Talk:List of United States light rail systems

San Francisco???

Where do the San Francisco numbers come from? They have to be wildly inaccurate. SF's Muni Metro is one of the most-used light rail line networks in the United States. I've lived in both San Francisco and Baltimore and the idea that Baltimore's light rail is more heavily frequented than SF's is just laughable. Do these numbers perhaps refer to the SF cable cars? --Jfruh (talk) 03:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Found some better numbers here, though frustratingly not all agencies are in these stats. Will try to go through them all to find the most recent figures for each system. --Jfruh (talk) 03:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm almost certain many of these numbers are off. I just wanted this page made and threw down the first numbers I found, figuring that, like a good wikipedia collaborative, eventually better cited data would emerge. From now on, if everyone could include citations in the article to each new ridership number, debates over ridership will become much simpler.--Loodog 11:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Major changes I just made

OK, I just redid the table to use in almost all cases the latest APTA data to get an apples-to-apples comparison, and made the sources and dates for the data more transparent. There are a few blank spots:

• I couldn't find what source was used for the River LINE or Tacoma Link ridership numbers; I left them in, but with an indicator that we need to find hard numbers somewhere.
• I am reasonably sure that the APTA's SEPTA number represent all Philly light rail (as I listed them here) and that their Portland numbers repersent both MAX and the Streetcar, but if someone has other data, please correct. The APTA lists the Muni Metro and F Market under a single "light rail" heading and the cable cars separately; I figured that the cable cars were close enough to the definition of light rail that they merited inclusion here.
• Frustratingly the APTA only offers NJT light rail numbers for "Newark." I think that this city is used in their listings not because it's just the Newark Light Rail, but because that's where NJT is headquartered? (Their commuter rail numbers, also listed under "Newark", are clearly for the whole state.) However, the numbers they give are wildly smaller than the other estimates for the three systems, so maybe they are just for the Newark Light Rail. More investigation is in order!
• Also frustratingly, there are no numbers available from APTA for Baltimore's LR since it reopened at the end of 2005. Not sure where the numbers originally on this page were from or what their date was, but I shall try to search them out; or, maybe when the Q3'06 numbers come out in December, the MD MTA will finally have gotten their acts together and come up with some data.

--Jfruh (talk) 02:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Excellent. I am far more satisfied with your rigorousness than my own. For the Baltimore Light Rail data, I pulled the numbers from this site for 2002, though this site lists 30,000 for 2003, though may be giving average daily rather than average weekday stats and the latter is intently anti-rail. The MTA website is annoying devoid of ridership data, far as I can tell.--Loodog 03:07, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the key would be to find some numbers from after the full system reopened in December 2005. --Jfruh (talk) 03:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

To do

Once the list settles down a bit, it might be interesting to a second list that indicates passengers per revenue mile.

Thanks, Loodog, for starting the article! --Jfruh (talk) 02:58, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• Oooh, also the TECO Line Streetcar System ought to be on the list, though the APTA seems to not do numbers on it. I am reasonably sure that we have all the full-on light rail systems on this list now but there might be a few heritage streetcars we've missed. --Jfruh (talk) 03:22, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Dallas

Since San Fransico's cable cars are included, should Dallas's hertigage street car trolley, McKinney Avenue Transit Authority be included in Dallas's list?--FoUTASportscaster

I would think so. Probably the APTA ridership numbers cited already include it; I just forgot to add the link to the entry. --Jfruh (talk) 20:24, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Passenger traffic density ???

"Ridership per mile of track" might be supplemented - or replaced - by passenger traffic density. This statistic, unfortunately unfamiliar in the "English-speaking world," simply tells how many people travel, on average, over each length (mi or km) of route. It is calculated simply by dividing annual (or weekday) passenger-km or passenger-mi by the system length (km or mi, as appropriate). Note that "the number" does not change when converting between U.S. and metric units.

"Ridership" or "boarding" statistics are not adequate for comparison between systems:

"System A:" (10,000 passengers per weekday * 2-km average travel distance) / 10-km system length = 2,000 passenger-km per km of route per weekday.

"System B:" (10,000 passengers per weekday * 6-km average travel distance) / 10-km system length = 6,000 passenger-km per km of route per weekday.

The fact that System B carries three times as many passengers (on average) over each km of route (system length) has major implications, including the requirement to operate more service, higher operating cost, higher cost per passenger and so forth. Ldemery 07:08, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure. Feel free to make this change.--Loodog 05:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Third quarter

Third quarter numbers are out. Who wants to update the page? --FoUTASportscaster 20:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I punt for the time being (leaving tomorrow for a vacation) but if nobody has done it by Feb. 5 or so I'll take it on. Do they have recent numbers for Baltimore yet? --Jfruh (talk) 21:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll do it. I am supposed to be at work, but an injury has sidelined me tonight. --FoUTASportscaster 00:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I updated the numbers on the first graph. The report didn't contain the numbers for Newark or Pittsburgh. I don't think, though I could be wrong, that it had entries for San Jose, the Hudsen-Bergen Line, Baltimore, Trenton or Tacoma. Also, I know Little Rock has a streetcar line and it too, wasn't in the report. I added it along with the Tampa Streetcar line, but didn't give numbers.--FoUTASportscaster 02:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If you liked List of United States Light Rail systems by ridership...

You may also be interested in a counterpart page I've created for rapid transit systems: List of United States Rapid Transit systems by Ridership--Loodog 15:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Denver Light Rail Mileage

The Denver Light Rail that I last checked was 34.9 miles. This is due to the addition of the the Southeast Corridor along Interstate 25. You people need to get your facts straight, as you think it is 25 miles, which it is not.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.62.117 (talk • contribs)

I have reverted your change. If you have a source that states this figure, you may change it back. Until then, we can't state numbers we have no support for.--Loodog 18:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Using the resources of the TheRide page on Wikipedia, I have calculated the total mileage for the Denver Light Rail track mileage. The Central Corridor (Downtown) is 5.3 miles, the Southwest Corridor is 8.7 miles, the Central Valley Corridor (Union Station/LoDo) is 1.8 miles, and the Southeast Corridor is 19.1 miles. The total figure comes to 34.9 miles.

Anyone can look at the evidence and see that I am right.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.62.117 (talk • contribs)

Editor, in order for us to post these numbers in this article, it is not sufficient to mention where they could be found, but to include exact links to webpages showing these figures.--Loodog 19:31, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Loodog, if there needs to be a link for the 34.9 miles figure to be on the page, then why don't the numbers on TheRide page have a source. Maybe you should see that before considering putting back the 24 miles figure. You know I am right because it has been in the local Denver, CO newspapers many times. Please take the time to go through that before changing anything. I have proven my point.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.20.62.117 (talk • contribs)

Editor, please sign your posts on talk pages with 4 tildas like so: ~~~~. If TheRide doesn't cite its sources properly, then it needs to be fixed also. One of wikipedia's official policies Wikipedia:Verifiability adamantly maintains this. Read Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden_of_evidence:

“ The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material. All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.[1] The source should be cited clearly and precisely to enable readers to find the text that supports the article content in question. ”

That is: if you have numerous newspaper articles stating this, cite them here, or else we can't keep that figure.

--Loodog 00:02, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

76.20.62.117 00:11, 11 August 2007 (UTC)You people on Wikipedia love to keep this up, do you? Why don't you look on Google if you need a source so badly. You just have to learn to look for yourselves. I have researched my facts, look on the SE corridor light rail sight at the RTD Denver website.

Houston numbers

Why would you guys use outdated numbers, when METRO has released new figures showing a 45,000 per day ridership number? —Preceding unsigned comment added by XxTrillvillexX9 (talk • contribs) 01:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Consistency. The APTA report is second quarter of 2007, which is hardly outdated. This list is a comparitive list, meaning that respective differences are more important than absolute numbers. There may be more recent data from individual transit agencies, but we avoid these for two reasons:

1. The agency that reports Boston's ridership could be using different criteria or methods than the agency reporting Utah's ridership.
2. Local agencies have motivation to intentionally choose methods so as to bump their numbers.
3. More recent data might not be available for all systems, in which case we're comparing riderships from different times.

Or to use the example in front of us, notice that putting Houston's local estimates bumps it ahead of the Utah TRAX system. Take a look at the local numbers for the TRAX: 57,500, which puts it right back in 11th place. Either way, to say Houston has the 11th place spot is misleading. The only apples-to-apples comparison is to use the same source and agency for everything.--Loodog 01:36, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Charlotte

It just opened, of course there isn't any data. By excluding them, we should take out New Jersey's transit systems, since the APTA doesn't carry data on them. FoUTASportscaster (talk) 22:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

NJ has data, though not from APTA. Charlotte has no data.--Loodog (talk) 00:10, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I can bring up press clippings of its opening, legnth, and ridership. It is data, just not from the APTA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by FoUTASportscaster (talk • contribs) 03:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Any ridership data you see on this page is by the quarter. Since LYNX hasn't operated for any period of time over which one can obtain reasonable data, much less, data for an entire quarter, there can be no meaningful comparison. Just wait.--Loodog (talk) 04:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

AlrightFoUTASportscaster (talk) 16:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Newbie

Okay, I'm a noob to watching this page. I heard of APTA's updated weekday ride numbers for third quarter 2007 and took the liberty to update stats here. One thing I noticed is that not all lrt systems are reported by APTA. Don't these agencies report figures to APTA. Anyway, I left those figures unchnaged where no data was provided.

One improvment to this page could be to index streetcar operations separately.

--Track Legs 10:25pm PDT 5 December 2007

I think it would be hard to separate light rail and streetcar operations, both because the APTA doesn't separate out ridership figures, and because several systems (SF's Muni, the Boston Green line, etc.) contain features of both classic streetcars and modern light rail. --Jfruh (talk) 14:11, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

And yes, it's very frustrating that the APTA doesn't have figures for all of them! The biggest problem is that it combines figures for systems from single agencies -- which means that all three NJ light rail systems are reported in one lump figure. --Jfruh (talk) 14:12, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Uh oh, we've got it a problem...

I was just looking at the APTA ridership numbers and I realize that we've made an error here. The APTA numbers are somewhat confusing because they list transit agencies, not the names of systems, and combine reporting for multiple systems run by the same agency (thus the problems in getting separate numbers for the various NJ Transit lines). Anyway, It looks like this article is using the numbers for Sound Transit for Seattle's new South Lake Union Streetcar line. But if you look at the report, it lists ridership numbers for Sound Transit for October and November of 2007 -- but the SLUS only opened in December of 2007. You'll notice that the APTA report also lists King County Dept. of Transportation as one of the agencies, although it only has zeroes for ridership numbers. In fact, the Tacoma Link, whose numbers we've never gotten from the APTA report, is operated by Sound Transit, and the SLUS is operated by King County.

In short, I'm almost positive we've put the APTA numbers for the Tacoma Link in for the SLUS, and are using Sound Transit's own Tacoma Link numbers for the Tacoma Link. The SLUS gets zeroes on the APTA Q407 numbers because it started operating so late in the quarter, I'm assuming, and they couldn't come up with reasonable figures for it. I'm going to fix this by putting the APTA numbers in for the Link and taking the SLUS out all together until we have APTA numbers for it (as we did for the Charlotte LYNX). --Jfruh (talk) 17:19, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for any confusion, but this had already been worked out. SLUS figures are available in the Q108 numbers. --Jfruh (talk) 18:52, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason I changed things is because I really doubt the APTA Q108 estimate for the SLUS. A bulletin from the Mayor of Seattle's office [1] reporting paid ridership (not an estimate, a count) shows something completely different. If you look at the graph linked to in the Mayor's bulletin, the daily ridership numbers were 970, 1007, and 1012 riders per day (including weekends) in Jan., Feb., and Mar. of '08. The APTA estimate of 3900 per day is totally different, even if it just weekdays. I think you should leave the SLUS out, like you did the previous quarter. Diderot's dreams (talk) 20:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, we know from experience with SF Muni data that the APTA has been wrong before. Seattle Streetcar does provide a nice ridership graph. Would anybody object to changing the estimate to 996, the average for 1Q 2008? I would prefer that than leaving it out altogether. --Millbrooky (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. You can revert back to my edit today, if you like, that started the discussion. It was exactly that. Diderot's dreams (talk) 02:11, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand that the SLUS numbers are weird, but I don't like the precedent being set. The whole point of using the APTA numbers where available (which no doubt have any number of methodological bases that can be argued about) is to get a consistent baseline for comparison. We seem to be saying now that if someone has a "gut feeling" that the numbers are off for a system, they can change it to some other set of numbers. We've repeatedly reverted attempts to add numbers from local agencies that are higher than the APTA numbers; why allow numbers just because they're lower?

As for possible reasons for the discrepency, I can think of one off of the top of my head: as near as I can tell from its Web site, the SLUS is a proof-of-payment system -- you buy a ticket from a machine in the middle of the car and then sometimes a transit cop might come by to see if you've got a valid ticket. But if you have a transit pass good on mutiple Seattle area transit modes, then you don't need to buy a ticket. It strikes me that such passengers wouldn't register in an "actual count of paid passengers", since, short of counting every single person as they get on the car, there's no way to know that they were there. --Jfruh (talk) 12:16, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks like APTA has corrected itself, and the SLUS numbers are now much more in line with the mayor's. Again, we really should omit APTA numbers if credible numbers from another source contract APTA's. Or at least note the discrepency. Diderot's dreams (talk) 15:34, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Wait, I'm confused -- aren't the other numbers on this list Q3? And if so, why hadn't the SLUS numbers been updated for Q3? (Or were the new numbers on an amended Q3 list?)

I still think that unless one of us has access to reliable sources that show that APTA is actively wrong, we should go with their numbers. As has been stated REPEATEDLY here and elsewhere, the point of this article it to comapare numbers, which is difficult if we use different numbers with different counting methodologies. The in-house numbers for other systems may vary as much from the APTA numbers, so there's no point in using APTA for some and not for others.

There was some discussion on the corresponding page for metro systems that the APTA numbers actually count "unlinked passenger trips", which, among other things, counts one passenger transferring from one line to another as two trips. This doesn't really apply to the SLUS, but it may count, say, offboardings and reboardings by one person (possible in the small footprint of the SLUS route) in non-intuitive ways. --Jfruh (talk) 16:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

SF numbers: Holy cow!

According to the APTA, Muni Metro ridership in SF dropped by more than a third between Q407 to Q108 -- this in the midst of a gas price run-up. Does anyone know why this might be? Were parts of the system not operating for maintenance or something? --Jfruh (talk) 16:04, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Surprisingly, a lot of numbers dropped. San Diego lost 17% of its ridership. Sacramento had a minor loss. Minneapolis lost 13%. Baltimore lost 7%. Still San Francisco sticks out with 38% loss. Maybe it's a cyclical thing, 1st quarters having lower ridership than 4th quarters due to holidays? Then again, that wouldn't explain the 2% surge for LA or 4% increase in Boston.--Loodog (talk) 16:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

1st quarter is the low point for most transit systems. As for SF MUNI, something must be seriously wrong with their APTA data. Compare 2008 Q1 with 2007 Q4: they've gone from 644,100 riders per day to 3,869,700 riders per day in just 3 months! --Millbrooky (talk) 16:28, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

And yet according to the APTA q108 report, SF's numbers are a 12 percent improvement over Q107. It does smell kind of fishy, doesn't it? --Jfruh (talk) 17:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Update: an anon changed the SF numbers saying APTA had changed theirs. I checked and indeed, SF is now at 173,900 in the APTA report. Perhaps particularly bad typo?--Loodog (talk) 03:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

San Diego is up relative to the same quarter last year; +1%. It's down relative to the previous quarter because of seasonal change; as Millbrooky pointed out. An additional influencing factor is a fare increase on bus services; which many routes lead to Trolley stations. Btw, the Trolley will also increase their fare in September or October. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Track Legs (talk • contribs) 23:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Muni opening date

Hat tip to the editor who added the system opening dates, but I don't think 1980 is appropriate for the SF numbers. That's the opening date for the Market Street tunnel and the conversion to a modern light rail system, but much of the system is much older -- the Twin Peaks tunnel was opened in 1918, for instance, and I'm willing to bet that some of the streetcar trackage currently used by Muni Metro is even older than that. Also factor in the fact that the SF numbers include the Cable Car lines, the oldest of which was in operation by 1878, and the F Market, which includes some quite old streetcar trackage that didn't see regular use for decades until the F Market began running in 2000, and you have what I admit is a thorny problem as to what number to use. --Jfruh (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Second Quarter 2008

I updated the ridership figures for the second quarter. The graphic and ridership per mile are now outdated. I didn't update those.FoUTASportscaster (talk) 02:04, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Is there a way to have it automatically calculate ridership-per-mile? That would be very useful. bob rulz (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

References

Are all of these references really needed? Most of them just link to outdated ridership figures. If there is a number that's not available on the main link, I think it should just be placed directly next to the number in the table (such as what I did with the main reference). If I don't get any objections soon I will go ahead and re-format the references myself. bob rulz (talk) 19:48, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Ridership numbers are dated according to the "Date" column in the table. As such, I few systems with "old" data. Most of the references are there not for the ridership data, but for the system length data. References were moved into their own column to get table sort to work. Moving the refs next to each number seems to break the sorting. --Millbrooky (talk) 19:59, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally I think that it would improve the article if every reference is placed next to the info that it supports instead of into its own column. The formatting is left intact. It may be slightly less aesthetically pleasing but the references are more important. bob rulz (talk) 09:13, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Third Quarter numbers are out

[2] Also, what does the "AVG WKDY" cover--the current quarter or the year-to-date? And is "3rd Qtr Chng" comparing numbers to last year's 3rd quarter? Moreover, would it be best to use numbers averaged over an entire year, so to capture seasonal variations and not be saying that a system has higher ridership just because it does relatively better that quarter?

Comparing Q2 and Q3 numbers, MUNI jumped from 147.8 to 172.9, many others are up but Portland, Sacramento and Boston are down. Jason McHuff (talk) 07:21, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe it's current quarter. We do change the stats every quarter. There are some seasonal variations, but since all numbers are being updated together, it doesn't matter.--Loodog (talk) 15:14, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Oceanside, CA

While updating the list, the APTA listed Oceanside, CA. Does this get lumped in with LA's or do we have a new entry to the list? FoUTASportscaster (talk) 06:50, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a system distinct from both LA's lines and the San Diego Trolley (Oceanside is actually closer to San Diego than to LA). It should get its own entry. --Jfruh (talk) 04:03, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Fourth Quarter numbers are out

[3] Also, how about changing the 19th century opening dates for the systems that started as streetcars to the date they became modern light rail systems? For example, it seems that San Francisco Muni became light rail, including the introduction of modern vehicles, when the Market Street Subway opened. In fact, the Muni Metro article says the system began operation in 1980. Jason McHuff (talk) 04:14, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we would make the switch of dates. If a system has been operating continuously, we should reflect that, even if its been significantly modified since. There are still significant portions of, say, the Boston and San Francisco systems that, other than the vehicles in use, operate much as they did in the early 20th century; why would we want to erase that history?

For what it's worth, the 1878 date for San Francisco is for the cable car system, whose ridership is included in the APTA numbers. What would you update that date to? --Jfruh (talk) 13:04, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

I updated the 4Q stats three weeks ago.FoUTASportscaster (talk) 00:20, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

List of public transit districts / authorities

Is there a page with a list of the public transit districts and authorities somewhere?

Ideally with a list of the services they oversee or some sort of other statistics (e.g. size).--Knightdaemon (talk) 20:27, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Portland data inconsistency

The Portland figure in the APTA table (107,600) at this writing is only for TriMet—which means only for MAX, since the Portland Streetcar is not part of the TriMet system. I was going to add the current streetcar ridership (about 12,000 daily) as a separate listing in the table, since this article includes ridership from several other streetcar-transit systems (even though all of those in the APTA table except Portland and Seattle Streetcar use heritage cars), for consistency, but then I noticed that another editor had left a note saying that any data added from non-APTA sources will be deleted. As a result, I felt obliged to delete the mileage for the Portland Streetcar from the table (and to note that PS is not covered).

Why in the world does the APTA table include such operations as Kenosha and Memphis but omit the Portland Streetcar, which carries more riders per day (about 12,000) than the bottom six or seven systems combined? Is it possible APTA is unaware of this omission from its reporting? Will this problem arise later this year for Seattle, after APTA starts giving ridership for Sound Transit's Link light rail, and the table already has a "Seattle" listing for another operator (the city of Seattle, operator of SLUS)?

I really disliked having to add a sentence to the introduction specifically saying that Portland Streetcar data is not included, but if the consensus among past contributors to this article is that all ridership figures here must come from that APTA table, then the Portland Streetcar system does seem to a unique omission by APTA, and we have to acknowledge that omission, for the sake of accuracy.

In case anyone doubts that the 107,600 figure APTA gives for "Tri-County Metro Trp Dist" (TriMet) is just for MAX (i.e. does not include the Portland Streetcar), check out this PDF of stats from TriMet's FY08 (July 2007-June 2008), showing a 12-month average of 107,400 per day (weekday boardings). [4] At certain times of year, average daily MAX ridership has been much higher. SJ Morg (talk) 05:51, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

While those two sets of numbers you cite are quite close, APTA numbers have been significantly at variance with agency numbers before, due to different counting techniques; if 12,000 is approximately correct here, we'd be talking about a ten percent difference, here -- not outside the realm of possibility that they're still counting it, just counting differently.

One of the problems with APTA's numbers is that they consolidate reporting by "agency" -- which means, for instance, that all three of New Jersey Transit's light rail systems are consolidated into a single number (which is why we use non-APTA numbers for them). There's a different ownership structure for the Portland Streetcar than there is for MAX, but I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that the Streetcar's operation is contracted out to Tri-Met, which also operates MAX, which might get them listed under the same heading. Anyway, there's a handy e-mail address on the APTA page that contains the agency listings, so I've written them inquire whether Portland Streetcar numbers are included in the Portland numbers. Will report back here ASAP when I hear.

If for some reason APTA isn't reporting Portland Streetcar numbers, I think it would be better to use non-APTA numbers for that city, making a New Jersey-style exception. But if we do so, we should combine like numbers if possible -- i.e., don't combine the APTA MAX numbers with Tri-Met's Streetcar numbers, but rather use Tri-Met's numbers if available for both.

If APTA continues with its current setup, Seattle's numbers on this page are going to be something of a hot mess when the Link opens. They list "Sound Transit" and "King County Dept. of Transportation" separately -- the former currently being the Tacoma Link streetcar, and the latter being the SLUS. But the Seattle Link will also be operated by Sound Transit, resulting in the bizarre situation where one set of numbers will represent two systems twenty-something miles apart, while a system that has a shared station with one of those systems will be listed separately.

As for the trams vs. light rail issue, APTA lumps them under one heading as "light rail", which I think is probably smart for the purposes of this article, as the boundaries are kind of fuzzy, yes? There are plenty of modern "light rail" systems that are directly descended from old streetcar networks and have extensive sections that are indistinguishable from a tram network (Philadelphia is probably the best example). --Jfruh (talk) 15:53, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Suggest using yearly ridership statistics, instead

A heads up. I've proposed switching this and related lists to using yearly ridership statistics instead of the quarterly statistics currently employed. Discussion is on the US rapid transit talk page. --Millbrooky (talk) 17:59, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Something's gone screwy with the Tampa numbers

There is absolutely no way the TECO streetcar, which runs 2 miles and doesn't even operate during morning commuting hours, has 17,000 passengers a day. Previous estimates were in the range of 2,000 a day -- I think a decimal place has slipped somewhere. Has anyone had any luck contacting APTA? I sent them an email a while back about the question raised above re: the Portland Streetcar and never heard back. --Jfruh (talk) 20:42, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm on the verge of correcting TECO's daily ridership to the ~1050 that is in their report. I know that this page uses APTA numbers for consistency, but I think that when these numbers are grossly and obviously wrong they should be corrected. WinstonKap (talk) 09:01, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

32 vs. 36

The NYT article cited in the expansion proposal cites 36 light rail systems in the US, but the list on this page is as far as I know comprehensive. If anyone knows of four systems that have been left out, please add them. I suspect that cities with multiple systems -- like San Francisco's Muni Metro and streetcars, or Portland's Streetcar and MAX -- are being counted twice in that article, though counted only once here. This list also does not include the Seattle Central Link, which hasn't been running long enough to have APTA numbers. --Jfruh (talk) 02:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

"Integrated with heavy rail system," also, double-asterisks

SF Muni is listed as being "integrated" with a heavy-rail system, but I don't particularly see how this argument can be made... there is no connection, organizational or physical, between the SF Muni and BART (except for a discounted transfer). Thoughts?

Also, a few entries have double asterisks that don't seem to correspond to anything. Tevi (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Route Miles Problem

Anyone else notice that when you try to sort the lines by route miles, the list can't identify the decimals (can't differentiate between 1.0 and 10)? I tried adding .0 to the routes that did not include them but that did not help. Anyone got any ideas?--Jkfp2004 (talk) 06:00, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

What to do about Sound Transit's Central Link and Tacoma Link?

So my June 2010 ridership number update for Seattle's Central Link was reverted to its May 2010 numbers with the note "Please only use official APTA numbers when available." The problem with APTA numbers for Sound Transit has been mentioned before (see "Portland data inconsistency" above and similar situation for NJ Transit numbers) in that it combines the ridership of the Central Link and Tacoma Link, two different systems 20 miles apart that are not connected together (Tacoma's more like a streetcar while Central's is a full LRT). With Central Link just celebrating its first year of passenger service, we need to decide on how to report ridership for the two and what source to use. Currently the source for Central Link is a pdf that Sound Transit publishes every month through the Seattle Times and Seattle Transit Blog. There's also the Quarterly Performance Report which is used for Tacoma Link. Oranviri (talk) 03:13, 29 July 2010 (UTC)