5 ms·

Not trying to troll, but one just needs to take a minute to get through a few pages on https://www.bartcrimes.com/ https://www.bartcrimes.com/ to see why public

by godot 9y ago

Not trying to troll, but one just needs to take a minute to get through a few pages on https://www.bartcrimes.com/ https://www.bartcrimes.com/ to see why public transportation in America, at least in the bay area, is not pleasant. I have first hand experience of taking Bart daily for a year or so, and even been through being the victim of an assault while walking out of a Bart station. Perhaps public transportation works somewhere else, in other countries. There's something about America that makes it not work. Someone pointed out Japan to which Elon rebutted that it's too crowded. Trust me, trains in Japan are more pleasant than here in the SF Bay area even considering how they cram people in in Japan. I grew up in Hong Kong where cramming is also the norm. It is not nearly as unpleasant as Bart. For someone who lives in California, I see why Elon Musk considers existing public transportation a failure right now.

mark-r 9y ago
Fear is a very powerful motivator. Even if the chances of being the victim of a crime are small, the mere possibility is enough to put some people off. Stories of wonderful encounters with strangers will do nothing to counteract that. Comparing it to being exposed to strangers just by living in a city doesn't work either. If you come upon a stranger that makes you nervous on the street, you can cross the street or walk past quickly. If you're stuck next to them on the subway you're going to feel threatened for the length of the trip.
taoistextremist 9y ago
What's so terrible about Bay Area transit? I mean this genuinely since I've never been to San Francisco so I've never used it, and I'm wondering why it makes you think all American public transit is bad. I've used public transit in two North American cities, Chicago and Montreal, and they seemed to work fairly well, enough that I could kind of enjoy them if I wasn't in a rush (which typically I wasn't since these were vacations). Maybe they weren't as pretty as what I saw in Tokyo or Beijing, but they functioned fine and didn't seem terrible in the least.
- godot 9y ago
  I could be wrong about generalizing it to America in general, since I don't have much experience outside of SF Bay and a little bit in NY (where I also didn't have a pleasant experience, even as a tourist). Trains in Hong Kong and Tokyo are at the very least clean, on time, for the most part crime-less, and no matter what time you arrive, even if you miss a train, there will be another one to your destination within 5 minutes (likely 2 minutes). Bart is rarely on time, extremely unclean (encountering human feces is almost a regular basis), crime-ridden (as shown in that link above), and if you live anywhere outside of SF, missing a train usually means you have to wait 15-20 minutes for the next one (even during peak hours). I consciously choose to drive in to SF downtown instead, even considering the premium I have to pay for parking (easily $20 a day), and enduring through bay bridge traffic. I know I'm also doing harm by carbon emission and adding to traffic on the freeways and bridge, but it poses a personal risk (both physical danger and health) to take Bart for myself.
- ginko 9y ago
  This pretty much mirrors my experience. I've also been to SF a bunch of times and never had any issues taking the local transit(bus, subway, BART, tram, etc.). Sure it isn't sparkling clean, but seems to do its job. The bus network in particular seemed pretty good.
- ACow_Adonis 9y ago
  Only been to San Fran once briefly. But my impression of Bart during that time was: -infrequent -loud: this one surprised me, the noise of the wheel screeches were another level of audible compared to the public transport I was used to. - poverty: SanFran poverty and destitution was just on another level, and a significant amount of that seemed located around some of the stations. - network coverage:so tiny and doesn't cover much. That being said, my impression talking to the locals was that commuting in/out of SanFran by car had become a nightmare as well :/
- reaperducer 9y ago
  My experience with SF transit is that it's simply overused. People love it -- to death. There isn't enough of it, and enough maintenance, to keep up with the demand. The entire system suffers because of it.
ericmcer 9y ago
Yeah I never understood how his comments were offensive. I used to take Bart 5 times a week and I definitely don't worry about all the great socializing I am missing out on now that I don't need to. Musk and his critics are probably all barely familiar with the realities of using public transportation every day. There is no commuter who would not use a faster, easier transportation method because they wanted the "social" benefits of mass transit.
danans 9y ago
Nobody holds up BART or the Bay Area's transit system as an example of a well functioning transit system. If Musk has done his homework, he should realize that, too. As you have noted, there are many examples of much more pleasant to use transit systems. However, the problem of crime isn't the fault of the transit system, but of the society in which the transit system operates. Transit doesn't generate crime in the Bay Area, that's caused by the history of inequality and concentrations of poverty.
- trowawee 9y ago
  I would love to see more Bold Disrupting Entrepreneurs trying to disrupt the way that San Francisco treats poor and homeless people.
  - danans 9y ago
    That would be great, but they shouldn't use the independent problem of homelessness to malign the public transit system.
- godot 9y ago
  Starting to go off a tangent from this thread, but I do have a genuine question. It's a popular argument to say poverty and wealth distribution causes crimes. But over in China, even Hong Kong to some extent, poverty has been a problem for generations( and China is only doing better in the past decade). There isn't nearly as much of the type of crime that happens in the US that puts you in personal danger, in China. There could be a lot of petty theft, or even actually stealing from you, but not much of the armed robbery/assault (knife or gun) that is so common in America. I immigrated from Hong Kong to the US while in high school in the 90s. There is such a stark cultural differences in things like 1) Discipline -- people feel like they can do anything here (both good and bad), and that unfortunately includes the crime side of things. Young kids are much more "daring", as in they're not afraid to assault and rob people. In HK/China, even kids in gangs think of even just stealing a wallet from someone a big deal, much less direct assault. 2) On that topic, gang culture. High school kids here have such a glorified view of the gang life, whereas that sort of thing is really suppressed even among the notorious schools and students in HK/China. In fact, it's not just an "Asia thing". Travel to Europe, most of the safety and crime issues you have to watch out for are pickpockets and scammers. In America, on Bart, you actually worry about armed assault. I feel like there's something about America culture, and it's not just inequality and poverty that's causing the sort of crime I only see here.
tbabb 9y ago
I've heard from visitors to Japan that groping on public transit is a real problem.
keepper 9y ago
It works quite well in nyc.. so not sure what you mean by "There's something about America that makes it not work." We have 5.6M average weekday riders, and about as much for the weekends ( Sun and Saturday). That's 1.7 Billion rides a year.. [1] If that's what you consider "not working"... Does it have its flaws? absolutely! But does it work? absolutely! As someone who has visited the bay area yearly since 2000, a quick observation comes to mind on why mass transit doesn't work as well there... The crazy idea amongst "21st century" companies to stick to the 1950s model of the "company town" in the suburbs.. and well, BART not going a lot further down than it should. Companies should be moving in droves to the east bay, were you can actually build transit ( and there actually IS some real transit infrastructure ), and two, you actually have land you can build buildings that are horizontally efficient... ( not sand land fill that doesn't support any decent vertical building ) [1]http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/travel/mta-subwayridership.html http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/travel/mta-subwayridershi...
- cududa 9y ago
  Works well in NY. Are you kidding me? Did you not take it once this summer, or hear a single person talking about how atrocious its become, or read a single article on it?
allengeorge 9y ago
There's also an easier solution to the problem than what he's proposing.

by godot 9y ago

mark-r 9y ago

Fear is a very powerful motivator. Even if the chances of being the victim of a crime are small, the mere possibility is enough to put some people off. Stories of wonderful encounters with strangers will do nothing to counteract that. Comparing it to being exposed to strangers just by living in a city doesn't work either. If you come upon a stranger that makes you nervous on the street, you can cross the street or walk past quickly. If you're stuck next to them on the subway you're going to feel threatened for the length of the trip.

taoistextremist 9y ago

What's so terrible about Bay Area transit? I mean this genuinely since I've never been to San Francisco so I've never used it, and I'm wondering why it makes you think all American public transit is bad. I've used public transit in two North American cities, Chicago and Montreal, and they seemed to work fairly well, enough that I could kind of enjoy them if I wasn't in a rush (which typically I wasn't since these were vacations). Maybe they weren't as pretty as what I saw in Tokyo or Beijing, but they functioned fine and didn't seem terrible in the least.

godot 9y ago
I could be wrong about generalizing it to America in general, since I don't have much experience outside of SF Bay and a little bit in NY (where I also didn't have a pleasant experience, even as a tourist). Trains in Hong Kong and Tokyo are at the very least clean, on time, for the most part crime-less, and no matter what time you arrive, even if you miss a train, there will be another one to your destination within 5 minutes (likely 2 minutes). Bart is rarely on time, extremely unclean (encountering human feces is almost a regular basis), crime-ridden (as shown in that link above), and if you live anywhere outside of SF, missing a train usually means you have to wait 15-20 minutes for the next one (even during peak hours). I consciously choose to drive in to SF downtown instead, even considering the premium I have to pay for parking (easily $20 a day), and enduring through bay bridge traffic. I know I'm also doing harm by carbon emission and adding to traffic on the freeways and bridge, but it poses a personal risk (both physical danger and health) to take Bart for myself.
ginko 9y ago
This pretty much mirrors my experience. I've also been to SF a bunch of times and never had any issues taking the local transit(bus, subway, BART, tram, etc.). Sure it isn't sparkling clean, but seems to do its job. The bus network in particular seemed pretty good.
ACow_Adonis 9y ago
Only been to San Fran once briefly. But my impression of Bart during that time was: -infrequent -loud: this one surprised me, the noise of the wheel screeches were another level of audible compared to the public transport I was used to. - poverty: SanFran poverty and destitution was just on another level, and a significant amount of that seemed located around some of the stations. - network coverage:so tiny and doesn't cover much. That being said, my impression talking to the locals was that commuting in/out of SanFran by car had become a nightmare as well :/
reaperducer 9y ago
My experience with SF transit is that it's simply overused. People love it -- to death. There isn't enough of it, and enough maintenance, to keep up with the demand. The entire system suffers because of it.

ericmcer 9y ago

Yeah I never understood how his comments were offensive. I used to take Bart 5 times a week and I definitely don't worry about all the great socializing I am missing out on now that I don't need to. Musk and his critics are probably all barely familiar with the realities of using public transportation every day. There is no commuter who would not use a faster, easier transportation method because they wanted the "social" benefits of mass transit.

danans 9y ago

Nobody holds up BART or the Bay Area's transit system as an example of a well functioning transit system. If Musk has done his homework, he should realize that, too. As you have noted, there are many examples of much more pleasant to use transit systems. However, the problem of crime isn't the fault of the transit system, but of the society in which the transit system operates. Transit doesn't generate crime in the Bay Area, that's caused by the history of inequality and concentrations of poverty.

trowawee 9y ago
I would love to see more Bold Disrupting Entrepreneurs trying to disrupt the way that San Francisco treats poor and homeless people.
- danans 9y ago
  That would be great, but they shouldn't use the independent problem of homelessness to malign the public transit system.
godot 9y ago
Starting to go off a tangent from this thread, but I do have a genuine question. It's a popular argument to say poverty and wealth distribution causes crimes. But over in China, even Hong Kong to some extent, poverty has been a problem for generations( and China is only doing better in the past decade). There isn't nearly as much of the type of crime that happens in the US that puts you in personal danger, in China. There could be a lot of petty theft, or even actually stealing from you, but not much of the armed robbery/assault (knife or gun) that is so common in America. I immigrated from Hong Kong to the US while in high school in the 90s. There is such a stark cultural differences in things like 1) Discipline -- people feel like they can do anything here (both good and bad), and that unfortunately includes the crime side of things. Young kids are much more "daring", as in they're not afraid to assault and rob people. In HK/China, even kids in gangs think of even just stealing a wallet from someone a big deal, much less direct assault. 2) On that topic, gang culture. High school kids here have such a glorified view of the gang life, whereas that sort of thing is really suppressed even among the notorious schools and students in HK/China. In fact, it's not just an "Asia thing". Travel to Europe, most of the safety and crime issues you have to watch out for are pickpockets and scammers. In America, on Bart, you actually worry about armed assault. I feel like there's something about America culture, and it's not just inequality and poverty that's causing the sort of crime I only see here.

tbabb 9y ago

I've heard from visitors to Japan that groping on public transit is a real problem.

keepper 9y ago

It works quite well in nyc.. so not sure what you mean by "There's something about America that makes it not work." We have 5.6M average weekday riders, and about as much for the weekends ( Sun and Saturday). That's 1.7 Billion rides a year.. [1] If that's what you consider "not working"... Does it have its flaws? absolutely! But does it work? absolutely! As someone who has visited the bay area yearly since 2000, a quick observation comes to mind on why mass transit doesn't work as well there... The crazy idea amongst "21st century" companies to stick to the 1950s model of the "company town" in the suburbs.. and well, BART not going a lot further down than it should. Companies should be moving in droves to the east bay, were you can actually build transit ( and there actually IS some real transit infrastructure ), and two, you actually have land you can build buildings that are horizontally efficient... ( not sand land fill that doesn't support any decent vertical building ) [1]http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/travel/mta-subwayridership.html http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata/travel/mta-subwayridershi...

cududa 9y ago
Works well in NY. Are you kidding me? Did you not take it once this summer, or hear a single person talking about how atrocious its become, or read a single article on it?

allengeorge 9y ago

There's also an easier solution to the problem than what he's proposing.