The American Transit Tier List

Here is my tier list of all the transit systems I have taken over the past year. This covers a lot of transit in the US and ranks it on a tier list of how good I consider a city's transit system to be.

A special thanks to:
@solarlithiumionbatteryLithiumscion
Jason Z/SPD_Bird
Floppaphoto

Other Socials and Patreon

[danniboi]

As an Angeleno, LA making C-tier is actually a testament to the improvements that have been going on. I honestly expected no higher than D, so this is good to hear

[jabhari-]

As a Floridian, I can't understand how a metropolitan area with over 3 million people doesn't warrant the use of some kind of mass transit that isn't a bus. Sucks that most efforts that come to mind were killed by politics...

[TohaBgood]

Just a correction,
BART service hours:
Weekdays (5:00 am- Midnight)
Saturday (6:00 am - Midnight)
Sunday (8:00 am - Midnight)

So only on Sundays does BART start running trains at 8am. And this is due to their track upgrade project which has been going on for quite a few years now, but will eventually end and they will push the Sunday start time back to what it used to be.

[BeginCTC]

I feel like this doesn't get talked about enough, but the main reason for all the deferred maintenence on the T is the result of MassDOT saddling them with a huge chunk of The Big Dig cost. Imagine what 3.8 BILLION dollars could have done for the MBTA... because that was deemed as their share of the bill.

[jacobvickers]

Being a Chicago native, I would also put Chicago mass transit in the A tier. A lot of people like to slander the CTA, and while yes, the transit system does have its problems (tbh what US transit system doesn't have problems), but for the problems we do have, Id take CTA ANY DAY over essentially any other US transit system. CTA has been spending a ton of money to completely upgrade the northern portion of the red line, is extending the red line on the south side, is currently rebuilding the tracks on a major portion of the blue line, adding a couple new stations to existing lines, and we even have new 7000 series rail cars that are beginning to appear on the lines. While frequency of trains and cleanliness could be improved, us Chicagoans tend to take our mass transit system for granted.

[chuckchumbucket]

1. 0:59 San Diego C tier
2. 1:46 Los Angeles C tier
3. 2:45 (just) San Francisco S tier
4. 3:48 Portland B tier
5. 4:30 Seattle A tier
6. 5:15 Flagstaff F tier
7. 5:44 Las Vegas D tier
8. 6:16 Kansas City D tier
9. 6:45 Saint Louis C tier
10. 7:20 Tampa Sun Belt tier
11. 7:43 Chicago A tier
12. 8:28 Washington DC S tier
13. 9:13 Baltimore C tier
14. 10:00 Philadelphia A tier
15. 10:55 Boston B tier
16. Not on the list but NYC would definitely have been in A tier

[edbacher]

New York is in a class by itself. All subway lines have 24/7 service, with overnight headways (1-5 AM) of 20 minutes on every line. Weekend headways are excellent. The commuter rail network (LIRR, Metro-North and NJ Transit) provides service with tremendous rush hour headways and half-hourly to hourly service on most lines middays, evenings and weekends. Service runs until around 2 AM (and all night on most of the LIRR).

[SourdoughVideo]

As someone who just visited DC, if you drive there leave your car on the outskirts and just park and ride. Their metro system is super clean and very fast to get around the city. I never remembered it being that good as a kid, but I don’t know why anyone would drive in DC over taking the subway. It’s truly excellent.

[ecurewitz]

Boston having the oldest transit system in the country and it shows hits the nail on the head. There is so much potential for improvement there. Overall it’s not bad, but they really need some upkeep

[collio]

As a DC area native, it’s great to see our transit at the top of the list. WMATA has had some accidents and has gotten a bad rap over the years, but the trains are very clean, pretty new, the reach is expansive, and the bus service is fantastic as well. Out into the suburbs, the counties and states do a great job with bus service as well. Having ridden VRE and MARC, they are great services with really comfortable trains. It’s a shame that their frequency isn’t great but other than that, absolutely solid services. I agree with you that DC is deserving to be at the top of the list, and it’s noticeable when I travel that transit is lacking in other cities.

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

It wasn't mentioned here as you didn't visit before making this tier list, but more places with solid transit are Newark, Hoboken, and Jersey City! Of course NYC next door is the transit giant, but these three places do a pretty good job too! Hoboken and Jersey City both have the HBLR which stretches across Hudson County and uses a combination of old rail and new exclusive rights-of-way for most of its length, with some grade separation in certain areas. It provides connections to the PATH (goes between NJ and NYC) at three stops, NY Waterway ferries, and NJT rail at Hoboken Terminal! Jersey City also has Journal Square which is a big bus hub for NJT buses and jitneys and is a PATH station as well!

Newark has Newark Penn Station which is a hub for Greyhound, Amtrak, NJT rail, NJT buses, PATH, and the Newark Light Rail! The Newark Light Rail connects northern Newark, Bloomfield, and Belleville as well as both Rutgers Newark and NJIT to Newark Penn! The Broad Street section of the light-rail provides a connection to Newark Broad Street Station. Newark Liberty International Airport of course has a station as well with connection to the AirTrain, though you could also take a bus to the airport from Newark Penn!

[hyun-shik]

No US city deserves S tier with the possible exception of New York. That should be reserved for the London and Tokyo level cities.

[possiblyadog]

As someone that lived in NYC for 6 years and now lives in San Francisco, the transit in SF is good but not S-Tier good. My biggest complaint is that many services are running at street-level, so the mess of drivers make transit get delayed and the streets loud and unpleasant to walk. Many bus routes do not have dedicated bus lanes and -- while there are some 24hr routes -- transit shuts off too early. Public transport should be good enough that it convinces some people not to drive. SF is simply not there yet.

[robo_cob]

As a Bostonian, I kinda think you are underselling the MBTA especially when considering the commuter line, and delays aren't a major problem for me

[anthraff]

I'm just amazed you hit most of the biggest cities in the Northeast megalopolis and just passed over NYC. But it would be unfair to add us to your list ;-)

[mohammadislam]

Glad you're showing off other systems in the country that need to be highlighted. Obviously New York dominates the conversation around American transit so I'm glad it didn't feature on this tier list because it would quite literally be all these systems compared to New York and that would be incredibly unfair.

[russelldinkins]

Firstly, thanks for putting this video together! I really enjoyed it. As a Philly native and someone who currently lives in Seattle, I can confidently say that those two cities do not belong in the same category as Philadelphia’s transit is way better in terms of coverage than Seattle’s. Seattle does have the 1 Line, the light rail line, which is pretty good, but there’s so many sections of the city that are not serviced by rapid transit and heavy rail at all, and are a pain in the neck to get to. Whereas a large portion of Philadelphia is covered by either the two subway lines or the regional rail. There really isn’t a rapid transit comparison for Seattle.

[rabbbirumba]

Nice video! As a Chicagoan I think you were pretty fair. You should visit Madison, WI as an example of a college town with good transit. It's just buses but the network is pretty solid for a city of Madison's size. Also the city is getting a BRT next year if you would want to check it out!

[thefateofslate]

I just LOVE how people who aren’t from Philadelphia are so enamored by SEPTA. That’s because you haven’t stayed here long enough to see the bogus going on behind closed doors.

You nailed the cleanliness problem though, I see people taking fat dumps in the stations way too often.

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

The design of the DC Metro system is incredible! The flashing lights on the platform whenever a train arrives, the hexagonal tiles, the waffle-style concrete vault Brutalism, it was built as a showcase system, and it shows. They were designed by Harry Weese, and he worked with Massachusetts-based lighting designer Bill Lam on the indirect lighting used throughout the system. Weese is also the guy behind the iconic capital-M-on-a-pylon! He visited London, Paris, Rome, Stockholm, and many other smaller cities, hoping to take the best elements of each and combine them into the perfect system for DC. Weese created a proposal with dozens of views for station interiors with a simple semiellipse, with a flat bottom and curved top.

For cut-and-cover stations, the vault was proposed to have straight, vertical walls supporting a curved ceiling. But the US Commission of Fine Arts wanted it to be beautiful, and no exposed rock walls like Stockholm, so he changed his thought. He felt the necessities of each station would produce the variety, that "You don't try to make them different for different's sake. We think it's very appropriate for Washington. After all". To Weese, the sweeping, swooping, floating lines of Metro's plazas, stations and mezzanines are the system's best feature. Once they were chosen, he said, the long, long escalators and the indirect, somewhat dim lighting in stations fell into step as a result.