zlacker

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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>uoaei+w1
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>uoaei+w1
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
I agree. At its best, public transit can be a better experience than driving. But the average experience is often worse than driving.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
> 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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>logifa+t5
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.

>>keifer+j3
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.

>>keifer+2b
> 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.

>>Jaysch+w3
And worse includes slower by 2x or more than driving, even with all the BS driving includes like traffic jams and finding parking.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>judge2+b7
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.

>>Utopia+4M
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?

>>keifer+(OP)
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

>>keifer+(OP)
Come to Sacramento and ride the light rails end to end. It isn't rocket surgery.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>Utopia+4M
They are to most women, at least in my friend group.

>>Utopia+4M
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.)

>>Utopia+4M
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.

>>falcol+Kg
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.

>>keifer+j3
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
> 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.

>>joe_th+Ha1
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>dukeyu+hl1
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.

>>dukeyu+hl1
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.

>>MarkSw+Z4
I used to take Caltrain fairly regularly and never once smelled sewage. The drunken baseball fans were a problem though.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>cassac+6k1
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.

>>cassac+6k1
What exactly are you adding here?

I've noted that public transit is unpleasant 'cause it's underfunded and poorly planned. There's not much money for security, the routes are bad and irregular and so only those with no other choice ride it and so it's the very poor and that can result in bad behavior - plus those aiming to victimize step in as well.

>>Jaysch+w3
That’s because driving throws out all the externalities outside the window: pollution, noise, violence, the cost of roads, cutting cities with hostile canyons…

Saying driving is better is like saying littering is more convenient than picking up your trash.

>>Jaysch+Z2
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.

>>Jaysch+Z2
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.

>>bertil+gn1
So have I. That's why I said _general_.

>>diggin+qn1
Yes, I've lived in a couple of them. That's why I said _general_.

>>keifer+j3
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
It's horrible by design – to sell cars.

>>dukeyu+Ro1
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.

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

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>falcol+Kg
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.

>>fwungy+jb1
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.

>>slondr+qt1
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.

>>tokyol+Qn1
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.

>>BrianH+kv1
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.

>>cassac+6k1
We created a society where homeless people have so few means, they turn to public transit just to have a roof over their heads and stay warm. Then we lament how public transit has become “undesirable”, never recognizing the active steps we take to make it so.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>inferi+En1
Sewage is a bit strong of a word for it, but sometimes the cars with a bathroom smell a bit ripe.

>>wnc314+mh1
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.

>>milkyt+6j1
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.

>>Utopia+4M
A stinking homeless person getting in your face is more visceral than a car wreck you aren't involved in.

>>mixmas+2D1
While I'm with you on fare enforcement, there are costs associated with fare collection. Usually it takes passengers time to pull out change and they can be confused about how and where to pay, adding to delays. Building the infrastructure for fare payment at gates is expensive and requires security to maintain and dissuade vandals.

Boudin's recall in SF also shows that there's certainly support for a tougher on crime stance, whether or not you agree with it.

>>oatmea+Bb1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQY6WGOoYis "Do Your Buses Get Stuck in Traffic? Traffic solutions & the Downs-Thomson Paradox"

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>Karrot+WQ1
There are costs for doing it properly, and there are costs for not:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...

>>bentle+FD1
It’s a prerequisite that must be fixed to restore public transport in this area:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-14/horror-t...

>>Dig1t+d3
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.

>>Dig1t+d3
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.

>>slondr+qt1
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.

>>zzzeek+z32
It's exactly this. When I was young I had a Linux machine as my daily driver, and I would putter and futz with it and make it do what I wanted.

At some point I realized that I was spending my time at home doing what I was paid to do at work and I bought a Mac and moved on with my life.

The car as personal private time is also huge, it's one of the last private defended areas we have.

>>jltsir+xH1
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>keifer+(OP)
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).

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>fwungy+iD1
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.

>>sum1zi+A3
> 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...

>>Utopia+4M
Of course cleanliness and safety is important. It sucks to ride in a stinking bus next to a passing out hobo. Wether it's 20 minutes or 40 minutes. Same applies if you have to carefully watch your backpack to not have it's bottom cut.

>>userbi+282
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.

>>Karrot+WQ1
In 2023, any transit system that requires more than quickly tapping your phone, wallet, watch, etc to the the turnstile is decades behind the world technologically and the inconvenience of looking for change is a problem because of the city council or state not investing in public transit. The vast majority of mass transit riders are not tourists from the suburbs using the system as a novelty that would be confused anyway.

I am personally not a fan of NFC becoming the standard in the US, since it requires strategically placing credit cards in your wallet instead of using a card specifically made for transit fare, but it does make it so large swathes of the population never even have to think about going to a fare machine.

>>Larrik+Nf2
A system that relies on turnstiles is decades behind as well. Best practices in much of Europe use proof of payment and cheap monthly passes relative to single tickets, so most users have monthly passes.

This cuts down on access time, infrastructure cost, fare collection cost, and minimizes marginal cost per trip for users (i.e. zero).

In Germany, they just introduced a monthly 49€ ticket that covers transit (and regional trains) for the whole country.

>>zzzeek+z32
You are still safer riding that public transit then riding a car. And it is usable when you are too old/sick to drive. And it is nitnlike traffic jam were unheard of for cars.

>>ant6n+7i2
I usually compare how far behind the US is to Japan. How does a system without turnstiles work in Europe? In Japan, the shinkansen can still actually be used with their cards and tapping pass the turnstile, but nearly everyone besides business passengers buys a ticket for the one off far trips. I can't even imagine short trip subways not having a turnstile.

Even in the US, monthly swipe passes have been a thing in even the systems that used tokens.

>>zzzeek+z32
Agree with what you wrote - but I just want to point out the craziness of completely full train cars!

That means there is a ton of pent up demand. Why can't NY meet this demand? The tracks are already there!

>>wnc314+mh1
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

>>userbi+282
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

>>Larrik+Mj2
You tap your card in the bus, when you pass by the tapping devices.

>>Larrik+Mj2
But monthly passes, for example in NYC, are expensive relative to single tickets, so adoption is relatively low.

If everyone has a monthly pass, fare evasion is less of an issue even in an open system. Fares are checked on a sampling basis with fines for not having a ticket.

>>ant6n+7i2
Could you justify the term "best practises"?

Last time I took an U-Bahn in Berlin, a guy was urinating in front of me. I have not seen such sociopathic behaviour in public transport in Tokyo, Singapore, Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing. All are turnstile based. I feel that they are strictly better in almost all dimensions than e.g. Berlin's public transport. In all you pay with some variant of NFC tech, e.g. your phone. Zero effort.

Fine-grained access control also allows for better understanding of train usage, and capacity planning.

Cost of transport is orthogonal to access.

>>logifa+t5
Hardly anybody needs to get public transport for a supermarket in London, they are within 15 minutes walk.

>>ant6n+br2
Fines only hurt working people. The homeless just ignore them.

>>Utopia+4M
The thing is that "safety" isn't just about like, whether you'll actually die or be injured.

Spending time around degenerates degrades your life. It changes how you see people around you. It makes you see other people as threats first and people second.

Trauma is real too. Seeing someone nod out from being on drugs, or fights, or whatever else, puts you on edge.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>mafrib+nC2
Asian cities are very different from the West, so not sure lessons apply. Although Berlin is probably more affordable in PPP terms, and relative to population has more rapid transit than those asian cities (500km for 4.6Mio ppl).

In virtually all dimensions, Berlin transit is better than every US system, Except NYC. Which is ironically the only place Ive ever seen anybody pee in the subway, and that one is supposedly “protected” by turnstiles.

The US has a homelessness epidemic, Berlin has some problems in this area as well. This is a problem thats orthogonal to the transit system, and has to be solved by society at large. Turnstiles don’t solve homelessness.

>>ant6n+Qb4
I did not bring up US public transport as an example of "best practises". I agree that Berlin has a extensive and well-developed public transport, and that is commendable.

> Turnstiles don’t solve homelessness.

Nobody claims they do. My anecdote illustrated the opposite direction: barriers remove one related cluster of reasons, related to personal safety, why some avoid public transport and prefer to drive by car, namely the fear to be accosted by vagrants, pickpockets, and other forms of sociopathy.

>>userbi+282
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.

>>joe_th+Ha1
It's a self reinforcing cycle. Public transit sucks, ergo it is cut, it becomes worse is less useful, ridership declines, nobody is riding it, defunded more - rinse wash repeat. See transit is horrible... Seeing well done public transit is eye opening. We also don't consider sometimes that driving is terrible too in cities. 30 minutes to get down an on ramp, 30 more to go across a bridge. At some point bad public transit and grid locked cities is just.. dystopian. Fundamentally a problem of scale, personal cars just can't move many millions in and out of a city, the math of how much time and space that requires doesn't work.

>>zzzeek+z32
I am anti car, but not anti car for everyone in all cases.

"I suspect anti car people just don't see these things as that big of a deal."

I do see it, and it is a huge deal. Those problems seem like issues of underfunding (a d more).. the amount spent on roads is just astronomical. If there were any kind of equity of personal vs public transport, the subway would be gold plated! (Perhaps not, but funding easily could be tripled and still not be at an equitable share of subsidy funding [yes, I do want those property tax dollars back and to stop paying for endless tarmac!])

Bottom line, the issues I do think are seen. It's that they are symptoms of neglect and a culture that does not value public transit (despite personal transit does not scale to what is needed!). I'm emphasizing that personal transit is a non-solution. Hence without a first rate public system, traffic, gridlock - nobody wins.

>>keifer+(OP)
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.

>>mafrib+Pn4
But they don’t solve that as well, cf. NYC subway.

>>ant6n+IL5
Do you think this has something to do with the fact that turnstile jumping has been effectively legalised (in the sense of not being prosecuted) in NY?

Question for you: can you quantify, what fraction of crime and other forms of sociopathy in the NY public transport system you estimate to be committed by passengers who paid their fare? (My estimation: less than 1 percent.)

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that a simple metal gate alone can completely solve complex social dysfunction, a simple metal gate can however help, and, when we refer to turnstile access being desirable, we implicitly assume that we can reasonably expect turnstile use being adhered to, and violations punished with at least moderately high probability.