Cities With Great Public Transit

Chicago, IL

Chicago has the same commute difference as D.C, but what's more important: whether or not you're ten minutes late for work or your safety? This is what bumps Chicago down the list and New York up. Of these five cities, three list their crime statistics openly while two hide the data. The two secretive ones are Chicago and San Francisco. Either way, Chicago's public transit crime rates are down 32% from last year and San Francisco's is down 13%. What those percentages are in relation to, they won't say.

Chicago's CTA is making improvements. They have rolled out 4G wireless service in 2015 and will be overhauling over 1,000 buses and adding 425 new ones. They have a hefty operating budget of $1.47 billion, but that's still behind Boston, D.C., and New York City. Single-ticket costs are right in the median price range at $2.25 for the train and $2.00 for the bus. Not bad.

Boston, MA

The MBTA has fairly good facilities and a decent budget to maintain them. They have 62% of "dedicated revenue" from in-state taxes for upkeep and employees, which is almost double New York City's. They get bumped down on our list because of their crime rates. Of the five listed here, Boston has the highest. Most recent listings are from 2014 and in that year there were 950 incidents on the public transit systems.

New York, NY

The MTA is great despite its bad rap. While they are still cruising with the 5000 series rail cars, they have a decent designated budget for maintenance alone, which is $146 million, and a separate budget for service and quality, which currently stands at $173 million. The MTA also invests a lot in safety with a budget of $430 million. Safety is where their image is misrepresented. While it is, of course, a risk to ride late at night in some areas, this is true in almost any city. New York City actually has the lowest crime rates of all cities on this list. Last year they had 306 incidents, not even a third of what Boston had in 2014, which is pretty impressive. The MTA is tied with Boston's MBTA for ticket costs, coming in at $2.75 for both bus and train. These are the highest ticket prices on the list.

San Francisco, CA

San Francisco's public transportation system has some slick facilities and they aren't hurting when it comes to budget allocation. While their overall expenditure for public transit is just $963.2 million, they don't have as much to maintain as others on the list and money isn't an issue, as they have stacked capital project funding and donations from Google. In 2014, SFMTA received $6.8 million from the tech giant for their Youth Program. San Francisco also has trolleys and that's hard to beat in terms of novelty (and operating cost).

Washington D.C.

Washington D.C. with its WMATA. D.C. ranked highest in terms of commute time and income difference. With our findings, they also lead with their new 7000 series rail cars, basically the Lexus of rail cars. Other cities are starting to follow suit with rail car upgrades but most are just refurbishing their 5000 series models. Their budget sources are also pretty comprehensive, with 47% coming from local and state subsidies, 45% coming from fare and toll (which is a little higher than others, but that is definitely ideal) and 8% from "other", whatever that may be. Despite the fact that they have to compete with other public spending projects, they make a good haul which makes their #1 ranking even more impressive. Their crime rates sit in the middle of those on the list with 731 incidents but that's from this year alone. Kind of shocking for our nation's capital, but their ticket costs sit at $1.75 for buses and $2.15 for trains.