Transit
Which city's rail system has the best Walk Score?
Last week, David Klion computed the Walk Score for all Washington Metro stops. How does Metro stack up to the other heavy rail systems in the United States? The answers may surprise you.
I analyzed the 11 heavy rail systems in the United States. Some of these cities also have light rail, commuter rail, or other transit systems, but I didn't count those. That means in Boston, I looked at stations on the Red, Blue, and Orange lines, but not Green. (Why?)
I also combined heavy rail stations from multiple operators in the same region. For example, the Philadelphia score counts both SEPTA and PATCO heavy rail stations. New York's includes PATH and the Staten Island Railway (SIRT).
And the winner is... Los Angeles?
I was surprised by the results. Los Angeles scored the highest! I certainly did not expect that. Though in hindsight, it makes a good deal of sense.
Los Angeles has only 2 heavy rail lines, the Red and Purple lines. Those lines are confined to a relatively small area in the LA Basin, with the exception of 2 stations on the Red Line in the San Fernando Valley. And while Southern California has a reputation for being sprawling, the LA Basin is actually fairly dense, especially where the Metro has been built. As a result, its score isn't dragged down by suburban park and ride stations.
In the same respect, I was surprised that BART scored better than WMATA. Large portions of the DC system serve areas that are urban or urbanizing. In contrast, BART's system is much more suburban-oriented and has very little in the way of urban circulation.
Also surprising is that New York is not an outlier. It does come in a close second to Los Angeles, but I really expected it to be off the charts compared to everyone else. The New York City Subway alone scores 90.47 without PATH and SIRT, still just below LA; SIRT averages 71.45 while PATH is higher, 92.23, but its relatively small size (13 stations) means it doesn't change the New York average even a tenth of a point.
What is not very surprising is that the sunbelt cities (except LA) score more poorly than the more urban older cities (except for Cleveland). Cleveland is at a disadvantage because of the structure of its transit system. The system only has one stop in the central business district, and that station's score isn't that impressive anyway, which harms the average.
Distribution matters
The chart above shows how Walk Scores for stations in each system are distributed. The green bars give the average score. The rectangle shows the 25th and 75th percentiles, and the lines with dots at each end show the highest and lowest Walk Scores for any station in that system.
At the high end, several cities had at least one station (sometimes several) with perfect 100-point scores. The lowest score for any station nationwide was 28 points. Two stations in the Washington region The distribution is important in understanding how well distributed the well-scoring stations are in the system.
In Washington, the distribution is weighted more toward good-scoring stations, but there are still a lot of poor-scoring stations, too.
Compare that to San Francisco's BART, where there are fewer poor-scoring stations. Instead, there are a large quantity of stations in the middle of the distribution.
New York and Cleveland offer contrast to each other. While most New York stations score very well, Cleveland's don't rank above medium.
Limitations
The Walk Score algorithm is not perfect. It works by calculating the quantities and distances of various amenties. There are other factors which it does not measure that help to define the walkability of an area.
For example, a street grid makes an area much more walkable than a sprawling network of superblocks and culs-de-sac. The quality and proliferation of sidewalks also influences walkability. But these factors aren't currently part of Walk Score; there's no good data file for Walk Score to use that shows where there are and aren't good sidewalks, for example.
Regardless, Walk Score gives us a standard and fairly good measure to compare transit stations (and systems) to each other.
I'm sure this will prove to be controversial, and that's fine. I did not include the light rail elements of systems in cities like Boston for 3 primary reasons:
This analysis is limited, as any analysis would be. I chose to try to keep it from expanding too far by limiting it to one mode. It would be interesting to look at the omitted lines, and perhaps that will happen in a future analysis.
Matt Johnson has lived in the Washington region since mid-2007. He has a Master's degree in Community Planning from the University of Maryland and a BS in Public Policy from Georgia Tech. He has worked in the planning field since 2006 and lives in Greenbelt, where he serves on the city's Advisory Planning Board. 
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Also it would be interesting to look at some sort of density in these cities. Most of LA is NOT served by heavy rail, so this data would be very misleading to someone who is looking to move to city with good heavy rail and walkability scores.
by Tom A. on Feb 29, 2012 10:13 am • link • report
Not necessarily. These data demonstrate that the parts of LA that are covered by heavy rail are quite walkable. So you would just want to move to those areas. Though interestingly, the most well known walkable districts of LA (eg. West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Venice) are not served by rail..
by Phil on Feb 29, 2012 10:26 am • link • report
It's generally used by suburbanites to get to jobs downtown. I guess because it had very few stops (around 10 I think), it has a higher walkability score. No one who actually lives in the city takes it on a regular basis. In fact I lived there for over a year- without a car- before I ever took it. I tool it exactly 2 times in the two years I lived there- and that was to get out to the burbs. I may be wrong, but the light rail in Baltimore is more used than the heavy rail- because it goes directly through the city, stops at the train station, and goes down to the airport.
by Tom A. on Feb 29, 2012 10:49 am • link • report
I lived in LA without a car for about four months last year. That rail system is impressive in that there really are not any stations that are underutilized. It's one of the few cities in the US where it would be extremely beneficial to invest more in heavy rail infrastructure.
I wonder what Washington looks like if you only take the stations in the city? Or what the stations in just Prince George's look like?
by Dave Murphy on Feb 29, 2012 10:56 am • link • report
No, it doesn't. But comparing it to a light rail stop in LA is perfectly valid. Muni in SF is the descendant of a streetcar system, while LA's Light Rail is much more modern, with exclusive ROWs and often extensive grade separation.
I wonder if there's a way to do the equivalent of 'weighted density' for this kind of analysis.
http://austinzoning.typepad.com/austincontrarian/2008/03/weighted-densit.html
by Alex B. on Feb 29, 2012 10:59 am • link • report
I imagine Baltimore is higher because most of its (few) stops are in the city, and the downtown core of Baltimore with its skyscrapers and all is pretty darn dense.
by Dave Murphy on Feb 29, 2012 10:59 am • link • report
by Tina on Feb 29, 2012 11:00 am • link • report
I concur with Dav Murphy on this one. While the Baltimore Metro Subway only has 14 stations, most of them are located in denser areas.
As for ridership, you are wrong. The Baltimore Metro Subway carries more riders than the Baltimore Light Rail.
In 2010, the most recent year for which data was available, the Metro Subway carried 13,363,903 unlinked trips while the LRT carried 8,070,249 unlinked trips.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 29, 2012 11:04 am • link • report
I bet this is because older systems were designed around older density, and thus helped maintain that older density. The 60s and 70s era systems were designed at the height of suburbanization when Park and Rides were all the vogue. And the LA system was designed when projects like these started to cost a pretty penny and they had to get the absolute most bang for the buck out of it. Pretty sure the heavy rail portion of LA Metro has only one Park and Ride station if any.
by Dave Murphy on Feb 29, 2012 11:05 am • link • report
by RJ on Feb 29, 2012 11:05 am • link • report
by charlie on Feb 29, 2012 11:09 am • link • report
Cleveland's Red Line opened in 1955. It's heavy rail, though on the lighter end of the spectrum.
It kind of falls in the middle, between the older pedestrian-oriented systems and the newer auto-oriented systems.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 29, 2012 11:11 am • link • report
by Dave Murphy on Feb 29, 2012 11:12 am • link • report
by Dave Murphy on Feb 29, 2012 11:16 am • link • report
by David Alpert on Feb 29, 2012 11:16 am • link • report
As a daily Baltimore city resident and Metro rider, I have a few points to add. Yes, the heavy rail system is limited and consists of only 14 stops. While a significant portion of ridership comes from commuters traveling to employment centers at Charles Center and Johns Hopkins Hospital, many of the other ~58,000 avg weekday riders (according to APTA 3Q 2011) are city/county residents who use the service to access goods/services near metro stops.
The metro line serves a number of important regional destinations for city residents, particularly those without cars:
-Mondawmin Mall, home to the city's only Target and a grocery store;
-Lexington Market
-Owings Mills Mall
While these may not constitute the best urban examples of retail opportunities, limited retail options in many Baltimore neighborhoods leave much to be desired. A significant number of lower-income residents rely on this accessibility and walkability at destinations.
The metro line does not serve the more affluent and up-and-coming neighborhoods of Baltimore City, however the service provides huge benefits to lower-income residents who reside east and west of downtown.
by bmoreterp on Feb 29, 2012 11:21 am • link • report
Nobody uses the red line to the airport.
by charlie on Feb 29, 2012 11:23 am • link • report
LRT was done to take advantage of a rail line that made it possible to have grade seperated transit on the cheap, and to time into the construction on the JFX.
Baltimore tended to do things on the cheap, in response to short term crises or opportunities. A clever strategy for a stressed city, or Willie Don's impulsiveness - you be the judge.
by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 29, 2012 11:24 am • link • report
The top station in PG is Prince George's Plaza, which is tied for 26th.
Of the other three stations in the county, West Hyattsville got a 55, Largo is a 60, and Southern Avenue (!?) is a 60. How Southern Avenue broke 10 is beyond me. That station is in the middle of nowhere.
Seriously, those stations drag the rest of the system's walk score down significantly.
by Dave Murphy on Feb 29, 2012 11:25 am • link • report
Be that as it may, the Shaker Heights Rapid Transit (the Blue and Green Lines) are light rail, not heavy rail.
And you're wrong about the "nobody uses the Red Line", too, since more people ride the Red Line than both the Blue and Green Lines put together.
In 2010, the most recent year for which data was available, there were 3,657,501 unlinked trips on heavy rail (the Red Line) and 2,315,662 unlinked trips on heavy rail (the Blue and Green Lines) in Cleveland.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 29, 2012 11:28 am • link • report
To anyone who's been around the system, the walk score numbers make sense. 23% of BART stations have walk scores below 70 while 42% of Metro stations have low walk scores.
On a more general note, in order to remove the system size bias that puts LA on top, perhaps you can scale the rankings by ridership / regional population. If you just use ridership or system size, the monster systems will always win, but, the current metric means the super focused systems make some cities seem better than they are.
by Dan H on Feb 29, 2012 11:29 am • link • report
Ah, caught an error there. The last sentence should read: In 2010, the most recent year for which data was available, there were 3,657,501 unlinked trips on heavy rail (the Red Line) and 2,315,662 unlinked trips on
heavylight rail (the Blue and Green Lines) in Cleveland.by Matt Johnson on Feb 29, 2012 11:30 am • link • report
I didn't call it "San Francisco" to betray a bias. I called it that to avoid confusion for people who do not refer to it as the Bay Area.
I identified all of the "cities" by their primary city. The only places where that naming is technically correct is New York and Los Angeles. In all the other "cities", the heavy rail lines do not remain in those boundaries.
by Matt Johnson on Feb 29, 2012 11:34 am • link • report
1. the weakness of walk score in quality of walk matters to this - van dorn certainly deserves a lower score and placementif you take account of the quality of the walk. Im not certain about wheaton, but maybe it too.
2. Vienna will improve significantly when the commercial portion of MetroWest is completed
by AWalkerInTheCity on Feb 29, 2012 11:39 am • link • report
Maybe that speaks more for the land value in the Bay Area (evenly-distributed sprawl is worth more in the outlying areas than in places with more concentrated development) or maybe PG county is just really bad at developing metro stations.
by Albert on Feb 29, 2012 11:53 am • link • report
by David Alpert on Feb 29, 2012 12:02 pm • link • report
The airport link might be, but that is notorious for not being used.
And in this case, defining light/rail heavy rail is not a good distinction. When I rode the RTA, it was irrevleant. And I don't know how Tower City isn't impressive.
by charlie on Feb 29, 2012 12:04 pm • link • report
The question I'm hoping it would put on the table is as follows: if new subway construction is basically over in the USA outside of places that already have subways (NY, LA, Chicago, etc) then does highly intentional land use planning around LRT still enable communities to create land use patterns with WalkScore profiles like those you might find in old rail cities?
by CityBeautiful21 on Feb 29, 2012 12:12 pm • link • report
by Falls Church on Feb 29, 2012 12:16 pm • link • report
It's not just your listing SF instead of Bay Area is the bias, but your key sentence is"BART's system is much more suburban-oriented and has very little in the way of urban circulation." As is clear from the walk scores, the vast majority of the systems stops and ridership is in dense areas. The farthest BART stops are much farther from the urban cores than WMATA, but those stops are a fairly small fraction of the total system.
@Albert, definitely because of the cost of land, even stops with surface parking are better designed. For example, here's the North Berkeley station:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=berkeley,+ca&hl=en&ll=37.873117,-122.282885&spn=0.007377,0.014205&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=59.639182,116.367188&hnear=Berkeley,+Alameda,+California&t=h&z=17&source=gplus-ogsb
It has surface parking, but they put the station in the center of a large lot. This is normally considered poor urban design, but since this is a residential area and there's no main way people approach the station, it keeps the station approachable on foot from all directions and disperses the eye-sore of a single huge parking lot. Even for a station surrounded by a large parking lot in the middle of blocks of single-family houses, it's just a few blocks from a major retail road with many restaurants & a super market. If anything, I'd say the 71 given to this stop by Walkscore underestimates it's walkability.
I can't think of a single Metro stop anything like this in the D.C. area. Some are, obviously more urban & walkable, but the combination of free-standing homes very near retail & a heavy rail stop isn't anywhere in D.C. I've seen (noting I haven't visited all Metro stops)
by Dan H on Feb 29, 2012 12:26 pm • link • report
by jfruh on Feb 29, 2012 12:42 pm • link • report
And maybe you shouldn't include the street-running branches of the Green line in Boston, but if you want to be consistent you should include the fully grade-separated D branch to Riverside. It seems perfectly reasonable to exclude bus systems, though, even those that are placed on maps as if they're rail lines (e.g. Silver line).
by Gray on Feb 29, 2012 12:51 pm • link • report
Really? When LA tops the charts on any sort of mass transit/walkability comparison, it's fair to say there might be some flawed methods and testing at play.
by Moose on Feb 29, 2012 1:19 pm • link • report
The Green and Blue (light rail) lines of Cleveland opened in 1913.
The Red Line (heavy rail, the only thing covered in this study) opened in March of 1955. The Airport link opened in 1968.
Here is the Wikipedia article on the Red Line
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Line_%28Cleveland%29
by Dave Murphy on Feb 29, 2012 1:22 pm • link • report
by Vicente Fox on Feb 29, 2012 2:10 pm • link • report
Yeah, unless you want to do anything besides go to a museum.
by Marian Berry on Feb 29, 2012 2:13 pm • link • report
Overall good analysis but Walk Score definitely has its quirks. For example, the Smithsonian station only merits a 77 even though The Mall is in some ways the most walkable place in DC. Certainly, to AWITC's point, it's the highest "quality" walk in DC.
Walkscore measures the amount of stuff you can walk to. There aren't exactly a ton of amenities to walk to around the station.
by MLD on Feb 29, 2012 2:28 pm • link • report
by baltimorean on Feb 29, 2012 2:46 pm • link • report
It's funny to me how many people do not have any knowledge of how dense, urban and diverse central Los Angeles is.
by Bert Green on Feb 29, 2012 2:51 pm • link • report
I just returned from my first trip to LA. I went prepared to hate the place, but actually it is full of high density mixed use walkable districts. People tend to use cars to move between them, and the areas in between are still auto oriented hell, but a recognizably urban lifestyle is possible.
And the LA bus system is way better than Metrobus. John Catoe was the guy responsible for that - maybe WMATA shouldn't have fired him so hastily..
by Phil on Feb 29, 2012 4:12 pm • link • report
Lived in DC for 6 years, and have been in LA for the past 2 years- first in Downtown LA, and now in Koreatown. Both these neighborhoods are as walkable and rich in amenities as any neighborhood in DC. I would say that Downtown LA in particular stacks up to NYC neighborhoods in terms of density of amenities (but certainly has a ways to go in terms of gentrification..it feels like a combination of SoHo and Times Square in the 80s).
It's true that there are some parts of LA- especially on the westside and in the Valley that are much more suburban and auto-oriented, the heavy rail lines don't go to these areas yet, so there you go.
Jarret Walker clears up a lot of the misconceptions about density in LA in his blog Human Transit. Excellent reading.
http://www.humantransit.org/2010/03/los-angeles-the-transit-metropolis.html
http://www.humantransit.org/2009/07/how-paris-is-like-los-angeles.html
Hoping a lot of the transportation planner crowd gets an up close and personal look at LA at this year's APA, so they can see they can see for themselves that its actually not all sprawl and cars.
by Chris Loos on Feb 29, 2012 4:46 pm • link • report
by davidj on Feb 29, 2012 6:41 pm • link • report
by egk on Feb 29, 2012 6:46 pm • link • report
by Chris Loos on Feb 29, 2012 6:55 pm • link • report
Not really. Rosslyn is a jobs hub, but not exactly the densest neighborhood in terms of actual livability. In addition to all the standard neighborhood amenities (grocery store/banks/dry cleaners/coffee shop/Peruvian chicken) about a block from the station, it's less than half a mile to either Ballston or Clarendon. Virginia Square probably gets a lot of its walk score from being right in the middle.
by worthing on Mar 1, 2012 10:56 am • link • report
by Key on Mar 1, 2012 11:13 am • link • report
@Key
Houston could have heavy rail - plenty of heavy rail is above ground. E.g. half of the NYC "subway," 80% of BART, 60% of WMATA, all of Miami, 80% of MARTA, etc. etc.
Actually, there is only one heavy rail system that is more than 2/3 underground (by track mileage) - Los Angeles is 96% subway. And it has the highest score on this list. Not a coincidence I think.
by MLD on Mar 1, 2012 11:30 am • link • report
No it does not. Miami's Metrorail is exclusively above ground. Houston could build a metro if it was willing to dedicate the funds to do so.
Of course, your statement misses the point of why I limited the scope. I was trying to compare like to like. Houston's system is significantly different that Washington's or BART, or New York's.
If we want to compare Houston, we should compare it to its peers - cities with light rail. Regardless of their water table.
by Matt Johnson on Mar 1, 2012 11:37 am • link • report
And yet, it's a perfect station, situated in the homes with an extensive parking lot AND, a critical AND, at the base of the hill Berkeley sits on.
This means that I can walk downhill from my apartment to N. Berkeley BART in the morning, and I can walk downhill from Downtown Berkeley BART to my apartment in the evening.
Genius, especially when taking BART to SFO.
by Jerry on Mar 1, 2012 11:49 am • link • report
Also, it's a bit disingenuous to use "city population" as a measure of regionalism or transit suitability.
Houston (the city) has a huge population because it has a huge area, largely a result of Texas annexation law. The "city" of Houston is 601.3 square miles and has a population of just over 2 million people.
Washington (the city) only has a population of 617,996, so it's clearly inferior to Houston. But then Washington has an area of only 68.3 miles, and is not able to annex land.
Fortunately, we can look at other parts of the region. Montgomery County is 507 square miles (population 971,777) and Arlington County is 26 square miles (population 207,627).
Even better, if we add the area of Montgomery, Arlington, and DC, we get a total of 601.3 square miles, exactly the same area as Houston (city).
Adding the population of those 3 jurisdictions, we get about 1.8 million, comparable to Houston's 2 million.
At any rate, for comparing cities (since "city" area varies greatly), we should use metropolitan area size.
Houston still leads Washington, but it's a much closer race. With 5.9M, Houston is in 6th place. With 5.4M, Washington is in 7th place.
Compare that to "city" population, where Houston is 4th in the nation and Washington is 24th.
Should we assume Washington, DC is a smaller city than El Paso, Texas? Well, it is. El Paso is 19th place. As a "city". But when most people talk about city size, they're thinking about the region the city anchors, not the political bounds of the city (which tend to be invisible to most people). For context, El Paso's metropolitan area ranking is 66th.
City limit population is a bad measure for comparing cities.
by Matt Johnson on Mar 1, 2012 11:55 am • link • report
North Berkeley BART has a walkscore of 71.
by Matt Johnson on Mar 1, 2012 11:56 am • link • report
by aim on Mar 1, 2012 1:30 pm • link • report
by Sparkatus on Mar 1, 2012 1:54 pm • link • report
I'm also surprised that LA outscored NY, but I guess it makes sense when you think about it. Because they only have a couple lines in LA, they made them as cost-effective and practical as possible. Baltimore outscoring DC also caught me off-guard, but I imagine it's for the same reason.
It's no shocker that Cleveland is the lowest scoring since it's really a lame-duck system, but similar to the Baltimore, LA, and Boston systems it complements light rail lines. MARTA's (Atlanta) low score isn't that surprising either, being the sole representative from the South and it's universal low-density sprawl (I'm not counting Miami, since it and South FL at large are atypical for the region).
I strongly agree with you on excluding light rail, which is very different from heavy-rail/rapid transit in many ways (stop frequency, infrastructure requirements, flexibility, speed). Too many times the "mainstream" media mix up different transit modes and end up comparing apples to oranges.
by King Terrapin on Mar 1, 2012 1:55 pm • link • report
It would be interesting to see the scores for the proposed BART extensions to Fremont and Livermore.
Our regional planners have done a fairly good job of promoting TOD around BART stations.
by David on Mar 1, 2012 2:35 pm • link • report
The Los Angeles subway was supposed to head out towards the Westside, but NIMBY politics combined with (probably unfounded) fear of damage due to methane gas explosions, bent it north through Hollywood. As a result, the subway almost tracks the "ridgeline" of density and walk access within Los Angeles.
The idea of the "city within" is definitely appropriate for Los Angeles. I think though, it's more than 1 million in that "city," a lot of which is served by light rail and rapid bus but not heavy rail. I'd describe that area as being roughly bounded by the Hollywood Hills and the 134 freeway on the north, the 105 Century Freeway on the south, the 710 freeway on the east, and La Cienega Blvd. on the west. That takes in central LA, East LA, the inner parts of South LA, and parts of Pasadena and Glendale. I'd guess it's about 2 million people out of LA County's 11 million.
by Nathan Landau on Mar 1, 2012 3:00 pm • link • report
Walking north a few blocks to the BART station:
NW corner of University & Sacramento 80
NW corner of Berkeley Way & Sacramento 80
NW corner of Hearst & Sacramento 75
NW corner of Delaware & Sacramento 68 (SW corner of the BART parking lot)
Entrance to N Berkeley BART: 71
The distance from University Ave (80) to Delaware (68) is an easy 0.2 mi, <4 min walk.
My current Silver Spring residence has a 62 walk score and is immensely less walkable than pretty much anywhere in the entire city of Berkeley except the residences in the hills.
I know walkscore is a useful, but imperfect mechanism, but it's worth always keeping that in mind.
by Dan H on Mar 1, 2012 3:19 pm • link • report
L.A. also has suburban sprawl like any other city. People who've lived in the urban centers of NYC, Chicago, Boston or S.F. move to the suburbs of L.A. and then compare apples with oranges. Not an accurate comparison.
by Transit Planner on Mar 1, 2012 5:51 pm • link • report
737,000 riders/106.3 mi = 6,933 daily riders per mile
58,000 riders/15.4 mi = 3,766 daily riders per mile
Sure Baltimore is used less frequently than DC, but for being just one line serving one portion of the city, it's pretty heavily used.
by bmore on Mar 2, 2012 12:31 pm • link • report
That being said, perhaps a more accurate picture would be to compare grade-separated rail systems, rather than making an artificial distinction between third rail and overhead wire technologies. That would still remove streetcars and hybrid systems like San Francisco Muni and the Boston Green Line, as well as at-grade light rail like the LA Blue and Gold Lines, but would include the LA Green Line, which would win, hands down, as the grade-separated line with the lowest walkable score in the country. There are active efforts to develop TOD around it, but as a freeway-median line that's pretty much inherent in the design. It is the LRT line with the fastest average speeds in the country, though that doesn't really make up for the lack of ridership potential.
by LA on Mar 2, 2012 2:06 pm • link • report
by Nathan Landau on Mar 2, 2012 2:56 pm • link • report
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