US Regions by Annual Riders per Mile of Subway Track

May 1, 2019
Annual Riders per Mile of Track in US Regions

The chart above shows the number of annual riders for every mile of track in each US region.  One million annual riders is the equivalent of 2,740 riders a day.  Unsurprisingly, the Northeast dominates in this metric.

Findings

  • The difference between the region with the most annual riders per mile of track, the Northeast, and the region with the least, the South, is 3.62 million.
  • The Northeast has 4.02 times the annual riders per mile of track that the South does.
  • Pennsylvania and California have two subway systems, New York has three, all other states have one.
  • The Northeast has more annual riders per mile of track than any subway system in any other region.

Caveats

  • Data is from 2017.
  • Hawaii is currently working on building a subway system for Honolulu which is expected to have 2.12 million annual riders per mile of track which would raise the West's riders per mile of track to 1.48 million.
  • The Northeastern US consists of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Delaware, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
  • The Western US consists of California, Washington, Colorado, Arizona, Oregon, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Hawaii, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming.
  • The Midwestern US consists of Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
  • The Southern US consists of Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia.
  • All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.

Details

The Northeast has the most miles of track by far, the most riders, and leads in this metric.  The South trails all regions in all metrics.

The Northeast has the widest range in riders per mile of track with a low of 0.63 million riders per mile of track in New York's Staten Island Railway to a high of 7.31 in the New York City Subway.  The South has the narrowest range in riders per mile of track with a low of 0.79 in Florida's Metrorail to a high of 1.42 in Georgia's MARTA.

Sources

Wikipedia.  2019.  "List of Metro Systems."  Accessed February 24, 2019.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems.

Filed under: Charts and Graphs