The United States is served by a wide array of public transportation, including various forms of bus, rail, ferry, and sometimes, airline services. Most public transit systems are in urban areas with enough density and public demand to require public transportation; most US cities have some form of public transit. In more auto-centric suburban localities, public transit is generally less frequent and less common. Most public transit services in the United States are either national, regional/commuter, or local.
In the United States, public transportation is sometimes used synonymously with alternative transportation, meaning every form of mobility except driving alone by automobile. This can sometimes include carpooling, vanpooling,Bush, Leon R. Vanpool Implementation in Los Angeles: Commute-a-van. Aerospace Corporation, 1975. on-demand mobility (i.e. Uber, Lyft, Bird, Lime), infrastructure that is oriented toward bicycles (i.e. bike lanes, sharrows, cycle tracks, and bike trails), and paratransit service.
Public transport Rail
Most intercity rail service in the United States is publicly funded at all tiers of government. Amtrak, the national rail system, provides service across the entire contiguous United States, but the frequency of Amtrak service varies. Amtrak's Northeast Corridor is the location of the only operating high speed rail network in the Americas: the Acela Express.
Regional and urban rail services are primarily fixed on a major city or a state. Several cities have light rail systems which operate generally in the core of the city and their surrounding suburbs.
As of 2023, there is only one for-profit, private, intercity passenger rail service in the United States, which is Brightline in Florida.
Bus
There are two common types of urban bus service in the United States: local bus systems in urban areas using diesel or electric buses on the public streets or bus rapid transit (BRT) on its own right-of-way, and intercity buses. Nearly every major city in the United States offers some form of bus service, which have flexible routes on existing streets and make frequent stops. Bus rapid transit attempts to mimic the speed of a light rail system by operating on a separate right-of-way. Most inter-city bus service is private for-profit ventures, although they normally used publicly subsidized highways.
Several coastal cities offer ferry service linking localities that are across large bodies of water where constructing road and railway bridges is not financially viable. Ferry service sometimes is pedestrian only but sometimes may offer platforms for automobiles and public transit vehicles depending on the vessel used.
Planes Long-distance public transit too far to travel by rail or bus is typically undertaken by plane. Most airports in major regions are situated on the peripheries of major cities and are publicly owned, while airlines are typically owned by for-profit corporations.
Bikes
Some cities have public bike sharing company's where you can easily rent a bike for the day from a bike dock. If you live in the city/town/Area you can also buy a bike membership which lowers the price of the bike fee.
+City Company Operated By- NotesNew York City, New YorkCiti BikeLyftBoston, MassachusettsBluebikesLyftChicago, IllinoisDivvyLyftPhiladelphia, PennsylvaniaIndegoBicycle Transit System (BTS) Washington, D.C.Capital BikeshareLyftSan Francisco Bay Area, CaliforniaBay WheelsLyftDenver, ColaradoBCycleBicycle Transit System (BTS) Los Angeles, CaliforniaMetro Bike ShareBicycle Transit System (BTS) Columbus, OhioCoGo Bike ShareLyftPortland, OregonBiketownLyftSponsored By Nike
History
20th century After the rise of automobiles in the first half of the 20th century, urban transit companies went out of business and ridership declined.Mathur, S. (2016). Innovation in public transport finance: property value capture. Place of publication not identified: Routledge.
21st century In the 21st century, the U.S. has a low level of public transport compared to other developed Western nations, which has been relatively consistent according to a study covering 1980 through 2010.
A 2012 comparison among 14 western countries found the US in last place in annual public transport trips per capita with 24 trips. The next to last country was the Netherlands with 51 trips and Switzerland was ranked first with 237.
Reasons for the U.S. having a lower demand for public transport than Europe include lower density cities, tax policy, and the high car ownership in American cities. In some cities, there has been opposition to public transit on the grounds that it would increase crime.
Individual modes Rail transit
As of March 2020, Amtrak provides public railway transportation on 35 lines, with services concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, Northeast, California, and the Midwest. Amtrak also operates its own long distance bus system to support its train network. The Auto Train is available from Washington, DC to Orlando, Florida that is capable of carrying along passengers’ vehicles."Amtrak Routes & Stations." Amtrak Routes & Stations, www.amtrak.com/train-routes.
In 2021, Amtrak plans to deploy a fleet of 28 new Acela trainsets to serve the Northeast Corridor. The first of these trains are currently undergoing a nine month high-speed testing phase and will include personal comforts such as outlets, USB ports, improved Wi-Fi access, and an overall improvement in interior space design allowing 25 percent more passengers. The trains will travel between Boston and Washington D.C. multiple times a day, a route 3.5 million customers took in 2019. Palma, Kristi. "Amtrak to Begin High-Speed Testing of Its New Acela Trains, Coming in 2021." Boston.com, The Boston Globe, 19 Feb. 2020, www.boston.com/travel/travel/2020/02/19/amtrak-acela-trains-high-speed-testing.
High-speed rail
Inter-city rail
Regional and commuter rail
Urban rail
Bus transit Inter-city bus
Local bus services Bus rapid transit
Bus rapid transit (BRT), also called a busway, is a bus-based public transport system designed to improve capacity and reliability relative to a conventional bus system. Typically, a BRT system includes roadways that are dedicated to buses, and gives priority to buses at intersections where buses may interact with other traffic; alongside design features to improve accessibility and reduce delays caused by passengers boarding or leaving buses, or purchasing fares. BRT aims to provide "fast, comfortable, and cost-effective services at metro-level capacities".
In the United States several moderately sized cities have BRT as an alternative to light rail due to perceived costs and political will. Notable examples of moderately sized cities with BRT as their fulcrum of public transportation include the Silver Line in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the GRTC Pulse in Richmond, Virginia, and the BusPlus in Albany, New York. Several satellite and suburban cities to larger cities also have bus rapid transit systems as secondary public transit services to light rail and commuter rail. This includes the Denver suburb of Fort Collins' MAX Bus Rapid Transit system, and the Metroway system in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria, Virginia.
Some major cities have their own BRT routes within city limits that function as their own rapid transit line, or as auxiliary routes to the rail lines in their respective city. In Cleveland, the HealthLine, which is considered a standard for BRT in the United States, serves most of the city. Minneapolis has the Red Line, and Los Angeles has the F Line, which plans to upgrade to light rail.
Urban bus transit Local bus systems are categorized as public transit, especially for large metropolitan transit networks and in medium or small cities across the U.S. that rely on a bus network. These networks rely on diesel engine buses usually with fare controls and run on public streets. A public transit network generally orders vehicles to its own specifications as to length and passenger capacity, seated and standing. Buses meet standards set forth in the ADA and ADA updates to accommodate riders using a wheelchair, and information systems for riders with vision or hearing impairments. Electric-powered buses are appearing in some transit systems in the 2020 decade, as transit operators shift away from diesel fuel and its air pollutants, to this newer technology.
Some urban transit buses are built as articulated, longer vehicles to serve routes with high passenger demand. These buses bend midway, with an extra set of wheels.
Large metro areas in the US have bus networks with frequent scheduled service at a low fare, and in recent years in the 21st century, riders can learn the time of the next bus from software applications that work on a smart phone. New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, and Los Angeles County are a few of the places offering this type of service, with transfers between bus routes, or between bus and rail, to serve more trips.
Towns or smaller cities with a university campus may have excellent bus networks tailored to their market of riders. Ames, Iowa, for example, offers this sort of bus network with its CyRide system.
In the Chicago metropolitan area, there are two large transit bus networks. One is operated by the Chicago Transit Authority in Chicago proper and the other network is operated by the regional agency PACE, serving all the surrounding suburban towns and counties. Fares and transfers are coordinated in that region.
A subset of urban transit buses is the higher-fare, longer distance bus for people commuting to work in one or two US metropolitan areas. Those operate where no train service is in place to meet the demand, such as some routes between New Jersey's suburbs and Manhattan in New York City, although there may also be regularly scheduled bus routes. These buses may have more seating than typical buses, since the trip is longer. Providers of such service may call the bus a coach as a marketing term.
Paratransit
Ferry transit Information on ferries as public transportation in the United States is available from the FTA National Transit Database and the National Census of Ferry Operators, a bi-yearly census completed by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
According to the 2022 version of the National Census of Ferry Operators, 91.6 million passengers were carried on ferries in the United States and its territories.
Usage
Information on transit ridership and usage in the United States is available from the National Transit Database from the Federal Transit Administration.
The number of miles traveled by vehicles in the United States fell by 3.6% in 2008, while the number of trips taken on mass transit increased by 4.0%. At least part of the drop in urban driving can be explained by the 4% increase in the use of public transportation.
About one in every three users of mass transit in the United States and two-thirds of the nation's rail riders live in New York City and its suburbs.
Geography
Most medium-sized cities have some form of local public transportation, usually a network of fixed bus routes. Larger cities often have metro rail systems (also known as heavy rail in the U.S.) and/or light rail systems for high-capacity passenger service within the urban area, and commuter rail to serve the surrounding metropolitan area.
Information on the geographic extent of fixed-guideway and fixed-route transit services in United States, as gleaned from transit providers' General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) Schedule data, is available through the National Transit Map, a web map from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics and the Federal Transit Administration.
Cities