Large Cities w/o great ridership numbers

[Greg Moore]

So I think it's obvious that large cities with 2 trains/day (or worse) will always be limited.

The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with Atlanta, given how badly the station honestly, sucks.
Parking is limited (though with the ability to use the Masonic Lodge lot helps) and it's not on the metro which sucks.

Then I think about Toledo. 4 trains a day. All at sucky hours. And not in a great part of town.

I really think that whole "Great Lakes" region needs better service.
It's really annoying that Ohio can't develop 3Cs and then Toledo and Ann Arbor and Detroit.

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Phoenix is"served" (via bus)by Maricopa Az.
You might want to add Tucson Az to the list.

Not two trains per day. The Sunset Limited isn't a daily train. While both Phoenix and Tuscon are large cities, I suggest neither is as large as Houston.

There is also a Thruway bus from Flagstaff to Phoenix connecting to the SWC to/from Chicago (although graveyard shift) both ways, either arriving in Phoenix (3-8703) or waiting in Flagstaff (8704-4). You would use the Arizona Shuttle to connect to/from Los Angeles.

So I think it's obvious that large cities with 2 trains/day (or worse) will always be limited.

The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with Atlanta, given how badly the station honestly, sucks.
Parking is limited (though with the ability to use the Masonic Lodge lot helps) and it's not on the metro which sucks.

Then I think about Toledo. 4 trains a day. All at sucky hours. And not in a great part of town.

I really think that whole "Great Lakes" region needs better service.
It's really annoying that Ohio can't develop 3Cs and then Toledo and Ann Arbor and Detroit.

I would say Great Lakes, Southeast, and Southwest all could use more trains. The Southeast and Southwest don't have the "hub" that the Great Lakes has in Chicago but several close city pairs which should be able to support trains. The Silver Star has a big ridership for travel between Tampa and both Orlando and Miami. A service connecting any two ends of the Texas Triangle should be popular as well.

[Suburban Station]

Pgh chicago via cleveland and tole do would be a better first step than the 3cs

[markhb]

[
Fresno and Bakersfield do very well even though they are driving cities with abysmal local transit.

Give people the train as a decent option and people will take it.

Do the ridership numbers include Thruway buses? Because a quick look at the schedules for Bakersfield tells me that the bus trips to Los Angeles and Vegas appear to be far more attractive than taking the train 8 hours to San Francisco, and there's very little in between except that Fresno is listed as a jumping off point for Yosemite. That park in particular has vigorous controls on auto traffic, so it might be uniquely suited to being reached by train.

[CharlieK]

3) "Tradition". Not sure of an example, but I'd say some cities would probably take more to trains than others. i.e. it's ingrained in them as a possibility. I'll use Albany as a counter example here. It seems its ridership is outsized compared to the local population. Yeah, being close to NYC helps, but I think too, it's simply assumed, "the train is a possibility"

Albany has high ridership because there are frequent trains going places people want to go to.

[ExCon90]

Do the ridership numbers include Thruway buses? Because a quick look at the schedules for Bakersfield tells me that the bus trips to Los Angeles and Vegas appear to be far more attractive than taking the train 8 hours to San Francisco,

It was reported a few years ago that around 50% of rail passengers on Amtrak California either began or ended their trip on a Thruway bus. It seems likely that a lot of those Bakersfield passengers were indeed going to and from LA.

[joshuahouse]

You all think that PHX having 3x a direction per week is silly think about this.

HOUSTON metro area has nearly as many people as the entire state of Arizona.

[Philly Amtrak Fan]

Using B,Dawe's map: https://brendandawe.carto.com/viz/80b9d ... /embed_map" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Largest US Urban Areas (Over 2 million):

New York: 18,351,295
Los Angeles: 12,150,996
Chicago: 8,608,208
Miami: 5,502,379
Philadelphia: 5,441,567
Dallas: 5,121,892
Houston: 4,944,332
Washington: 4,586,770
Atlanta: 4,515,419
Boston: 4,181,019
Detroit: 3,734,090
Phoenix: 3,629,114
San Francisco-Oakland: 3,281,212
Seattle: 3,059,393
San Diego: 2,956,476
Minneapolis-St. Paul: 2,650,890
Tampa-St. Petersburg: 2,441,770
Denver: 2,374,203
Baltimore: 2,203,663
St. Louis: 2,150,706

No trains: Phoenix
One train, 3 trains/week each way: Houston
One train, daily each way: Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Denver

Dallas is the largest market with one train/day and Houston is the largest with less than daily service. Clearly Texas is a huge state with very few trains which is a problem. Between the two cities along with San Antonio and Austin should be plenty of potential audience for new trains or increased service. There also are many markets in the 1-2 million range which could use more trains as well.

You wonder why I am against certain trains? One train traveling 1000 or more miles and running through a bunch of tiny insignificant markets is one train which could be used to serve Texas or Ohio or Florida and probably double ridership.

[bdawe]

Just to quibble, those are urban area, rather than metropolitan area numbers

Urban areas refer to the population of the contiguous built up area, while metropolitan areas are usually county-based.

[electricron]

Just to quibble, those are urban area, rather than metropolitan area numbers

Urban areas refer to the population of the contiguous built up area, while metropolitan areas are usually county-based.

You've over simplified MSA too much using political jurisdictions lines. Commuting patterns is the main determining factor differentiating MSA from counties and cities. At least 25% commute within a MSA in or out of the major city is the usual data point used to place a surburb or exburb into a MSA.

[bdawe]

That is indeed how metropolitan statistical areas are constructed, but the building blocks are counties

[CharlieK]

Las Vegas missed the cut here with a population just under two million. What they do have is 40 million tourist visits a year. That's a lot of people coming and going, none of them by train.

[Greg Moore]

How many are coming from a practical train distance though?
I mean other than the mythical LA-LV train service that never seems to materialize, it seems there's limited value to train service to Vegas.

[CharlieK]

How many are coming from a practical train distance though?
I mean other than the mythical LA-LV train service that never seems to materialize, it seems there's limited value to train service to Vegas.

McCarran is the 8th busiest airport in the US, 45 million people in 2015. That's 120,000 people coming and going every day. A few of them might take the train, if there was one.

[Greg Moore]

Exactly my point though, "a few of them".

If you go with the standard metric of "500 miles" being a practical limit (and I think that's a real stretch) I suspect Las Vegas has a lot fewer city pairs that make sense compared to say Pittsburgh or Cleveland, etc.

i.e. you're not going to siphon off that many riders.

I could be wrong though.