Per Capita Rail Coverage in US States

May 23, 2018
Chart of Rail per Thousand People in US States

The chart above shows miles of rail per thousand people in US states.  North Dakota has by far more miles of rail per person than any other state.

Findings

  • The difference between the state with the most rail per capita, North Dakota, and the state with the least, Rhode Island (Hawaii does not have any rail), is 4.93 miles.
  • North Dakota has 274.28 times the rail per capita that Rhode Island does.
  • Only nine states have more than one mile of rail per thousand inhabitants.
  • Only Rhode Island has less than one-tenth of a mile of rail per thousand inhabitants.
  • The mean miles of rail for every thousand inhabitants for the US is 0.80 and the median 0.54.

Caveats

  • Population data is from 2010.
  • Rail length data is from 2013.
  • Rail and population data come from different sources.
  • All figures are rounded to the nearest hundredth.
  • Hawaii has no rail network.

Details

North Dakota also happens to have the highest per capita road coverage in the US.

The United States as a whole has 0.45 miles of rail for every thousand inhabitants ranking it under Ohio and above Nevada.

Sources

United States Census Bureau.  "Annual Estimates of the Resident Population: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016."  Accessed December 12, 2017.  http://factfinder2.census.gov.

United States Department of Transportation.  2015.  "State Transportation by the Numbers."  Accessed March 21, 2018.  https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/legacy/_entire.pdf.

Filed under: Charts and Graphs