Popular YouTuber praises Vancouver as one of North America's best transit cities
Vancouver is one of the top transit cities in North America, according to a video from a city and transportation YouTuber.
Ray Delahanty, a U.S.-based engineer and urban planner who runs the YouTube channel CityNerd, compared cities in Canada, the U.S., and Mexico by looking at the total 2024 ridership within metro areas, then dividing that by their population.
In his video, he ranks 15 of what he calls North America’s best transit cities.
“This ends up kind of being a love letter to Canada,” he said before revealing the top five transit cities.
Out of the top five cities across the continent, four are Canadian.
Vancouver was in third place, coming in behind Toronto and New York City.
According to TransLink data, the city had 152.9 rides per capita in 2024.
“I’m focusing on Skytrain because trains are sexy, but just know that TransLink’s bus network carries a lot more passengers,” he said.
He praised the frequency of all the SkyTrain lines, noting that during busy times they have frequency every two to five minutes, and at most other times they run every six to eight minutes.
“Just incredible stuff for a city this size.”
Because Vancouver is a distant third behind Montreal among Canadian cities in terms of metro area size, “it took a while for me to convince myself Vancouver has higher ridership per capita than Montreal,” Delahanty said.
Metro Vancouver has ranked well before in global public transit rankings, including in 2023 when it came in 22nd out of 60 major regions worldwide (with most of them in regions much larger than Metro Vancouver in terms of land area and population).
Other Canadian cities that made the list
Vancouver was one of six Canadian cities to make the cut.
Toronto ranked second with 165.4 rides per capita, Montreal fourth with 149.1 rides per capita, Calgary fifth with 97.4 rides per capita, Ottawa seventh with 92.2 rides per capita, and Edmonton eighth with 72.3 rides per capita.
Delahanty also gave honourable mentions to Victoria and Winnipeg, which he said would have made the list if he had lowered his population threshold.
“There really are great transit cities on our continent. Don’t let the haters tell you different,” he said.