Philly named 9th-best city for public transit

Do Pittsburgh, Seattle and Jersey City all have better public transportation than Philadelphia?

According to one study, the answer is yes.

A new report from the financial-technology company SmartAsset ranks Philadelphia as the ninth-best city for public transit.

Washington, D.C., was first, followed by San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and New York. Seattle, Jersey City and Pittsburgh were also ahead of Philadelphia, while Oakland, Calif., rounded out the top 10.

The company said it evaluated cities based on average commute times for transit users, the difference between commute times of motorists and transit users, the percentage of commuters who use public transit, the total number of public-transit commuters, and the difference between the citywide median income and the median income of transit users.

Those metrics were picked, the company said, because they reflect the efficiency and availability of the transit systems. For example, a smaller income gap means public transit is "an attractive option for all commuters," not just those who can't afford a car, SmartAsset said.

So how did some ... perhaps surprising? ... cities end up in front of Philadelphia?

SmartAsset notes that Seattle recently completed an underground light-rail line ahead of schedule and has a growing number of public transit riders. And Jersey City is one of the few cities where transit riders have a higher median income than car commuters.

The transit list marks the second recent coup for Pittsburgh, which also came in one spot ahead of Philly in a list of global cities with the best quality-of-life.

While SmartAsset notes that Washington's Metro system is the nation's second-largest by ridership and the city has one of the smallest commute-time gaps between drivers and transit riders, some observers in the D.C. area aren't convinced their system is tops:

"Here's what's so great about Washington's Metro system: you can have a trendline of declining ridership; you can have a safety record that's so scary the Feds have to step in; you can be so down on your luck that it takes a year to hire a new general manager to run the thing; you can even have a series of high-profile crimes, including Tuesday's midday shooting on the Green Line — and yet still rank as the No. 1 transit system in the U.S.," a Washington Post blogger wrote about the study.