Smaller Cities With Great Transit: 10 Metro Areas Under a Million Population With High Ridership

[@aaronnadler6071]

I once saw someone say people love college so much because they get to experience walkability and solid public transportation for the first time in their lives

[@CityNerd]

I've heard that too -- I think it rings pretty true. Similar to why people love Disney World

[@MyLifeInTheDesert]

And a sense of community

[@jenniferfriedman8138]

Wow. Rings true for me. I’ve been missing walkability ever since. I’m so tired of the suburbs

[@lephtovermeet]

A group of (mostly) homogeneous people in walking distance that you can hangout with and see all the time. A ton of young, many very attractive people *cough cough*experimenting. Athletic facilities and the time (and age) to actually use them. A million free (built into tuition) clubs and activities. Catered food every day. Your only job is to learn and produce stuff (papers, projects etc.) And your made to feel so important and special if you do well at it. Essentially no responsibilities for your time there until you're kicked out into the real world. It's a lot more than just not having to own a car.

[@tomcotter4299]

I think it’s because of the carefree lifestyle of partying and unprotected sex. Whoever said that is probably a serial killer of Dahmeresq proportions.

[@gdrriley420]

Student run bus companies are surprisingly common. UC Davis has one as well. They started with old double decker London busses. Students drive and do almost everything else. There’s just a handful of professional staff

[@CityNerd]

That's wild to me. Maybe it's different in smaller college towns, but in bigger cities, bus drivers have a really tough job -- it's a lot more than just driving an awkwardly large vehicle.

[@gdrriley420]

@@CityNerdI’ve not talked to anyone who drives them but they all are 40ft and shorter.

[@ethansin3035]

I used to drive for Unitrans and since then I've moved on to work for a private charter company running from San Francisco. It's a different beast for sure, but Unitrans truly just had phenomenal training! It was a great company to work for and I'm always proud to see them make it onto these lists :^)

[@gregl1927]

UMass Amherst in Amherst Mass also has a student-run division of the local bus system (PVTA--Pioneer Valley Transit Authority). Also UConn used to have a student run bus system but it's no longer.

[@gjits5307]

wow if I went to a campus with student bus drivers they'd be up to their neck in... uh... me

[@urbanderek]

Awesome video, as a student living in a college town I’m not surprised that the list was almost entirely made up of them. Before you said the towns were over 50k I thought ski towns were going to be on the list. The systems of Aspen, Vail, and Breckenridge are kind of crazy for how well they work. I think that would be an interesting video topic.

[@andrewdiamond2697]

Yes. I just got back from Steamboat, CO, and the bus stop was outside of my rental house with 10-minute headways all day long....and free fare.

[@CityNerd]

Yeah, also small tourism-oriented towns like Ocean City, MD would show well on a list like that.

[@danieldaniels7571]

Interesting. I lived in Jackson, Wyoming, also a ski town, and it had great transit too.

[@57ttocs]

I live in Steamboat and my wife is from Aspen originally. Ski towns have great transit! It is so good in Aspen that my mother in law has never had a drivers license. Ski towns are great for transit due to the geography. Most people are trying to get to only a couple destinations and the tight valleys make for typically only one or two main through roads.

[@danieldaniels7571]

@@57ttocs that’s exactly how it is in Jackson. I lived there nearly a year, didn’t have a car, and had no need for one. Most things were walking distance, and the walks were beautiful and pleasant. Everywhere else was 15 minutes or less away by bus, and two routes covered everything.

[@henrybrown6480]

Blacksburg on a CityNerd list? It's a dream come true! Headways of 15min at peak hour kinda suck, but the bus system in Blacksburg is wildly popular in no small part because Virginia Tech won't expand parking and instead is investing in transit amenities. It's great!

[@CityNerd]

It's a great system!

[@MichaelTaylor-nm6cx]

I was thinking the exact same thing! So awesome that Blacksburg made one of these lists! This channel is my new favorite channel. I miss Blacksburg and sometimes think I should have never left. And this channel has helped me realize that, yes, a big part of me loving Blacksburg was because of the walkability.

[@97dgv]

I drove a bus for 7 of my 8 semesters at UMass! we operate as a garage of the Pioneer Valley Transit Authority (PVTA). the garage is almost entirely student-run, from the training department, to the bus drivers, dispatchers, and much of IT too. there were maybe 8-10 salaried adult staff across the entire operation of 200 or so students. our GM started out as a bus driver himself when he was in school. several of the mechanics are also former student drivers themselves! it really was a fascinating ecosystem as a whole and my favorite job I've ever had

[@georgedaole-wellman3950]

UMass class of '14 here, Amherst is also similar to a lot of the towns on this list in having free routes run by the college + PVTA as well as PVTA paid routes serving the broader region (multiple college towns close together).

[@callmeswivelhips8229]

I graduated class of 2012. I've always thought the transit of the Pioneer Valley to be a bit lopsided. I live in Northampton now, and to ride a bus to the main population hub of the area (Springfield), you need to transfer buses twice. And there's no direct route between Springfield and Amherst either. For a region with so much mass transit, it seems to me there's still a considerable amount of the region that remains completely unconnected.

[@matsonboyd14]

@@callmeswivelhips8229 There is a direct PVTA bus now connecting Northampton to Springfield.

[@Mrbombs102]

Grew up in Northampton, have since moved out near Boston The PVTA is a way better public transit system than anything outside of the 128 loop in eastern MA gets. The fact that the entire T network was built only to get people in and out of Boston and not... Around eastern MA as a whole makes it only useful to me once or twice a year despite living near both a Red line, and a Commuter Rail station. But I used the PVTA all the time when I lived in Northampton, when I wasn't biking places. Now I have to drive everywhere, just because my destination is very rarely in Boston so even if there was a train to where I'm going, going all the way to downtown crossing or North station just to come back out to a place that's a 20-30 min drive away is a waste. The PVTA is so much more interconnected with multiple hubs and routes like the 5 College loop that make it easy to jump lines.

[@callmeswivelhips8229]

@@Mrbombs102 You're not wrong, at all. But in my mind, you're comparing a shit system to a less shitty system. Take a look at most European countries. You can use mass transit to get form random point a to random point b. You can't really do that even in Western MA. To take a bus from Northampton to Springfield, the cultural hub to the population hub respectively, you have to transfer buses twice. an you get to places like Greenfield or Belchertown by bus? Barely, yes. And the buses that take you are unrecognizable as buses too. It makes no sense. Is Pioneer Valley more interconnected than the Boston area? Yes, absolutely. Is it interconnected to an impressive degree? No, not at all.

[@Meditry93]

I live in Ames and had no idea we would rank so high! I appreciated the note about our downtown. It has really improved a lot since I moved here in 2012. An area that used to be relatively dead (in my memory) is now busy at almost any time of any day.

[@squirlez6349]

Same here! I was really happy to see Ames make it so high.

[@timnewman1172]

Ames is a great place, kinda nice that both it and Iowa City made the list!

[@parkmannate4154]

I was surprised. My wife and I walk or bike pretty much everywhere since its super doable and see a lot of other people doing the same when its not, you k ow, -a billion degrees out

[@CityNerd]

What are you all doing in Iowa? Bikes everywhere on campus too! Really interesting.

[@NAUM1]

I loved living in Ames as a student at Iowa State. Lived behind the East HyVee on the Blue Line and that was a great place to be when the car broke down or just wanted to walk home from a Football game. The apps to track it are also pretty great as I could time when to leave the gym to get the bus right as it arrived so not to stand out in the cold. And the cultural events definitely are there to treasure as well.

[@martinn.6082]

Here in Germany, there's a town called Gotha that has its own tram system with 5 lines, 32 total stops and a rolling stock of 20 vehicles. Population: 45,000. It's a bit of an anomaly, though in many east German towns, a tram network still exists while they were mostly dismantled during the car age in the 60s and onwards. The Gotha one is also very old, it was introduced in 1897 and has never stopped operation. Forgot to mention: it is also connected to the "Thuringian forest train", which is a tram that goes to some other villages and has a total length of about 22km. Pretty fun for such a small and not densely populated place.

[@harry12]

gotha is famous because of the royal family (in fact families)

[@futurerails8421]

Even former West Germany didn't abandon their trams that excessive with no city over 500.000 relying only on busses and even many cities unter 300.000 keeping their tram while others don't. Other West European Countries like France did abandon more excessivly but are consequently rebuilding even for cities with 100.000 like Caen and that shows it is possible to reverse the mistakes if a Country really wants.

[@enjoystraveling]

Wow! My great grandparents. Some of them came from that area and I didn’t know there was the forest train to get around to some smaller villages. Are used to work in Southwestern Germany and there’s a course the Deutsche Bahn. And other ways of getting around such as bicycles in the university cities.

[@pinneddowntopinup1997]

I live in Chicago, home of easily one of the greatest public transit systems in the country. I often feel that the two main factors that are holding us back from being even better than we are are: 1) The suburbs and their far lower proportion of transit and commuter rail ridership which greatly impacts us on lists like this because of metropolitan area, which ties into.. 2) Car culture's dominance in the Midwest, where (obviously) a lot of people who come to our metro area are from. Even in the city itself where our public transit system is AWESOME, it would be so much more awesome if all these folks utilized it instead of their cars. Frequency in busses could/would improve, we'd get even more bike lanes (though we are improving, but not as fast as we should), and heck, we may even get an 'outer loop' L line!! #GiveMeTheSilverLine

[@CityNerd]

In a way, it's even more impressive that Chicago does as well as it does on lists like this because of the general car dominance of the midwest 1950s-present.

[@clivegregory8511]

As a former Chicagoan I feel it is a colossal oversight that of cities once having had an extensive streetcar network operating PCC cars Chicago never reintroduced any street/light rail transit as have LA, SD, Dallas, KC, StL, Twin Cities, Detroit, Cincy, Baltimore. DC.

[@clivegregory8511]

I've lived in Philadelphia and SF, legacy cities (always) with trolleys (PHL) and streetcars (SFO) as core transit services. This to my frustration makes obvious the most substantial deficiency of the CTA, it's sole reliance on busses for surface/street service. This really annoys me. Imagine rail service on any of these routes, 22 Clark, 36 Broadway, 4 Cottage Grove, 28 Stony Island, 72 North, 66 Chicago, 28 Madison, 12 Roosevelt, 22 Cermak, 35 35th, 47 47th, 63 63rd, 79 79th, 87 87th, 8 Halsted, 9 Ashland, 49 Western. This would make CTA and Chicago transit truly AWESOME!

[@clivegregory8511]

Fantasize of our city's transit being like that of the other big city on a great lake although to that end I'm eternally thankful for Daniel Burnham)

[@mattgopack7395]

Yeah, going to Chicago for the first time recently, I was really surprised by how great the transport is - super convenient to get around, and felt really cheap. That said, the sheer size of the city is a lot - and the streets are still pretty clearly car-centric to me, with their massive width. But still very impressive on the whole.

[@mkallend]

Oh man. I went to Honolulu for New Years and was blown away by the greatness of their bus network. I’ve lived in transit-rich cities most of my life, and it basically held serve.

[@guitarstar0101]

I live in Blacksburg and while the bus system is amazing for students, it’s not very convenient for locals since every route goes into the center of campus, and none reach the outlying areas of the city where most locals live

[@nielspemberton59]

U need to form a transit advocacy and consumer group.

[@bagenstb]

I went to grad school at the University of Illinois and CUMTD was incredibly convienent plus free for students (undergrad or grad). The city of Champaign even talked about getting light rail in the early 2000s but nixed it as being too costly for city their size. So I'm not at all surprised to see them at #2 on this list.

[@francisrogers9824]

6:44 was a real eye opener to my views on stroad regeneration. It shows to me how it is possible to transform roads to be a size that's more appropriate and not act as high speed corridors in cities. Im glad you included this. Would it be possible to make a video as a guide to cities for retrofitting these roads?

[@garyholt8315]

huge potential in all cities to shrink the roads !

[@seanhartnett79]

Personally I like high speed roads because traffic is bad enough without them.

[@seanhartnett79]

But I would prefer to slap high speed rail next to the highways.

[@jackiebarnes2317]

Students can absolutely be bus drivers as a work study job. It's apparently the most coveted work-study job at UMASS Amherst. (my friend is in grad school there)

[@hamishashcroft3233]

Great video! Small towns can be great not necessarily for public transport but for not needing a car. The small town I live in in Scotland has everything you would need (or most things anyway) within about a 15 minute walk, so you don’t really need transit in the same way

[@andrejka_talking_out_loud]

to me that is the way to live.. when people have cars they are driving a half hour away all the time.. not really living where they LOVE

[@pacificostudios]

The HART system is a lot further long along than Google is showing. The guideway is complete from its western terminus to west of HNL airport. There is barely a mile left to get to Middle Street Transit Center -- the approximate halfway point -- which is where all the city bus lines converge. Also, the trains are on the property, the yard is complete. Once the trains start running, the pressure to complete it through downtown will be enormous.

[@Scotter4536]

I went to grad school at Cornell and was astounded at how much coverage the public bus system had. I was there for two years and took the bus almost every day to class or biked. Highly recommend it for anyone that wants to live in a gorgeous area with way more going on than your typical "Small Town USA".

[@charlienyc1]

You just had to say "gorgeous", didn't ya? 😆 I used to see that "Ithaca is gorgeous" t-shirt constantly living in NYC. I just about fell off my chair when I saw it on the UC Davis campus once.

[@AlRoderick]

I've said a lot in the nearly twenty years since I left college, it's kind of cruel that we send kids off to nice walkable mid sized cities with good transit for their first taste of adult life, and then when they graduate they have to either spend millions to get a home in a high demand walkable neighborhood or spend their whole career commuting by car, with few exceptions.

[@johnathin0061892]

It more cruel that we encourage so many kids to go to college instead of trade schools, and they end up being debt slaves for the rest of their lives.

[@AlRoderick]

It would still be a bit of a tease even if college tuition was free. Also I'd suspect that most people in the trades also can't afford to live in a walkable neighborhood with good transit, house prices in those places put college educations to shame in terms of debt traps.

[@mattdeeeezy]

I grew up in HNL and rode TheBus for years, particularly in high school. Being able to reliably get around the island without depending on my parents was HUGE. There isn't a huge stigma either because so many people there have taken the bus at some point or another. I think part of the reason TheBus is so successful is because the central core (what locals call "town") is pretty urbanized, pretty walkable, etc. Also, routes go all over the island, from the suburbs to the countryside, and most people are within a mile of a bus stop that gets bus service at least twice an hour. There are also a lot of immigrants who don't have licenses and can't drive, so they depend on busses to get everywhere. Two major weaknesses off the top of my head - bus service to the airport isn't the most convenient, and the busses mostly operate in mixed traffic, which gets very congested during rush hour.

[@squirlez6349]

Well, this was a fun video to watch while taking CyRide to class. I kept rooting for Ames to show up, my only concern was that we weren't quite big enough to make the list. CyRide really is a great resource, especially for students (who ride free). By the way, it was fun to see how some major cities ranked against the smaller ones on the list. It helps emphasize that there isn't a "one size fits all" approach to transit - biking, walking, and buses can be all it takes to make a place like Ames well connected.

[@CityNerd]

It puts a lot of assumptions we have about transit into perspective!

[@SoundtrackSensation]

What would you think about fare-free CyRide? I was talking to a city council representative and apparently CyRide is seriously considering it. Fares are about 4% of their budget currently.

[@nathanielmackler7225]

My university (UCSD) has student-operated busses. It's a really fantastic student job. During shifts where you're working as a backup driver (say, to cover sickouts) you can do homework on the clock. Everyone is fully trained with a class B CDL.

[@jasonreed7522]

My school had peer tutors and if nobody showed up you get paid to do your homework or play games on your laptop, you are paid to be available not for the litteral tutoring. And i assumed the students had to be fully licensed with a class B CDL because why would you give them an exception? Busses are only as safe as they are because of the higher standards for bus drivers over regular drivers. (We should really raise the bar for regular drivers)

[@MichaelWells770]

I think it would be interesting to make a list of the top ten past transit systems, such as they existed in the peak of the old electric commuter railways of the 1920s. It was quite shocking to me just how extensive even metro areas like Los Angeles had back then. Or even what NW Oregon had at that time, given how smaller the population was then. At this point, we really are just rebuilding what was there before.

[@wadeklooster1877]

As an Iowa State alum I can attest to the great service CyRide provides for students and residents of Ames. Your channel is great!

[@bobsykes]

Sweet! Davis California, my home. You didn't mention that the entire Unitrans bus system is also driven by UC Davis students. The Capitol Corridor regional transit line's original tracks are basically why the town is even here (it was Union Pacific in the beginning) and it's amazingly useful today, and, quite reliable. Thank you for finding us!

[@jliu1596]

As a resident of Iowa City, I love the way our transit system(s) are set up. In the Iowa City area we actually have 3 transit systems: Iowa City Transit, Coralville Transit, and Cambus with a combined total of over 70 buses.

[@JuanWayTrips]

Based on my undergrad and grad school experiences (Purdue and Michigan), I wonder if even the off-campus buses on this list are free for students. In both college towns I was in, the on-campus buses let anyone on for free, but for the off-campus routes, you just had to show or scan your student ID and you got to ride for free. It really helps when apartments right next to campus are more than your monthly grad school stipend, but free bus rides help you find apartments that are both in your price range and accessible.

[@jermaineraymer1579]

It may not necessarily be that students are riding for free, in Champaign Urbana home of the University of Illinois students pay a transportation fee that goes in part to the transit district to pay for bus service

[@KembaWalkerGOAT]

The town of Chapel Hill's is free to anyone, anywhere.

[@JuanWayTrips]

@Jermaine Raymer That's true. We didn't have a transportation fee on top of our tuition, but the universities did have contracts with the local bus agency to allow students (and staff/faculty) to ride for free. So I assume tuition money was used for it.

[@coleciervo5454]

Boiler Up!

[@blazinnub2097]

CityBus was so nice when I was at Purdue. 5 min bus ride instead of a 25 min walk in the cold. I got so spoiled by it lol.

[@pacificostudios]

I'm glad you didn't forget Honolulu. The island is ideal for transit, because almost everyone lives within a couple miles of the coast, which can be served by one long rail line.

[@apollotransit6711]

I’m sure the Aspen “urban area” didn’t meet population criteria but its transit system is extremely impressive

[@unknownPLfan]

Yes, on your question of if students are driving the busses in Iowa City, I wouldn't be surprised. I went to college in Amherst, Massachusetts, and being a bus driver for University subsidized routes was a common work study job.

[@cadethomas5686]

They drive the busses

[@PaulHenricksen]

Yep, when I was a student at Iowa, I knew a good amount of people that drove Cambus when they weren't in class

[@gregl1927]

Yes UMass Transit/PVTA! A student-run garage of a larger system!

[@Mralielrayes]

Very happy to have found CityNerd and spent the last two days procrastinating from my work in the extremely transit-unfriendly West Texas metropolis of Midland/Odessa. I especially appreciate the subtle mix of sports jokes/trivia tucked in the incredibly nerdy urban planning content. Thanks KZbin algorithm :)

[@CityNerd]

Glad it's appreciated!

[@pauljoshuahurst3935]

I grew up on the island of Oahu but on the rural less developed side. The bus system was good and could easily take you to Honolulu. I have fond memories taking the bus to town. The system has a lot of potential. With limited land area and a dense population, the bus can really service the whole island effectively. That light rail has been a nightmare and is being developed to serve the side of the island with heavily car centric modern American development…

[@willcwhite]

Another great video, which underscores the paradox of American life: for some reason, we see it perfectly reasonable that college-aged people would like to live in dense, walkable, transit-oriented urban communities, and then once you graduate college... those values magically disappear? It's so strange! Also, having lived in both cities, it's shocking to me that Seattle would have a higher transit score than Portland.

[@CityNerd]

Seattle has waaay more bus service per capita than Portland. Totally with you on your observation about how we treat college life differently.

[@ran4sh]

Because when we start having kids the priority values are a safe community and good schools for them, and a lot of urban communities do not have that reputation (rightly or wrongly).

[@SoundtrackSensation]

@@ran4sh I wonder if part of that is because we've retooled so many of our urban streets for high-speed commuter traffic. College campuses tend to be pedestrian-only.

[@anikagarg1075]

@willcwhite Could you share few city names which are affordable for international students coming in US for Majors but also tech industry setup in other states than just Silicon Valley.?

[@seanhartnett79]

Yep my parents and grandparents look fondly on living in a major city for college and the density and transit, but then they moved me to the suburbs and say you just need a car or a big home, no to development of mixed used buildings, no mass transit, and then say it is great when you are young to be idealistic or socialistic but you will grow out of it.

[@enthusiast7659]

I grew up in the Ithaca area and I'm glad to see TCAT on the list, but my I do feel Ithaca is difficult to live in without a car once you're out of college... especially considering medical appointments and things that may require you to travel outside of the immediate city. I have been blown away with CDTA in the Albany NY area, where we live now in downtown Albany, which has absolutely enabled my wife and I to be car-free. I was half-expecting to see CDTA on this list, but I think the college towns are going to make a lot more sense, especially the ones with MASSIVE colleges.

[@harry12]

tbh in order to live in all those college towns hassle-free, you need a car. the public transit is comparatively okay, but that's far from being wonderful

[@jasonreed7522]

@@harry12 the transit is definitely for the colleges which internally are almost always the definition of perfectly walkable utopia. (Mine had sky bridges on the second story between academic buildings because winter is cold and a stream of student holding the door open is killer on your heating bill, also its nice to not go outside between buildings in foul weather) My county has an intertown bus service with some key connections and i wonder how much of its ridership is the result of the colleges (my hometown is a double college town, i was half way between 2 towns of around 6,000 each, and both had 1 SUNY school and 1 private university (the sports rivalry between 2 private schools 10miles apart when 1 is liberal arts and the other is tech/buisness is amazing))

[@charlienyc1]

Nice to see a shout out from/to the Capital District. I'm from Schenectady and know several people back home who solely use transit to get to work & school.

[@annieno6848]

The UGA/Athens bus system is amazing. For a while I didn’t even have a license in Athens. Everyone took the bus to campus or walked. And yes, students drive the buses! My roommate one year was a bus driver while being a full time student! It’s like working in the dining hall or library. Almost everyone I knew did one of those 3 jobs.

[@Avatar2312]

We have a CAT in Vienna, Austria. City-Airport-Train. It is more expensive than the regional lines running the same corridor, but you get to check-in your luggage in the city center terminus, and don't have to deal with it anymore until you exit your plane. So it is pretty neat for that purpose.

[@charthepirate]

Grew up in Davis and lived there a bit after college. I didn't realize how good Unitrans was till I would come back to visit. The city is somewhat lucky, the downtown is right next to the university, so the busses didn't have to go too far. It also had good tech ahead of it's time. I remember having bus trackers and timers years before we got them in NYC (OKAY low bar). During the day it runs with pretty low head times on the major routes. Yolo bus is pretty awful though, I only rode it a couple times because the headways were like half an hour apart, and the routes were basically just "Go through town E to north on the way to woodland / the airport" and "Go through town s and E toward sacramento" Amtrak was there but it wasn't much. Improved intercity transity could have been huge but Davis is NIMBY AF and won't build anything

[@pooman4727]

I used to be a student bus driver at a college campus. Our entire bus depot was student run. All the radio operators, trainers, and bus drivers were students. We used to drive the big bendy busses too.

[@Droidman1231]

Students driving buses is a thing! I agree it's a little scary, my college (Georgia Tech) didn't do it but several colleges do, including the university run routes in Athens/University of Georgia. They have electric buses too which make me jealous.

[@RobertBloomquist]

Don't be. We bought five battery electric buses and they've really tempered my enthusiasm. Everyone talk about how the batteries only really need to last long enough through the service day, but they don't. Our buses run out of charge after about 12 hours, where service lasts 18-20 hours; the result is additional required manpower (during a labor shortage) to swap out the buses on the routes. We've had numerous techincal issues with them which aren't necessarily attributable to them being battery electric, but one of them that is, is the auxiliary heating system which burns diesel fuel to heat the cabin to save the battery; it doesn't work most of the time, so the battery drains super quick during winter months. They're also incredibly heavy, about 5,000 pounds heavier for the 35' model and 5,500 pounds heavier for the 60' artic model; heavier vehicles cause additional wear on tires and brakes and are less safe for everyone else in the event of a collision. Also, all that extra weight is on *top* of the bus, and you can really feel it when going around a corner. TBH I think trolleybuses with overhead wires solve a lot of these problems (smaller batteries needed, lighter, no charging issues) and most of the cost analyses I've seen say they're cheaper too, but hey, I drive in circles for a living, so they don't ask me for input for these things.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@RobertBloomquist putting batteries on the top of the busses it a very stupid design flaw (from an EE), atleast find space in the floorboards so you get a very low center of mass to improve stability in a vehicle that is already a giant sail waiting for the right wind gust to knock it over. (My dad drives a schoolbus in a rural area.) I assume that student drivers are held to the same standards are regular bus drivers (because why should they be exempt) which includes annual testing to maintain their class B (i believe is NY's letter for it) license status and they have to complete: a road test including parallel park, drag a 50lb child to safety, read line 8 on an eye chart (just above the red line, normal drivers only need lime 3 or 4 just above the green line), pass a drug test, and just about anything else you can think of. And this has results, a school bus is the safest vehicle to take your child to school even without kids in seatbelts because the seat design. (Also all the parents who dive their kids to school are the traffic jam, this universal experience should be all anyone needs to know to understand why transit is better than cars in any context other than rural making transit infeasible. And my home county has started a bus system despite being so rural it has 0 miles of interstate, fare is $2 but i never rode it, i have ideas for what could fix it but i moved out of state for work)

[@RobertBloomquist]

@@jasonreed7522 Counterpoint: In the event of a battery fire, do you want that fire above or below your passengers? Our student drivers earn a Class B CDL during training, and are of course held to the same standards of any other holder of said license.

[@roxc.507]

Great to see some warm weather spots here! Athens, GA and San Marcos, TX 😊

[@rickele]

I lived in Davis and Yolo County for about 15 years and can attest to the fantastic usability of Unitrans and also used Yolobus daily for a while. I'm also the author of the first UrbanDictionary entry for YOLO, which I added long before Drake made it trend as a hashtag, and even though the acronym stayed the same, that truly took the definition off the rails from the more serious definition I had entered based on its use as a motto of a trendy/boozhy fitness salon in Brooklyn who intended "You Only Live Once" to be sorta synonymous with "Your body is a temple" (so take good care of it). Anyway, before you enjoy too many larfs yukking it up, Yolo is not only the name of the county, but it is also a name of indigenous people who lived in the northern part of the county by the town of the same name. I hope my tone is not too chiding. This was another great video as always! I enjoyed hearing about not-huge cities that haven't been mentioned before. I'd be curious to know what cities would be on the list if you didn't include college towns. Maybe Olympia would make the list?

[@randallhoskin]

After having grown up around CyRide and even working there for a few years, coming to Austin, TX was a horrible transit nightmare. Thanks for the video.

[@maxwellsmith9988]

one of my favorite podcasts Well There's Your Problem has a segment where they read listener mail describing times they were subjected to dangerous working conditions for dumb reasons, one of them was a student driver for Unitrans in Davis, and they talked about how insanely dangerous the Routemasters(old double decker busses bought from London) they used were. since they were from the UK the drivers seat was oriented on the wrong side of the road, and due to some weird engine placement the drivers seat would be a sauna, and you could burn your legs if your leg touched the side of the cramped vehicle while driving. hopefully they stick to modern buses in the future. I'd love to visit Davis one day

[@SquashBox]

I went to school in Ames! I think they had a really excellent bus network. Back when I went there the bus passes were free for students. And there was an app with live tracking and route planning. That way you know when the bus will arrive, and can stay inside until it was warmer. Some days it ran late into the night so students could go home safely after a night out or something.

[@squirlez6349]

As a current student at Iowa State, you can rest assured that this is all still true

[@CityNerd]

@@squirlez6349 Great to hear!

[@r.williams8349]

The college town high bus ridership phenomena is super interesting. It points towards free/cheap service being successful. I think lack of parking, and a dense destination (everyone needs to get to the university) are just as important if not more so. I also think students desire to be around others students keeps them from sprawling out where they live farther away from the university. Community focus and lack of car options!

[@seanhartnett79]

In my state; we have a free transit pass for students deal.

[@JLR-z8u]

I just found this channel! I’m EXTRAORDINARILY excited! I thought I was the only nerd who loves transit and city design. I’m not alone 😃

[@Maddyswalk]

I've lived in Boston, Hartford and LA and for a city it's size..Portland,Me has a great bus system.

[@MrPurpdrank22]

I. cant. get. enough. of. this. channel! Great video. Thank you for everything you do. You are appreciated.

[@CityNerd]

Thanks!

[@gillianfisher752]

Since its metro area is often combined with Durham and Chapel Hill, I wasn't surprised when Raleigh didn't make the list. As a city, it's the epitome of urban sprawl (which is why we moved). However, NC State's bus system was amazing. It went almost everywhere, ridership was plenty, and anyone could use it. And it was free! ^.^

[@Spac3_Man]

With lots of college towns making the list, all I can think of is Arlington TX. They have the university of Texas at Arlington, multiple malls, smack in the middle between Dallas and Fort Worth, multiple stadiums, multiple theme parks, ugh. They’re so over due for transit that it hurts my soul.

[@anikagarg1075]

Could you share few city names which are affordable for international students coming in US for Majors but also tech industry setup in other states than just Silicon Valley.?

[@sdeepj]

New Brunswick, NJ, home to Rutgers University. Not only it has a free campus bus, but it’s on the Northeast Corridor, so access to both NYC and Philadelphia via NJ Transit or Amtrak. There are also NJ Transit buses that will give access to the surrounding suburbs

[@mohammedsarker5756]

As a New Yorker temporarily living in Albany, CDTA runs a really good bus system

[@cardenasr.2898]

Hmmm Iowa City. I remember José Agustín's novel "Ciudades Desiertas" (Abandoned cities) takes place in Iowa City during the 1980's and the characters complain that unless you're a student, nobody uses public transit there and it only comes every hour. Good to know they have improved their system.

[@CityNerd]

Well, I'd want to double check the frequency. But no doubt Iowa City is a sort of literary capital of the US!

[@dereks8175]

The buses in Iowa City are not driven by students AFAIK and the town is walkable, but mainly because it's small and has a two block downtown. It's quaint though, the Hawkeye tailgates are fun, and I still miss my time there sometimes.

[@cjapplebaum6423]

Small cities with good public transit are super underrated. Sure, they're not large scale travel hubs, and don't have world class museums, but they make up for it by being SO easy to get around. I live in one of the cities on this list, but lived most of my life in NYC and Chicago. Even without a car, getting anywhere I need in 30 minutes or under is absolutely mind blowing for someone who commuted an hour just to get to and from high school. One video suggestion I have: cities with the most accessible public transit for disabled riders? You could look at some metrics like percentage of subway/metro stops with elevator access, number of public transit related ADA complaints, and the percentage of disabled public transit users in comparison to the percentage of disabled people living/commuting in the public transit service area.

[@seanhartnett79]

Yep. They are vastly under rated

[@wizzerrdd]

In a world of delayed deadlines and inflated budgets only your weekly uploads keep me sane. Keep it up! Happy to see the capitol corridor mentioned in this video I think it has major potential for serving supercommuters with proper investment.

[@hirshkabaria8329]

I wanna see where Ann Arbor falls on this list. A significant portion of the school and hospital staff has to take the bus to north campus every day, but this is probably overwhelmed by the fact that the rest never take the bus and just walk. Also, our bus system hires students! at the amazing rate of $22/hr!

[@davidburrow5895]

Very good analysis. I'd agree that Honolulu easily beats any other metro area with their bus service. It's great for both locals and tourists, and it allows you to go not just around the city, but anywhere on Oahu. I'd also note that in Iowa City in addition to the IC buses and the Cambus, a large provider is Coralville Transit, which is run by the suburb just west of Iowa City.

[@CityNerd]

Yes, I included Coralville in the trips/capita number, but didn't mention it in the video. Probably should've!

[@Mikeluvsbasketball15]

I went to the University of Iowa, I can verify that the Cambus uses stuent drivers. But the bus driver learning course was pretty rigorous. Both the Cambus and local city buses were fantastic. At one point I lived in the adjacent suburb of Iowa City (Coralville) and there was actually a Cambus that went through my neightborhood to a research park, so I had a free ride to and from campus everyday. I didn't realize what I had until I moved away, I miss it!

[@frenchfreys]

I was so happy to see the thumbnail of this video! I drive for Blacksburg Transit and have actually driven the exact bus on screen at 5:09!! (I looked up the street view and it’s unit 6729 - one of my favorites in the fleet). I am a Virginia Tech student and there are quite a few of us who drive. It is a really good paying job for a student and it’s honestly quite fun.

[@christopherm.donohue9394]

Going from living in Ithaca, NY for 4 years to an apartment next to a stroad in California, you really feel the difference. Great video!

[@worldofjck]

As a student at Iowa I love the Cambus and I have a lot of friends who drive for them. Yes, they are mostly driven by students. :-)

[@FirstnameLastname-bp5cm]

As a Boise resident, I’d nominate us for a spot on the top ten not so great transit list. Excellent video!

[@CityNerd]

Boise has some great ingredients for good transit service, though. I'll touch on in an upcoming video. Boise has a lot going for it!

[@FirstnameLastname-bp5cm]

@@CityNerd I do love my town and your input would be much appreciated! Looking forward to it. It has improved somewhat recently I’ll have to say. Bus service used to stop at 5pm which made it just about completely useless and it’s difficult to get a route that actually helps, which is a a result of a range of factors for sure. One of the factors keeping our system down is how it’s funded specifically. I’d love to see how better systems across the country manage their funding issues for sure. Anyhow, I really love your content, thank you

[@kyleguenther5643]

Currently watching this video while perched in Parks Library in Ames, Iowa with a great view of buses full of people passing quite literally every 15-45 seconds; it's a great place to go to school and get around easily!

[@aerob1033]

Tried to play the guessing game. My list for number one was like, New Haven, CT, Ann Arbor, MI, Eugene, OR, Boulder, CO, and Burlington, VT. So I was way off I guess? Way to go, Ames, IA.

[@lindsaycole8409]

U Michigan back in 2004 used to have students driving the busses. Had a good friend that got his bus license and drove the bus as his part-time job.

[@douglasjgallup]

I'm surprised Binghamton NY wasn't on here, but I suspect that's because there's a city run system and a university based bus system (that is 100% student run!). The buses were usually quite busy when I rode them for a city of its size.

[@TheMarshallCraft]

This is a great video! Love to see other places other than big cities where transit is highly utilized

[@Lawman212]

CItyNerd, I was a student transit driver as an undergrad in the SE. A number of 19 year olds were the backbone of the university transit system. As far as I know, no troubles were ever reported.

[@killiangone1]

I drove as a student at East Carolina University. Most public universities that have student transit operate as self help and not work study all students are eligible to work. I got my CDL, and also became a trainer for new drivers to get their CDL. It was great.

[@nathanhelwig2116]

I live in Honolulu and I take the bus every day it's pretty great! I was really happy that it made the list!

[@zeroone8800]

When I heard the generic description, I was thinking Honolulu is probably on the list. Then I heard the one million limit, and thought it would not be, as the island hit a million in the 2020 census. (Although it most certainly had a million for years, the Census Bureau has consistently underestimated Hawaii populations for decades, which the censuses correct.) Then I heard you were using 2019 numbers and using urbanized areas, I figured it would included. Then you said nine of the cities were college towns and a started to doubt, but I was right. HART is supposed to open this year. It is not scheduled to be finished for a decade, but the first phase should open this year, hopefully.

[@Davidkaisermusic]

One of my friends was a Cambus driver at Iowa and loved his job! It sounds kinda fun to me!

[@Austin-uj4re]

Great video! Have you ever thought of doing a video or series on transportation ballot measures? Like what makes them fail or pass and how to sell the measure voters? Some great examples of successful transportation ballot measures were LA Metro bond measure in 2016 or Sound Transit also in 2016.

[@jermaineraymer1579]

I vote for this one, it would be a very interesting video

[@CityNerd]

Oh interesting -- or in Portland, the Metro ballot measure that went down in flames in 2020! Interesting compare/contrast.

[@Austin-uj4re]

@@CityNerd Some say that this particular ballot measure was rushed to the ballot and the way they were going to fund it didn't make corporations happy (Nike, Intel). Others say that it wasn't ambitious enough or that it was just trying to please everybody like half of it was for transit and the other half was for road users. Ever since the failure of that measure, I always thought to myself: what would a hypothetical $30 billion dollar measure do for TriMet and PBOT? I imagine TriMet can do so much and make a fantastic transit network. And PBOT can transform most of the roads into more pedestrian and bike oriented facilities along with dedicated busways.

[@jermaineraymer1579]

@citynerd The interesting thing is how public sentiment can change over time. Champaign-Urbana passed a referendum in the late 70s to provide fairly good funding for the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District, but fast forward to the 2000s and a whole region of the city formed a separate transit district (that never provided any transit)to block the Champaign Urbana mass transit district from annexing them

[@cinnanyan]

I think Morgantown, West Virginia might be competitive with other cities on this list with Mountain Line and the PRT combined, but it's difficult to find comparable data for the PRT because it's a one-of-a-kind system and not really included in any of the transport data I could find.

[@CityNerd]

That PRT is about 20 trips per capita, and Mountain Line is around 15, so Morgantown doesn't make the list, but it's an absolutely unique transit setup for sure.

[@josephenglish8980]

Happy to see my beloved hometown of Iowa City make the list, worth noting also that the adjacent city of Coralville has its own bus system and would certainly be counted in the metropolitan statistical data of the Iowa City area, so there are really three different bus systems to get around the region.

[@CityNerd]

I should've mentioned Coralville -- it is in the data as part of the Iowa City UZA, but the ridership number was pretty small relative to Cambus and Iowa City Transit so I left it on the cutting room floor! Good catch, though -- you're right.

[@MrAntidodo]

I looked up the transit trips per Capita in the town I currently live in, and we are just below new york with 227.4. This makes me really appreciate our local transit system, and if the people didn't vote against a proposed Hybrid, have rail/tram system, we could have improved it even more, but nimbys have to nimby.

[@charlienyc1]

What town?

[@MrAntidodo]

@@charlienyc1 Tübingen, Germany. The proposed system would have a bin very similar to the Karlsruhe model. RMTransit made a good video about it.

[@Marylandbrony]

Meanwhile my college town recently opened a circulator bus route and does have some city bus routes. But the urban core is super walkable despite being right on the county-city border. It would be dope if the line rail train could have a stop somewhere but i don't know where it could go.

[@thatpersonsmusic]

As a Virginia tech student, was quite excited to see the thumbnail

[@maxinator2002]

Great list! I love small cities with good transit. I went to high school in Missoula, MT, which has a pretty nice zero-fare 7-days per week bus transit system. It connects pretty much everywhere in city limits, along with neighboring East Missoula and the airport. The bike and pedestrian infrastructure is pretty nice too, with many street-separated bike paths.

[@brianarbenz7206]

International students are one of the reasons college towns do so well in bus transit. Students from Asia, Europe, the Mideast etc. think mass transit first, due to the planning methods long used in their home countries.

[@jasonreed7522]

Also they are less likely to have a car then someone who picked a college thats under 8hrs by car away. And even those who are an easy drive away from home may not bring one to school and instead take a bus or get picked up / dropped of by their parents, meaning they are car free or need to hitch a ride from a car having friend.

[@brianarbenz7206]

@@jasonreed7522 When I visited Champaign-Urbana, I rode the bus around town and was often the only non-Chinese speaking passenger.

[@jasonreed7522]

@@brianarbenz7206 i will admit i attended my hometown college which is in Northern NY which is over 90% white last i checked the stats, and most of the student body is from "Upstate NY" (Erie canal corridor from Albany to Buffalo), we probably had around 50 exchange students at any given time so that can't support the county's bus network. (The busses have a $2fare and i believe that covers your transfers, if the service was able to have better headways, and communication/wayfinding it would be objectively better than a car to go town to town. As it is if it lines up with your desires trip $2 to get a 1hr ride beats a car that would go 60miles at 30mpg = 2gal at like $4.50 a gallon now is definitely a bargain. Unfortunately i never rode it because i never had a reason/tried and have since moved so i can't judge the service quality beyond the website) I do think you are right that towns with MASSIVE Universities that bring in tims of exchange students from places where mass transit is the norm get a huge boost in ridership per capita from the influx in people who expect good viable transit. I just assumed that even the non-exchange students contributed above average vs the normal citizens because universities tend to have high walkability and terrible parking so less students own cars than average working people. (Also economics of not all parents buy their kids a car, and college kids are famously broke)

[@brianarbenz7206]

@@jasonreed7522 And in recent years, bike sharing galore.

[@orangepeelz3579]

The CDTA in Albany/Capital District has about 55 bus routes, and it's been continuously improving.

[@AnalogueKid2112]

Here in Columbus, I’m pretty sure CABS ridership at OSU matched COTA, at least prior to the pandemic

[@DavidDellsperger]

Grew up in Iowa City and attended school there (After my family had moved away), it's actually a bit more interesting, because there are 2 different city transit providers (Iowa City and Coralville) and the Cambus where yes, actual students are trained for a long time to drive the routes and then end up driving them. Students ALSO take care of maintenance, dispatch, and other roles, with some non-student supervisors and managers. All Student drivers are CDL-licensed as part of its training process. Many of them, if they stay in the area will drive for the Iowa City and/or Coralville transit lines. Coralville transit includes routes that even reach North Liberty (another smaller city) for certain time frames. They also added online tracking of the bus routes not long ago, which was super important.

[@garyholt8315]

didn't know that Iowa city used to be the state capital

[@duncancrowley6643]

Love this. Speaking of Davis, CA, what do think about detailing the best bike cities in the US? Can you tell I'm a transportation grad student at UC Davis? Lol. Would love to see any papers or lectures you have done :)

[@philstone5195]

Although not a thought-provoking comment, I have come to enjoy your videos. I lean towards the idea of an urban environment with adequate mass transportation (San Francsico) and abundant and safe bicycle corridors. Keep up the good work.

[@Lombwolf]

The city close to where I used to live, Chico California. It has some of the best transit I’ve ever used

[@CityNerd]

Another great college town!

[@DavidLin]

Blacksburg Transit just eliminated fare permanently this year although students pay a transportation fee every semester in their bills that primarily funds BT. (Makes it hard to say it's completely free for students, over 90% of the riders)

[@RobertBloomquist]

Hey, I work for Blacksburg Transit! Had to do a double take at the thumbnail. A significant portion of our part-time drivers (and SAs, dispatchers, and even a couple trainers) are students. Shift changes happen on campus, so students can slot a driving shift in between classes if they have time. A significant portion of our funding also comes from Virginia Tech. Students pay for a bus pass in their tuition, so pre-COVID, they would just show us their student ID and they could ride for free. Now, of course, fares are free so they don't have to do it, but some still do out of habit.

[@CityNerd]

Thanks for the insight, and thanks for watching! I'm not sure why I found it so surprising that students drive full-size buses. I actually had to get a commercial license in college, but they only had me driving an extended van around campus (in between writing parking tickets).

[@ran4sh]

They only had to show ID? In the Athens-Clarke County system, University of Georgia students ride fare-free also, but they swipe their ID in a card reader which presumably verifies that it's a valid ID. I assume that a policy of simply showing ID would result in fake IDs, or alumni continuing to ride with their old ID, etc

[@Lefaid]

I am surprised Bloomington, IN wasn't on the list. When I went to school there I took the bus there daily to get from campus and back.

[@CityNerd]

Bloomington is around 30 trips/capita/year. Pretty good for a US city!

[@anthonyscarborough3813]

As someone from Champaign/Urbana who went to the University of Illinois for college,I was hoping my hometown would make the list. So glad it made it all the way to 2nd place!

[@peterjamesfoote3964]

Great video. An interesting video for sure. An interesting analysis might be to compare these figures to service area size as a way to assume future potential for growth. San Francisco is likely to do well on this list for a century or more (assuming no catastrophic events) but it has very limited growth potential while Chicago, which is much larger (the city itself is around 325 sq miles and it’s service area includes 22 suburbs like Evanston, has much more room for density which of course is a great driver (pun intended) of transit use.

[@wanderingtokyo1414]

Great video as always. A video on why someones commute time doesn't always decrees with ones accessibility to public transport would be nice. Also I know this is a north American focused channel but i have always wondered why the average commute tin in Tokyo is an hour and Los Angeles is only 30 minutes despite Tokyo s world class metro system and L.A's nightmare roads.

[@OohPutain]

Part of the explanation is that when commuting by car, people tend to only report the duration of their commute spent driving. Notably in Canada, they often do not report the time spent shoveling their car out of the snow. Furthermore an hour browsing your phone on the train is a lot more bearable than 30min driving in traffic. Plus you can more easily stop by to shop or run errands on your way home. A video from @CityNerd would be welcome

[@ShelterDogs]

Love this video. Gives me an idea of where to move to next. State College looks beautiful. Some other towns to consider in a future video of even smaller sized areas with known good public transport are Eugene, OR; Fort Collins, CO; and Aspen, CO.

[@CityNerd]

Yeah, Eugene makes my BRT video, and I'm well aware of Aspen's system. Will have to look into Fort Collins!

[@jasonreed7522]

Another possible video suggestion is stand alone ultra rural transit options, places where realistically only the county can run the transit or it is part of a massive regional rail network. An example is St. Lawrence County NY with its bus system. (It has low ridership in part because of "rural car dependency" and i suspect college students are proping it up along with the Amish. (And probably a bunch of NYS money) Honestly a $2 fair for a bus ride between 2 towns 45min apart when the bus and car go the same speed is probably cheaper than a car in terms of gas alone.

[@lukekottemann2546]

Woohoo, love seeing my hometown of Iowa City doing well! Also yes, students would drive the cambus buses

[@bearcubdaycare]

When I went to university, the area claimed to have the largest free bus system in the free world. One could often see students being trained to be bus drivers. It was a pretty extensive system, spanning not just give universities across three towns, but also some towns not in that span. There were also paid buses to other nearby cities and to the state's largest city.

[@leevickery4033]

Thank you for the videos. I love the Bike/mass transit/Car comparisons videos.Thanks again.

[@maxwellsmith9988]

I believe Athens is also home to the Truck Killing Bridge, which has low clearance and has torn the roofs off of an uncountable number of semi trucks and Uhauls also there was a battle between WW1 veterans and corrupt police called the battle of Athens which is pretty crazy.

[@alexthemtaandr211weatherfa2]

8:15 did you know that hona lu lu is getting a metro line even though the city is below 1 million citizens,but the island is population one million.

[@fabes89]

ooooh yeah, a top 10 video... that's the stuff CityNerd!

[@michaelfotheringham9192]

Really like this topic, whenever i think of great transit systems normally i can come up with is Paris, New York, Japan, would love to know more about making great transit that doesn't just mean bigger ridership from bigger city.

[@jasonreed7522]

The general key points to a great transit system are: - relaible (not plagued with delays and break downs) - clean - short headways (a 30min gap punishes you if you miss your ride and makes you consult schedules, a 5min one does not) - clear communication (wayfinding, maps are easy to get and read, ect) - fits the area (this is subjective but usually its just matching capacity with technology so you don't stress busses or have a train to nowhere) - comperable or faster than a car (Amtrak struggles in the NE because for not Boston-NYC a car is usually faster than the train Hartford-Syracuse is 4hrs by car and 8 by train, whats the obcious choice) Everything else is "technical details" that do matter alot but are area specific. I personally think a great addition to any network would be an app to aid navigation, especially if you can input a start and end easily and it finds the best route on the network. (Like google maps but for transit) And once you have an app incorporate delays and other notifications, and payment in app and in advance.

[@jackturner8515]

Having been to Ithaca and Champaign, I knew both would be on this list!

[@NAUM1]

Glad to see two cities in Iowa in there. Having gone to Iowa State University and ridden Cyride plenty of times, it is a great thing! I chanted Ames before the reveal of the top spot, because I knew it was better than Iowa City's and was glad I was correct. If I could live in Ames again at some point in my life that would be fantastic! Love the videos you make!

[@CityNerd]

Glad I hit the mark with that! Amazing to see Iowa twice on a list like this.