3 ms·

Hopefully this money goes to policing the subway too, people have a lot of valid safety concerns leading them to take their car or a cab. In India, you have to

Hopefully this money goes to policing the subway too, people have a lot of valid safety concerns leading them to take their car or a cab. In India, you have to pass through a metal detector to ride the metro. It seems like in US, we are trending towards needing to do the same thing.

brailsafe 3y ago
I would assume you're right in NYC, but I feel like this claim is made A LOT to sort of excuse car driving in many cities with different degrees of transit availability and threat risk. I feel like most of the time it's more accurate to say "people fear for their safety" rather than that their concerns are actually valid. Fear can be driven by only a few extreme examples that get a lot of coverage, meanwhile a lot of the time it would be much more likely to be concerned for the likelihood you'll get into a terrible car accident. I'd doubtful that there's some sufficient level of policing that would make fearful people change their mind, because they're not jsut overcoming what they perceive to be extreme risk, but also overcome what they perceive to be very comfortable travel. Much like how to lose weight, you can't just go and do a bicep curl once in a while, you have to totally change your diet and habits for the long-term.
- welshwelsh 3y ago
  Violent crime might be rare, but unpleasant interactions with strangers are common. Panhandling, for example, can make people feel unsafe. You can never be sure how a person will react if you say no. It's illegal to panhandle on the subway, but still happens all the time.
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    I guess my point was the delta between how unsafe people are and how unsafe they feel. While it's important to build and improve systems like transit in a way that helps people feel comfortable, a whole lot of any given car driving majority that would make an argument against safety are probably some of the same people who'd buy a gun to ward against a hypothetical situation where someone is targeting them with another gun. I never had these fears, the car I already had was just the easier option, until it broke down. If someone were to consult me about my transit experience (albeit in a very different place) I'd tell them "Ya, sometimes there are panhandlers, sometimes there are super drunk people, but tbh I can't remember any specific examples because they're just random background noise from time to time". Meanwhile there are plenty of times I've almost been killed by cars in relatively mundane situations that I can remember specific examples of, including those I almost caused while driving and making a trivial mistake. Should people be more concerned about hypothetical discomfort resulting from someone asking for money, or the very predictable consumption of time, energy, money, and every day life altering risk of one wrong move by anyone around them? The latter doesn't mean I never drive, but for the 2-3 weeks a year I might need one, I just rent it, and then I'm reminded of why I don't want one, but it's nice sometimes.
o1y32 3y ago
Sorry to break the news, that's not going to happen in the foreseeable future.
itsmartapuntocm 3y ago
I feel safer riding MARTA here in Atlanta than driving with the other lunatics on the highway.
woodruffw 3y ago
It's hard to imagine a scenario in which a metal detector on the NYC subway is useful in a way that isn't extremely annoying to the millions of people who carry their laptops, phones, etc. with them to work each day. (My only experience with a "metal detector" on a metro system is Bangkok's metro. The detector was unplugged at the first station, and everybody was waved past it at the second station.)
insanitybit 3y ago
What would a metal detector accomplish? There's something like 5-10 murders on the subway per year and those numbers are fairly stable, with small spikes around the pandemic when ridership went down drastically. I'm all for a safer subway but your tone seems to imply that this is some out of control thing whereas it's extremely unlikely, statistically, that you will have any problem whatsoever on the subway.

brailsafe 3y ago

I would assume you're right in NYC, but I feel like this claim is made A LOT to sort of excuse car driving in many cities with different degrees of transit availability and threat risk. I feel like most of the time it's more accurate to say "people fear for their safety" rather than that their concerns are actually valid. Fear can be driven by only a few extreme examples that get a lot of coverage, meanwhile a lot of the time it would be much more likely to be concerned for the likelihood you'll get into a terrible car accident. I'd doubtful that there's some sufficient level of policing that would make fearful people change their mind, because they're not jsut overcoming what they perceive to be extreme risk, but also overcome what they perceive to be very comfortable travel. Much like how to lose weight, you can't just go and do a bicep curl once in a while, you have to totally change your diet and habits for the long-term.

welshwelsh 3y ago
Violent crime might be rare, but unpleasant interactions with strangers are common. Panhandling, for example, can make people feel unsafe. You can never be sure how a person will react if you say no. It's illegal to panhandle on the subway, but still happens all the time.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  I guess my point was the delta between how unsafe people are and how unsafe they feel. While it's important to build and improve systems like transit in a way that helps people feel comfortable, a whole lot of any given car driving majority that would make an argument against safety are probably some of the same people who'd buy a gun to ward against a hypothetical situation where someone is targeting them with another gun. I never had these fears, the car I already had was just the easier option, until it broke down. If someone were to consult me about my transit experience (albeit in a very different place) I'd tell them "Ya, sometimes there are panhandlers, sometimes there are super drunk people, but tbh I can't remember any specific examples because they're just random background noise from time to time". Meanwhile there are plenty of times I've almost been killed by cars in relatively mundane situations that I can remember specific examples of, including those I almost caused while driving and making a trivial mistake. Should people be more concerned about hypothetical discomfort resulting from someone asking for money, or the very predictable consumption of time, energy, money, and every day life altering risk of one wrong move by anyone around them? The latter doesn't mean I never drive, but for the 2-3 weeks a year I might need one, I just rent it, and then I'm reminded of why I don't want one, but it's nice sometimes.

o1y32 3y ago

Sorry to break the news, that's not going to happen in the foreseeable future.

itsmartapuntocm 3y ago

I feel safer riding MARTA here in Atlanta than driving with the other lunatics on the highway.

woodruffw 3y ago

It's hard to imagine a scenario in which a metal detector on the NYC subway is useful in a way that isn't extremely annoying to the millions of people who carry their laptops, phones, etc. with them to work each day. (My only experience with a "metal detector" on a metro system is Bangkok's metro. The detector was unplugged at the first station, and everybody was waved past it at the second station.)

insanitybit 3y ago

What would a metal detector accomplish? There's something like 5-10 murders on the subway per year and those numbers are fairly stable, with small spikes around the pandemic when ridership went down drastically. I'm all for a safer subway but your tone seems to imply that this is some out of control thing whereas it's extremely unlikely, statistically, that you will have any problem whatsoever on the subway.