Considering no line connects to either airport in Houston it’s surprisingly cool how it ranks 7th busiest nationwide (riders/mile)

It’s important to note that Houston’s rail network, albeit still small, was a result of voter referendum that also financed the 400 plus miles of bike lanes and bike ways the city has now. Houston gets so much heat for adding lanes to highways that needed it but these aspects get overlooked

Dallas/Fort Worth: we have astonishingly high track miles and number of modes with astonishingly low ridership.

A cool fact about El Paso is that it historically had a unified streetcar network with Ciudad Juárez! Yup, at one point in time, you could've taken a streetcar across the border. In the 1920s, there were 52 miles (83 km) of trolley system, though much of it was abandoned in the 1940s except the international line across which kept going until 1973. The reason Buc-ee's got that name and has a beaver as their mascot is because its founder, Arch Aplin, opted to combine his childhood nickname Beaver with his Labrador Retriever Buck. Aplin was born in Southeast Texas, with his father and grandparents from Harrisonburg, Louisiana. He founded Buc-ee's in 1982 in Clute, but opened its first travel center in Luling, Texas, in 2003. What's wild is that 7-Eleven was founded in Texas! Founded in Dallas 1927 as an icehouse. The company's first outlets were called "Tote'm Stores" between 1928 and 1946 because customers "toted" away their purchases. The name was changed to 7-Eleven in 1946 to reflect their new operating hours of 7 am to 11 pm, seven days a week. Wanna know the why the n in their logo is lowercased? It's because the first wife of John P. Thompson Sr., the company's president during the 1960s, thought the all-capitals version seemed a little aggressive and wanted it to be more graceful

Houston METRO is the best. They are currently working on implementing its METRONext plan. More BRT, more light rail, new and improved transit and park-and-ride centers, Boost corridors and awesome looking new bus shelters and so much more.

I think the data is skewed by the boundaries of city limits. Houston’s inner loop is like 10x larger than all of Galveston. All those Inner Loop neighborhoods rank very highly on walk & bike scores, but with much more transit than Galveston. If you were to compare the urban cores (the most important part of the city) then this list might look a bit different

Galveston was named after 18th-century Spanish military and political leader Bernardo de Gálvez, 1st Count of Gálvez. Galveston's first European settlements were built around 1816 by French pirate Louis-Michel Aury to help Mexico fight for independence. The Port of Galveston was established in 1825 by the Congress of Mexico, and during the Texas Revolution, it was temporarily the capital of the Republic of Texas in 1836. It incorporated in 1839. During the 19th century, it was the busiest port on the Gulf Coast, becoming became an important commercial center with warehouses stuffed with imported wholesale goods supplying stores throughout Texas and the entire Southwest. Galveston's grid dates back to 1836 when Canadian Michel B. Menard secured title for the eastern part of Galveston Island in 1836 and organized the Galveston City Company along with several associates. By the end of 1836, about 60 families and over 100 buildings populated the new town. Galveston has half streets as part of its grid, and basically, there was outlots (four city blocks in area) set aside for farming, but as it expanded southward, the outlots were subdivided, with east-west streets becoming half streets. Galveston was the first in the state to have telegraphs, telephones, electric-powered houses, streetlights and trolleys! They first had a mule-hauled system in 1868, but trolleys were introduced in 1891 and remained in service until 1938. The current heritage system opened in 1988, closed in 2008 after Hurricane Ike, but reopened in 2021.

You ranked Laredo and no Tulsa?

Houston will likely never be anything but a car focused city for the next half century, but that doesn't mean that it's a lost cause, as there's so boundless potential for improvement, with lots of easy, low-hanging fruit. Firstly, Houston should opt to work with freight companies to build a regional rail system off of improved existing highway and freight ROW's connecting the city with areas as far out as Galveston, Rosenburg, Hempstead, Magnolia, Conroe, Cleveland, Dayton, and Sealy, as these are the absurd distances that people seem to be commuting into the city from. Make sure the most popular lines of the system shoot for a frequency of every 10-15 minutes peak, and 20-30 minutes off-peak, with the rest of the system trying to shoot for 20-30 minutes peak frequency and 30-60 minutes off-peak frequency. Next, have at least four local bus lines with at least a 20 minute frequency connect to every rail station, with maybe even some BRT or LRT lines connecting more urban stations. Finally, institute a decent land use policy for an approximate radius of half a mile around every station, ensuring the development of dense, mixed use communities with great walking and cycling, as well as local business space, out in the suburbs - you can even throw in a multilevel parkade or two, because this is Houston. This kind of development, along with a proper densification of the downtown area, would compliment the Texas Triangle Highspeed Rail, and really make the region shine on a whole.

I used to work in downtown Dallas, and now I walk to work in downtown Fort Worth. Walking anywhere in downtown Dallas is a coin flip whether 12 vehicles run the red or a lifted F350 jumps the curb you're standing on while Bryan the suburban accountant flips you the bird. Downtown Fort Worth is smaller, and sidewalks are wider. While DFW drivers on average treat every road like a 90mph freeway, I certainly enjoy the walks more and feel much safer here in Fort Worth.

Houston deserves way more credit than what it’s giving. The P&R system, best in the country and a majority of those local lines has a frequency under 10 minutes. That’s really good. However, that Post Oak BRT line, yeesh. Reminds me of Dallas’ new street car line, just a city novelty. Maybe it’ll do better once the other BRT lines open up.

I lived in Houston for several years and it's better than you would expect from an urbanist perspective, considering Texas' general reputation. That reputation, however, is well-deserved. Consequently, the biggest problem with Houston isn't actually anything to do with Houston itself, but rather the state it's in. The city itself has a lot going for it and is generally forward-looking. The same cannot be said of the state as a whole, unfortunately.

Lived in houston nearly all my life and galveston is a joke. Also how are you going to say you are adding Oklahoma "cities" but only do okc? What about tulsa? Qlso how did laredo and galveston even make it to this list? We dont even consider those actual cities in texas.

"This makes it a bigger area than any single European country alone." Russia "Am I a joke to you?"

Fort Worth definitely doesn’t deserve F-tier by Texas standards. Whack Need a Tulsa ranking too. (>1M in the metro.) Probably D on this list, but the relative lack of traffic and much smaller total expanse of sprawl is nice

I’m excited for Northeastern tier list, is it coming next? I’m sure excited to see where nyc, dc, philly, boston, and even baltimore rank.

Why didn't you mention Corpus Christi?

Transit in austin is not fleshed out enough and the homeless population regularly causes problems with the public transport. I would like to use it but I'd need to walk 20 minutes to take a bus that'll take 40 minutes and then walk another 20 minutes to get to my destination whereas I could drive for 25 minutes and be there already. That and I don't feel safe stepping over used needles and next to occupied tents right next to the bus stops or stations.

Scoring vibes based on google images 🤨

Why Laredo but no Corpus Christi?

Personally, El Paso should get extra points for not being on the Texas Power Grid. That alone should put the city on the B-tier list.

1:54 Did anyone else hear "catgirl metro"?

Real, although, San Antonio is in the process of planning and building two brt lines 😤💪🏽

Arlington has nearly 400,000 people. My fiance lives in a small town of about 25,000 a little outside of the DFW Metroplex, and even his town has a couple of bus lines. What's Arlington's excuse?

And every one of these cities would be F tier compared to any non-sunbelt region lol

commenting for the algorithm

Why does that rail thing in Austin only operate a limited schedule?

Galveston is cool but idk if anyone actually lives there lol

Can’t wait to see the north east & California - keep up the great content 🙂

DO TULSA!!!

This is a pretty decent video, but where does Tulsa rank on the list?

What's funny is when you got to Fort Worth I immediately said "F" because im from here so i was just being funny then when you actually got to the tier list and put us as F i yelled "My city ain't no F" 😂🖕🏾, Fort Worth need to step it up though, most people don't even know that Fort Worth is a major city & is the 12th most populated city in America yet it doesn't look like it

come back to Oklahoma City in 2 years and I'm positive we will have gone up a tier or even two. There are SOOOOO many Urban projects going on in OKC that you would never expect from a midwest city. Planners here are really fighting for an urban feel.

Very true as OKC vibes are similar to TX but you have to look into our urban planning and MAPS 4 projects multiple BRT routes coming in, small street car system downtown that hopefully gets expanded sometime, building tons of sidewalks through the city, adding tons of new bike lanes downtown and along trails. Plus a developer out of California is proposing Americas tallest building in our heartland that would propel our urbanism even more so please be on the look out and do not count us out!

When I went to Houston, I found that although the light rail system was fast, clean, and modern and I did use it a lot, it didn’t really get me anywhere that far outside downtown and a lot of the other walkable neighborhoods are very far apart from each other, meaning I had to uber pretty much everywhere. When I was in Dallas I found that there were quite a few trendy neighborhoods close to each other that I could easily get to via light rail, and even a lot of the other cities in the metro area that were 10+ miles from Downtown Dallas were easily accessible with light rail too, plus the myriad other forms of rail transit like the TRE, TEXrail, and the A-Train Don’t get me wrong, I LOVED Houston and long to go back, and as a city I like it just as much as Dallas, but in terms of what this video considered, they are not at all level

Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston really need to make major improvements as they going to be 2026 World Cup host cities, especially Dallas is likely going to host the Final! Speaking of the 2026 World Cup, could you do a video on the transit options for the 16 World Cup host cities? 🇨🇦 Canada Toronto Vancouver 🇲🇽 Mexico Guadalajara Mexico City Monterrey 🇺🇸 USA Atlanta Boston Dallas/Ft. Worth Houston Los Angeles Kansas City Miami New York City Philadelphia San Francisco Seattle

I’ve never visited any of these places, but I’m going to disagree with you entirely on your list, just to drive engagement! Argh! 😠 You’re so wrong on this one, Ethan!

Kansas City catching strays

I haven’t been in either in a hot minute but Austin and San Antonio should be above Houston bc Houston’s downtown vibes… feel corporate (like especially)

terrified for when the california video eventually comes out and u get to fresno😭

Brownsville and Mcallen wouldve been very nice additions, especially considering the latter having over one million in its metro area population. great vid!

Dallas’ “strong sports culture” is cowboys fans. This should sock at least 3 points off the vibe score

Dallas is honestly better as far as urbanism than Houston due to the zoning laws and more walkable neighborhoods per capita..Dart rail is making a comeback from COVID and is actively implementing TOD in multiple locations. It reaches to many suburbs and walkable downtowns as well such as Plano, Garland, Rowlett, Richardson, Irving. And also has direct rail access to the airport and American Airlines Center.

How do you even create giant metro areas with millions of population without a single sufficient public transportation? What’s even sadder is that toll roads are necessary in some areas. Lack of vision in this state besides creating cheap housing and jobs.

Not surprised about OKC's low transit score as the bus system doesn't even service the Airport 🤯. Even Las Vegas has some transit connections to the airport

Jerry World. Lol!

10:22 is this a reference to how you look like the guy that visited every Rainforest Cafe?

Houston here...as much as people want to promote public rapid transit, it can' t be done as this transit is primarily for people who cannot afford a car and\ or the homeless who board any train , at any time , without ever a ticket. Since the majority of people can afford or are willing to pay for this car, and not be hassled by losing enormous amounts of time on a bus, waiting for a bus or train and...having to put up with a train or bus that smells like a kennel or worse...and having to be harassed or worse waiting for said train or bus on the street by the homeless or just wandering street people.

You forgot Amarillo, Corpus Christi, and Lubbock

Thx

You forgot about Amarillo, Lubbuck, Wichita Falls, Abilene, Midland and Odessa.

Yeehaw

This list is a bit odd

Oklahoma City is my favorite Texas city.. Thanks for including it, a lot of people are in denial about its location in the Lonestar State 🙄

Austin also removed its parking minimums last year so I'd say that should raise the score by a little bit....

It was kinda funny seeing my hometown in the F tier. Having visited Galveston, sure there's the annoying roads for geezers like me who had to take a drive, but walking across the city in general was my favorite part of visiting. Houston, I never cared for them. But seeing them on this list, it's almost something to be proud of for this state. Also get fucked Arlington lmao That being said, I'll probably end up dropping Texas for Tulsa as soon as i can do so. Neat upload!

Great list! Would love to have seen Plano with urban developments like city line and legacy west where walking is generally super high, but the larger cities were definitely covered well

Tulsa is also apart of Oklahoma.

Should’ve included college towns, Amarillo, and Tulsa.

Thankfully San Antonio is investing more in its downtown to make it a place that native San Antonions will actually want to live in. A lot of dense/mixed used buildings under construction, as well as a rapid transit line from downtown the airport starting construction early next year.

i definitely would have flipped austin and houston. between the ozone pollution from all the cars combined with the oppressive heat, and the fact that you're like less than 20mi from the biggest grouping of oil refineries in the nation, cancer rates are just much higher than they should be.

I think its important to note that Austin only has one freeway running through the city proper while Dallas and Houston have many, even though I-35 is quite wide.

I would say this is a pretty reasonable ranking, but having spent time in both Dallas and El Paso, I think they should've been swapped. I think Dallas is fine, but it doesn't have that grid-like border town urbanism and vibes that El Paso has. Dallas also has INSANE sprawl and bad transit ridership per mile. Additionally, Houston, for an insanely sprawly and car dependent American city, has a transit system that really pushes above its weight. There is frequent light rail, tons of buses that go everywhere, many of them pretty frequent, and the city is improving the network quickly. Houston itself really doesn't deserve all the hate it gets, just the planners who destroyed the city for cars in the mid and late 1900s. Houston is improving!

Where’s Tulsa and Lubbock?

Arlington is the worst. Ugh. Never would wanna live there.

Great video! I think my only thing I noticed was Tulsa is a metro area that’s close to 1 million at this point and probably deserved a spot on the list (thought it’s also a very anti-urbanist city). Excited for more tier lists to come!

Wait , no Beaumont 😂?

I live in Houston. Decent city. Much better than Dallas. Plus galveston is a little over an hour away. But how you gonna have OKC but leave out other cities like Amarillo, Waco, Brownsville, Corpus christi, and Lubbock?

Dallas and Ft Worth get much colder winters than the other cities in this list, and that should’ve factored into the grading. They experience hard freezes in the teens at least once or twice every year, and it snows most winters.

As a European, I can testify that my mind cannot comprehend anything going on in Texas.

Houston above Austin on an urbanism list is WILD. Invalidates the entire list.

Seeing these rent numbers while watching from Southern Florida where the average is more like $4000/mo 👁😳

Awww no mention of Tulsa?

I felt like you could have listed Tulsa and like 4 more Texas cities for this video. It was getting good. Video should have been a little bit longer.

Houston is def not unique in this but the urbanism only means something if you live downtown.

I mean no disrespect but why does every “urbanist” KZfaqr always have such a whiney vibe?

Where’s Corpus Christi?

You should have just given the entire state of Oklahoma an "F" and called it a day.

Ok now that's genuinely impressive. A population of 392,000 and yet still no public transit at all. Not even suburban buses. My mind is blown at how a city with that population could not have any public transit at all. Everything is bigger in Texas except for public transit networks that's for sure!

Hello, I live in Arlington and WE DO have public transit. Via (on demand ride-share) which cost $3 and connects to the TRE.

You have a similar know it all tone as RMTransit. It’s obnoxious.

Dude, I'd've put galveston in F tier for how paved over that entire island is. there's no semblance of native habit discernible from that aerial photography. the plight of capitalism is real. good vid!

The constant begging for patreons is going to make me unsubscribe. Sigh