Walk Score, which has made a name for itself ranking neighborhoods by how easy it is to walk to amenities and transit, is now rolling out its first ratings of entire public transit systems.
The new rankings leverage Walk Score‘s Transit Score index to evaluate residents’ access to public transportation, overall, in 25 cities. Perhaps not surprisingly, New York tops the list with a score of 81. Raleigh, North Carolina is at the bottom, at 23. And in the upper-middle of the pack at seven is Seattle with a score of 59.
Walk Score calls the new rankings the “only national, quantitative rating of access to public transit.” The Seattle-based company says the algorithmic ranking is based on data released by public transit agencies in the GTFS (Google Transit Feed Specification) format. “We import that data and are then able to score any location on how well it is served by public transit,” notes co-founder and CTO Matt Lerner.
Lerner says the new public transit system rankings will be posted on a Transit Score page today, and will also appear next to city and neighborhood scores.
The full list from Walk Score:
(1) New York (Transit Score: 81)
(2) San Francisco (Transit Score: 80)
(3) Boston (Transit Score: 74)
(4) Washington, DC (Transit Score: 69)
(5) Philadelphia (Transit Score: 68)
(6) Chicago (Transit Score: 65)
(7) Seattle (Transit Score: 59)
(8) Miami (Transit Score: 57)
(9) Baltimore (Transit Score: 57)
(10) Portland (Transit Score: 50)
(11) Los Angeles (Transit Score: 49)
(12) Milwaukee (Transit Score: 49)
(13) Denver (Transit Score: 47)
(14) Cleveland (Transit Score: 45)
(15) San Jose (Transit Score; 40)
(16) Dallas (Transit Score: 39)
(17) Houston (Transit Score: 36)
(18) San Diego (Transit Score: 36)
(19) San Antonio (Transit Score: 35)
(20) Kansas City (Transit Score: 34)
(21) Austin (Transit Score: 33)
(22) Sacramento (Transit Score: 32)
(23) Las Vegas (Transit Score: 32)
(24) Columbus (Transit Score: 29)
(25) Raleigh (Transit Score: 23)
