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> A frequent theme is the fact that in public transport you need to share space with other people and sometimes it's uncomfortable and crowded. Many think they'

> A frequent theme is the fact that in public transport you need to share space with other people and sometimes it's uncomfortable and crowded. Many think they're too good to "suffer" that 1. Crowded/uncomfortable 2. Very late/early 3. Unhygienic I think I most people could deal with one or two of those, but in my personal experience in the US (PA, NY, DC), it's frequently all three.

jrnichols 9y ago
4. unsafe. the biggest reason I know of for people not wanting to take public transit is safety. In the SF Bay Area, MUNI has not always had the best track record for safety and recently BART has had some unfortunate incidents of groups of criminals getting on a train car at one station, robbing everyone in the car, and getting off (and away..) at the next station. And then there's always the stereotypical intoxicated/homeless/mentally unstable individual that poses a safety threat. Sadly something I personally witnessed on BART more than once.
- dionidium 9y ago
  So, first of all, I'm sympathetic to this concern. I don't think all risks are equal. We're humans, not statistical robots, so we fear some things more than other things and that matters. But it is worth remembering that you're still far, far less safe in your car. In the United States 40,200 people died in automobile-related accidents last year. [0] It's not like it's just a little bit less safe to drive. It's orders of magnitude less safe. How many people died on public transit last year? 20? Is it even 20? Again, I understand why people accept that risk, while not accepting the risk of violent crime, but the numbers are what they are. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-...
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Annual public transport deaths in the US are around 2-300. And the number of passenger miles is vastly smaller than cars, so you can’t just compare the raw numbers.
    - dionidium 9y ago
      This is a good point. The numbers are still overwhelmingly in transit's favor (but not orders of magnitude better when passenger miles are considered): https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-transit-is-compared-to-driving/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-...
      - throw_away 9y ago
        Also note that most of the danger in transit is not the the users, but to other people on the road (blue vs. yellow bars in the chart). Considering just the users themselves, transit is nearly an order of magnitude safer.
  - jrnichols 9y ago
    > How many people died on public transit last year? I am not sure. I know that driving puts one at a higher risk of death, but you're not going to get assaulted, groped, stabbed, mugged, punched, verbally harassed, etc while driving at the same rate you will on public transit.
- yongjik 9y ago
  This is, sadly, a self-perpetuating problem. If a group of gangs boarded a train car in Seoul and robbed everybody, there would have been a full news coverage for the next week and the opposition leaders would have demanded president's apology. Because such a thing is simply considered unacceptable. (Of course Korea has its own societal problems; gangs roaming in subway is not one of them.) In America, everybody knows that public transit is dirty and dangerous, so when such a thing happens, everybody just shrugs it off. Middle class people don't want these ugly stations in their neighborhood; if they have one, they don't want the politicians to waste money on nicer benches or a decent-looking wall. What's the point? It will be filled with graffiti the next week. So public transit remains underfunded, unsafe, dirty, and always late, and of course people point to that and say "See? We don't need more of these things. Let's build more highway."
Spooky23 9y ago
4. Inconvenient. Many people don’t work in central business districts. When I worked downtown, the bus was a no brainer. Working in a different location, I would spend $10 less a week to have a 80 minute commute vs 10 minute drive.
- stouset 9y ago
  All of these problems are consequences of underfunding.
  - wil421 9y ago
    Not exactly. Some voters in counties surrounding my city quite frankly do not want the public train coming into their county. There were options to fund it. Multiple counties declined over the years even though it would likely help mobility in the region. If the voters don’t want it how do you improve public transport? Would you wait until the next generation? Thoughts?
gkya 9y ago
Yeah I've heard about the hygiene problem in New York metro, and that was really surprising to be honest. I guess, for all three of your points, it takes government operation to run a nice public transit system because only that can afford to not profit or to lose money. Capitalism won't ever get you there in this particular area because there's no economical interest in running a nice public transit system.

jrnichols 9y ago

4. unsafe. the biggest reason I know of for people not wanting to take public transit is safety. In the SF Bay Area, MUNI has not always had the best track record for safety and recently BART has had some unfortunate incidents of groups of criminals getting on a train car at one station, robbing everyone in the car, and getting off (and away..) at the next station. And then there's always the stereotypical intoxicated/homeless/mentally unstable individual that poses a safety threat. Sadly something I personally witnessed on BART more than once.

dionidium 9y ago
So, first of all, I'm sympathetic to this concern. I don't think all risks are equal. We're humans, not statistical robots, so we fear some things more than other things and that matters. But it is worth remembering that you're still far, far less safe in your car. In the United States 40,200 people died in automobile-related accidents last year. [0] It's not like it's just a little bit less safe to drive. It's orders of magnitude less safe. How many people died on public transit last year? 20? Is it even 20? Again, I understand why people accept that risk, while not accepting the risk of violent crime, but the numbers are what they are. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-safety.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/business/highway-traffic-...
- mikeash 9y ago
  Annual public transport deaths in the US are around 2-300. And the number of passenger miles is vastly smaller than cars, so you can’t just compare the raw numbers.
  - dionidium 9y ago
    This is a good point. The numbers are still overwhelmingly in transit's favor (but not orders of magnitude better when passenger miles are considered): https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-transit-is-compared-to-driving/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/12/19/heres-how-much-safer-...
    - throw_away 9y ago
      Also note that most of the danger in transit is not the the users, but to other people on the road (blue vs. yellow bars in the chart). Considering just the users themselves, transit is nearly an order of magnitude safer.
- jrnichols 9y ago
  > How many people died on public transit last year? I am not sure. I know that driving puts one at a higher risk of death, but you're not going to get assaulted, groped, stabbed, mugged, punched, verbally harassed, etc while driving at the same rate you will on public transit.
yongjik 9y ago
This is, sadly, a self-perpetuating problem. If a group of gangs boarded a train car in Seoul and robbed everybody, there would have been a full news coverage for the next week and the opposition leaders would have demanded president's apology. Because such a thing is simply considered unacceptable. (Of course Korea has its own societal problems; gangs roaming in subway is not one of them.) In America, everybody knows that public transit is dirty and dangerous, so when such a thing happens, everybody just shrugs it off. Middle class people don't want these ugly stations in their neighborhood; if they have one, they don't want the politicians to waste money on nicer benches or a decent-looking wall. What's the point? It will be filled with graffiti the next week. So public transit remains underfunded, unsafe, dirty, and always late, and of course people point to that and say "See? We don't need more of these things. Let's build more highway."

Spooky23 9y ago

4. Inconvenient. Many people don’t work in central business districts. When I worked downtown, the bus was a no brainer. Working in a different location, I would spend $10 less a week to have a 80 minute commute vs 10 minute drive.

stouset 9y ago
All of these problems are consequences of underfunding.
- wil421 9y ago
  Not exactly. Some voters in counties surrounding my city quite frankly do not want the public train coming into their county. There were options to fund it. Multiple counties declined over the years even though it would likely help mobility in the region. If the voters don’t want it how do you improve public transport? Would you wait until the next generation? Thoughts?

gkya 9y ago

Yeah I've heard about the hygiene problem in New York metro, and that was really surprising to be honest. I guess, for all three of your points, it takes government operation to run a nice public transit system because only that can afford to not profit or to lose money. Capitalism won't ever get you there in this particular area because there's no economical interest in running a nice public transit system.