Public Transportation and US Zoos

J

JVM

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Recently as I trip-plan ahead, I've made a priority to find out what zoos I can reach via public transportation and which will require more explicit driving.

From where I live, public transportation to Lincoln Park Zoos is laughably convenient and I'm disappointed I hadn't known this in my teenage years. Racine and Milwaukee are both an hour away on rail, plus a short ride to the zoo that can be covered by a taxi or rideshare service. I've found Brookfield much, much harder to reach without driving or spending over two hours on public transport, for somewhere less than an hour from me by car. I've been looking into Miller Park recently, which is apparently within just under twenty minutes from the Bloomington-Normal rail station.

For zoo-related travel, I hope to find somewhere to stay fairly close to the zoo, but it's still good to know if public transportation may be needed! When leaving Denver, me and my companion had to take a short ride to the train station, then to the airport, so this has come in handy elsewhere.

I thought it might be interesting and useful to ask some questions along these lines... have you used public transport to reach a zoo? Your local zoo or another facility? Has this affected your trip planning? etc.
 
Dallas Zoo (and Dallas World Aquarium) and National Zoo are easily accessible on the metro train systems of their respective cities.
 
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I use Amtrak a lot to get between cities without having to drive, but while there I almost always have to rent a car or ride share if I want to stay at a decently cheap hotel. There are exceptions. I’m planning a trip to Toronto that will rely pretty heavily on public transit within the metro area. Whenever I head to DC and New York I probably won’t need a car. But most of America is just a bit too car centric for intercity public transit to be practical without cutting into valuable trip time.
 
I assume we are broadly talking about rail transit as many zoos would be accessible via local bus.

I've used transit to get to National, Houston, Florida Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium, Seattle Aquarium,and a couple of others.

Georgia Aquarium is easily accessible via rail through Atlanta and from the airport as well. The zoo is not, but you could take rail and then walk a little over 30 minutes or take a bus....but that would all take a lot of time.

Houston Zoo and Downtown Aquarium are transit accessible.

Florida Aquarium is on the small and free tram line.

Audubon aquarium, Zoo, and Insectarium are on the tram line.

National Aviary in Pittsburgh is close to the light rail line.

Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake is fairly close, within walking distance, but Hogle Zoo would be a hike.

Seattle Aquarium is close to the light rail from the airport through downtown.
 
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In my experience all the WCS zoos were easy to access with public transport once I reached the grand Central station or Port Authority . Easy to access being if you don’t mind having to have an extra walk of course. Queens was the most inconvenient since in addition to the subway and bus I also had to take the bus.


Aardwolf said:
Dallas Zoo (and Dallas World Aquarium) and National Zoo are easily accessible on the metro train systems of their respective cities.
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I always had the impression that Texas was the worst state in the US with regards to public transport.
 
PossumRoach said:
I always had the impression that Texas was the worst state in the US with regards to public transport.
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It's far from the worst state for transit. Florida is probably worse (but not the worst) being as only Miami has a real rail system, Orlando has commuter rail. At least Florida is developing a high speed rail network.

Texas's main issue is that the big four cities are quite large and sprawling, but that's an issue faced by many cities outside of the Northeast.

Dallas has a pretty comprehensive light rail and commuter rail system. Houston's rail system is not terrible and has seen much growth over the last ten years. Austin has one well patronized line and is developing a light rail system. San Antonio does not have rail.
 
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Here are some zoos I have been to that can be accessed via public transportation:
  • All the WCS Zoos are easily accessible on public transportation
  • The Philadelphia Zoo is a walk away from that city’s Amtrak station
  • The National Zoo has a convenient metro stop
  • New England Aquarium has its own dedicated train stop in Boston
  • The Staten Island Zoo is accessible via a bus that connects to the Staten Island Ferry
  • The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk CT is easily accessible via Metronorth railroad from New York City. Metronorth also has a stop in Bridgeport, where Beardsley Zoo is, but you’d have to take a car from that stop to the zoo itself— the location of the Bridgeport stop isn’t as convenient as the stop by the aquarium in Norwalk.
  • The Franklin Park Zoo operates a free shuttle bus that drives back and forth between the zoo entrance and the nearest train station. The goal is to encourage people to use more eco friendly means of transport and public transportation rather than driving
 
I've only taken train/metro to one zoo, Smithsonian - that's when I discovered I get motion sickness from trains lol. Other than that, I've used uber when traveling by plane. I went to the aquarium in Denver on a layover, Oregon Zoo when staying at a friend's on the opposite side of Portland, and back from Dallas Zoo when visiting a friend in a nearby town who wasn't feeling well that day and couldn't pick me up.
 
The only collections I've ever managed to do on public transport are Lincoln Park Zoo and Shedd Aquarium, as Chicago has an excellent system of trains and buses. Brookfield is not feasible on public transport, however.
 
The LA Zoo has a bus stop close by, the Metro Local 96 bus being the only bus that passes nearby. I usually take another bus before the 96, the Metro Local 180 bus, which they intersect at Los Feliz and Riverside. The 96 is a bit unreliable as it runs almost every 40-60 minutes, there have been talks about increasing bus traffic through the Griffith Park area but who knows if it will come to fruition. Another facility reached within walking distance of a station would be the Aquarium of the Pacific, taking the Blue Line which now runs from Long Beach to Azusa due to the new regional connector.
 
The only way I’ve ever gone to the Bronx zoo is by public transportation - you’ve got subway (with about a 10 minute walk) or bus transportation available. Although I always drive to the Columbus Zoo (my local zoo), in recent summers Columbus’s bus line, COTA, has offered $2 one way transportation to the zoo that includes a voucher for $3 zoo admission. That means for $7 you get round trip transportation and zoo admission - cheaper than parking fees alone. If I weren’t a member, it would be hard to pass that up…
 
I know I am two years late for this thread here but for two of my three local AZA-accredited facilities the commute takes 2 hrs and a half in either direction (While by car it's a 40-60 minute drive:rolleyes:). And that's because I live between the two. The third one is only accessible by car so forget about it.

You could consider Palm Beach Zoo accessible with the 60 bus, but it's head ways are way too large. If you are coming from the International Airport in PBC (which is probably unlikely considering it's the least used of the three major int airports here) you could take the 44 and transfer to the 60 at belvedere and the trip would take around 30 minutes, but since the headways are so large you'll be waiting a lot more realistically.
And and since the head ways are so large you'll either be 30 minutes early for Zoo opening or 30 minutes late, Which I guess doesn't matter since the park takes around 3 hrs at most in a normal walk through. Oh and it doesn't work on Sundays

Although I don't think most people are coming to Gold Coast just for Palm Beach Zoo lol.

As for Zoo Miami... It has it's problems. I'd say even worse than PBZ despite that county not even having a local metrorail service.

The problem with Zoo Miami is that, Like Lion Country Safari, it is just so out there in the burbs, and the entrance road itself just to get the fare gate is like a mile or two long. So geographically speaking it is a difficult place for transit to serve because it is miles away from any rapid service and the county transit agency just can't justify running an express bus service that terminates at the Zoo like they do with Dolphin Mall (338), and Miami Beach (150), I guess for several reasons. Not enough interest/traffic going in the Zoo, and the demographic that rides transit and the ones that actually like the Zoo even casually are very different.

The only Bus that serves Zoo Miami is a local route 152, that only detours inside the Zoo on weekends. While the headways are slightly better than WPB's 60, this bus service is a huge bottle neck for anyone outside of the area it serves.

The Zoo is a 20-30 minute walk from the nearest bus stop outside of Zoo premises.

It's a shame that despite Dade County having a metrorail it provides such sub par service to one of the biggest Zoos in the US when talking about campus size.

The 60 is definitely the better bus service than the 152 even though the headways are bigger.

So overall I am rarely ever going to the Zoos even for a brief moment because both are just so far away and close too early during regular hours, even if we are talking about riding a car.

I think Miami needs to invest in a Zoo in the actual city, but leadership is so greedy they would rather let developers use up all the empty plots of land to build time share vacation home condos than actually provide us decent parks that are actually accessible by transit.

Oh and one last thing, from what I have seen only a handful of people actually use the buses to go to the Zoos lol like 3 or 4 excluding a family, so I am concerned that at least in Miami Dade-Transit they will kill service to the Zoo because they don't have enough people using the detour.

West Palm Beach will never have that problem as their Zoo is actually located close to the city Center, although the 60 bus itself entirely has really low ridership, and as with most places in Florida FDOT is probably going to defund PalmTran and the 60 bus will get killed entirely or only run at limited times.

Oh yeah and the 152 also has low ridership so that's a concern as well

Anyone else notice that Zoos/Musuem transit stops usually have low ridership? Please tell me it's just because it's Miami
 
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SwampDonkey said:
I assume we are broadly talking about rail transit as many zoos would be accessible via local bus.

I've used transit to get to National, Houston, Florida Aquarium, Georgia Aquarium, Seattle Aquarium,and a couple of others.

Georgia Aquarium is easily accessible via rail through Atlanta and from the airport as well. The zoo is not, but you could take rail and then walk a little over 30 minutes or take a bus....but that would all take a lot of time.

Houston Zoo and Downtown Aquarium are transit accessible.

Florida Aquarium is on the small and free tram line.

Audubon aquarium, Zoo, and Insectarium are on the tram line.

National Aviary in Pittsburgh is close to the light rail line.

Tracy Aviary in Salt Lake is fairly close, within walking distance, but Hogle Zoo would be a hike.

Seattle Aquarium is close to the light rail from the airport through downtown.
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Sad thing is Palm Beach Zoo could be accessible by train as the tri-rail tracks are right next to it
but there is no station nearby so you end up having to taking a bus at a station farther away.
 
There is a Metra stop a half-mile walk from the Brookfield Zoo's south entrance. If you aren't along that specific line, you would have to make your way downtown and then transfer to that line.
 
Yeah dwelling on the topic I definitely feel like Zoos in America and even large gardens typically arent served well by transit because to be a nature enjoyer you pretty much need to have a car to explore true nature parks anyways, so I dont think city agencies prioritize Zoos or gardens, especially when most of the time they are located in exurbs or suburbs.

I think the only exceptions are Major Zoos that always have full parking spots, and ones that just happen to be conveniently places next to a busy boulavard
 
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