How Cleveland’s Public Transit System Ranks Nationwide

Public transportation is essential to life in America’s big cities, but not all transit systems serve their communities equally well. Among 35 systems compared in a recent report, Cleveland's ranked pretty near the bottom, in 30th place.

The Fabric Insurance Agency ranked the 35 systems based on key measurements such as approval ratings from users, the share of workers who commute using public transit and trips taken per person. Cleveland's ranking, which put it just behind Rochester, NY, and just ahead of Memphis, TN, broke down this way:

• Public approval rating: 60.4 percent (middling, by national standards)
• Yearly trips per person: 22.7
• Share of workers who use public transit: 2.7 percent
• Stations that are ADA-accessible: 65.2 percent
• Passenger miles traveled using electric power: 11.4 percent

The New York City-Newark-Jersey City area is the best public transit system among America’s largest metro areas, according to the report. The area sees 228 trips per person each year and an impressive 31 percent of people take public transit to work. The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area ranked second, also buoyed by strong numbers in public approval, trips per person and share of public transit commuters.

Here are the top 10:

1. New York-Newark-Jersey City
2. San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward, CA
3. Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
4. Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL
5. Boston-Cambridge-Newton-MA-NH
6. Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA
7. Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO
8. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA
9. Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA
10. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA

Public transportation, which includes buses, rail lines, trolleys and the like, is vital to a city’s health. In 2017, the latest year data was available, Americans took 10.1 billion — that’s billion, with a “b” — trips on public transit systems. And since 1996, ridership has increased 31 percent, a rate that outpaces America’s population growth.

And public transit is poised to become even more important as global leaders grapple with climate change and try to make more environmentally-conscious choices.

Public transportation saves about 4.2 billion gallons of gasoline each year in the United States, according to the American Public Transportation Association. Furthermore, communities that invest in public transit reduce the nation’s carbon emissions by 37 million metric tons a year.

The study used data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 and 2017 American Housing Surveys, the 2017 American Community Survey one-year estimates, the Federal Transit Authority NTD data reports, and local agencies. The measurements that received the most weight: approval rating among residents, annual trips per person, share of workers who commute using public transit, and difference in earnings between public transit and car commuters.

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.