Public transportation in the United States

rdf:langString Public transportation in the United States

rdf:langString Public transportation in the United States refers to publicly financed mass transit services across the nation. This includes various forms of bus, rail, ferry, and sometimes, airline services. Most established public transit systems are located in central, urban areas where there is enough density and public demand to require public transportation. In more auto-centric suburban localities, public transit is normally, but not always, less frequent and less common. Most public transit services in the United States are either national, regional/commuter, or local, depending on the type of service. Furthermore, sometimes "public transportation" in the United States is an umbrella term used synonymously with "alternative transportation", meaning any form of mobility that excludes driving alone by automobile. This can sometimes include carpooling, vanpooling, on-demand mobility (i.e. Uber, Lyft, Bird, Lime), infrastructure that is fixated toward bicycles (i.e. bike lanes, sharrows, cycle tracks, and bike trails), and paratransit service. Most 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. The frequency of Amtrak service varies depending on the size of the city, and its location along major rail routes. For example, cities such as New York City , Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. which are located along the busy Northeast Corridor may see up to 50 Amtrak trains per day enter and leave their stations. This same corridor is the location of the only operating high speed rail network in the Americas: the Acela Express. Other cities located on less frequent Amtrak lines, however, such as Dodge City, Kansas for instance, which is located on the Southwest Chief line may only have two trains daily. Regional rail services are primarily fixed on a major city or a state. For example, the Long Island Rail Road services the Long Island suburbs of New York City, while the UTA FrontRunner serves as a regional rail service for the Wasatch Front of Utah. These trains normally run throughout the entire day with service ranging from every 20 minutes during peak hours to every 30–45 minutes during off-peak hours. Other rail services that are regional in nature may only operate during rush hour. For example, the Virginia Railway Express (VRE), which services the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., only operates during the morning hours into Washington and the evening hours out of Washington. VRE does not operate at night nor on the weekends, and only has one train during the middle of the day. Finally, several cities have light rail systems which operate generally in the core of the city and their surrounding suburbs. For instance, cities such as Kansas City, Norfolk, Boston, New Orleans, and Seattle have light rail or streetcar services that run every 10–15 minutes throughout their respective urban cores. Presently, there is only one for-profit, private rail service in the United States, which is Brightline. This service provides regular rail service from Fort Lauderdale to Miami, with a long term goal to connect Miami to Orlando, and become a statewide rail service for the state of Florida. There are three common types of bus service in the United States: conventional bus systems, bus rapid transit (BRT), and intercity buses. Nearly every major city in the United States offers some form of bus service, with some being 24 hours a day. These buses run on flexible routes and make frequent stops, with a focus of provided accessible service to all tracts of a community. Bus rapid transit attempts to mimic the speed of a light rail system. Most BRT systems in the United States are in moderate sized cities or satellite cities, and serve as auxiliary routes for rail service. The primary difference between BRT in the United States and regular bus service is BRT often runs more frequent as has fewer stops, in order to make service quicker. Furthermore, BRT service generally has their own dedicated right of way and signal prioritization, which allows BRT vehicles to move faster than regular automobile traffic. Both BRT and conventional buses are usually publicly financed. Well-known examples of cities with popular BRT services in the United States include Cleveland, Miami, and Richmond. Most inter-city bus service is private for-profit ventures, although they normally used publicly subsidized motorways and highways. Examples of intercity bus service in the United States is Megabus and Greyhound, which are the two largest inter-city bus services in the United States. 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. Long-distance public transit which may be too far to feasibly travel by rail or bus, i.e. cross-country travel or travelling to U.S. territories is more regularly undertaken through airplanes. Most airports in major regions are situated on the peripheries of major cities and publicly owned, while airline service itself is typically owned by for-profit corporations. In some cases, larger airports may operate their own rail, bus, and monorail systems that link various terminals together. Examples of this include Atlanta, Boston, Orlando, and Washington, D.C.'s airport.