The major US cities with the best public transportation

Two nonprofit research institutes, the C enter for Neighborhood Technology TransitCenter Center for Neighborhood Technology, have created a project that quantifies the state of public transit in cities across the country.

The institutes created a metric called the AllTransit Performance Score for subways, light rails, bike shares, and buses in US cities and towns. Using open data from 7,236 cities, researchers looked at factors like affordability, access to jobs, frequency of service, quality, and number of stops. The goal is to encourage policymakers to improve public transportation.

The researchers compiled an ultimate ranking of public transportation in all of these cities and towns. On the site, you can filter by zip code and population.

Here are the top cities with at least 250,000 residents.

17. St. Paul, Minnesota

There are jobs located within a half-mile of transit in St. Paul.

16. Seattle, Washington

Seattle has over 416,000 jobs accessible with a commute of less than 30 minutes.

15. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

More than 138,000 Pittsburgh residents live within a half-mile of public transit.

14. Oakland, California

There are jobs located within a half-mile of transit in Oakland.

13. Portland, Oregon

Portland's public transit services

12. Minneapolis, Minnesota

In Minneapolis, there are

11. Miami, Florida

10. Newark, New Jersey

Newark's

9. Baltimore, Maryland

There are 313,115 jobs located within a half-mile of transit in Baltimore.

8. Long Beach, California

In Long Beach, over residents live within a half-mile of a transit stop.

7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

6. Chicago, Illinois

More than 2.7 million Chicago residents live within a half-mile of public transit.

5. Jersey City, New Jersey

Public Transportation costs just 10.1% of what an average household earns per year in Jersey City.

4. Washington, DC

Over 644,000 DC residents live within a half-mile of public transit.

3. Boston, Massachusetts

Subways and buses in Boston make over 8,000 trips in an average week.

2. New York, New York

New York City and San Francisco are tied for the best subways, buses, and bike share in the country.

NYC has 19 transit routes within a half mile of an average block and over 1.37 million jobs available within an average 30-minute commute.

This is particularly impressive considering the city has over 8.4 million residents.

1. San Francisco, California

99% of San Francisco's population lives within a half-mile of transit, and 11.1% commute by walking in addition to taking other forms of public transportation.

The major US cities with the best public transportation

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