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It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit, while people in most other countries have zero iss

It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit, while people in most other countries have zero issues adopting it wholesale. Instead they just make it into a simplistic, moralistic crusade about how the suburban car owners are evil people, told from the perspective of a righteous city-dweller. Here’s a better theory: because American public transit is, when compared with the alternatives, not safe, not clean, and not convenient. Take LA, probably the most car-dependent big city in America. Riding the bus or subway in LA is not an enjoyable experience. Nor is it enjoyable to walk around the areas where the stops are. If I were trying to get more people to use public transit, I’d start by making the stations and buses/subways beautiful, clean, safe places that are just nice urban places to hang out in. There’s no need to make it a moral crusade; just offer a better product and more people will use it.

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uoaei 3y ago
It's a chicken-and-egg concern. If there was a higher amount of passenger load on public transit there would be more eyes, accountability, and generally a feeling of being around people who are going somewhere rather than using the trains and buses as living rooms. Safety in numbers and all that.
- Jayschwa 3y ago
  I disagree. I lived in NYC for 10 years without a car and used public transit for everything. There are plenty of passengers, and that didn't matter. It was just a larger captive audience for whoever was having their mental breakdown.
  - digging 3y ago
    The US's approach attacks public transit from both ends. Transit is gutted, cars are prioritized, making transit not good enough. And social services are gutted, the poor and the unwell are demonized, and then the only people riding transit are scary. And these two feed into each other; by making transit inefficient to use, and making expensive cars necessary, poverty is increased.
  - bertil 3y ago
    You want to have a more holistic view of living together. Public healthcare is part of that. Whether people in crisis are on the side of the road (and easier to ignore with a lifted car hood) or in your train car, they aren’t getting the help they need.
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- keiferski 3y ago
  I think social perception plays a big role too. In most countries where public transit is widely used, it’s used across nearly every social class. No one thinks that riding the bus is something only poor people do. That isn’t the case in America, where riding the bus absolutely has a low social status. So I think making public transit more of a prestige product (safe, clean, well-designed, etc.) would help break that and make it more socially acceptable for middle and upper class people.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    That only applies to developed countries. In China, a lot of people use public transit, but richer people will prefer taxis, ubers, or their own cars. There are a lot of taxis also, that are cheap enough for daily commutes if you are middle class. I lived on a subway route in Beijing that went close enough to my work, but it was so crowded (often nowhere to sit on a 25 minute ride) that I just paid for the taxi anyways. Traffic was horrible, so it made sense to take the subway if traveling during rush-hour (if you can fit on, of course), but I re-arranged my work schedule to mostly avoid that.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    I remember visiting Germany for work years ago, and was pleased to find that my hotel was literally on the same block as a tram/trolley that went to next door to the company; super nice Eurotransit done Right™ for the win! A short walk from the hotel and a quick ride and I was there for the day; and when I mentioned it to the manager he was flabbergasted because the tram is for poor people he must give me a ride back in his Audi. Which took twice as long hahahaha.
  - bertil 3y ago
    In Paris, buses are a little slower than light rail, so they tend to be associated with higher status, parents with prams, and elderly people, who have more time and would rather enjoy the view. Middle-class people take the metro. The working class lives in the suburbs and takes the regional trains.
sum1zideas 3y ago
It’s odd to me we insist on traveling so much for career. Modern businesses seem to exist to soak up easy luxury rather than generate net new ideas and services. There’s tons of work todo and new potential colleagues in our neighborhoods. Nurses and teachers could quit and start local collectives. But the grind and exploitation of hustle culture and bloated adminispheres seems so normal no one can see around it.
- CapricornNoble 3y ago
  > There’s tons of work todo > hustle culture and bloated adminispheres seems so normal A lot of useful work that could be done is building better stuff, physically improving the local infrastructure and environment. That requires tradesmen doing hands-on labor. Giant portions of our labor pool wouldn't be caught dead doing that kind of work. That's why we have a flood of bullshit jobs where people shuffle paper in air-conditioned offices, float around to conferences, stay at business hotels, etc...
Dig1t 3y ago
Absolutely agree, as someone who has taken public transit in Southern California, it's the absolute worst. It's disgusting, terrifying, and also inconvenient. Seeing tons of videos online of interactions on the New York subway system, I can say that I have no interest in that form of transportation. The recent drama about Penny/Neely is just one of many such interactions you can find on the subway. I can link dozens of videos of insane, disturbing interactions that take place on the NY subway to which I would never subject my family. If we somehow create subways that are as clean, safe, and convenient as those in Japan I would probably consider using it, but until then I will definitely be pro-car.
- chem83 3y ago
  What you're saying is, frankly, very naive. If you think critically, you must realize the cognitive bias here. There's something like 2 million people riding the MTA every day and they statistically hardly ever have problems as extreme as the Penny/Neely situation. If you go on YouTube or Reddit, you'll see thousands of road rage incidents, and that's not stopping you from being pro-car. It's not acceptable that families have to be on alert when riding the subway and gov't should definitely work to improve the situation, but the same can be said about American roads. It would be amazing if the MTA could be as efficient/on time as the Tokyo system, or as pretty as the Stockholm stations, but the same is true for many aspects of public infrastructure across the US.
- zzzeek 3y ago
  Yes I rode the NYC subway for 20 years. When you are young and edgy, you can deal with it, even though I found it regularly traumatizing at that time as well (delays, trains stuck in tunnels, 100 degree subway platforms, crushing crowds, intense inconvenience if you have to carry anything beyond a single bag). The ultimate misery, when trains fell behind and youd spend an hour or more on a completely packed, sweltering platform watching train after train fully stuffed shoulder to shoulder pass through not stopping since each train is full, until one comes where you yourself have to shove yourself and your bags into the doorway and hope the doors can close so you can just get home. Never again. I suspect anti car people just don't see these things as that big of a deal. They're young. It's all exciting to them, I guess. I didn't have a car at all back then either, the city / commuter life seemed perfect to me for many years until I began to realize I hated these things. Forget about the crime, mental illness, and homeless issues, just being shoved among "regular" people every day, all averting gazes and attempting to cope with dense crowding among people you don't know, by the time I was older I had become a strict remote worker, and when I had a kid we were out of there at last. I have an EV now and getting to drive is like the best part of my day. I live very far from dense cities. A lot of people genuinely like to live this way and the posts here talking about the "car industrial complex" somehow coercing us all into some way we wouldn't otherwise prefer should consider that a lot of people really don't like crowds.
Jayschwa 3y ago
I agree. At its best, public transit can be a better experience than driving. But the average experience is often worse than driving.
- falcolas 3y ago
  And worse includes slower by 2x or more than driving, even with all the BS driving includes like traffic jams and finding parking.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    That's usually the final straw people will put up with a decent amount but once they realize how much time they're spending - bam. And part of the problem is that the only real way to get competitive fair box recovery (which shouldn't really be a goal, imo) is to pack the vehicles to standing-room only, which makes it hard to read a book or do something else.
  - slondr 3y ago
    This is a false dichotomy, no? Driving somewhere for 30 minutes means you waste 30 minutes of your life in transport. Taking a train somewhere for 50 minutes means you can do something else for 50 minutes. Read a book, browse the internet, write a poem, whatever.
    - alwayslikethis 3y ago
      Only when you feel safe. I use public transport in Asia and do the listed things, but I wouldn't do that in NYC because I might get pickpocketed, for instance.
    - goatlover 3y ago
      On occasion that sounds nice. But usually I'd rather get somewhere faster than spending a lot more time in transit. And you can listen to music and podcasts while driving.
- bertil 3y ago
logifail 3y ago
> I’d start by making the stations and buses/subways beautiful, clean, safe places that are just nice urban places to be in I spent yesterday travelling around Greater London using only public transport, coupled with quite a lot of (fairly brisk) walking ... my phone said my day involved 20591 steps and 98 heart points. When you don't have access to a car, you have to think quite differently about mundane things like going to a supermarket. "Where is the closest supermarket to my current location" for the car user becomes "where is any supermarket which is close to a public transport stop I can readily reach from my current location" which I find isn't handled nearly as well by all our favourite mapping services. Things like fares and fare zones become of interest, not just raw distances and traffic on routes. > There’s no need to make it a moral crusade [..] Unfortunately there seems to be no broad agreement on exactly how you make places "beautiful, clean [and] safe" if they aren't.
- keiferski 3y ago
  There is plenty of broad agreement, you just have to look at Japan, or China, or Singapore, or Turkey, Poland, or Switzerland, or Korea, or another dozen countries around the world that have clean, safe, and (sufficiently) beautiful public transport systems. The bar is really not that high.
  - logifail 3y ago
    > There is plenty of broad agreement, you just have to look at Japan, or China, or Singapore, or Turkey, Poland, or Switzerland, or Korea, or another dozen countries around the world that have clean, safe, and (sufficiently) beautiful public transport systems. The bar is really not that high. So all those cities/countries where public transport is not clean and safe have to just copy - for instance - Singapore or China? Q: What's stopping them? That's what I mean about lack of broad agreement.
- lozenge 3y ago
  Hardly anybody needs to get public transport for a supermarket in London, they are within 15 minutes walk.
MarkSweep 3y ago
I’ve been trying to commute by train in the Bay Area and I’m probably going to give up based on this. The VTA train smells of pot and the CalTrain often smells of sewage. Periodically there are crazy people yelling on the VTA and regularly there are people having could-have-been-an-email loud conferences calls on CalTrain. I really like trains and dislike car dependent cities. But it’s hard for me to walk-the-talk when it’s so unpleasant so consistently.
- inferiorhuman 3y ago
  I used to take Caltrain fairly regularly and never once smelled sewage. The drunken baseball fans were a problem though.
  - MarkSweep 3y ago
    Sewage is a bit strong of a word for it, but sometimes the cars with a bathroom smell a bit ripe.
judge2020 3y ago
While true, the point of a moral crusade is that city planners generally cannot go against their constituents' wishes, so if they are all house and car people, nothing will be done to favor denser housing or a better light rail experience. Changing the minds of people and getting them involved will create a feedback loop of people complaining to their city, attending meetings, and pushing for projects that solve these things. It can't happen in the shadows because the money to do these projects won't get allocated without support.
- karmelapple 3y ago
  Those residents are basically pulling up the ladder behind them, and it's depressing to see. Appealing to their moral side seems... perhaps necessary, because it seems a vocal minority simply do not want multi-family housing in their neighborhood at all. Look at the pushback by NIMBYs at city meetings across the US when anything like somewhat dense housing is proposed: right off the bat, I have literally never heard of any community collectively saying, "this sounds reasonable." I would be happy to be proven wrong. Instead, it's pushback after pushback, claiming everything from character of the neighborhood to shadows from a tall building (even if the building is only 5 stories high, and most buildings in the neighborhood are 3 stories tall). There's also conspicuously rare talk from those NIMBYs claiming what they do want. Instead, at the start of a project, it's always vague, "well not THAT many units!" or "well the traffic will get SO much worse!" I've never seen specifics like, "We need 30 units or less in this proposal because of reason X and Y." Instead, it's just negotiation trying to get it as low as possible. Basically, trying to pull up the ladder as much as possible to minimize people moving to the area to folks who can afford a fairly expensive single family home. Any single family home is fairly expensive now it seems these days, across the USA, relatively to the area it's in. It's depressing, and I'm not sure how to get people to change those attitudes. One thought: have people attend these meetings who are not yet residents of the neighborhoods, but would consider it if they could move into one of these developments. Of course, NIMBYs would likely be outraged that folks from outside of their neighborhood are levying their opinion... even though the NIMBYs themselves are not vocalizing considering the opinions of people who want to move to the area.
UtopiaPunk 3y ago
Do you think cleanliness and perceived safety* are more important than more frequent and faster public transit? I'm not asking in a combatitive way, just discussing. I think these are all important for encouraging Americans to use public transit more, but, imo, convenience is the single thing biggest factor that gets the general population to take up something in this country. If a car is more convenient than a bus, then most people will choose the car. *I say "perceived safety," because vibes seem to matter more than actual safety. Like, the stats on car wrecks, drunk driving, distracted driving, and so on are alarming. But when I think of someone concerned about "safety," I imagine someone being uncomfortable around people they feel are sketchy.
- keiferski 3y ago
  I’m not sure I’d say more important, but definitely of equal importance. Especially in terms of how people perceive public transit; i.e. is it just for people that can’t afford a car, or is it clean, comfortable, and a viable alternative to a car?
- andromeduck 3y ago
  They are to most women, at least in my friend group.
- dilap 3y ago
  In somewhere like SF, yeah, definitely, in my experience. Riding the BART is disgusting. I think an interesting thing to remember about perceived safety, statistical safety, and actual safety, is that they are all different things -- you can't just look at stats to determine actual safety. E.g., I was involved in a couple of incidents involving attacks in SF that I am sure were not reflected in the stats. (As well as numerous thefts, though that's not a safety issue per se.)
- bombcar 3y ago
  Safety and speed are tied together; if you have to wait 15 minutes at a bus stop for the next bus that has all sorts of safety implications, if a bus arrives every 2 minutes it will feel very different. Convenience is a big part of it, sure, but even Americans will use transit when it works for them, even if it is not faster (it is almost NEVER faster than driving a car unless you do strange restrictions or include a very-high-speed segment). But you only need a few bad experiences on transit to put you off it when you have other options.
joe_the_user 3y ago
It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit Yes they do. US public transit is terrible and various groups like Strong Towns describe this and explain why. Things like the way buses wind-up the first thing cut in budget crises etc are important parts of the barrier to ending a car-based urbanism. See a multitude of article here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/category/Public+Transit https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/category/Public+Transit
- cassac 3y ago
  I think the ops point was that even if they want to, they don’t want to. I can’t comment on the MN light rail now as I haven’t been on it for a few years, but the green line used to be essentially an open air drug market and the blue line I almost got stabbed. Add in a few instances of homeless on homeless violence and driving starts looking like a great option. That’s not even covering how poorly ran it is. I want to ride it… but I don’t want to ride it.
  - tokyolights2 3y ago
    That is a self-reinforcing cycle. There have been long and successful campaigns by car companies and other self-interested entities in the US to associate public transportation with being poor. Just like how a city street is safer per-capita if there are more people on it, public transit is safer if it is more well-used. I see this in seattle. When I am commuting in the morning or in the evening my bus is full of yuppies and working class people getting to their job. But if I take the bus on the weekend or during the off hours when well-adjusted people are not on it, the bus is a much less inviting place. I don't know how to solve the problem other than to believe in the system and hope that other people do as well.
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      All one has to do is charge a fare, enforce it, and other existing laws. Used to be a simple contract. That was abandoned. While I was a long-term advocate of public transportation, no longer can recommend it. Certainly not for my family in this city. Not like a “law and order” candidate is ever getting elected again in this state. Even a more compassionate version I’d support. Unexpectedly Rio de Janeiro does this a lot better than California.
fwungy 3y ago
Come to Sacramento and ride the light rails end to end. It isn't rocket surgery.
- BrianHenryIE 3y ago
  I don't get what your point is, if you could explain please. I live in Sacramento, but I rarely use the light rail. And I almost never use cars.
  - fwungy 3y ago
    Depending on the route and the time of day you'll find homeless, nodded out addicts, groups of bored young people looking for a happening, insane people, and sanitary issues. Depends where and when you're going, and some is just plain luck, or lack of it.
    - BrianHenryIE 3y ago
      Thanks. I wasn’t sure were you suggesting it was fine or awful! I’ve only ever taken the Gold line, and it’s been uneventful. But, as I say, not often.
oatmeal1 3y ago
I've heard that researchers determined that - roughly speaking - traffic congestion increases until the fastest way to get to your destination is through modes of transportation that are not cars.
- nayuki 3y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQY6WGOoYis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQY6WGOoYis "Do Your Buses Get Stuck in Traffic? Traffic solutions & the Downs-Thomson Paradox"
wnc3141 3y ago
I lived in Denmark for a year a few years ago during University and lived with a Family, and remember that for most families not living within the densest core of the city owned one car but used transit for most if not all local trips. The thing is, the entire society (at least in Copenhagen) is built around car-lite life (for example small corner grocery everywhere instead of large supermarkets). Additionally there is such low abject poverty that there is little tension with crime, homelessness etc. My point is, lack of interest in public transit is merely symptomatic of larger issues we as Americans face, such as sprawl, existing infrastructure, crime, inequality etc.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Exactly my perception of Denmark. The core of Copenhagen is very bike friendly and many people cycle to work (though there are a lot of cars as well). The rest of the country is pretty car-dependent, though cycling is still more practical than in many American cities and towns. The smaller towns are walkable in the core but surrounded by farmland where you need a car to get anywhere.
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  low crime is not just a given, its a result of the design. A properly designed dense city planning reduces crime by default(people are less likely to commit crime if other people are watching and public spaces and buildings are designed for this purpose. Not just this- the social housing is cool too because it blocks concentration of marginalised people in one place, making it unsafe and rather spreads those people evenly across the city. There are many subtle things that are implemented in nordic countries to reduce crimes and its super interesting
milkytron 3y ago
> It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit, while people in most other countries have zero issues adopting it wholesale. This is talked about if you follow urbanism communities. In addition to the reasons you mentioned, it just doesn't go to where people want to be. The last century of urban planning in the US has left transit and alternative modes of transportation as an afterthought or not thought of at all. Land use is a major problem. In my particular city, half of the stations are surrounded by parking lots instead of actual destinations. Transit in the US has been treated as a band aid to car traffic, pollution, and costs. If it were funded and prioritized appropriately, we would see more transit oriented development and ridership. Lack of ridership is seen as a reason to decrease funding. But when ridership increases, you get improved safety because there are more eyes to witness and report a crime. I don't think most people make it moralistic crusade, but those kinds of comments and attitudes get the most attention. If you delve into the communities and read the relevant books, you may find that nuance is actually appreciated and discussed quite a bit.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  It’s great that it’s being discussed but until it’s addressed, it’s just a bunch of words and doesn’t improve anyone’s life.
dukeyukey 3y ago
I genuinely think the answer is _way_ simpler and less dramatic than people think. In general, a city is more walkable and dense the earlier it developed. NYC and Boston are walkable cos they're old. Parts of Chicago are, but it did most of it's growing post-car so most of it isn't. LA did practically almost all it's growing post-car and so is awful for walkers. It's the same in Europe - most of London is walkable because it hit a multi-million population pre-car. Milton Keynes is a concrete car-jungle because it only developed post-war.
- bertil 3y ago
  I’ve lived in several barely finished neighbourhoods and all were walkable: Hammarby Sjöstad in Stokholm, Jätkassari in Helsinki, the new Ancoats in Manchester… All smelled of fresh paint and wet concrete. All were built with the intent to be walkable, and all are wonderful places to live. I never felt the need for a car once. What matters is not the age but the intent of the designers.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    So have I. That's why I said _general_.
- digging 3y ago
  That's wrong. Many, many cities had walkable neighborhoods bulldozed and replaced with highways and parking lots, intentionally. In both the US and the EU. Many of the most walkable places have been reclaimed from cars.
  - dukeyukey 3y ago
    Yes, I've lived in a couple of them. That's why I said _general_.
    - digging 3y ago
      Well, is it generally true though? I don't even think it's very useful to talk about... compared to discussing how car manufacturers and sellers have intentionally stripped us of good urban design over the last century, and the ways in which some cities have undone some of that damage.
Karrot_Kream 3y ago
Along with some of the other great answers you're getting, just look at the difference in funding. Highway expansions and arterials are granted huge federal dollars. But look at how much funding your local bus system gets. I can guarantee you almost any freeway widening project in a given location in the US is apportioned more money than the local transit network, except for a few prominent exceptions like NYC. Part of this is a structural issue. The Federal government has a robust system of funding road network expansion but has no equivalent system of funding transit. Even after the passage of the recent infrastructure bill, look at the apportionment to maintaining Federal roadway compared to Federal transit funding. You can't compare a budget Android phone for a developing market with a flagship Android or a new iPhone.
hcarvalhoalves 3y ago
It's horrible by design – to sell cars.
local_crmdgeon 3y ago
https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/ is what you're looking for. They have deep dives and do really interesting financial analysis.
HPsquared 3y ago
I think income is a big factor: average Americans can afford to run cars, and have for a very long time - this is not so much the case in most countries.
jltsiren 3y ago
All these issues arise from political priorities. If you want good public transit, you must build it as infrastructure for the middle class. If the target audience is not the middle class, nobody really cares if your public transit works. You want to build a city where using public transit is the default, and driving is for situations where people have special needs. Public transit is not a social program. Whether the poor can afford public transit on their own is mostly irrelevant. If you want social programs, start separate social programs. Don't ruin other programs with unrelated goals.
- bombcar 3y ago
  This is a big part of it. Almost unironcially you could make public transit work better by giving every single homeless person in the city a car, and then spending money on keeping the transit operational, safe, and clean. 34% of kids ride a school bus to school, and that's basically transit designed for the middle class.
nradov 3y ago
One way to make public transit safe and clean would be to provide housing, addition treatment, and mental health services. There are a lot of people with serious behavioral problems who use public transit as rolling mental hospitals because they have no where else to go.
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userbinator 3y ago
while people in most other countries have zero issues adopting it wholesale Because on average they don't value personal freedom as much as Americans: There's something innately offputting about the thought of getting on a vehicle that is mostly out of one's own control, along with many others, and being taken somewhere instead of controlling one's own vehicle to a destination. Obviously, this causes public transit to evolve to a bare minimum service.
- loa_in_ 3y ago
  There's a story in my (EU) city of when a bus driver near the end of his shift drove the bus up to his house absentmindedly much to surprise of the passengers.
- Moldoteck 3y ago
  I think they/we value personal freedom, but in a different way, especially in well designed cities/countries. Being able to get into a train/bus and arrive to destination without the hassle of searching for parking, being concentrated on road, avoid drinking alcohol, and spending a s** ton of money on buying car and fuel and taxes for them, like all this adds up and freedom of movement by car takes other freedoms from the people. Also it's interesting that americans value their freedom of movement so much but bike optimised infra is almost nonexistent and bikes are even more "pro freedom" since you don't need to take exams, register the bike, pay for fuel, you can usually drink some alcohol no problem and in case of ebikes you can charge them at home and ebikes can cover big distances as well but still, US is designed for cars&big cars only
- archagon 3y ago
  Let me tell you, I’m not feeling so great about my “personal freedom” when I’m circling the block for half an hour trying to find a sliver of parking.
jhbadger 3y ago
The LA Metro system actually is quite beautiful and far cleaner than say, the NYC or DC systems (cynics will say that's because it isn't used as much).
anovikov 3y ago
It's too late to do this, it's not possible in a country that isn't all-white. Even in Europe usability of public transport deteriorates as other races mix in. Now there's no fix.
bootwoot 3y ago
There's a cause and effect issue here. It requires lot of money to go from an unloved public transit system used only by the poorest individuals to a fast, reliable, clean system that the wealthier classes with options would choose to use over their personal vehicles. But, that investment is generally decided on by that same wealthier class that is currently choosing their personal vehicle. It's impossible to start the economic ball rolling without some evangelizing to capture hearts and minds of those that aren't currently using or interested in investing in the mass transit system.
Apofis 3y ago
I grew up in NYC with the most amazing public transport system out there in the world and still absolutely despised taking the bus. Try 100 degree 100 humidity summers while waiting for the bus or the inverse. It's really not compelling. Car > Taxi > Subway > Bus (I'd rather skip the trip entirely) No offense to bus drivers they're amazing.

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uoaei 3y ago

It's a chicken-and-egg concern. If there was a higher amount of passenger load on public transit there would be more eyes, accountability, and generally a feeling of being around people who are going somewhere rather than using the trains and buses as living rooms. Safety in numbers and all that.

Jayschwa 3y ago
I disagree. I lived in NYC for 10 years without a car and used public transit for everything. There are plenty of passengers, and that didn't matter. It was just a larger captive audience for whoever was having their mental breakdown.
- digging 3y ago
  The US's approach attacks public transit from both ends. Transit is gutted, cars are prioritized, making transit not good enough. And social services are gutted, the poor and the unwell are demonized, and then the only people riding transit are scary. And these two feed into each other; by making transit inefficient to use, and making expensive cars necessary, poverty is increased.
- bertil 3y ago
  You want to have a more holistic view of living together. Public healthcare is part of that. Whether people in crisis are on the side of the road (and easier to ignore with a lifted car hood) or in your train car, they aren’t getting the help they need.
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keiferski 3y ago
I think social perception plays a big role too. In most countries where public transit is widely used, it’s used across nearly every social class. No one thinks that riding the bus is something only poor people do. That isn’t the case in America, where riding the bus absolutely has a low social status. So I think making public transit more of a prestige product (safe, clean, well-designed, etc.) would help break that and make it more socially acceptable for middle and upper class people.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  That only applies to developed countries. In China, a lot of people use public transit, but richer people will prefer taxis, ubers, or their own cars. There are a lot of taxis also, that are cheap enough for daily commutes if you are middle class. I lived on a subway route in Beijing that went close enough to my work, but it was so crowded (often nowhere to sit on a 25 minute ride) that I just paid for the taxi anyways. Traffic was horrible, so it made sense to take the subway if traveling during rush-hour (if you can fit on, of course), but I re-arranged my work schedule to mostly avoid that.
- bombcar 3y ago
  I remember visiting Germany for work years ago, and was pleased to find that my hotel was literally on the same block as a tram/trolley that went to next door to the company; super nice Eurotransit done Right™ for the win! A short walk from the hotel and a quick ride and I was there for the day; and when I mentioned it to the manager he was flabbergasted because the tram is for poor people he must give me a ride back in his Audi. Which took twice as long hahahaha.
- bertil 3y ago
  In Paris, buses are a little slower than light rail, so they tend to be associated with higher status, parents with prams, and elderly people, who have more time and would rather enjoy the view. Middle-class people take the metro. The working class lives in the suburbs and takes the regional trains.

sum1zideas 3y ago

It’s odd to me we insist on traveling so much for career. Modern businesses seem to exist to soak up easy luxury rather than generate net new ideas and services. There’s tons of work todo and new potential colleagues in our neighborhoods. Nurses and teachers could quit and start local collectives. But the grind and exploitation of hustle culture and bloated adminispheres seems so normal no one can see around it.

CapricornNoble 3y ago
> There’s tons of work todo > hustle culture and bloated adminispheres seems so normal A lot of useful work that could be done is building better stuff, physically improving the local infrastructure and environment. That requires tradesmen doing hands-on labor. Giant portions of our labor pool wouldn't be caught dead doing that kind of work. That's why we have a flood of bullshit jobs where people shuffle paper in air-conditioned offices, float around to conferences, stay at business hotels, etc...

Dig1t 3y ago

Absolutely agree, as someone who has taken public transit in Southern California, it's the absolute worst. It's disgusting, terrifying, and also inconvenient. Seeing tons of videos online of interactions on the New York subway system, I can say that I have no interest in that form of transportation. The recent drama about Penny/Neely is just one of many such interactions you can find on the subway. I can link dozens of videos of insane, disturbing interactions that take place on the NY subway to which I would never subject my family. If we somehow create subways that are as clean, safe, and convenient as those in Japan I would probably consider using it, but until then I will definitely be pro-car.

chem83 3y ago
What you're saying is, frankly, very naive. If you think critically, you must realize the cognitive bias here. There's something like 2 million people riding the MTA every day and they statistically hardly ever have problems as extreme as the Penny/Neely situation. If you go on YouTube or Reddit, you'll see thousands of road rage incidents, and that's not stopping you from being pro-car. It's not acceptable that families have to be on alert when riding the subway and gov't should definitely work to improve the situation, but the same can be said about American roads. It would be amazing if the MTA could be as efficient/on time as the Tokyo system, or as pretty as the Stockholm stations, but the same is true for many aspects of public infrastructure across the US.
zzzeek 3y ago
Yes I rode the NYC subway for 20 years. When you are young and edgy, you can deal with it, even though I found it regularly traumatizing at that time as well (delays, trains stuck in tunnels, 100 degree subway platforms, crushing crowds, intense inconvenience if you have to carry anything beyond a single bag). The ultimate misery, when trains fell behind and youd spend an hour or more on a completely packed, sweltering platform watching train after train fully stuffed shoulder to shoulder pass through not stopping since each train is full, until one comes where you yourself have to shove yourself and your bags into the doorway and hope the doors can close so you can just get home. Never again. I suspect anti car people just don't see these things as that big of a deal. They're young. It's all exciting to them, I guess. I didn't have a car at all back then either, the city / commuter life seemed perfect to me for many years until I began to realize I hated these things. Forget about the crime, mental illness, and homeless issues, just being shoved among "regular" people every day, all averting gazes and attempting to cope with dense crowding among people you don't know, by the time I was older I had become a strict remote worker, and when I had a kid we were out of there at last. I have an EV now and getting to drive is like the best part of my day. I live very far from dense cities. A lot of people genuinely like to live this way and the posts here talking about the "car industrial complex" somehow coercing us all into some way we wouldn't otherwise prefer should consider that a lot of people really don't like crowds.

Jayschwa 3y ago

I agree. At its best, public transit can be a better experience than driving. But the average experience is often worse than driving.

falcolas 3y ago
And worse includes slower by 2x or more than driving, even with all the BS driving includes like traffic jams and finding parking.
- bombcar 3y ago
  That's usually the final straw people will put up with a decent amount but once they realize how much time they're spending - bam. And part of the problem is that the only real way to get competitive fair box recovery (which shouldn't really be a goal, imo) is to pack the vehicles to standing-room only, which makes it hard to read a book or do something else.
- slondr 3y ago
  This is a false dichotomy, no? Driving somewhere for 30 minutes means you waste 30 minutes of your life in transport. Taking a train somewhere for 50 minutes means you can do something else for 50 minutes. Read a book, browse the internet, write a poem, whatever.
  - alwayslikethis 3y ago
    Only when you feel safe. I use public transport in Asia and do the listed things, but I wouldn't do that in NYC because I might get pickpocketed, for instance.
  - goatlover 3y ago
    On occasion that sounds nice. But usually I'd rather get somewhere faster than spending a lot more time in transit. And you can listen to music and podcasts while driving.
bertil 3y ago

logifail 3y ago

> I’d start by making the stations and buses/subways beautiful, clean, safe places that are just nice urban places to be in I spent yesterday travelling around Greater London using only public transport, coupled with quite a lot of (fairly brisk) walking ... my phone said my day involved 20591 steps and 98 heart points. When you don't have access to a car, you have to think quite differently about mundane things like going to a supermarket. "Where is the closest supermarket to my current location" for the car user becomes "where is any supermarket which is close to a public transport stop I can readily reach from my current location" which I find isn't handled nearly as well by all our favourite mapping services. Things like fares and fare zones become of interest, not just raw distances and traffic on routes. > There’s no need to make it a moral crusade [..] Unfortunately there seems to be no broad agreement on exactly how you make places "beautiful, clean [and] safe" if they aren't.

keiferski 3y ago
There is plenty of broad agreement, you just have to look at Japan, or China, or Singapore, or Turkey, Poland, or Switzerland, or Korea, or another dozen countries around the world that have clean, safe, and (sufficiently) beautiful public transport systems. The bar is really not that high.
- logifail 3y ago
  > There is plenty of broad agreement, you just have to look at Japan, or China, or Singapore, or Turkey, Poland, or Switzerland, or Korea, or another dozen countries around the world that have clean, safe, and (sufficiently) beautiful public transport systems. The bar is really not that high. So all those cities/countries where public transport is not clean and safe have to just copy - for instance - Singapore or China? Q: What's stopping them? That's what I mean about lack of broad agreement.
lozenge 3y ago
Hardly anybody needs to get public transport for a supermarket in London, they are within 15 minutes walk.

MarkSweep 3y ago

I’ve been trying to commute by train in the Bay Area and I’m probably going to give up based on this. The VTA train smells of pot and the CalTrain often smells of sewage. Periodically there are crazy people yelling on the VTA and regularly there are people having could-have-been-an-email loud conferences calls on CalTrain. I really like trains and dislike car dependent cities. But it’s hard for me to walk-the-talk when it’s so unpleasant so consistently.

inferiorhuman 3y ago
I used to take Caltrain fairly regularly and never once smelled sewage. The drunken baseball fans were a problem though.
- MarkSweep 3y ago
  Sewage is a bit strong of a word for it, but sometimes the cars with a bathroom smell a bit ripe.

judge2020 3y ago

While true, the point of a moral crusade is that city planners generally cannot go against their constituents' wishes, so if they are all house and car people, nothing will be done to favor denser housing or a better light rail experience. Changing the minds of people and getting them involved will create a feedback loop of people complaining to their city, attending meetings, and pushing for projects that solve these things. It can't happen in the shadows because the money to do these projects won't get allocated without support.

karmelapple 3y ago
Those residents are basically pulling up the ladder behind them, and it's depressing to see. Appealing to their moral side seems... perhaps necessary, because it seems a vocal minority simply do not want multi-family housing in their neighborhood at all. Look at the pushback by NIMBYs at city meetings across the US when anything like somewhat dense housing is proposed: right off the bat, I have literally never heard of any community collectively saying, "this sounds reasonable." I would be happy to be proven wrong. Instead, it's pushback after pushback, claiming everything from character of the neighborhood to shadows from a tall building (even if the building is only 5 stories high, and most buildings in the neighborhood are 3 stories tall). There's also conspicuously rare talk from those NIMBYs claiming what they do want. Instead, at the start of a project, it's always vague, "well not THAT many units!" or "well the traffic will get SO much worse!" I've never seen specifics like, "We need 30 units or less in this proposal because of reason X and Y." Instead, it's just negotiation trying to get it as low as possible. Basically, trying to pull up the ladder as much as possible to minimize people moving to the area to folks who can afford a fairly expensive single family home. Any single family home is fairly expensive now it seems these days, across the USA, relatively to the area it's in. It's depressing, and I'm not sure how to get people to change those attitudes. One thought: have people attend these meetings who are not yet residents of the neighborhoods, but would consider it if they could move into one of these developments. Of course, NIMBYs would likely be outraged that folks from outside of their neighborhood are levying their opinion... even though the NIMBYs themselves are not vocalizing considering the opinions of people who want to move to the area.

UtopiaPunk 3y ago

Do you think cleanliness and perceived safety* are more important than more frequent and faster public transit? I'm not asking in a combatitive way, just discussing. I think these are all important for encouraging Americans to use public transit more, but, imo, convenience is the single thing biggest factor that gets the general population to take up something in this country. If a car is more convenient than a bus, then most people will choose the car. *I say "perceived safety," because vibes seem to matter more than actual safety. Like, the stats on car wrecks, drunk driving, distracted driving, and so on are alarming. But when I think of someone concerned about "safety," I imagine someone being uncomfortable around people they feel are sketchy.

keiferski 3y ago
I’m not sure I’d say more important, but definitely of equal importance. Especially in terms of how people perceive public transit; i.e. is it just for people that can’t afford a car, or is it clean, comfortable, and a viable alternative to a car?
andromeduck 3y ago
They are to most women, at least in my friend group.
dilap 3y ago
In somewhere like SF, yeah, definitely, in my experience. Riding the BART is disgusting. I think an interesting thing to remember about perceived safety, statistical safety, and actual safety, is that they are all different things -- you can't just look at stats to determine actual safety. E.g., I was involved in a couple of incidents involving attacks in SF that I am sure were not reflected in the stats. (As well as numerous thefts, though that's not a safety issue per se.)
bombcar 3y ago
Safety and speed are tied together; if you have to wait 15 minutes at a bus stop for the next bus that has all sorts of safety implications, if a bus arrives every 2 minutes it will feel very different. Convenience is a big part of it, sure, but even Americans will use transit when it works for them, even if it is not faster (it is almost NEVER faster than driving a car unless you do strange restrictions or include a very-high-speed segment). But you only need a few bad experiences on transit to put you off it when you have other options.

joe_the_user 3y ago

It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit Yes they do. US public transit is terrible and various groups like Strong Towns describe this and explain why. Things like the way buses wind-up the first thing cut in budget crises etc are important parts of the barrier to ending a car-based urbanism. See a multitude of article here: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/category/Public+Transit https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/category/Public+Transit

cassac 3y ago
I think the ops point was that even if they want to, they don’t want to. I can’t comment on the MN light rail now as I haven’t been on it for a few years, but the green line used to be essentially an open air drug market and the blue line I almost got stabbed. Add in a few instances of homeless on homeless violence and driving starts looking like a great option. That’s not even covering how poorly ran it is. I want to ride it… but I don’t want to ride it.
- tokyolights2 3y ago
  That is a self-reinforcing cycle. There have been long and successful campaigns by car companies and other self-interested entities in the US to associate public transportation with being poor. Just like how a city street is safer per-capita if there are more people on it, public transit is safer if it is more well-used. I see this in seattle. When I am commuting in the morning or in the evening my bus is full of yuppies and working class people getting to their job. But if I take the bus on the weekend or during the off hours when well-adjusted people are not on it, the bus is a much less inviting place. I don't know how to solve the problem other than to believe in the system and hope that other people do as well.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    All one has to do is charge a fare, enforce it, and other existing laws. Used to be a simple contract. That was abandoned. While I was a long-term advocate of public transportation, no longer can recommend it. Certainly not for my family in this city. Not like a “law and order” candidate is ever getting elected again in this state. Even a more compassionate version I’d support. Unexpectedly Rio de Janeiro does this a lot better than California.

fwungy 3y ago

Come to Sacramento and ride the light rails end to end. It isn't rocket surgery.

BrianHenryIE 3y ago
I don't get what your point is, if you could explain please. I live in Sacramento, but I rarely use the light rail. And I almost never use cars.
- fwungy 3y ago
  Depending on the route and the time of day you'll find homeless, nodded out addicts, groups of bored young people looking for a happening, insane people, and sanitary issues. Depends where and when you're going, and some is just plain luck, or lack of it.
  - BrianHenryIE 3y ago
    Thanks. I wasn’t sure were you suggesting it was fine or awful! I’ve only ever taken the Gold line, and it’s been uneventful. But, as I say, not often.

oatmeal1 3y ago

I've heard that researchers determined that - roughly speaking - traffic congestion increases until the fastest way to get to your destination is through modes of transportation that are not cars.

nayuki 3y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQY6WGOoYis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQY6WGOoYis "Do Your Buses Get Stuck in Traffic? Traffic solutions & the Downs-Thomson Paradox"

wnc3141 3y ago

I lived in Denmark for a year a few years ago during University and lived with a Family, and remember that for most families not living within the densest core of the city owned one car but used transit for most if not all local trips. The thing is, the entire society (at least in Copenhagen) is built around car-lite life (for example small corner grocery everywhere instead of large supermarkets). Additionally there is such low abject poverty that there is little tension with crime, homelessness etc. My point is, lack of interest in public transit is merely symptomatic of larger issues we as Americans face, such as sprawl, existing infrastructure, crime, inequality etc.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Exactly my perception of Denmark. The core of Copenhagen is very bike friendly and many people cycle to work (though there are a lot of cars as well). The rest of the country is pretty car-dependent, though cycling is still more practical than in many American cities and towns. The smaller towns are walkable in the core but surrounded by farmland where you need a car to get anywhere.
Moldoteck 3y ago
low crime is not just a given, its a result of the design. A properly designed dense city planning reduces crime by default(people are less likely to commit crime if other people are watching and public spaces and buildings are designed for this purpose. Not just this- the social housing is cool too because it blocks concentration of marginalised people in one place, making it unsafe and rather spreads those people evenly across the city. There are many subtle things that are implemented in nordic countries to reduce crimes and its super interesting

milkytron 3y ago

> It’s odd to me that these anti-car polemics never talk about why Americans don’t want to ride public transit, while people in most other countries have zero issues adopting it wholesale. This is talked about if you follow urbanism communities. In addition to the reasons you mentioned, it just doesn't go to where people want to be. The last century of urban planning in the US has left transit and alternative modes of transportation as an afterthought or not thought of at all. Land use is a major problem. In my particular city, half of the stations are surrounded by parking lots instead of actual destinations. Transit in the US has been treated as a band aid to car traffic, pollution, and costs. If it were funded and prioritized appropriately, we would see more transit oriented development and ridership. Lack of ridership is seen as a reason to decrease funding. But when ridership increases, you get improved safety because there are more eyes to witness and report a crime. I don't think most people make it moralistic crusade, but those kinds of comments and attitudes get the most attention. If you delve into the communities and read the relevant books, you may find that nuance is actually appreciated and discussed quite a bit.

sokoloff 3y ago
It’s great that it’s being discussed but until it’s addressed, it’s just a bunch of words and doesn’t improve anyone’s life.

dukeyukey 3y ago

I genuinely think the answer is _way_ simpler and less dramatic than people think. In general, a city is more walkable and dense the earlier it developed. NYC and Boston are walkable cos they're old. Parts of Chicago are, but it did most of it's growing post-car so most of it isn't. LA did practically almost all it's growing post-car and so is awful for walkers. It's the same in Europe - most of London is walkable because it hit a multi-million population pre-car. Milton Keynes is a concrete car-jungle because it only developed post-war.

bertil 3y ago
I’ve lived in several barely finished neighbourhoods and all were walkable: Hammarby Sjöstad in Stokholm, Jätkassari in Helsinki, the new Ancoats in Manchester… All smelled of fresh paint and wet concrete. All were built with the intent to be walkable, and all are wonderful places to live. I never felt the need for a car once. What matters is not the age but the intent of the designers.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  So have I. That's why I said _general_.
digging 3y ago
That's wrong. Many, many cities had walkable neighborhoods bulldozed and replaced with highways and parking lots, intentionally. In both the US and the EU. Many of the most walkable places have been reclaimed from cars.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  Yes, I've lived in a couple of them. That's why I said _general_.
  - digging 3y ago
    Well, is it generally true though? I don't even think it's very useful to talk about... compared to discussing how car manufacturers and sellers have intentionally stripped us of good urban design over the last century, and the ways in which some cities have undone some of that damage.

Karrot_Kream 3y ago

Along with some of the other great answers you're getting, just look at the difference in funding. Highway expansions and arterials are granted huge federal dollars. But look at how much funding your local bus system gets. I can guarantee you almost any freeway widening project in a given location in the US is apportioned more money than the local transit network, except for a few prominent exceptions like NYC. Part of this is a structural issue. The Federal government has a robust system of funding road network expansion but has no equivalent system of funding transit. Even after the passage of the recent infrastructure bill, look at the apportionment to maintaining Federal roadway compared to Federal transit funding. You can't compare a budget Android phone for a developing market with a flagship Android or a new iPhone.

hcarvalhoalves 3y ago

It's horrible by design – to sell cars.

local_crmdgeon 3y ago

https://www.strongtowns.org/ https://www.strongtowns.org/ is what you're looking for. They have deep dives and do really interesting financial analysis.

HPsquared 3y ago

I think income is a big factor: average Americans can afford to run cars, and have for a very long time - this is not so much the case in most countries.

jltsiren 3y ago

All these issues arise from political priorities. If you want good public transit, you must build it as infrastructure for the middle class. If the target audience is not the middle class, nobody really cares if your public transit works. You want to build a city where using public transit is the default, and driving is for situations where people have special needs. Public transit is not a social program. Whether the poor can afford public transit on their own is mostly irrelevant. If you want social programs, start separate social programs. Don't ruin other programs with unrelated goals.

bombcar 3y ago
This is a big part of it. Almost unironcially you could make public transit work better by giving every single homeless person in the city a car, and then spending money on keeping the transit operational, safe, and clean. 34% of kids ride a school bus to school, and that's basically transit designed for the middle class.

nradov 3y ago

One way to make public transit safe and clean would be to provide housing, addition treatment, and mental health services. There are a lot of people with serious behavioral problems who use public transit as rolling mental hospitals because they have no where else to go.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

userbinator 3y ago

while people in most other countries have zero issues adopting it wholesale Because on average they don't value personal freedom as much as Americans: There's something innately offputting about the thought of getting on a vehicle that is mostly out of one's own control, along with many others, and being taken somewhere instead of controlling one's own vehicle to a destination. Obviously, this causes public transit to evolve to a bare minimum service.

loa_in_ 3y ago
There's a story in my (EU) city of when a bus driver near the end of his shift drove the bus up to his house absentmindedly much to surprise of the passengers.
Moldoteck 3y ago
I think they/we value personal freedom, but in a different way, especially in well designed cities/countries. Being able to get into a train/bus and arrive to destination without the hassle of searching for parking, being concentrated on road, avoid drinking alcohol, and spending a s** ton of money on buying car and fuel and taxes for them, like all this adds up and freedom of movement by car takes other freedoms from the people. Also it's interesting that americans value their freedom of movement so much but bike optimised infra is almost nonexistent and bikes are even more "pro freedom" since you don't need to take exams, register the bike, pay for fuel, you can usually drink some alcohol no problem and in case of ebikes you can charge them at home and ebikes can cover big distances as well but still, US is designed for cars&big cars only
archagon 3y ago
Let me tell you, I’m not feeling so great about my “personal freedom” when I’m circling the block for half an hour trying to find a sliver of parking.

jhbadger 3y ago

The LA Metro system actually is quite beautiful and far cleaner than say, the NYC or DC systems (cynics will say that's because it isn't used as much).

anovikov 3y ago

It's too late to do this, it's not possible in a country that isn't all-white. Even in Europe usability of public transport deteriorates as other races mix in. Now there's no fix.

bootwoot 3y ago

There's a cause and effect issue here. It requires lot of money to go from an unloved public transit system used only by the poorest individuals to a fast, reliable, clean system that the wealthier classes with options would choose to use over their personal vehicles. But, that investment is generally decided on by that same wealthier class that is currently choosing their personal vehicle. It's impossible to start the economic ball rolling without some evangelizing to capture hearts and minds of those that aren't currently using or interested in investing in the mass transit system.

Apofis 3y ago

I grew up in NYC with the most amazing public transport system out there in the world and still absolutely despised taking the bus. Try 100 degree 100 humidity summers while waiting for the bus or the inverse. It's really not compelling. Car > Taxi > Subway > Bus (I'd rather skip the trip entirely) No offense to bus drivers they're amazing.