June 24, 2025 • 27 mins
Chris and Louis respond to viewer requests by ranking the eight city tours they've featured on the show. The rankings are based on the quality of public transit, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each system, as well as their experiences in each city.
The cities being ranked:
- Austin, TX
- Dallas, TX
- San Antonio, TX
- Houston, TX
- New Orleans, LA
- Washington, D.C.
- Salt Lake City, UT
- Kansas City, MO
Let us know how you would rank these cities.
Help support Transit Tangents by checking out our Patreon or merch store so we can continue bringing you transit system reviews!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
Bus stops, train tracks it's mydaily grind, daily grind.
Public transit it's the rhythmof my life, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Today we're ranking the top transit cities we
visited, from smooth subways toiconic street cars.
Which cities got us to ourdestination on time and which
ghosted us on the curb?
Find out on this episode ofTransit Tangents.
Hey everybody and welcome backto this episode of Transit
Tangents.
My name's Chris and I'm Lewis,and today we are listening to
(00:41):
people who have watched the showand given us your comments on
YouTube.
It's been a somewhat frequentrequest that we actually rank
the cities that we go to and whowe think has the best transit,
and so far we've done eightcities, so really excited to
start this.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, and this will be very much in the style of the
show Top Gear, which is kind offunny because we're like a
public transit podcast and thatcouldn't be any further from it.
But if you've seen Top Gear,they have a racetrack and they
drive the cars around it.
The Stig drives the cars aroundit and they all get slotted
into a list of which car is thefastest around the track.
It'll be a little bit moresubjective with this because
(01:20):
it's not as easy as you can getfrom point A to point B faster,
because all of these cities arevery different.
People will definitely disagreewith where we place some of
these cities on our list, but wethought it would be a fun thing
to do.
And if you're wondering whywe're in kind of a different
spot, it's because we've been ona trip hitting a few more
cities.
Yes, but this will be kind ofgetting us started with the list
and then, at the end of each ofthe next three cities coming,
(01:42):
which will be Boston,philadelphia and Baltimore,
we'll be then slotting thosecities in on the list as well.
And a quick plug here if youwant to help support to be able
to make sure we can continue togo to more cities like this trip
.
The best way to be able to doso is on our Patreon or checking
out our merch store, butwithout further ado, though, I
think we should jump right intothe list with number eight.
(02:03):
Number eight on our listunfortunately that is.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The last spot on our list is New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, and I mean we had a lot of fun in New Orleans.
New Orleans is a great city, sopeople shouldn't take any
offense to where their citylands on the list.
It doesn't mean that we don'tlike your city or anything like
that.
It's just from a transitperspective.
New Orleans could use a littlehelp.
There's a lot lacking.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, and this wasn't a surprise to us when we went
to New Orleans.
It was very much.
We went to the city originallyto see the streetcar because it
has the oldest streetcaroperating in the world and so
that was continuously operating,yeah.
Oldest continuously operatingstreetcar in the world.
So like that is a huge thingand we really wanted to go check
it out and so when we went weexpected transit to be a little
lacking but we still had areally really fun time right,
(02:45):
just kind of connecting um allover the city.
And on that note, that is a.
One of the big positives for usin new orleans is that the
streetcars are historic.
They're really fun to ride umthey have.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
They go decently far, you know, depending on where
you're trying to go in the cityand I mean uh, the nice thing is
, the streetcars are great fortourists, but there's also
regular folks riding them goingto and from work or places who
live in the city.
They're really beautiful, thenice kind of green space in the
middle.
They're on the grassy tracksand you know again, the city
(03:16):
itself is great.
They do have a pretty wide busnetwork but this kind of starts
to fall where we start to getinto some of the negatives,
starts to fall where we start toget into some of the negatives.
Their bus network reaches quitea few places but we found it to
be pretty infrequent andunreliable.
When we were trying to take itwe had a ghost bus.
Yeah, so ghost buses andnon-frequent buses make it so
(03:39):
that getting around can betricky if you don't have a car.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
But New Orleans does have so much potential.
I mean, the city is fairlydense.
Parts of it are incrediblywalkable, even though the
sidewalks are really uneven.
But it does have a lot ofpotential and they are working
on some investments.
There's a brand new airport inNew Orleans.
It's very nice.
There's also some transit hubs.
They're working on building,they're redoing one of the ferry
terminals, so they are puttingsome investment into the system.
(04:02):
But as it stands, last on thelist.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Moving on to number seven on the list, is kansas
city, and we actually had areally nice time in kansas city.
So I feel bad for being so lowon the list, but I do think that
in a little bit of time we canget into this.
In a little bit it would beclimbing up the list.
There's a lot of potentialthere.
So, um, to kind of start offwith the positives, the
(04:26):
streetcar is great.
It's not a very extensivesystem right now, although it
will be soon, as we're recordingthis, in June.
The streetcar extensions arehaving test cars on them.
They're not open yet, but theywill be opening one of them this
summer and then another in thebeginning of next year and when
(04:46):
those extensions open, thatwould definitely raise this up
on the list for us.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
Also, getting around town,there is some bus coverage.
We found the max buses, whichhad frequency of about every 20
minutes, so not ideal, like theycould be better, yeah, but the
max bus system was fine,comfortable riding it around and
getting through the city.
Yep, we stayed fairly centralin Kansas City.
(05:11):
We didn't go too too far out.
Brookside down south was alittle bit out there.
Yeah, a little bit, but I thinkthe bus service starts to
really taper off the furtheraway from the city center you
get For sure.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Further away from the city center you get For sure.
And one other positive the factthat this is a free fare system
means that the buses get movinga little faster.
You're not sitting therewaiting for people to tap or
pull out money or whatever itmay be.
But that also kind of leads tosome negatives, which we can
talk about in a second too.
One other positive I wanted tohit on was there are a lot of
(05:43):
great neighborhoods and areas intown that are like former
streetcar suburbs or streetcarneighborhoods, and that bodes
well for the future of streetcarextensions.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, absolutely, and also a very active local
community too that really doescare about things like the
streetcar and improvements tothe system.
So totally definitely,hopefully they get their voices
heard.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, and if you're looking for something like that,
our episode with the urban labsfolks is definitely worth
checking out.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So yeah, as far as negatives go, you kind of
touched on it, the, uh, the freefare system.
It is a positive that you havea free fare system so anybody
can jump on the bus, but it hascreated a huge deficit for the
transit agency.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
And now there's this sort of looming service cuts,
these looming service cuts thatare on the way and the city is
trying to sort through how todeal with this, but as it stands
right now it's not lookinggreat, although it does seem
like they are.
Some of the plans are to bringfares back into the system.
In Kansas City, fare revenuedoesn't make up like a large
(06:43):
portion.
I wouldn't say fares are arewhat's causing the budget issues
, but at least, especiallyoptically, it doesn't look good.
You're like oh, we're trying tokeep the fairs free, but also
we have this massive budgetshortfall, so that's definitely
something that they're going tohave to work on there in Kansas
City.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Off to number six on our list is our neighbor to the
south in Austin, and that is SanAntonio.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, San Antonio, I feel like you know, obviously
not known for publictransportation.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
No, famously known as being the largest US city
without a train service.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yes, without a light rail service and, as a result,
they just have an absoluteabsurd amount of buses.
Yes, everywhere we found themrunning, basically on schedule.
Over there we rode.
I don't even remember I losttrack like we rode so many buses
, a lot of buses.
Yeah, I remember too.
We actually rode the amtrakdown from austin.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Got off the amtrak, we caught the primo bus we there
are enough buses and enoughcoverage, especially in the
center part of the city that wegot on the wrong bus, yes, and
followed it or stayed on it formultiple miles, realized we were
on the wrong bus and followedit or stayed on it for multiple
miles, realized we were on thewrong bus, and then just walked
one block over to the next busstop to get on the right bus.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So I mean, while the system is just buses, it runs
pretty extensively.
Now, as with any of thesesystems, the further out you get
, the less frequent those busesget, the harder it becomes to
use.
And you know, the less frequentthose buses get, the harder it
becomes to use.
And one other kind of issuethere was the crosstown routes
were not super frequent either,so a lot of your routing needed
to go through downtown.
(08:13):
But that's pretty common inmost cities, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And unfortunately San Antonio is a huge city.
I mean it is sprawling forever.
It's highways, very car-centric, it's just such a massive area
to cover.
But if you do live in thecenter part of the city
obviously buses are a lot better.
Another positive here the cityhas been making a lot of strides
and improving bikeinfrastructure and there's sort
of the central spine through thecity of the riverwalk area with
(08:39):
all the trails that kind ofconnect to it, so there's pretty
decent walkability in thatsection of town.
Uh, and I think the the bikeinfrastructure is getting better
.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah from.
I remember speaking with someof the folks there like, the
trails are good, the on-streetbike infrastructure is still
rough.
Yeah, like there's like, but wesaw some new bike lanes that
they were putting in.
Yeah, things are improving.
I remember, though, themtelling us like that is the.
Yeah, like, that's, that's likethe.
I don't want to give them toomuch credit here, but but they
might be, you know, hopefullytrending in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Still, um, but uh well and trending in the right
direction.
They are working on vrt, yes,for the future.
So, uh, san antonio is puttinginvestment into the system and,
uh, there's some new modes oftransit coming.
Well, some updated modes oftransit coming.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, still buses, still buses, but um, one other
note that I had on here was uh,for being such a hot city.
Um, there were not a lot of busshelters.
Uh, chris is notorious forleaving the sunscreen, um, uh,
in different places, and uh, and, or we'll buy sunscreen and
then we'll lose it.
And I remember one particularpoint.
(09:43):
In general, you were really,really hot, trying to hide
behind this like one.
I was hiding by one little, onelittle street sign yes, number
five on the list, which is acity near and dear to both of
our hearts, which is the city ofAustin yeah, so I am sad that
Austin is as far down the listas it is, but unfortunately
there's just so much work to bedone.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
in Austin we do have really good bus coverage through
a lot of the central parts ofthe city.
We have our express buses the801, the 803, plus two new
express routes that have justrecently opened.
Rapid routes Rapid routesexcuse me, rapid routes that
have just recently opened.
They've done a lot of work intrying to separate bus lanes in
the center part of the city.
We do have our one commuterrail red line that runs from
(10:28):
leander to downtown, and more uh, light rail on the way.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
hopefully, knock on something yeah, the other like
positive new thing in austinthat we got to check out when we
were doing our austin in a dayepisode was the brand new
all-electric.
Um.
They've still been adding morebikes and stations to that
system, which is going to bedramatically increasing in size,
which is nice and it pairsnicely with um the bike
(10:53):
infrastructure that the city hasbeen putting in, uh, the amount
of bike lanes, um, neighborhoodbikeways, urban trails, all of
this sort of stuff in Austin umis great and is trending upwards
quite a bit.
And with the bus system youwere talking about the rapid
routes during the main parts ofthe day you're getting every 10
minute frequency.
Most of the time, I will saydefinitely had my experiences
(11:15):
where we got stuck, althoughwhen we were using it we lucked
out pretty good.
A lot of buses fall into justlike a high frequency area which
is every 15 minutes and thendrops off from there.
But on the negatives though,that commuter line, like you
said, it's only about every halfan hour frequencies and, for
being real, the route is notwhat it should have been.
(11:38):
That was kind of like thecompromise route Running along
an old freight line.
There has been a really goodpush for transit-oriented
development, but it's taken sometime to come to fruition and,
as a result, the ridership istrending in the right direction.
But it's taken a long time tobuild any significant ridership
because a lot of the stationswere just not really places that
people were living or wanted togo to.
(11:58):
So, um, that's definitely atricky thing there uh, also,
austin's not.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Uh, it does sprawl somewhat but it's not as large
of a city geographically as acity like san antonio.
Um, so the airport's really notthat far from everything in
town and we surprisingly havereally poor connectivity to the
airports.
There are two buses.
I think there's one bus.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yes, the 20.
I try to take the 20 to theairport when I do it and you
really have to just put yourselfin the mindset that it's not
going to be that great.
Also, Austin's hot.
Yeah, it's hot and sheltersaren't always well shaded, so
you were sitting in the sun ortrying to find shade near a
shelter, and it's hard it can bevery hard to do, so we're going
(12:40):
to jump right back into thisepisode in just a second, but
first, if you have not likedthis video, go ahead and do so.
Also, leave a comment.
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Speaker 2 (12:53):
Please share this with your friends and if you
don't have time to watch YouTubevideos in the future, you can
catch us on any of the podcastplatforms that are out there.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Just be sure to leave us a rating and give us a
comment Number four on our list,which is the city of Houston,
our other neighbor to the south,our other neighbor to the south
, yes, and Houston.
You know, I feel like this oneis an episode that people
probably like it's done reallywell compared to some of the
other ones and it's because,like Houston and public transit
(13:22):
couldn't be further apart inpeople's heads, I think, but in
reality they're actually doingquite a bit and now like there
are plenty of issues in Houston.
But I remember starting the dayon the Red Line light rail and
just being absolutely shocked athow many trains there were so
many trains.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yes, every time we looked away another train.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It was literally every six-minute frequencies and
when you've got them going inboth directions, yeah it was
insane.
It was really moving prettyefficiently.
They're running in the centerlanes of a street essentially,
but it is dedicated.
They're not sharing lanes withtraffic like the Kansas City
streetcar does.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I know this probably doesn't happen every weekday,
but some of the buses wereaggressively on time.
We were running to the stop totry to catch them because you
didn't have long for the doorsto catch the bus at the stop.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I'll say, though, we did that, and then we were like
wow, we almost didn't need to doit.
A lot of their buses were onevery eight minute frequencies,
which is like you know that,that's.
You would not expect that to behappening in texas, yeah, um.
So yeah, I mean we, we caught alot of buses, all different
types of buses, um, and yeah,they were, they effectively were
(14:30):
getting you around the city.
We even, I remember going outto one of the transit centers,
kind of not on the edge of townbut like out on the, the first
kind of major highway ring andum, at the big transit center.
We caught a bus prettyefficiently from there that then
utilizes the horribly uglyhighway infrastructure but uses
it in the best way possible usesan express lane over the
highway to get to get you intodowntown.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It's expressed from the transit center up in the
uptown area all the way todowntown.
Yeah, um, also there is alittle bit of BRT infrastructure
but, going towards the negativeside, the current mayor has
done a lot to take away that BRTinfrastructure and so now we've
seen BRT lines either severelyreduced, removed or canceled
entirely.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yes, which is obviously not great.
Yeah, and then that kind offalls into more of the negative
sides, and I mean the fact thatyou're having to rely on buses
as well.
You know, some parts of thetown had bus lanes, but other
parts don't.
When you get stuck in rush hourtraffic and the buses are all
sitting in traffic like they doin any city, it becomes less
effective for people to use.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, but like any city, Houston's still very
car-centric and definitely builtfor the individual passenger
vehicle.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yes, for sure.
Definitely recommend folkscheck that episode out, though,
if they're interested.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
With that next on our list and this is going to
create a little bit ofcontention for people in Texas.
Next on our list is Dallas, andI think one of the big reasons
for that is Dallas has one ofthe largest light rail networks
in the country.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yes, and it extends quite a ways.
And I mean personally, likethese two are kind of tied in my
head, like we literally flippedthem back and forth a few times
and I was like, eh, we can goeither way.
So we have the contention.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes for sure.
I am firm in my belief thatDallas is ahead of Houston.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean the DART trains are great.
They go, like you said, thatit's a very extensive system.
Um, with that, though, it allkind of funnels into this one
street downtown where they'rerunning on like a nice transit
plaza, but they're at basicallymax capacity on the street,
which makes it so that each ofthe branches of the light rail
has 20 minute frequencies.
(16:29):
20 minute frequencies is notgreat, that is.
I'm not going to just go showup at the train station without
consulting a schedule to seewhat time it's coming, and in a
city the size of Dallas, thatshouldn't be the case.
In my opinion.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, I don't disagree with that entirely.
The big positive for me is thatthe train network is so
extensive and really I'm lookingat it as the regional
connectivity so Dallas-FortWorth is a massive region and
connectivity.
So Dallas-Fort Worth is amassive region and there is a
lot of really good connectivity.
You can take the TRE all theway to DFW and to Fort Worth.
You can take the Orange Line toLove Field with a bus
(17:04):
connection or you can even comedown from Denton.
There's the rail line fromDenton coming into Dallas so it
almost functions a little bitmore like one of the East Coast
cities with like those sort ofregional connections, like their
metro is almost like a bit morelike one of the East Coast
cities with those sort ofregional connections, like their
metro is almost like a metro,like one of the commuter lines
out from another city.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah right, the stop spacing is pretty far away and
all that sort of stuff.
I think that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So for regional connectivity it's really high on
my list, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
One of the negatives for Dallas for me was the buses
were pretty not great to use.
Not great.
I feel like we kind ofstruggled with buses the whole
time we were there.
I remember the one instance inparticular there were just
several buses queued up at astoplight and it took like three
or four cycles of the light forthe bus to just cross the one
(17:50):
intersection that we werewaiting for it at, which is just
really frustrating, especiallywhen it wasn't just one bus.
It was a road that had multiplebuses running down it and there
was zero signal priority.
There was no dedicated bus lane, like nothing to try to clear
the buses through theintersection, and there were
plenty of people waiting on thebus to ride it.
Um, the frequencies on thebuses in general were not good
(18:11):
from multiple places.
So, uh, for a system of thatsize and to your point about it
being like the stop spacing onthe light rail is pretty far
apart they got to do somethingto kind of compensate for dallas
.
It is there is way more therethan folks would think similar
to houston.
It's just like you don't thinkof these cities as being areas
that even have publictransportation.
Um, the systems are big andexpensive.
(18:33):
I feel like I was just saying alot of the negative things
about dallas, but overall it wasa positive.
I was just saying a lot of thenegative things about Dallas,
but overall it was a positiveexperience.
There's also a lot of greatwork being done there.
We've done several episodeswith the folks from Data, the
Dallas Area Transit Alliance,who successfully have prevented
budget cuts coming from thestate level to the system.
So, as far as momentum isconcerned, there's some good
grassroots efforts going to tryto improve the system and
(18:56):
there's investments into thesystem.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So I mentioned airport connectivity earlier.
The Silver Line, which is goingto run from DFW to Plano, is a
major investment in the regionby DART.
So definitely some improvementsthere.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yes, moving on to number two on our list here.
This was actually one of thefirst episodes that we did.
This was the first kind of cityusing only public transit
episode.
Uh, going back to salt Lakecity, and uh, it was a chilly
day in salt Lake city, Iremember um, but overall we were
pretty impressed.
Um, they have a prettyextensive light rail system that
(19:30):
kind of runs throughout thecity.
Um, there are efforts to expandthis system with some new lines
.
They also had pretty decent busnetwork coverage.
It was running on schedule.
It's not the most frequentbuses this is kind of a
recurring theme.
Not everywhere has the mostfrequent buses.
But it integrated well into thesystem.
(19:51):
We were able to use iteffectively while we were there.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, a big win for me was that the airport
connectivity was smooth.
I mean, you walked right out ofthe terminal and the light rail
stopped right by the door.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yes, yes, it was super easy no long walking
around a weird area, no shuttleto get there.
They had a really niceattendant who talked to you
while you waited.
That's right, I forgot aboutthat.
Yep, it was cold, though it wasreally cold.
It was a freezing night.
Sitting there waiting for it, Iremember.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Another positive for the area you have the front
runner which sort of runsthrough that center spine of
that part of Utah from, I think,Ogden to Provo, yes, and so you
have a lot of regionalconnectivity in these little
cities that are all sort of inthat line.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yep, and then we didn't get to use them on the
trip that we did there.
But there are some BRT systemskind of further out and Salt
Lake City has also beeninvesting in further BRT in the
area.
And then, as far as momentum isconcerned, the Rio Grande plan.
We've talked about this in anepisode previously.
There are some, you know, biggrassroots efforts to propose
(20:54):
some utilization of a historiccentral station that is there,
which would be a massive win forthe city, because right now
this kind of falls on thenegatives.
They're like kind of Salt LakeCity's central station.
It's like offset from downtownby like a weird amount of blocks
and it's just kind of in anarea that felt pretty industrial
and not very central.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Another negative for Salt lake.
Uh, negative or positive?
Yeah, it's a negative with anopportunity.
Uh, the streets are the wideststreets I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
They are huge, wildly wide, like it's.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, it's actually insane and absurdly wide, like
it feels like a texas highway inthe middle of your city.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yes, just on the just on the street and, it may like,
hurts you in terms ofwalkability because everything
is just it, like you know, addsup marginally everything is that
much further?
away.
You're also spending a lot moretime like crossing the street,
which is just dangerous from theperspective of needing to
interface with cars and whatnoton foot.
But the potential positive outof this is, if the city wanted
to um, they could have amazingprotected bike lanes.
(21:56):
They could have amazingprotected bike lanes, they could
have amazing dedicated buslanes and they have the real
estate to be able to do it in anice way.
Um, while we're there, wenoticed some bike lanes, but I
don't remember anything reallystanding out to me as like wow,
this is amazing bikeinfrastructure, yeah, um most of
it seemed to be around theuniversities.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
It was like where it got better, but then it sort of
tapered off yeah, it would belike kind of painted bike lanes
and stuff through downtown.
But, all in all, we had areally good time in Salt Lake
city.
Uh, really enjoyed it and,again, I was very impressed by
what exists there for a citythat I knew nothing about when
we arrived.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
One major thing that they could do to improve it, and
I remember it bothered the lackof signal prioritization on the
light rail.
But all in all, for Salt LakeCity, holy cow, I mean, it was
actually really good and I liketo see the momentum that they're
pushing there.
Agreed yes, all right, so numberone on the list.
This one will be no surprise,because I feel like so many of
(22:52):
these cities leading up to thispoint are not known for being
transit cities.
Right, this was the first onethat we went to.
That was like okay, this isgoing to be the first episode
where we do this city in a dayusing only public transit.
It's going to be pretty easy,and that city is Washington DC.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yes, washington DC, nation's capital, honestly the
most beautiful metro system inthe country.
There's something amazing aboutgoing down the escalator, and I
mean down the escalator.
It's a very deep system in someplaces, but when you get down
and you just see the vaultedceiling very like kind of
brutalistic but beautiful, andeverything about that experience
(23:26):
just felt very nice.
The system's really clean.
It's pretty much uh, all thetrains are on time.
Yeah, it just ran really well.
It was a great day.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, the frequencies are are high, you're not not
needing to try to plan yourschedule around when the train
is going to come.
We had good luck with buses theentire day too.
The bus frequencies were high.
Bad weather oh yeah, that'sright, it was DC and they had
just gotten a bunch of snow theday before we got there.
Very cold, yeah, I mean, all inall it was a unsurprisingly a
(24:01):
very smooth day.
The airport connections,especially from dca excuse me,
especially from dca.
You walk right out of theairport, cross a little
skybridge thing and the stationis right there.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, but even connectivity to dullis is super
easy.
It just takes a while, yes, butthe silver line now is open to
dullis.
You can just hop on the silverline and go straight into the
city.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, but it's something like a 45 minute.
It's a long trip, but it's a oneseat ride still.
So that's.
That's nice, um, from thatperspective, um, the city itself
is also just very walkable.
Being an older city on the eastcoast, uh, you're not kind of
crossing, dealing with highwaysand stuff everywhere.
Talked about the metro too.
Um, the at the time, the redline was automated and it had
kind of newly been automated,but, as of today, they've
(24:39):
automated all of the lines inthe system, which is pretty
amazing.
I think it's the only metro inthe US that has their entire
metro system automated.
So I'd like to see that whichhelps with speed, reliability,
to be able to make sure that thesystem is staying on time and
on track.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yep.
And when we talk about regionalconnectivity, uh, this is a.
The dmp region is huge andthere's so much connectivity
because you have the dc metro,you have the mark trains, you
have the vre, vra, vre, vre, vreI think one of those um and you
have amtrak sort of servicingthat area as well.
(25:16):
So you have a lot of regionalconnectivity?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
No, absolutely.
And I mean to pick a fewnegatives here.
One of them you mentioned thedeep stations at the beginning.
I mean it does take a long timeto get down there If you're in
a rush to catch your train.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You've got to budget five minutes of escalator time,
yes, which is, I mean, it'snotable.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I mean it's down there.
That's like unlike what we have.
Actually, I almost shouldn'tsay this.
Well, I was going to say unlikewhat we've seen in some of the
more recent episodes that youshould be looking forward to
from Philadelphia and Boston,but yeah, it was very, very far
under Something else that Idon't know that this is
necessarily a negative, but it'sdifferent from a lot of the
(25:54):
other ones the fare system,different from a lot of the
other ones.
The fare system.
It's not like a flat fare likeyou pay in most places in the
United States where it's like,yep, a ride with a transfer
might cost you $2 or $2.50 orwhatever it may be.
In DC, you tap when you enterthe station and you tap when you
go out of the station, on themetro at least, and you are
charged based on the distancethat you traveled versus a flat
(26:16):
fare.
On buses's a flat fare, but um,for the metro that's a little
bit of a different way to do itthat's our list.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Um, like I said, we've been to these eight cities
and so, uh, dc so far is ourwinner.
Yeah, uh, sorry new orleans forbeing last, but uh, yeah, if
you agree with this list, let usknow.
Tell us what we, what you thinkwe missed.
If you disagree with us, let usknow.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yes, tell us what you think we got wrong and, uh,
like I kind of said at the startof this, we're going to be
doing this now at the end ofevery of our kind of city in a
day episodes.
So, um, when we have ourepisodes, the next three of
these they're not going to beback to back to back, it'll be
kind of staggered out a littlebit from boston, philly and
baltimore.
We will also be slotting thosecities in the list and then stay
(27:01):
tuned for more cities coming.
As we mentioned a couple monthsago, at this point or weeks ago
, I'm getting ready for my moveover to germany, so we might mix
in some european cities intothis list as well, which will be
fun to compare.
If you have any requests foreuropean cities, cities or even
just topics to look for in anyof these, as usual we love
hearing them, so definitely letus know.
(27:21):
If you want to support the showdirectly, you can do so via our
Patreon buy me a coffee or bychecking out our merch store.
You can also subscribe, likethis video, leave us your
comments, send it to a friend.
Any of those things are all abig help of those things are all
a big help, but without furtherado.
Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So much for watching, and enjoy the rest of your
transit tangents tuesday yeah,I'm saving that dough public
transit's where it's at watch mego.
Doors are closing.
Public transit that's my way toroll On the metro.
I'm taking control.
Bus stops, train tracks it's mydaily grind, daily grind.
Public transit it's the rhythmof my life, oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Today we're ranking the top transit cities we
visited, from smooth subways toiconic street cars.
Which cities got us to ourdestination on time and which
ghosted us on the curb?
Find out on this episode ofTransit Tangents.
Hey everybody and welcome backto this episode of Transit
Tangents.
My name's Chris and I'm Lewis,and today we are listening to
(00:41):
people who have watched the showand given us your comments on
YouTube.
It's been a somewhat frequentrequest that we actually rank
the cities that we go to and whowe think has the best transit,
and so far we've done eightcities, so really excited to
start this.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, and this will be very much in the style of the
show Top Gear, which is kind offunny because we're like a
public transit podcast and thatcouldn't be any further from it.
But if you've seen Top Gear,they have a racetrack and they
drive the cars around it.
The Stig drives the cars aroundit and they all get slotted
into a list of which car is thefastest around the track.
It'll be a little bit moresubjective with this because
(01:20):
it's not as easy as you can getfrom point A to point B faster,
because all of these cities arevery different.
People will definitely disagreewith where we place some of
these cities on our list, but wethought it would be a fun thing
to do.
And if you're wondering whywe're in kind of a different
spot, it's because we've been ona trip hitting a few more
cities.
Yes, but this will be kind ofgetting us started with the list
and then, at the end of each ofthe next three cities coming,
(01:42):
which will be Boston,philadelphia and Baltimore,
we'll be then slotting thosecities in on the list as well.
And a quick plug here if youwant to help support to be able
to make sure we can continue togo to more cities like this trip
.
The best way to be able to doso is on our Patreon or checking
out our merch store, butwithout further ado, though, I
think we should jump right intothe list with number eight.
(02:03):
Number eight on our listunfortunately that is.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The last spot on our list is New Orleans.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, and I mean we had a lot of fun in New Orleans.
New Orleans is a great city, sopeople shouldn't take any
offense to where their citylands on the list.
It doesn't mean that we don'tlike your city or anything like
that.
It's just from a transitperspective.
New Orleans could use a littlehelp.
There's a lot lacking.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, and this wasn't a surprise to us when we went
to New Orleans.
It was very much.
We went to the city originallyto see the streetcar because it
has the oldest streetcaroperating in the world and so
that was continuously operating,yeah.
Oldest continuously operatingstreetcar in the world.
So like that is a huge thingand we really wanted to go check
it out and so when we went weexpected transit to be a little
lacking but we still had areally really fun time right,
(02:45):
just kind of connecting um allover the city.
And on that note, that is a.
One of the big positives for usin new orleans is that the
streetcars are historic.
They're really fun to ride umthey have.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
They go decently far, you know, depending on where
you're trying to go in the cityand I mean uh, the nice thing is
, the streetcars are great fortourists, but there's also
regular folks riding them goingto and from work or places who
live in the city.
They're really beautiful, thenice kind of green space in the
middle.
They're on the grassy tracksand you know again, the city
(03:16):
itself is great.
They do have a pretty wide busnetwork but this kind of starts
to fall where we start to getinto some of the negatives,
starts to fall where we start toget into some of the negatives.
Their bus network reaches quitea few places but we found it to
be pretty infrequent andunreliable.
When we were trying to take itwe had a ghost bus.
Yeah, so ghost buses andnon-frequent buses make it so
(03:39):
that getting around can betricky if you don't have a car.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
But New Orleans does have so much potential.
I mean, the city is fairlydense.
Parts of it are incrediblywalkable, even though the
sidewalks are really uneven.
But it does have a lot ofpotential and they are working
on some investments.
There's a brand new airport inNew Orleans.
It's very nice.
There's also some transit hubs.
They're working on building,they're redoing one of the ferry
terminals, so they are puttingsome investment into the system.
(04:02):
But as it stands, last on thelist.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Moving on to number seven on the list, is kansas
city, and we actually had areally nice time in kansas city.
So I feel bad for being so lowon the list, but I do think that
in a little bit of time we canget into this.
In a little bit it would beclimbing up the list.
There's a lot of potentialthere.
So, um, to kind of start offwith the positives, the
(04:26):
streetcar is great.
It's not a very extensivesystem right now, although it
will be soon, as we're recordingthis, in June.
The streetcar extensions arehaving test cars on them.
They're not open yet, but theywill be opening one of them this
summer and then another in thebeginning of next year and when
(04:46):
those extensions open, thatwould definitely raise this up
on the list for us.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
Also, getting around town,there is some bus coverage.
We found the max buses, whichhad frequency of about every 20
minutes, so not ideal, like theycould be better, yeah, but the
max bus system was fine,comfortable riding it around and
getting through the city.
Yep, we stayed fairly centralin Kansas City.
(05:11):
We didn't go too too far out.
Brookside down south was alittle bit out there.
Yeah, a little bit, but I thinkthe bus service starts to
really taper off the furtheraway from the city center you
get For sure.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Further away from the city center you get For sure.
And one other positive the factthat this is a free fare system
means that the buses get movinga little faster.
You're not sitting therewaiting for people to tap or
pull out money or whatever itmay be.
But that also kind of leads tosome negatives, which we can
talk about in a second too.
One other positive I wanted tohit on was there are a lot of
(05:43):
great neighborhoods and areas intown that are like former
streetcar suburbs or streetcarneighborhoods, and that bodes
well for the future of streetcarextensions.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Yeah, absolutely, and also a very active local
community too that really doescare about things like the
streetcar and improvements tothe system.
So totally definitely,hopefully they get their voices
heard.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah, and if you're looking for something like that,
our episode with the urban labsfolks is definitely worth
checking out.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So yeah, as far as negatives go, you kind of
touched on it, the, uh, the freefare system.
It is a positive that you havea free fare system so anybody
can jump on the bus, but it hascreated a huge deficit for the
transit agency.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
And now there's this sort of looming service cuts,
these looming service cuts thatare on the way and the city is
trying to sort through how todeal with this, but as it stands
right now it's not lookinggreat, although it does seem
like they are.
Some of the plans are to bringfares back into the system.
In Kansas City, fare revenuedoesn't make up like a large
(06:43):
portion.
I wouldn't say fares are arewhat's causing the budget issues
, but at least, especiallyoptically, it doesn't look good.
You're like oh, we're trying tokeep the fairs free, but also
we have this massive budgetshortfall, so that's definitely
something that they're going tohave to work on there in Kansas
City.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Off to number six on our list is our neighbor to the
south in Austin, and that is SanAntonio.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, San Antonio, I feel like you know, obviously
not known for publictransportation.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
No, famously known as being the largest US city
without a train service.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
Yes, without a light rail service and, as a result,
they just have an absoluteabsurd amount of buses.
Yes, everywhere we found themrunning, basically on schedule.
Over there we rode.
I don't even remember I losttrack like we rode so many buses
, a lot of buses.
Yeah, I remember too.
We actually rode the amtrakdown from austin.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Got off the amtrak, we caught the primo bus we there
are enough buses and enoughcoverage, especially in the
center part of the city that wegot on the wrong bus, yes, and
followed it or stayed on it formultiple miles, realized we were
on the wrong bus and followedit or stayed on it for multiple
miles, realized we were on thewrong bus, and then just walked
one block over to the next busstop to get on the right bus.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
So I mean, while the system is just buses, it runs
pretty extensively.
Now, as with any of thesesystems, the further out you get
, the less frequent those busesget, the harder it becomes to
use.
And you know, the less frequentthose buses get, the harder it
becomes to use.
And one other kind of issuethere was the crosstown routes
were not super frequent either,so a lot of your routing needed
to go through downtown.
(08:13):
But that's pretty common inmost cities, unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And unfortunately San Antonio is a huge city.
I mean it is sprawling forever.
It's highways, very car-centric, it's just such a massive area
to cover.
But if you do live in thecenter part of the city
obviously buses are a lot better.
Another positive here the cityhas been making a lot of strides
and improving bikeinfrastructure and there's sort
of the central spine through thecity of the riverwalk area with
(08:39):
all the trails that kind ofconnect to it, so there's pretty
decent walkability in thatsection of town.
Uh, and I think the the bikeinfrastructure is getting better
.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah from.
I remember speaking with someof the folks there like, the
trails are good, the on-streetbike infrastructure is still
rough.
Yeah, like there's like, but wesaw some new bike lanes that
they were putting in.
Yeah, things are improving.
I remember, though, themtelling us like that is the.
Yeah, like, that's, that's likethe.
I don't want to give them toomuch credit here, but but they
might be, you know, hopefullytrending in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Still, um, but uh well and trending in the right
direction.
They are working on vrt, yes,for the future.
So, uh, san antonio is puttinginvestment into the system and,
uh, there's some new modes oftransit coming.
Well, some updated modes oftransit coming.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, still buses, still buses, but um, one other
note that I had on here was uh,for being such a hot city.
Um, there were not a lot of busshelters.
Uh, chris is notorious forleaving the sunscreen, um, uh,
in different places, and uh, and, or we'll buy sunscreen and
then we'll lose it.
And I remember one particularpoint.
(09:43):
In general, you were really,really hot, trying to hide
behind this like one.
I was hiding by one little, onelittle street sign yes, number
five on the list, which is acity near and dear to both of
our hearts, which is the city ofAustin yeah, so I am sad that
Austin is as far down the listas it is, but unfortunately
there's just so much work to bedone.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
in Austin we do have really good bus coverage through
a lot of the central parts ofthe city.
We have our express buses the801, the 803, plus two new
express routes that have justrecently opened.
Rapid routes Rapid routesexcuse me, rapid routes that
have just recently opened.
They've done a lot of work intrying to separate bus lanes in
the center part of the city.
We do have our one commuterrail red line that runs from
(10:28):
leander to downtown, and more uh, light rail on the way.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
hopefully, knock on something yeah, the other like
positive new thing in austinthat we got to check out when we
were doing our austin in a dayepisode was the brand new
all-electric.
Um.
They've still been adding morebikes and stations to that
system, which is going to bedramatically increasing in size,
which is nice and it pairsnicely with um the bike
(10:53):
infrastructure that the city hasbeen putting in, uh, the amount
of bike lanes, um, neighborhoodbikeways, urban trails, all of
this sort of stuff in Austin umis great and is trending upwards
quite a bit.
And with the bus system youwere talking about the rapid
routes during the main parts ofthe day you're getting every 10
minute frequency.
Most of the time, I will saydefinitely had my experiences
(11:15):
where we got stuck, althoughwhen we were using it we lucked
out pretty good.
A lot of buses fall into justlike a high frequency area which
is every 15 minutes and thendrops off from there.
But on the negatives though,that commuter line, like you
said, it's only about every halfan hour frequencies and, for
being real, the route is notwhat it should have been.
(11:38):
That was kind of like thecompromise route Running along
an old freight line.
There has been a really goodpush for transit-oriented
development, but it's taken sometime to come to fruition and,
as a result, the ridership istrending in the right direction.
But it's taken a long time tobuild any significant ridership
because a lot of the stationswere just not really places that
people were living or wanted togo to.
(11:58):
So, um, that's definitely atricky thing there uh, also,
austin's not.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Uh, it does sprawl somewhat but it's not as large
of a city geographically as acity like san antonio.
Um, so the airport's really notthat far from everything in
town and we surprisingly havereally poor connectivity to the
airports.
There are two buses.
I think there's one bus.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Yes, the 20.
I try to take the 20 to theairport when I do it and you
really have to just put yourselfin the mindset that it's not
going to be that great.
Also, Austin's hot.
Yeah, it's hot and sheltersaren't always well shaded, so
you were sitting in the sun ortrying to find shade near a
shelter, and it's hard it can bevery hard to do, so we're going
(12:40):
to jump right back into thisepisode in just a second, but
first, if you have not likedthis video, go ahead and do so.
Also, leave a comment.
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and be sure that you aresubscribed so that you catch
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Speaker 2 (12:53):
Please share this with your friends and if you
don't have time to watch YouTubevideos in the future, you can
catch us on any of the podcastplatforms that are out there.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Just be sure to leave us a rating and give us a
comment Number four on our list,which is the city of Houston,
our other neighbor to the south,our other neighbor to the south
, yes, and Houston.
You know, I feel like this oneis an episode that people
probably like it's done reallywell compared to some of the
other ones and it's because,like Houston and public transit
(13:22):
couldn't be further apart inpeople's heads, I think, but in
reality they're actually doingquite a bit and now like there
are plenty of issues in Houston.
But I remember starting the dayon the Red Line light rail and
just being absolutely shocked athow many trains there were so
many trains.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Yes, every time we looked away another train.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
It was literally every six-minute frequencies and
when you've got them going inboth directions, yeah it was
insane.
It was really moving prettyefficiently.
They're running in the centerlanes of a street essentially,
but it is dedicated.
They're not sharing lanes withtraffic like the Kansas City
streetcar does.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
I know this probably doesn't happen every weekday,
but some of the buses wereaggressively on time.
We were running to the stop totry to catch them because you
didn't have long for the doorsto catch the bus at the stop.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
I'll say, though, we did that, and then we were like
wow, we almost didn't need to doit.
A lot of their buses were onevery eight minute frequencies,
which is like you know that,that's.
You would not expect that to behappening in texas, yeah, um.
So yeah, I mean we, we caught alot of buses, all different
types of buses, um, and yeah,they were, they effectively were
(14:30):
getting you around the city.
We even, I remember going outto one of the transit centers,
kind of not on the edge of townbut like out on the, the first
kind of major highway ring andum, at the big transit center.
We caught a bus prettyefficiently from there that then
utilizes the horribly uglyhighway infrastructure but uses
it in the best way possible usesan express lane over the
highway to get to get you intodowntown.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
It's expressed from the transit center up in the
uptown area all the way todowntown.
Yeah, um, also there is alittle bit of BRT infrastructure
but, going towards the negativeside, the current mayor has
done a lot to take away that BRTinfrastructure and so now we've
seen BRT lines either severelyreduced, removed or canceled
entirely.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yes, which is obviously not great.
Yeah, and then that kind offalls into more of the negative
sides, and I mean the fact thatyou're having to rely on buses
as well.
You know, some parts of thetown had bus lanes, but other
parts don't.
When you get stuck in rush hourtraffic and the buses are all
sitting in traffic like they doin any city, it becomes less
effective for people to use.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, but like any city, Houston's still very
car-centric and definitely builtfor the individual passenger
vehicle.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yes, for sure.
Definitely recommend folkscheck that episode out, though,
if they're interested.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
With that next on our list and this is going to
create a little bit ofcontention for people in Texas.
Next on our list is Dallas, andI think one of the big reasons
for that is Dallas has one ofthe largest light rail networks
in the country.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yes, and it extends quite a ways.
And I mean personally, likethese two are kind of tied in my
head, like we literally flippedthem back and forth a few times
and I was like, eh, we can goeither way.
So we have the contention.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes for sure.
I am firm in my belief thatDallas is ahead of Houston.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, yeah, and I mean the DART trains are great.
They go, like you said, thatit's a very extensive system.
Um, with that, though, it allkind of funnels into this one
street downtown where they'rerunning on like a nice transit
plaza, but they're at basicallymax capacity on the street,
which makes it so that each ofthe branches of the light rail
has 20 minute frequencies.
(16:29):
20 minute frequencies is notgreat, that is.
I'm not going to just go showup at the train station without
consulting a schedule to seewhat time it's coming, and in a
city the size of Dallas, thatshouldn't be the case.
In my opinion.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Yeah, I don't disagree with that entirely.
The big positive for me is thatthe train network is so
extensive and really I'm lookingat it as the regional
connectivity so Dallas-FortWorth is a massive region and
connectivity.
So Dallas-Fort Worth is amassive region and there is a
lot of really good connectivity.
You can take the TRE all theway to DFW and to Fort Worth.
You can take the Orange Line toLove Field with a bus
(17:04):
connection or you can even comedown from Denton.
There's the rail line fromDenton coming into Dallas so it
almost functions a little bitmore like one of the East Coast
cities with like those sort ofregional connections, like their
metro is almost like a bit morelike one of the East Coast
cities with those sort ofregional connections, like their
metro is almost like a metro,like one of the commuter lines
out from another city.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah right, the stop spacing is pretty far away and
all that sort of stuff.
I think that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
So for regional connectivity it's really high on
my list, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
One of the negatives for Dallas for me was the buses
were pretty not great to use.
Not great.
I feel like we kind ofstruggled with buses the whole
time we were there.
I remember the one instance inparticular there were just
several buses queued up at astoplight and it took like three
or four cycles of the light forthe bus to just cross the one
(17:50):
intersection that we werewaiting for it at, which is just
really frustrating, especiallywhen it wasn't just one bus.
It was a road that had multiplebuses running down it and there
was zero signal priority.
There was no dedicated bus lane, like nothing to try to clear
the buses through theintersection, and there were
plenty of people waiting on thebus to ride it.
Um, the frequencies on thebuses in general were not good
(18:11):
from multiple places.
So, uh, for a system of thatsize and to your point about it
being like the stop spacing onthe light rail is pretty far
apart they got to do somethingto kind of compensate for dallas
.
It is there is way more therethan folks would think similar
to houston.
It's just like you don't thinkof these cities as being areas
that even have publictransportation.
Um, the systems are big andexpensive.
(18:33):
I feel like I was just saying alot of the negative things
about dallas, but overall it wasa positive.
I was just saying a lot of thenegative things about Dallas,
but overall it was a positiveexperience.
There's also a lot of greatwork being done there.
We've done several episodeswith the folks from Data, the
Dallas Area Transit Alliance,who successfully have prevented
budget cuts coming from thestate level to the system.
So, as far as momentum isconcerned, there's some good
grassroots efforts going to tryto improve the system and
(18:56):
there's investments into thesystem.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So I mentioned airport connectivity earlier.
The Silver Line, which is goingto run from DFW to Plano, is a
major investment in the regionby DART.
So definitely some improvementsthere.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yes, moving on to number two on our list here.
This was actually one of thefirst episodes that we did.
This was the first kind of cityusing only public transit
episode.
Uh, going back to salt Lakecity, and uh, it was a chilly
day in salt Lake city, Iremember um, but overall we were
pretty impressed.
Um, they have a prettyextensive light rail system that
(19:30):
kind of runs throughout thecity.
Um, there are efforts to expandthis system with some new lines
.
They also had pretty decent busnetwork coverage.
It was running on schedule.
It's not the most frequentbuses this is kind of a
recurring theme.
Not everywhere has the mostfrequent buses.
But it integrated well into thesystem.
(19:51):
We were able to use iteffectively while we were there.
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, a big win for me was that the airport
connectivity was smooth.
I mean, you walked right out ofthe terminal and the light rail
stopped right by the door.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Yes, yes, it was super easy no long walking
around a weird area, no shuttleto get there.
They had a really niceattendant who talked to you
while you waited.
That's right, I forgot aboutthat.
Yep, it was cold, though it wasreally cold.
It was a freezing night.
Sitting there waiting for it, Iremember.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Another positive for the area you have the front
runner which sort of runsthrough that center spine of
that part of Utah from, I think,Ogden to Provo, yes, and so you
have a lot of regionalconnectivity in these little
cities that are all sort of inthat line.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yep, and then we didn't get to use them on the
trip that we did there.
But there are some BRT systemskind of further out and Salt
Lake City has also beeninvesting in further BRT in the
area.
And then, as far as momentum isconcerned, the Rio Grande plan.
We've talked about this in anepisode previously.
There are some, you know, biggrassroots efforts to propose
(20:54):
some utilization of a historiccentral station that is there,
which would be a massive win forthe city, because right now
this kind of falls on thenegatives.
They're like kind of Salt LakeCity's central station.
It's like offset from downtownby like a weird amount of blocks
and it's just kind of in anarea that felt pretty industrial
and not very central.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Another negative for Salt lake.
Uh, negative or positive?
Yeah, it's a negative with anopportunity.
Uh, the streets are the wideststreets I've ever seen.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
They are huge, wildly wide, like it's.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, it's actually insane and absurdly wide, like
it feels like a texas highway inthe middle of your city.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yes, just on the just on the street and, it may like,
hurts you in terms ofwalkability because everything
is just it, like you know, addsup marginally everything is that
much further?
away.
You're also spending a lot moretime like crossing the street,
which is just dangerous from theperspective of needing to
interface with cars and whatnoton foot.
But the potential positive outof this is, if the city wanted
to um, they could have amazingprotected bike lanes.
(21:56):
They could have amazingprotected bike lanes, they could
have amazing dedicated buslanes and they have the real
estate to be able to do it in anice way.
Um, while we're there, wenoticed some bike lanes, but I
don't remember anything reallystanding out to me as like wow,
this is amazing bikeinfrastructure, yeah, um most of
it seemed to be around theuniversities.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
It was like where it got better, but then it sort of
tapered off yeah, it would belike kind of painted bike lanes
and stuff through downtown.
But, all in all, we had areally good time in Salt Lake
city.
Uh, really enjoyed it and,again, I was very impressed by
what exists there for a citythat I knew nothing about when
we arrived.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
One major thing that they could do to improve it, and
I remember it bothered the lackof signal prioritization on the
light rail.
But all in all, for Salt LakeCity, holy cow, I mean, it was
actually really good and I liketo see the momentum that they're
pushing there.
Agreed yes, all right, so numberone on the list.
This one will be no surprise,because I feel like so many of
(22:52):
these cities leading up to thispoint are not known for being
transit cities.
Right, this was the first onethat we went to.
That was like okay, this isgoing to be the first episode
where we do this city in a dayusing only public transit.
It's going to be pretty easy,and that city is Washington DC.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yes, washington DC, nation's capital, honestly the
most beautiful metro system inthe country.
There's something amazing aboutgoing down the escalator, and I
mean down the escalator.
It's a very deep system in someplaces, but when you get down
and you just see the vaultedceiling very like kind of
brutalistic but beautiful, andeverything about that experience
(23:26):
just felt very nice.
The system's really clean.
It's pretty much uh, all thetrains are on time.
Yeah, it just ran really well.
It was a great day.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Yeah, the frequencies are are high, you're not not
needing to try to plan yourschedule around when the train
is going to come.
We had good luck with buses theentire day too.
The bus frequencies were high.
Bad weather oh yeah, that'sright, it was DC and they had
just gotten a bunch of snow theday before we got there.
Very cold, yeah, I mean, all inall it was a unsurprisingly a
(24:01):
very smooth day.
The airport connections,especially from dca excuse me,
especially from dca.
You walk right out of theairport, cross a little
skybridge thing and the stationis right there.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Yeah, but even connectivity to dullis is super
easy.
It just takes a while, yes, butthe silver line now is open to
dullis.
You can just hop on the silverline and go straight into the
city.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Yeah, but it's something like a 45 minute.
It's a long trip, but it's a oneseat ride still.
So that's.
That's nice, um, from thatperspective, um, the city itself
is also just very walkable.
Being an older city on the eastcoast, uh, you're not kind of
crossing, dealing with highwaysand stuff everywhere.
Talked about the metro too.
Um, the at the time, the redline was automated and it had
kind of newly been automated,but, as of today, they've
(24:39):
automated all of the lines inthe system, which is pretty
amazing.
I think it's the only metro inthe US that has their entire
metro system automated.
So I'd like to see that whichhelps with speed, reliability,
to be able to make sure that thesystem is staying on time and
on track.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yep.
And when we talk about regionalconnectivity, uh, this is a.
The dmp region is huge andthere's so much connectivity
because you have the dc metro,you have the mark trains, you
have the vre, vra, vre, vre, vreI think one of those um and you
have amtrak sort of servicingthat area as well.
(25:16):
So you have a lot of regionalconnectivity?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
No, absolutely.
And I mean to pick a fewnegatives here.
One of them you mentioned thedeep stations at the beginning.
I mean it does take a long timeto get down there If you're in
a rush to catch your train.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You've got to budget five minutes of escalator time,
yes, which is, I mean, it'snotable.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I mean it's down there.
That's like unlike what we have.
Actually, I almost shouldn'tsay this.
Well, I was going to say unlikewhat we've seen in some of the
more recent episodes that youshould be looking forward to
from Philadelphia and Boston,but yeah, it was very, very far
under Something else that Idon't know that this is
necessarily a negative, but it'sdifferent from a lot of the
(25:54):
other ones the fare system,different from a lot of the
other ones.
The fare system.
It's not like a flat fare likeyou pay in most places in the
United States where it's like,yep, a ride with a transfer
might cost you $2 or $2.50 orwhatever it may be.
In DC, you tap when you enterthe station and you tap when you
go out of the station, on themetro at least, and you are
charged based on the distancethat you traveled versus a flat
(26:16):
fare.
On buses's a flat fare, but um,for the metro that's a little
bit of a different way to do itthat's our list.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
Um, like I said, we've been to these eight cities
and so, uh, dc so far is ourwinner.
Yeah, uh, sorry new orleans forbeing last, but uh, yeah, if
you agree with this list, let usknow.
Tell us what we, what you thinkwe missed.
If you disagree with us, let usknow.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Yes, tell us what you think we got wrong and, uh,
like I kind of said at the startof this, we're going to be
doing this now at the end ofevery of our kind of city in a
day episodes.
So, um, when we have ourepisodes, the next three of
these they're not going to beback to back to back, it'll be
kind of staggered out a littlebit from boston, philly and
baltimore.
We will also be slotting thosecities in the list and then stay
(27:01):
tuned for more cities coming.
As we mentioned a couple monthsago, at this point or weeks ago
, I'm getting ready for my moveover to germany, so we might mix
in some european cities intothis list as well, which will be
fun to compare.
If you have any requests foreuropean cities, cities or even
just topics to look for in anyof these, as usual we love
hearing them, so definitely letus know.
(27:21):
If you want to support the showdirectly, you can do so via our
Patreon buy me a coffee or bychecking out our merch store.
You can also subscribe, likethis video, leave us your
comments, send it to a friend.
Any of those things are all abig help of those things are all
a big help, but without furtherado.
Thank you all.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
So much for watching, and enjoy the rest of your
transit tangents tuesday yeah,I'm saving that dough public
transit's where it's at watch mego.
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