To expand on this, since it sounds kind of flippant: In the US at the moment, public transit suffers from the fact that in most areas, for most people it's lar

To expand on this, since it sounds kind of flippant: In the US at the moment, public transit suffers from the fact that in most areas, for most people it's largely optional: you can drive, or you can use public transit. Quite a few people choose to drive, leading to a disproportionate fraction of the people on public transit being people who have no other option, and furthermore the fraction of outright deranged individuals (leaving all their clothes on the platform save for a baseball cap and a syringe tucked behind their ear, for an example I witnessed a few days ago) being over-represented in the public transit riding populace. Overcoming this stigma is important for getting people to use public transit as their primary means of transportation, and working towards making truly car-optional cities.