multimodal network that includes park and ride stations, as well as allowing bikes on public transit.
Additionally, the report ranks cities on “mobility readiness,” with San Francisco topping the list in part for its EV-charging network. That said, Oliver Wyman points out concerns that San Francisco’s aging infrastructure puts it at risk in a region prone to natural disasters like earthquakes and wildfires. US cities overall fared worse than urban areas in other countries because of their over dependence on cars. “In the US, there's this increased individualization of mobility and this obviously doesn’t fit into public transit,” said Nienhaus, who’s based in Frankfurt.
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-21/these-cities-have-the-best-public-transit-systems?srnd=citylab
= new reply since forum marked as read
Last edited Wed Nov 23, 2022, 08:09 PM - Edit history (2)
They've been severely short of drivers since well before the pandemic.
In October, my entire route 705b was eliminated because of a driver shortage. Now I have to walk 1.5 miles to catch the 705a, a 30 minute walk.
Additionally, route 755, which only runs during a 2-hour period in the early morning and a 2-hour period in the afternoon, is being cut from 9 trips each way to 6 trips each way on Dec 3.
There have also been big cuts elsewhere, again due to the worsening driver shortage.
It's impossible to go somewhere in the morning (busses run only in 2 early morning hours) and do some shopping or errand, and then come back the same morning. The last bus to return home in the morning is 7:12 AM -- before any store opens!. One has to wait around and do something until the afternoon to get a bus to return home. So it's really not a substitute for most purposes.
(No way to go in the afternoon and get back, unless it's a very short errand or shopping trip).
I'm not way out in the sticks. I'm just 4.2 miles west of Minneapolis's downtown core. So its not like I'm whining about the lack of farmhouse-to-farmhouse service.
Oh, and we've also been having a rash of same-day trip cancellations again due to driver shortages. Making the service unreliable - a big problem. Forcing people to buy cars, or pay a ton for Lyft rides - a rather greenhouse gas intensive option.
Wasn't the idea to expand walking, biking, and transit options as part of reducing transportation's big contribution to the greenhouse gas problem? Well, getting people out of cars and into transit has a problem -- too few drivers. (The labor of people driving their own cars is being lost when people quit driving and take the bus instead).
Others are noting a severe shortage of childcare and eldercare workers.
Nationally, the labor force participation rate has been dwindling from a high point of about 67.3% in 2000 to 62.2% now. (It was 62.2% in January, so there hasn't been any progress in that all year).
Meanwhile the population of elderly (such as me) needing more and more service (me not yet but soon) grows.
Labor force participation rate: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Labor force in thousands: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11000000
The labor force = employed + officially unemployed as per the BLS's monthly Household Survey
The officially unemployed are jobless people who have looked for work in the past 4 weeks (must be more than just looking at job listings). BTW, the officially unemployed is not a count of people claiming unemployment insurance, it has nothing to do with that (a common myth unfortunately).
How the Government Measures Unemployment http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm
