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Only my limited personal experience here. In the last 20 years I’ve used the following public transport: - One bus ride in western mass with crazy drug head y

Only my limited personal experience here. In the last 20 years I’ve used the following public transport: - One bus ride in western mass with crazy drug head yelling crap. - Six T rides in Boston, one ended with some drunk dude yelling and cursing at me. Another with some bum hassling a woman and then pretending to have a gun when my buddy stepped in. - Four Metro train rides from CT to NY. Not too bad. Only saw two fights that didn’t involve me. - A few metro rides in Paris, nothing bad, just a few harmless beggars. - A few time in the Tube in London. Jolly good there. So, my personal answer to this question is safety. Fewer crazy passengers and more security.

wccrawford 8y ago
I rode the train in Boston in the subway in NYC a few times each and saw nothing odd at all. I also rode the trains and subways in Tokyo for a week and a half and saw nothing odd, except the odd looks my wife got for wearing a shirt with the wrong date on it. (It was a shift from a marathon and just happened to coincide with Pearl Harbor Day, IIRC.) I think you had a lot of bad luck in the US, and I don't think the percentage of craziness you experienced is the norm. I know it happens, and it absolutely discourages people from public transit, but I just don't think it happens that much.
kylehotchkiss 8y ago
I live next to a train station in San Diego (one of those high-density near public transport setups, in a comfortable/safe apartment). Safety is what prevents me from taking it anywhere, I see fights at the station on a worryingly more regular basis, arrests every few weeks, and yelling almost daily (all witnessed from my apartment window). I've seen in the news that teenagers have been victims of an armed robbery on or near the train station just after mine (amaya) last summer. The San Diego trolley really needs a transport police officer on every station and in every train. I feel bad for the people whom this this the only transport option for. The system actually seems well designed as far as the trains, station location, and future growth plans go. But with no ticket based access-control on trains (seriously just walk on) and pretty limited police coverage, it just doesn't seem able to reach its potential.
jopsen 8y ago
Safety probably requires reducing poverty..
- watwat1 8y ago
  You should take some beggars in.
cimmanom 8y ago
Man, you're like a magnet for bad luck with transit. I've taken the subway everywhere since turning 13. In 20-odd years of 2+/day subway rides in NYC (morning, afternoon, evening, 3am), the worst things I've encountered have been: - Homeless people with severe B.O (~1x/week) - Obnoxious bible thumpers hollering at everyone in the subway car (2-3 times) - Panhandlers walking from one end of the car to the next (~2x/mo) - Mariachi bands and dance troupes invading the subway car (~2-3x/week) - A woman changing her toddler's diaper on the seat right next to me (ew; thankfully only once). And the only actually threatening ones: - Mentally ill people talking to themselves (maybe a half dozen times ever) and grumbling at people around them (~2-3 times ever) - Some creep sitting next to me and asking personal questions and ignoring my requests to leave me the fuck alone. You can avoid most of these situations by avoiding any disproportionately empty subway car. If you get in the wrong car by accident, you switch at the next stop (<2 min). Most of the rest will leave on their own within a few minutes. For every unpleasant encounter I've had on the subway, I've had one that's restored my faith in humanity: half the car helping out a woman who fainted; the whole car grinning at each other while an actor in a green rabbit suit did magic tricks for the kids sitting across from her; offers of tissues to someone who developed a spontaneous nosebleed. I've never seen tourists stare in confusion at a map for more than a couple minutes without someone stepping in to offer directions; once with someone else nearby stepping in to translate to Japanese!

wccrawford 8y ago

I rode the train in Boston in the subway in NYC a few times each and saw nothing odd at all. I also rode the trains and subways in Tokyo for a week and a half and saw nothing odd, except the odd looks my wife got for wearing a shirt with the wrong date on it. (It was a shift from a marathon and just happened to coincide with Pearl Harbor Day, IIRC.) I think you had a lot of bad luck in the US, and I don't think the percentage of craziness you experienced is the norm. I know it happens, and it absolutely discourages people from public transit, but I just don't think it happens that much.

kylehotchkiss 8y ago

I live next to a train station in San Diego (one of those high-density near public transport setups, in a comfortable/safe apartment). Safety is what prevents me from taking it anywhere, I see fights at the station on a worryingly more regular basis, arrests every few weeks, and yelling almost daily (all witnessed from my apartment window). I've seen in the news that teenagers have been victims of an armed robbery on or near the train station just after mine (amaya) last summer. The San Diego trolley really needs a transport police officer on every station and in every train. I feel bad for the people whom this this the only transport option for. The system actually seems well designed as far as the trains, station location, and future growth plans go. But with no ticket based access-control on trains (seriously just walk on) and pretty limited police coverage, it just doesn't seem able to reach its potential.

jopsen 8y ago

Safety probably requires reducing poverty..

watwat1 8y ago
You should take some beggars in.

cimmanom 8y ago

Man, you're like a magnet for bad luck with transit. I've taken the subway everywhere since turning 13. In 20-odd years of 2+/day subway rides in NYC (morning, afternoon, evening, 3am), the worst things I've encountered have been: - Homeless people with severe B.O (~1x/week) - Obnoxious bible thumpers hollering at everyone in the subway car (2-3 times) - Panhandlers walking from one end of the car to the next (~2x/mo) - Mariachi bands and dance troupes invading the subway car (~2-3x/week) - A woman changing her toddler's diaper on the seat right next to me (ew; thankfully only once). And the only actually threatening ones: - Mentally ill people talking to themselves (maybe a half dozen times ever) and grumbling at people around them (~2-3 times ever) - Some creep sitting next to me and asking personal questions and ignoring my requests to leave me the fuck alone. You can avoid most of these situations by avoiding any disproportionately empty subway car. If you get in the wrong car by accident, you switch at the next stop (<2 min). Most of the rest will leave on their own within a few minutes. For every unpleasant encounter I've had on the subway, I've had one that's restored my faith in humanity: half the car helping out a woman who fainted; the whole car grinning at each other while an actor in a green rabbit suit did magic tricks for the kids sitting across from her; offers of tissues to someone who developed a spontaneous nosebleed. I've never seen tourists stare in confusion at a map for more than a couple minutes without someone stepping in to offer directions; once with someone else nearby stepping in to translate to Japanese!