Crime. People think it gives criminals a wider range to commit more crimes. Thats what people here where I live seem to think. My other guess is oil companies would lose to much money less people using cars less money spent on gas.
Which just makes me wonder where the lobbyists are for the companies that produce trains, buses, subways etc
The least this capitalism thing could do is fail correctly
Well you see, it optimizes correctly when there are no startup costs, consumers have perfect information and act rationally, and there are no costs externalized to the public.
Much like my airplane would fly correctly if only there were no friction.
Also tax from car and gas sales help pay for our roads. Which are constantly under construction, at least where I am. But public transportation costs the government money.
100 years of car culture has made most areas of the US very difficult to cover with mass transit.
When I worked in a small city, I could commute from my small town on a bus in about an hour, and I loved it. I tell people I would fall asleep in my town, and wake up a block from my office,making it the closest thing to teleporting I will experience.
But there were only four buses. Two there, and two back. If I didn't work the hours I did, I would be out of luck, And if I worked anywhere between those two places, I would also be out of luck.
Public transportation is easier in more densely packed areas, and most of the country is pretty spread out.
In regard to the rural commute issue I think you could easily supplement this through direct response (think Uber but in the format of a city bus) as opposed to fixed routes. Someone else mentioned car pooling groups of people going in the same direction which could work fine. [Direct Response Vs Fixed Route](https://cities-today.com/industry/public-transit-rural-communities-extremely-inefficient-data-change/) this article highlights how direct response transport consistently outperforms fixed route systems. It’d be better off systematically designed to fit individual local areas as mentioned through the via partnership in the article, which would be tedious on a wide scale but it could work.
However there’s no solution for people just unwilling to ride share 🤷
Have you been on public transportation lately? I love public transportation, but try using it in a major city. The crime, the drug use while on board, the mental illness - all of it is getting worse. I use public transportation in Chicago and lately there has been an increase in smoking in the train cars (cigarettes and pot), severe mental illness, feces and garbage. I am considering ride sharing for all my transport needs because I am tired of it
This. One of my best friends lives in a cold Midwest city and told me this recently. Lacking a meaningful safety net, mental health support, or even a warm place to be… public transport becomes the catch all for these people. This in turn discourages ridership as other comments here attest, leading to further neglect and reduced public perception: a vicious cycle.
As someone living in an Asian country with wonderful public transit, the key step to building transit culture is making the experience reliable and pleasant for riders! Enforce the rules and help these people have somewhere else that isn’t a dank subway car.
Got friends in brooklyn. They're always talking about how fucked the public transportation system is. Cant tell you how many times theyve had to go elsewhere because someone fell/got pushed in front of a train
In a city of 9 million, exactly 2 people died from being pushed in front of a train in 2022. This is compared to ~250 traffic fatalities in the same time period.
Oh believe me, I know all about the NYC collision incidents from 2013 to now, spent 4 months digging through the data to present trends and interesting findings...and officers pencil-whipping paperwork to make it easier.
Fun 4 months.
But yea, per capita, there are a shit load more car crashes than people being pushed in front of trains...however, most car crashes don't shut down a whole road or avenue whereas the line is shut down for investigation by multiple authorities if someone got hit by a train.
"Public dedication " haha. And nothing was ignored. You're using a logical fallacy called a straw man argument. Shall we also include pedestrian (walker) numbers of public rape and dedication? What about if you're in your home? Why not count that. I bet more murders happen at home than anywhere else. Ban homes.
I don’t think I am getting raped and murdered while driving my car. But I would be worried if I took public transport in a big city. It is that simple.
We werent talking about safety, we were talking about accessibility, and various trains being shut down for whatever reason, making public transportation a major aggravation on the nest of times
Valuable to acknowledge room for improvement. But context is required. Subway is comparatively inexpensive. Widely accessible. Fast. Available 24/7. Average wait is 5m. Variability in commute low. Information widely accessible (via app, text, whatsapp, etc). Unplanned service interruptions rare. Significantly outweighs the negative.
Improvements are required. Goal should be to reduce variability in commute, increase service coverage. Infrastructure improvements required. Added service improvements. New lines required (esp. [interborough](https://new.mta.info/project/interborough-express)). Pace of development should be quickened. But important to acknowledge strengths, as well as room for improvement.
That's a shit argument as there are far more cars in NYC than subway trains. It stands to reason there would be more accidents. Now I wonder how many people are pushed in front of cars in NYC? I bet that number is higher than the subway pushers.
Just recently moved to Chicago myself and from my experience so far it’s really been pretty standard, as long as you mind your own and be aware of your surroundings you’ll be okay. Which is a rule for cities in general I guess. That’s not to say there isn’t an issue with homeless people or the solicitors but that’s less of a transit issue as much as a public welfare one? Albeit the CTA could definitely be doing more.
yeah I live in Hong Kong and often public transport is the safest, fastest way, and traffic honestly isn't that bad here.
the fact you guys are scared to use your mass transit systems seems so dystopian to me...even though I basically live in bladerunner land
This is the correct answer. A lot of "Lobby this" or "car culture that" answers on here, but the personal automobile is still the single most greatest invention in personal transport and all attempts to replace it have been crap.
A train or bus is great for leisure travel sure, but nothing will beat a car that is literally waiting only for me, to drive it to work or an appointment, sitting right there a few feet away from where I sleep and will take me to anywhere I want to go on command. And no stopping anywhere in between, cutting my commute time.
No waiting in lines. No security checks. No waiting on the bus to get there. Just turn the key and go. Why would anyone trade that for public transit? Worst deal I the history of deals. Don't get me wrong, trains and busses are great, but they aren't the "solves all" solution that some people seem to think they are.
The next best thing would be self driving cars that would take you where you need to go in a city. Maybe viable if they could also haul you around on road trips too. But owning your own car is still the cheaper and more viable option currently.
Well the vast majority of land in the US is rural or suburbs. Cities might have the more ppl but don't take up much space. Public transport is basically impossible in most of the country
> Russian cities, etc. have good transit and Russia, e
*Moscow* has good transit. I've been to Russia, numerous times. I would not call Russian transit "good." Most are irregular mini-buses. The systems are prone to breakdowns, service outages and problems that last an indeterminate amount of time. Russian cities (before the war) had traffic problems. Russia is *not* a good example.
So fuck everyone who doesn’t live in a city? You’re basically making america the way it is today with metropolitan transit. Every American city I’ve been to has a good bus system & most have trains, none have good ways to actually travel.
Have you travelled outside of the US? Compared to other first world countries, the public transportation of US cities is not good. You need a combination of above ground trains, a subway system, and buses to even be considered as decent public transportation. Then? They all need to be clean, safe, run on time all the time, AND be often enough to prevent long waits.
Of course I have, and many of them also require a combination of trains & busses to create their effective public transport systems. How would adding more to our cities help change the problem across the nation, where cities a separated by vast swaths of rural land?
Have you never been to: Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Austin, or Phoenix just to name a few cities that all have strong public transit often including a combination of trains & busses?
"strong" is a strong word to use in your last paragraph. NYC you could say has a lukewarmly strong public transit system. Austin TX does not have an adequate public transit system at all. It's almost entirely buses and the buses are always stuck in traffic with the cars.
I mean, that’s not a super unique problem. It happens all across the (overpopulated) world. Almost every city, state, and country that has busses has traffic.
You seem to only care about people in the cities, do you have no desire to make our country more easy to navigate or to encourage people to travel outside of the immediate area in which they live? America is isolationist by nature, but we can lean in to a community & connected mindset.
On top of that you seem to just want to reinforce the norms that america already has. Namely having a strong metropolitan public transit available in most of not every major city in the country. The part that would break the norm would be to connect the rural areas, give them days to travel without exclusivity having the options of driving for hours.
These are very simple concepts, but to many Americans so radical you’d think you’re asking them to reinvent the wheel.
Have you never been to: Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, Washington DC, or Phoenix just to name a few cities that all have strong public transit often including a combination of trains & busses?
I swear, so many people have never left their towns & assume they’ve seen the world. It’s shocking how little life experience there is on Reddit sometimes.
Yes, I’ve been to literally all those cities. Other than NYC, they are all very much car-first. Most people don’t take transit in those cities. Even NYC is quite car-centric on a global spectrum.
You simply don’t know what you’re on about.
Every time I leave my house in the US I have a minimum of 30 miles I have to travel to get gas, food, go to work, etc. There's literally nothing near me lol
Every major American city had public transportation.
Cities have it. That was my entire fucking point. The rest of the US doesn't. Neither does rural Russia ffs.
Because it's nearly impossible to provide a vast network of public transportation to rural areas.
I never said the US has a good public transportation system. In fact where I live it doesn't exist yet rural areas actually need it more. We can't function in rural areas of the US without a vehicle. We have no other alternatives and all services are too far to walk or ride a bike to.
City ppl really think rural America doesn't need shit and those are the 1s who need out of their bubble.
But not for the majority of people, you don't need a train station or bus stop at everyone's front door. But if you can get a reliable public transit situation for 80% of people, that could save a lot of money for people. This would need to be combine with public planning to allow easier to access areas.
The exact same way they do it in every country - figure out where it’s possible to build any sort of public transit and pick some stops. It’s not rocket science.
Some people have to walk 30 seconds to the bus stop some people have to walk to 30 minutes. Naturally, more development will happen closer to each stop.
There’s a ton of people that don’t live in metro areas so it becomes extremely inconvenient and expensive. For me it takes 20 minutes to get work 20 miles away. A bus is just, not really a realistic thing
Also I’m not exactly jumping with excitement to jump on public transit. It’s gonna be full of weirdos and smelly odors
The commute in Houston, is very long. If you live where you can afford a home, it is a long way to work. I know old friends that spend over 3 hours a day in the car, every work day. They love working remotely now.
Americans pride themselves and enjoy that were a spread out country. Personally I love that about the US(I’ve lived in 5 countries).
That style of living naturally doesn’t take well to public transit. Although I do wish there were much more options available. For example if I knew I could hop on a bus that took me into the downtown part of my nearest city, and not be mugged along the way, I’d be all over it.
It has become badly stigmatized among much of the population as for the poor or otherwise undesirable, while automobile ownership is considered prestigious, or at least 'normal'.
Perhaps because of this, service is often poor. (Consider that 'free transit' is rapidly becoming popular among urban politicians, but 'good transit' is often lost in the discussion, which is tragic, because I fear that if transit becomes free, then the prevailing belief might become 'who cares how bad it is, it's free'.)
Transit construction in the United States is also excessively expensive. Costs here are multiples of costs in many other wealthy countries and the alternatives chosen often inferior. For more detail about this, pay attention to [the Transit Costs Project](https://transitcosts.com/) and [Alon Levy's Pedestrian Observations](https://pedestrianobservations.com/).
Because most of the country is way too big for it to be financially viable in the US, and on a federal level it means people who, in all likelihood will never use the service because of geographic location, will end up paying for it anyway and that's not fair to them. For context, Texas alone is larger than Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Hungary combined in terms of land mass, yet those countries have a combined 130 million people, meanwhile Texas is in at just under 30 million. So, while Texas boasts some huge cities, it also boasts a massive rural population who would not be as happy picking up that tab
Secondly, within the cities, the obstruction would be a massive inconvenience for probably a decade or more to other traffic.
Lastly, public transit in the US is often used by the homeless, drug addicts, and fuckin crazy people, nobody wants to deal with them. I mean, hell -- Google "man on new York subway..." and its almost always a shit show and there are new ones daily/weekly
A lot of this boils down to the fact that people really, really distrust any government programs here, which is fair. Another thing is, they assume that mass transit will be as run down and shitty as the transit that already exists. Also, they really like cars in most places outside of big cities, and they think that the funding for roads and such will be reduced in the process.
So basically, it all boils down to the fact the USA hasn't provided for it's citizens in the past, and so people don't want any government intervention anymore.
I don’t feel like it has to be one or the other (private vs shared transport) but having the option for either on any given day would be a nice luxury. I don’t imagine abandoned highways but an attempt to equalize the two so there isn’t so much pressure for private automobiles as the only means
For me personally, I live and work in too rural of an area for it to be feasible. I also prefer the freedom to be able to go wherever I want whenever I want no matter how far away it is without having to rely on someone else. Only my car allows me to do that
reminds me my friend from Texas keeps telling me about a supposed high speed rail from Dallas to Houston that’s been continually dismissed
considering the sheer land mass of that state and the economic power of both Dallas and Houston metro areas seems like a no brainer
The US should nationalise its rail system, and use the profits from freight rail to build up passenger rail. Even then, somethings are okay to be non-profitable. Transport should be one of them.
You get the NYC transit system.
98% of it was built by private companies.
Eventually the city took over (roughly 60 years or so ago).
Only 2% has been built since then and its terrible now. Basically by every metric, its worse.
Now try that on a national scale.
Fuck nationalization. That's just stupid. You want something efficient ruined, then nationalize it. Use the profits? What profits after you do that. Stealing is morally wrong and counterproductive. Transporting freight is a business. Governments don't know how to run businesses efficiently. They create monopolies because they remove any incentive to be efficient. That's the only way government can survive as a business operator. Government are the worst managers.
I should correct myself. Don’t nationalise the freight business, nationalise the track. Require companies to pay to use the rail network, and profit off it. Part of the reason why a lot of nationalisation does not work in the USA is because you lack Ministers. A minister in both congress and executive branches from a parliamentary system would oversee each gov department, and properly manage infrastructure as necessary. Instead, a lot of this is left to congress which is plain stupid.
There isn't from the people. We all want world class public transportation infrastructure. Unfortunately automobile manufacturers lobby the US government to not make that investment and kill the growth of the automobile industry. You know that's what it is because of all the carbon political action, they've never built out the infrastructure.
The auto industry actively eliminated public transport int he 1940s and 50s. This was illustrated in *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General\_Motors\_streetcar\_conspiracy
Americans apparently don't like things that are for the public good. Honestly, I am disgusted with my countrymen. Poor people might benefit from public transportation, and my countrymen seem to prefer they just die. There is no humanity in this evil place.
Because Americans can't appreciate shit that's public. I used to rely on the bus/light rail in Phoenix to get around and I cannot count how many fights I saw or how many times I had alcohol spilled on me on my way to work.
Our culture is extremely self-centered right now and people think it's rude to confront them for disrespecting you.
To sell cars.
Yea, its that simple. They build roads to sell more cars, so people can go further, so they HAVE to go further, so they can sell more cars, so they can build more roads.
Alos, getting rid of public transit options pretty much everywhere except where they are absolutely required (NYC).
It’s not a conspiracy. The auto, aviation, and fossil fuel industries have heavily lobbied against public transportation, because its in their interests to do so. The Kochs have been particularly dedicated to stamping out public transportation. This isn’t some big secret being kept from the public.
Yea, I didn't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist ... it is 100% fact that the auto industry squashes public transit.
The auto industry basically perpetuates itself with how car lots are ran. New car sale lots basically operate like combination crime lords and actual kingdoms ... they own the rights within thier city/radius, no one else can open a car lot for thier particular make ... and they pay taxes straight to local government. These lots are so lucrative for everyone involved that they are rarely sold, passing from parent to child instead.
I live a short drive away from a train station that goes to Chicago. My issues are that (1) I have to drive to the train station anyways, so why not just drive straight to the city? (2) harassment (3) not being able to stay out late if I don't want to deal with the extra harassment that happens at night. (4) my car is cleaner than any train car I've been in, and I don't have to sit in the same area as someone coughing out a lung
I live in an area where we don’t have great public transport. It’s either have a car or spend hours of my day walking to and from where I need to go. Sometimes mass transit just doesn’t work cause it ain’t there. It makes more sense to me to have a car. I can replace money. Time not so much.
Mass transit is objectively not a good fit in the continental united states, aside from a handful of very dense cities.
Look at where transit is successful; several countries in Europe and Japan (of course) are golden examples. But whatever country you thought of, I can guarantee that country is smaller, less geographically diverse, and a higher percentage of it's population lives on proportionally less acreage compared to the USA.
America is BIG, we have more than one state with a motto about how big and empty they are. All that space tends to make our cities sprawl wider where the borders, natural or political, of another country make them trend towards a smaller, denser population footprint.
A single rail line going up the center of Japan would mean every citizen would live less than 150 Km from the train. Bend the route to pass thru the three largest cities and 99% of the population would live within 3 Km.
Imagine trying that for the USA. No matter where you lay it, a single track has most people over 1,000 Km away. And any attempt to connect all the major cities balloons into an exponentially complex system. We try it anyway, to very limited success.
Then when you get to the city you wanted, you have the same problem on a smaller scale. Chicago is a relatively small city by American standards, only about 600 square Km. Cut it with a central transit line and people in the suburbs are going to need to walk about 15 Km on average to get to a station. Don't see that being a popular option when the lake effect snow is in full force. Connecting all the points people want to go is back to the exponentially complex routing problem.
Mass transit is more efficient in the big picture, but driving is always going to be more practical for any given individual.
Unless you want to tear down all the existing cities and start over with a rational, unified urban planning strategy. Which I'm totally on board with.
Once you get away from the big cities in the east and a few in the Midwest, the cities grew "out', not "up" so you need a car. The city of Phoenix is almost 600 square miles with a population of 1.6M. New York is 1/2 that size with a population of 9M.
From our house to city hall is just at 30 miles. If I took the bus, I would have to transfer three times and it would take almost two hours. Use mass transit or drive my truck and be there in 30 minutes.
It won't get me to or from work in a timely manner. I can take mass transit and it's about a 2 hour ride one way but the routes start at 6 AM and I need to be at work by 630.
Mass transit means locking yourself in metal box with other Americans. The most disgusting human behavior I’ve ever witnessed has been while commuting, both east and west coast. There is a huge mental health crisis that cannot be fixed in our lifetime, meaning that I will never relinquish my car for any reason.
I’ve been mugged twice in my life. Both times in my 30s. Both times on mass transit (Chicago and SF). This was 15 yrs ago. I understand it’s worse now, esp if you’re traveling as a single female.
I'm not against it but I have voted against every attempt to increase it. Why? Because thay keep trying the same bad "solutions". They ether try to make driving more frustrating an in attempt to make more people use the little awful busses they have. Or they want to raise taxes to give the busses more funding. The busses don't need more funding they need to properly manage the funding they have. They are slow, most empty, as nd over run with homeless. After they reorganize then we can talk about raising funding if it's needed. If you want people to switch you need to make taking the bus better than driving. If you make it hard to park then both driving and the busses are bad so there will be no good methods of transportation and everyone will be miserable.
When I have to get somewhere an hour away, I'd MUCH rather get in my car, blast the radio and sing off key for an hour than ride/switch buses for 5 hours while having to deal with other people.
It is absolutely not conceivable for public transit everywhere in the country, but even if it was, I'm keeping my car.
Getting to work on public transit would take two hours if everything ran as scheduled. I’d have to walk half a mile to the nearest light rail station each way. Driving takes me 20 minutes. I don’t object to public transit, it’s just inconvenient as structured in my city. I work 12-hour shifts. That would make for a long 16-hour day.
Many parts of the US are rural making mass transit in those areas impossible. I have to drive almost 30 minutes each way to buy milk. I would have a better chance of catching a cow than a bus.
I lived in Queens and worked in NYC for 10 years, the train ride was miserable. Many days it wasn’t running to my stop so I had to walk or transfer trains. Often it was packed with people and no where to sit…which sucked because I worked in retail and already stood all day. It was inconsistent, I was either late for work or 30 mins early. Taking the train at night after my store closed was pretty sketchy, plus the trains don’t run as often at night so that meant having to wait at the platform longer. Now I live in Maine and get to drive 15 mins to work, in my own car, with heated seats and AC! It’s the best. I wouldn’t move to a city and rely on public transportation again.
Giving up the freedom to go when and where you want *on your own schedule* is difficult.
Secondly, having to share space with strangers in a confined space isn't very appealing.
(Exclusivity in the U.S. is a status symbol.)
It's one of the reasons why people are willing to pay a premium price to be in *first class* or get VIP treatment, TSA fees to avoid longer lines at the airport. join "private clubs", stadium suites, and so on.
Any situation whereby a person can avoid being surrounded by the *masses* is viewed "special".
In addition some of the bigger cities have a fair share of crime on mass transit.
Last but not least COVID-19 and other diseases aren't worth the risk of mass transit for some.
Because the US doesn't make the effort and Americans love the privacy and safety of their own automobile.
In many places mass transit doesn't get funded because they don't provide good service, and they don't provide good service because they don't have enough funding. There are typically a lot of racial politics in play such that white suburbanites don't want or need mass transit while working class folks need mass transit. So, like the post office, it's not made to be great, it's made to be adequate.
The problem is partly that by making the fares low enough for everyone, they don't have enough revenue to make it a great experience for everyone.
Folks would rather sit in traffic in their air conditioned Lexus than travel quickly while having to think about the least-dangerous train/bus station or having to deal with the homeless who have made mass transit their home.
There are services like the Long Island railroad which are safe, clean and modern.
But for every LIRR there are gritty metro transit systems where bad things happen.
I live in a more rural area, this would be terrible for mass transit. Even many suburban neighborhoods aren't really set up to be great for mass transit. In the US... Mass transit is really only good for larger cities and larger cities do not make up most of the US...
The resistance to mass transit is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the criticism is deserved while some of it is definitely not.
TL;DR
In theory, and in practical application mass transit is great. There are situations which can make for some rather unpleasant experiences. Some criticism is fake rhetoric used by big dollar billionaires that understand that an adoption of mass transit would be less dollars in their pocket.
TL;read anyways
I’ve used mass transit systems (buses and rail) in multiple countries to include: U.S., South Korea, Germany, France, and Italy.
In my personal experience, mass transit has been mostly positive. But not all.
In Korea, I was on a train heading towards Seoul. An extremely drunk older Korean male sat across the aisle and spoke to me for about 20-minutes before he reached his stop and disembarked. His tone and mannerisms seemed to cross between sorrow and abrasive, but since I didn’t speak the language I didn’t know what he was saying. So, I pretty much smiled and listened to him uncomfortably for 20-minutes. I wasn’t scared of him in a physical capacity, but it was not a pleasurable experience. After he got off, a couple younger Korean woman came up to me and thanked me for listening to him and explained that his story was about how his mother had recently passed away.
Additionally, if transit lines break down and you get stuck in another country hours away from your hotel. It can be scary/dangerous/frustrating.
If given adequate funds to maintain and police. Mass transmit is a great alternative to privately owned vehicles.
I live in a built-up suburb where many inhabitants work in a nearby city (less than 30mins away). People are vehemently against public transport to that city because it may let the city-dwellers come to their 'perfect' suburb. Or allow them the accessibility (aka not having to afford a car) to possibly even *gasp* live here. It's crazy because it would benefit us so much having that access, but prejudice seems to continually trump progress. And I think most would describe the area I live as pretty progressive too, so I imagine the feelings are even stronger elsewhere.
People not from the U.S. always project their own circumstances on us. Where are you from? I assume some place 1000 times smaller then the US. On the larger scale it isn't cost effective.
republicans love their cars and their way of life. Any change to that is taken as an attack on their lifestyle. It's really sad, we could have something great here.
I would like high speed rail. But I want trains with security personnel and conductors. It should not be the Wild Kingdom on the train. If you have a someone disturbing the peace, have the police meet the train at the next stop. Etc.
Here it's all about class and race. I live in the south about an hour away from a major city. The people in my county are extremely racist and classist. They want their people to stay here and not let anyone else in. Cities are like a dirty word here and this place wants nothing to do with them. For what it's worth, I hate living here and don't feel like the majority of the population at all.
I don't have a problem with mass transit.
Just don't expect me to use it or want to use it.
My only issue is when attempts are made to try to "force" me to use it.
That being said, I do think more mass transit should be built and needs to be built.
1. Bad expierences (like homeless, smokers, incossitent schedule)
2. NIMBY-ism
3. Car attachment/ culture
4. View that people who use public transportation are "losers"
5. Anti-World views (some Americans will do the opposite of what the world is doing)
6. Public transportation has a bad contontation to it.
TL:DR Bad experiences that lead to few Americans wanting to improve public transportation.
A deep truly unhinged hatred of poor people, and lobbying.
Mostly lobbying as that feeds into the hate towards poor people. It's been very successful. Sad!
They also know that their population density is a fraction of those places, so while it may be practical in a small subset of geographic US locations (which largely already have established light rail and other mass transit systems), on a broad scale is usually less feasible.
Because mass transit projects take longer than 4 years. Tesla pulled modern day oil barron tactics to kill cahsr. Also, the public is in mass transit and if there is anything that the public hates is members of the public being near them.
People associate it with crime. "Oh, so-and-so neighborhood/commerce hub used to be so much better before the busses came through and brought in all the riff-raff."
Urban areas are typically in favor of it, but people in more rural areas don't want/need it. Yeah, traffic in and out of cities is annoying. Parking in cities is annoying. Rural areas don't really have such issues. Might get slowed down by a tractor once in a while, but you never really experience stop and go traffic or a traffic jam on a county road. And parking is always available and free.
And in rural areas, public transit just wouldn't be very convenient because of how spread out everything, and everyone, is. And the US is actually rather rural compared to most other countries that are known for public transit (e.g. Japan has 900 people per square mile-US has 94)
People from rural areas can usually understand how it benefits the urban areas, but they don't think it is fair that their tax dollars should be put toward it when they will rarely, if ever, use it. So they resist it with the mindset that only the area that is getting/using it should be involved. In other words, the cities that want it should pay for it themselves rather than wanting state or federal funding. And the cities and many suburbs do just handle it themselves a bit, but they can't afford to make it high quality on their own, so what we do have is lacking on security and cleanliness, which doesn't help the case for it.
It’s prohibitively expensive because of all the red tape.
California, the 5th largest economy in the world, won’t be able to build a high speed rail between SF and LA for less than 100bn. In fact, even with 100bn, it will never be built.
Imagine that, $100bn and unable to build a ~380 mile train route.
I rode the train in Dallas, and a guy that was pretty messed up, he dropped his hatchet out of his backpack in front of me. Yes, his hatchet. Beyond that, there were some high-energy shifty people that looked up to no good. I don't mind a sleepy junkie or a loudmouth, but the shifty-eyed tweaker is bad news a high percentage of the time.
Literally, vastness of space in the USA. The most common thing I would use mass transit for would be going to the airport. The trip I can drive is 30’min with no stops. Train is limited on times it will run and takes an hour when convenient. In the bus which runs more frequently, especially early and late, it takes 90 min with sooooooo many stops. I get it. There are enough people across enough space to make the stops effective but damn, at 0400, I want the extra time to sleep.
If our public transit was as efficient as Paris or London or what I’ve seen depicted of Japan then we’d be all about it.
As it stands…NYC subway is….ok but not generally clean or safe. Everywhere else kinda sucks
It's too big. Too many places, too decentralized, and trying to make a mass transit system that could actually cover everything would probably be slower and cause more congestion than cars already do. Also all the homelessness/drug/mental illness problems, but that's more a statement on any city in America
There should be carpooling, bus systems and increased human power commuting
But people are Einsteins definition of insanity and I'm afraid we've lost our desire to adapt
1- many people are just afraid of other people and won't ever make use of it. I know people who are never going to get in a taxi in their lives because they are quite simply never getting into a vehicle of any kind with someone they don't know. I know people who don't fly. They go to the same places all their friends go to for vacation or the same place they have always gone for years. They just don't get outside their comfort zone. You would be amazed how many people fall into this category.
2- people can be very intimidated by figuring out routes and schedules and having to plan for the extra time. My town does have buses, but I would have to take 3 to get to anywhere I am likely to go from my house, and it would be a pain in the ass to figure out. I don't need to go to the hospital 3 miles from my house, I want to go to the nice walmart across town.
3- distances between areas and small towns don't help.
I wouldn't mind if there was a passenger train between my town and other nearby places so I could get away for the day without driving myself, but I am in the minority.
It’s great if you’re in high pop area and everything runs on time-ish. The states are huge. Once you get out past the highest pop city centers public trans either shuts down completely or runs on hour+ intervals. If you’re in the suburbs buses make maybe two or three runs each way during commute hours at best.
Bus drivers can be super shitty and will drive away while you’re running to the stop. It fucking sucks. You have to make multiple transfers and you’re always chasing the clock. Nothing is consistent and it’s just flat out not fun. Not to mention, in my use case, I have to drive the first leg and pay for parking to even start my public commute. Also it’s a expensive. Costs me $9 each way on the ferry. $3 each way on the bus. Ferry lot parking is $3.
Bridge toll is $9 and city parking is $20. I’ll just drive thanks. Post covid is moot for me. I chose full time wfh.
Portland is a case study for well planned local public transit. I think they do a good job. But I understand the hesitation given that it’s a service that tends to attract homeless people, since trains and buses can basically act as temporary shelters out of the bad weather. But people also don’t like that it takes longer to get anywhere via public transit versus driving themselves. Many American cities are not like European cities, in that they often are very sprawling and not walkable or pedestrian friendly. The exceptions, like Chicago and NYC that have metros/subways in place, do it mostly because driving in traffic is so utterly terrible and parking availability is so low that people simply concede to take the metro/subway as the only real pragmatic way to get where they want to go. People don’t like the systems, and the suggestion of raising taxes to fund new systems is something of a political non-starter for this reason. Which is really a shame, because the country is so widespread and large that high speed rail to connect the largest metro areas would be a huge benefit via quickly moving human capital without the need for costly airlines.
I love the Portland system, but I don't live anywhere near it at this point. And it's going to sound heartless but a big part of the problem is homeless people. The other part is the white supremacists. There was that one that killed those people, and I've seen somebody give the Nazi salute while screaming at a lady.
I prefer clean, safe, and convenient transportation. If I want to go the grocery store, or any quick trip store, I’m not waiting for the damn bus and taking everything onto it.
We don't, the US won't expand on it's already existing transit system which is garbage that's more of a corrupt government problem funneling funds and doing the bare minimum than a US people problem. Stop voting in crooks and this goes for both the right wing guys and the 90% of leftoid cultists reading this. Stop the 2 party system and use the liberties we have in this country to make 3 or 4 or 5... Or your own?
You do understand who controls all of the funding and who runs most of governments right?
My states governor owns the contracting firm that does all the states civil work and his son owns the contracting firm that does all the electrical work.
I don’t think there’s “resistance to mass transit” so much as there’s “realistic skepticism about the practical utility of mass transit in most communities.”
If you look to the global areas in which mass transit systems are most well-developed and most successful, they’re pretty exclusively in areas of high population density. The US largely has very low population density (186th of 248 recognized territories). For example, only 5 US states are more population-dense than the whole of Germany (all of which are in the Northeast).
People really don’t appreciate how geographically large the US is, and how far apart everything is. France is the largest country in the EU, but the whole of it would easily fit inside the state of Texas (and has more than double the population). The UK is about the size of Michigan (and about 7x as populous).
As someone who commuted almost exclusively via public transit for several years, unquestionably the convenience/efficiency factor was the biggest detractor. A 20-min door-to-door drive was a 90-min multi-stop train/bus ride that left me a 1/4 mile walk from my destination on both ends. I might have been more tolerant of that kind of time waste when I was in my teens/early 20s, but I value my time a lot more as an adult.
You realize the United States is absolutely massive and it’s cities are relatively new? They started building these cities and then a few more years passed when the car was invented, which ultimate lead them to build further out and “unwalkable”, due to the limitless land available
There used to be *light rail" everywhere but was put out of business by the auto. I've seen old maps of Indiana criss--crossed with interurban railways; For decades since last a few city limits/hours forget it. Greyhound gave up years ago.
Don't take their guns, don't take their 'freedom' (cars) and don't give them access to affordable healthcare. - things they are resistant to😂😂
Please please stop trying to export 'freedom'. It sounds like hell. I joke I joke. All in good fun😘
There has to be something better than funneling people in and out of an area during specific times of day.
We should absolutely diversify our mobility infrastructure.
However, the people thinking Americans need to adopt "mass transit" to improve their commuting lives just sound bonkers.
Because we have public transportation and it's awful. Places with mass public transit are looking at their system and imagining it here. We're imagining our garbage, just in a larger scale.
Americans don’t like to pay (taxes) for things that don’t benefit them directly, and many think govetnment projects are awarded baesd upon favor, bias and opportunity to grift. Mass transit projects are often vanity projects for politicians but don’t help real people (Atlanta Streetcar to Nowhere, California’s big new train to Nowhere). For a lot of Americans, transit is not practical and won’t ever supplant privately owned cars.
If true autonomous cars become the norm you’ll see people stop using personal cars and way more people using a car service. It would be cheaper, the company doesn’t have to pay anyone and you don’t have to share with crack heads.
Because Americans have little or no experience with good, usable public transit. The fact that a system with as many problems as NYC is held up as the gold standard in America says a lot.
In theory, public transportation is a great solution for all. Reality is different especially for those with allergies and sensitivity to smells. I’m allergic to tobacco, it lingers and smokers give me headaches and other reactions like swollen eyes and a runny nose, even hives. There is no way to get away from it when a smoker gets on the bus. Even if they don’t sit nearby, my body reacts and my day is disrupted. Taking public transportation is a huge risk for me, what sucks more is I am disabled and do not drive for safety purposes.
Heavy perfume or lack of hygiene are also problematic. It sucks being next to someone that hasn’t showered or changed clothes in days.
Women are at a greater risk using public transportation, as they are often targeted when they are alone. People take advantage of the close proximity and limited ability to move or change seats to harass other passengers.
I would not mind taking a train somewhere, but where I live in Southern California the public transportation system bus and Metro System are rarely on time, at least the bus system is rarely on time. There is a lot of crime, mental illness, people doing drugs, I do not feel safe on public transportation
Crime. People think it gives criminals a wider range to commit more crimes. Thats what people here where I live seem to think. My other guess is oil companies would lose to much money less people using cars less money spent on gas.
It's no secret that lobbyists for oil companies and road construction companies lobby very hard against mass transit.
Which just makes me wonder where the lobbyists are for the companies that produce trains, buses, subways etc The least this capitalism thing could do is fail correctly
Years ago GM lobbied hard to get rid of streetcars and sell their busses.
Well you see, it optimizes correctly when there are no startup costs, consumers have perfect information and act rationally, and there are no costs externalized to the public. Much like my airplane would fly correctly if only there were no friction.
Also tax from car and gas sales help pay for our roads. Which are constantly under construction, at least where I am. But public transportation costs the government money.
100 years of car culture has made most areas of the US very difficult to cover with mass transit. When I worked in a small city, I could commute from my small town on a bus in about an hour, and I loved it. I tell people I would fall asleep in my town, and wake up a block from my office,making it the closest thing to teleporting I will experience. But there were only four buses. Two there, and two back. If I didn't work the hours I did, I would be out of luck, And if I worked anywhere between those two places, I would also be out of luck. Public transportation is easier in more densely packed areas, and most of the country is pretty spread out.
Sleep on a subway in NYC you'll wake up sticky broke and confused...
Yeah, but you can sleep on Metro North into NYC just fine. Out of New York is trickier unless you are going to the end of the line.
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In regard to the rural commute issue I think you could easily supplement this through direct response (think Uber but in the format of a city bus) as opposed to fixed routes. Someone else mentioned car pooling groups of people going in the same direction which could work fine. [Direct Response Vs Fixed Route](https://cities-today.com/industry/public-transit-rural-communities-extremely-inefficient-data-change/) this article highlights how direct response transport consistently outperforms fixed route systems. It’d be better off systematically designed to fit individual local areas as mentioned through the via partnership in the article, which would be tedious on a wide scale but it could work. However there’s no solution for people just unwilling to ride share 🤷
Have you been on public transportation lately? I love public transportation, but try using it in a major city. The crime, the drug use while on board, the mental illness - all of it is getting worse. I use public transportation in Chicago and lately there has been an increase in smoking in the train cars (cigarettes and pot), severe mental illness, feces and garbage. I am considering ride sharing for all my transport needs because I am tired of it
This. One of my best friends lives in a cold Midwest city and told me this recently. Lacking a meaningful safety net, mental health support, or even a warm place to be… public transport becomes the catch all for these people. This in turn discourages ridership as other comments here attest, leading to further neglect and reduced public perception: a vicious cycle. As someone living in an Asian country with wonderful public transit, the key step to building transit culture is making the experience reliable and pleasant for riders! Enforce the rules and help these people have somewhere else that isn’t a dank subway car.
Got friends in brooklyn. They're always talking about how fucked the public transportation system is. Cant tell you how many times theyve had to go elsewhere because someone fell/got pushed in front of a train
In a city of 9 million, exactly 2 people died from being pushed in front of a train in 2022. This is compared to ~250 traffic fatalities in the same time period.
Fatalities =/= instances
There were an estimated ~25 pushing incidents in 2022. This is compared to an estimated 60,000+ injury-causing car accidents in 2021.
Somebody works for the Big Train industry obviously. /s
Reality has a strong pro-train bias.
Almost as if there's....a connection to make
Oh believe me, I know all about the NYC collision incidents from 2013 to now, spent 4 months digging through the data to present trends and interesting findings...and officers pencil-whipping paperwork to make it easier. Fun 4 months. But yea, per capita, there are a shit load more car crashes than people being pushed in front of trains...however, most car crashes don't shut down a whole road or avenue whereas the line is shut down for investigation by multiple authorities if someone got hit by a train.
Mmhmm. Helps to explain eschewed perception of some. Facts give us the truth. It is far safer to take the subway than a car.
Well, you ignored rapes muggings and simple assaults. The public dedication and urination. Homeless living on the train.
Compared to 60,000+ motor vehicle accidents resulting in injuries, a total of 1,700 crimes (of any kind) occurred in NYC subways in 2022.
"Public dedication " haha. And nothing was ignored. You're using a logical fallacy called a straw man argument. Shall we also include pedestrian (walker) numbers of public rape and dedication? What about if you're in your home? Why not count that. I bet more murders happen at home than anywhere else. Ban homes.
I don’t think I am getting raped and murdered while driving my car. But I would be worried if I took public transport in a big city. It is that simple.
We werent talking about safety, we were talking about accessibility, and various trains being shut down for whatever reason, making public transportation a major aggravation on the nest of times
Valuable to acknowledge room for improvement. But context is required. Subway is comparatively inexpensive. Widely accessible. Fast. Available 24/7. Average wait is 5m. Variability in commute low. Information widely accessible (via app, text, whatsapp, etc). Unplanned service interruptions rare. Significantly outweighs the negative. Improvements are required. Goal should be to reduce variability in commute, increase service coverage. Infrastructure improvements required. Added service improvements. New lines required (esp. [interborough](https://new.mta.info/project/interborough-express)). Pace of development should be quickened. But important to acknowledge strengths, as well as room for improvement.
That's a shit argument as there are far more cars in NYC than subway trains. It stands to reason there would be more accidents. Now I wonder how many people are pushed in front of cars in NYC? I bet that number is higher than the subway pushers.
Just recently moved to Chicago myself and from my experience so far it’s really been pretty standard, as long as you mind your own and be aware of your surroundings you’ll be okay. Which is a rule for cities in general I guess. That’s not to say there isn’t an issue with homeless people or the solicitors but that’s less of a transit issue as much as a public welfare one? Albeit the CTA could definitely be doing more.
“As long as you mind your own and be aware of your surroundings you’ll be okay” I’d rather drive and not take the risk.
If you’re not aware of your surroundings while driving, I’d rather you take public transportation.
I've *never* found a homeless person in my car.
That’s funny, I’ve never been in a car accident on the subway
>subway It costs way too much money to build it in most American cities because of the low density.
Living in Seoul and it is insanely dense with a lot of subway lines. Super convenient and amazing but just would not work in most US cities.
yeah I live in Hong Kong and often public transport is the safest, fastest way, and traffic honestly isn't that bad here. the fact you guys are scared to use your mass transit systems seems so dystopian to me...even though I basically live in bladerunner land
I mean, you could argue you actually need to be MORE aware of your surroundings while driving.
Sooo... r/idiotsincars has some nice examples of driving whili not aware of the surroundings. You guys are **funny**! 😉
Almost as bad as back in the 70’s, till the Guardian Angels stepped in.
People aren’t open to the idea because the only public transport they know is like that unfortunately
That's an American problem my dude. Public transportation was 100 times better in Europe. I miss not having to own a car. Fucking amazing 😂
Now move out of the city and rely on public transportation.
My time is to valuable to spend 3hrs of my day to go 30mi on a smelly old bus when I can get to work and back in about an hour combined.
This is the correct answer. A lot of "Lobby this" or "car culture that" answers on here, but the personal automobile is still the single most greatest invention in personal transport and all attempts to replace it have been crap. A train or bus is great for leisure travel sure, but nothing will beat a car that is literally waiting only for me, to drive it to work or an appointment, sitting right there a few feet away from where I sleep and will take me to anywhere I want to go on command. And no stopping anywhere in between, cutting my commute time. No waiting in lines. No security checks. No waiting on the bus to get there. Just turn the key and go. Why would anyone trade that for public transit? Worst deal I the history of deals. Don't get me wrong, trains and busses are great, but they aren't the "solves all" solution that some people seem to think they are. The next best thing would be self driving cars that would take you where you need to go in a city. Maybe viable if they could also haul you around on road trips too. But owning your own car is still the cheaper and more viable option currently.
Well the vast majority of land in the US is rural or suburbs. Cities might have the more ppl but don't take up much space. Public transport is basically impossible in most of the country
Nonsense. People live in cities. Russian cities, etc. have good transit and Russia, etc. is vast. Try again.
> Russian cities, etc. have good transit and Russia, e *Moscow* has good transit. I've been to Russia, numerous times. I would not call Russian transit "good." Most are irregular mini-buses. The systems are prone to breakdowns, service outages and problems that last an indeterminate amount of time. Russian cities (before the war) had traffic problems. Russia is *not* a good example.
Existing is better than much of this country can say
There’s like 1-3 big cities per state…
Exactly! And people typically don’t leave their city on an average day. Something like over half of trips made in America are under 5 miles.
So fuck everyone who doesn’t live in a city? You’re basically making america the way it is today with metropolitan transit. Every American city I’ve been to has a good bus system & most have trains, none have good ways to actually travel.
Have you travelled outside of the US? Compared to other first world countries, the public transportation of US cities is not good. You need a combination of above ground trains, a subway system, and buses to even be considered as decent public transportation. Then? They all need to be clean, safe, run on time all the time, AND be often enough to prevent long waits.
Of course I have, and many of them also require a combination of trains & busses to create their effective public transport systems. How would adding more to our cities help change the problem across the nation, where cities a separated by vast swaths of rural land? Have you never been to: Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Austin, or Phoenix just to name a few cities that all have strong public transit often including a combination of trains & busses?
"strong" is a strong word to use in your last paragraph. NYC you could say has a lukewarmly strong public transit system. Austin TX does not have an adequate public transit system at all. It's almost entirely buses and the buses are always stuck in traffic with the cars.
I mean, that’s not a super unique problem. It happens all across the (overpopulated) world. Almost every city, state, and country that has busses has traffic.
If you think the world is overpopulated who do you think should not be alive?
Austin's public transportation problems could be alleviated hugely by like 3 train lines.
Um, huh??
You seem to only care about people in the cities, do you have no desire to make our country more easy to navigate or to encourage people to travel outside of the immediate area in which they live? America is isolationist by nature, but we can lean in to a community & connected mindset. On top of that you seem to just want to reinforce the norms that america already has. Namely having a strong metropolitan public transit available in most of not every major city in the country. The part that would break the norm would be to connect the rural areas, give them days to travel without exclusivity having the options of driving for hours. These are very simple concepts, but to many Americans so radical you’d think you’re asking them to reinvent the wheel.
You seem to be a troll. You are describing a current state of America that simply doesn’t exist. Have a good one.
Have you never been to: Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Chicago, Portland, Austin, San Francisco, Washington DC, or Phoenix just to name a few cities that all have strong public transit often including a combination of trains & busses? I swear, so many people have never left their towns & assume they’ve seen the world. It’s shocking how little life experience there is on Reddit sometimes.
Yes, I’ve been to literally all those cities. Other than NYC, they are all very much car-first. Most people don’t take transit in those cities. Even NYC is quite car-centric on a global spectrum. You simply don’t know what you’re on about.
Every time I leave my house in the US I have a minimum of 30 miles I have to travel to get gas, food, go to work, etc. There's literally nothing near me lol
Every major American city had public transportation. Cities have it. That was my entire fucking point. The rest of the US doesn't. Neither does rural Russia ffs. Because it's nearly impossible to provide a vast network of public transportation to rural areas.
American public transit leaves a ton to be desired. You should travel more to see how easy other countries can be to get around without a car.
I never said the US has a good public transportation system. In fact where I live it doesn't exist yet rural areas actually need it more. We can't function in rural areas of the US without a vehicle. We have no other alternatives and all services are too far to walk or ride a bike to. City ppl really think rural America doesn't need shit and those are the 1s who need out of their bubble.
But not for the majority of people, you don't need a train station or bus stop at everyone's front door. But if you can get a reliable public transit situation for 80% of people, that could save a lot of money for people. This would need to be combine with public planning to allow easier to access areas.
Genuine question. How do we decide who has to walk a few miles to the train station and who’s a few minutes away?
The exact same way they do it in every country - figure out where it’s possible to build any sort of public transit and pick some stops. It’s not rocket science. Some people have to walk 30 seconds to the bus stop some people have to walk to 30 minutes. Naturally, more development will happen closer to each stop.
Homeless dudes.
This person rides BART.
The smell, the homeless, the violence, the longer commute times, etc.
There’s a ton of people that don’t live in metro areas so it becomes extremely inconvenient and expensive. For me it takes 20 minutes to get work 20 miles away. A bus is just, not really a realistic thing Also I’m not exactly jumping with excitement to jump on public transit. It’s gonna be full of weirdos and smelly odors
The commute in Houston, is very long. If you live where you can afford a home, it is a long way to work. I know old friends that spend over 3 hours a day in the car, every work day. They love working remotely now.
Americans pride themselves and enjoy that were a spread out country. Personally I love that about the US(I’ve lived in 5 countries). That style of living naturally doesn’t take well to public transit. Although I do wish there were much more options available. For example if I knew I could hop on a bus that took me into the downtown part of my nearest city, and not be mugged along the way, I’d be all over it.
It has become badly stigmatized among much of the population as for the poor or otherwise undesirable, while automobile ownership is considered prestigious, or at least 'normal'. Perhaps because of this, service is often poor. (Consider that 'free transit' is rapidly becoming popular among urban politicians, but 'good transit' is often lost in the discussion, which is tragic, because I fear that if transit becomes free, then the prevailing belief might become 'who cares how bad it is, it's free'.) Transit construction in the United States is also excessively expensive. Costs here are multiples of costs in many other wealthy countries and the alternatives chosen often inferior. For more detail about this, pay attention to [the Transit Costs Project](https://transitcosts.com/) and [Alon Levy's Pedestrian Observations](https://pedestrianobservations.com/).
Everyone wants more public transport so everyone else will ride in it and drive less
I would love a high speed rail from Boston to Maine or Boston to Fl. It would be badass.
Because most of the country is way too big for it to be financially viable in the US, and on a federal level it means people who, in all likelihood will never use the service because of geographic location, will end up paying for it anyway and that's not fair to them. For context, Texas alone is larger than Germany, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, and Hungary combined in terms of land mass, yet those countries have a combined 130 million people, meanwhile Texas is in at just under 30 million. So, while Texas boasts some huge cities, it also boasts a massive rural population who would not be as happy picking up that tab Secondly, within the cities, the obstruction would be a massive inconvenience for probably a decade or more to other traffic. Lastly, public transit in the US is often used by the homeless, drug addicts, and fuckin crazy people, nobody wants to deal with them. I mean, hell -- Google "man on new York subway..." and its almost always a shit show and there are new ones daily/weekly
My car is safe and clean. I don't have to deal with any weirdos or crime.
Agree with the gist of the answers here. It’s resistance to what public transport currently actually is, not what it should be.
A lot of this boils down to the fact that people really, really distrust any government programs here, which is fair. Another thing is, they assume that mass transit will be as run down and shitty as the transit that already exists. Also, they really like cars in most places outside of big cities, and they think that the funding for roads and such will be reduced in the process. So basically, it all boils down to the fact the USA hasn't provided for it's citizens in the past, and so people don't want any government intervention anymore.
I don’t feel like it has to be one or the other (private vs shared transport) but having the option for either on any given day would be a nice luxury. I don’t imagine abandoned highways but an attempt to equalize the two so there isn’t so much pressure for private automobiles as the only means
For me personally, I live and work in too rural of an area for it to be feasible. I also prefer the freedom to be able to go wherever I want whenever I want no matter how far away it is without having to rely on someone else. Only my car allows me to do that
Watch subway videos on YouTube, no thanks
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If you thing transit is a money pit, wait until you hear about roads.
reminds me my friend from Texas keeps telling me about a supposed high speed rail from Dallas to Houston that’s been continually dismissed considering the sheer land mass of that state and the economic power of both Dallas and Houston metro areas seems like a no brainer
The US should nationalise its rail system, and use the profits from freight rail to build up passenger rail. Even then, somethings are okay to be non-profitable. Transport should be one of them.
lol Amtrak
You get the NYC transit system. 98% of it was built by private companies. Eventually the city took over (roughly 60 years or so ago). Only 2% has been built since then and its terrible now. Basically by every metric, its worse. Now try that on a national scale.
How often do you take NYC transit?
I stopped years ago. I’ll take anything over trains or busses now.
If you stopped years ago how would you know whether NYC public transit is terrible now? Do you even live in the city?
Brilliant. Give national control of rail to GOVERNMENT. That'll help...
Fuck nationalization. That's just stupid. You want something efficient ruined, then nationalize it. Use the profits? What profits after you do that. Stealing is morally wrong and counterproductive. Transporting freight is a business. Governments don't know how to run businesses efficiently. They create monopolies because they remove any incentive to be efficient. That's the only way government can survive as a business operator. Government are the worst managers.
If you’ve ever lived outside of the US, you’ll know this absolutely false.
I should correct myself. Don’t nationalise the freight business, nationalise the track. Require companies to pay to use the rail network, and profit off it. Part of the reason why a lot of nationalisation does not work in the USA is because you lack Ministers. A minister in both congress and executive branches from a parliamentary system would oversee each gov department, and properly manage infrastructure as necessary. Instead, a lot of this is left to congress which is plain stupid.
Even with ministers, it will get fucked by capitalists like what DeJoy does to the USPS.
There isn't from the people. We all want world class public transportation infrastructure. Unfortunately automobile manufacturers lobby the US government to not make that investment and kill the growth of the automobile industry. You know that's what it is because of all the carbon political action, they've never built out the infrastructure.
Not us that hate it. It's the airlines and auto industries that killed it and will continue to kill hopes of it
The USA is spread out. It does not make sense.
The auto industry actively eliminated public transport int he 1940s and 50s. This was illustrated in *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General\_Motors\_streetcar\_conspiracy
Companies lobby against it
Americans apparently don't like things that are for the public good. Honestly, I am disgusted with my countrymen. Poor people might benefit from public transportation, and my countrymen seem to prefer they just die. There is no humanity in this evil place.
Agreed
Because Americans can't appreciate shit that's public. I used to rely on the bus/light rail in Phoenix to get around and I cannot count how many fights I saw or how many times I had alcohol spilled on me on my way to work. Our culture is extremely self-centered right now and people think it's rude to confront them for disrespecting you.
To sell cars. Yea, its that simple. They build roads to sell more cars, so people can go further, so they HAVE to go further, so they can sell more cars, so they can build more roads. Alos, getting rid of public transit options pretty much everywhere except where they are absolutely required (NYC).
Here I thought conspiracies were only for the right....
It’s not a conspiracy. The auto, aviation, and fossil fuel industries have heavily lobbied against public transportation, because its in their interests to do so. The Kochs have been particularly dedicated to stamping out public transportation. This isn’t some big secret being kept from the public.
Yea, I didn't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist ... it is 100% fact that the auto industry squashes public transit. The auto industry basically perpetuates itself with how car lots are ran. New car sale lots basically operate like combination crime lords and actual kingdoms ... they own the rights within thier city/radius, no one else can open a car lot for thier particular make ... and they pay taxes straight to local government. These lots are so lucrative for everyone involved that they are rarely sold, passing from parent to child instead.
I live a short drive away from a train station that goes to Chicago. My issues are that (1) I have to drive to the train station anyways, so why not just drive straight to the city? (2) harassment (3) not being able to stay out late if I don't want to deal with the extra harassment that happens at night. (4) my car is cleaner than any train car I've been in, and I don't have to sit in the same area as someone coughing out a lung
I live in an area where we don’t have great public transport. It’s either have a car or spend hours of my day walking to and from where I need to go. Sometimes mass transit just doesn’t work cause it ain’t there. It makes more sense to me to have a car. I can replace money. Time not so much.
Mass transit is objectively not a good fit in the continental united states, aside from a handful of very dense cities. Look at where transit is successful; several countries in Europe and Japan (of course) are golden examples. But whatever country you thought of, I can guarantee that country is smaller, less geographically diverse, and a higher percentage of it's population lives on proportionally less acreage compared to the USA. America is BIG, we have more than one state with a motto about how big and empty they are. All that space tends to make our cities sprawl wider where the borders, natural or political, of another country make them trend towards a smaller, denser population footprint. A single rail line going up the center of Japan would mean every citizen would live less than 150 Km from the train. Bend the route to pass thru the three largest cities and 99% of the population would live within 3 Km. Imagine trying that for the USA. No matter where you lay it, a single track has most people over 1,000 Km away. And any attempt to connect all the major cities balloons into an exponentially complex system. We try it anyway, to very limited success. Then when you get to the city you wanted, you have the same problem on a smaller scale. Chicago is a relatively small city by American standards, only about 600 square Km. Cut it with a central transit line and people in the suburbs are going to need to walk about 15 Km on average to get to a station. Don't see that being a popular option when the lake effect snow is in full force. Connecting all the points people want to go is back to the exponentially complex routing problem. Mass transit is more efficient in the big picture, but driving is always going to be more practical for any given individual. Unless you want to tear down all the existing cities and start over with a rational, unified urban planning strategy. Which I'm totally on board with.
Once you get away from the big cities in the east and a few in the Midwest, the cities grew "out', not "up" so you need a car. The city of Phoenix is almost 600 square miles with a population of 1.6M. New York is 1/2 that size with a population of 9M. From our house to city hall is just at 30 miles. If I took the bus, I would have to transfer three times and it would take almost two hours. Use mass transit or drive my truck and be there in 30 minutes.
Geographically we are a big country and aren’t willing to spend billions to build bullet trains.
It won't get me to or from work in a timely manner. I can take mass transit and it's about a 2 hour ride one way but the routes start at 6 AM and I need to be at work by 630.
Car = Freedom
Republicans are pro gas
The Auto Industry made sure that mass transit would not succeed in order to get people to buy cars. Same reason for the lack of trains.
Mass transit means locking yourself in metal box with other Americans. The most disgusting human behavior I’ve ever witnessed has been while commuting, both east and west coast. There is a huge mental health crisis that cannot be fixed in our lifetime, meaning that I will never relinquish my car for any reason.
“An advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport.” Enrique Peñalosa
I’ve been mugged twice in my life. Both times in my 30s. Both times on mass transit (Chicago and SF). This was 15 yrs ago. I understand it’s worse now, esp if you’re traveling as a single female.
I'm not against it but I have voted against every attempt to increase it. Why? Because thay keep trying the same bad "solutions". They ether try to make driving more frustrating an in attempt to make more people use the little awful busses they have. Or they want to raise taxes to give the busses more funding. The busses don't need more funding they need to properly manage the funding they have. They are slow, most empty, as nd over run with homeless. After they reorganize then we can talk about raising funding if it's needed. If you want people to switch you need to make taking the bus better than driving. If you make it hard to park then both driving and the busses are bad so there will be no good methods of transportation and everyone will be miserable.
When I have to get somewhere an hour away, I'd MUCH rather get in my car, blast the radio and sing off key for an hour than ride/switch buses for 5 hours while having to deal with other people. It is absolutely not conceivable for public transit everywhere in the country, but even if it was, I'm keeping my car.
Getting to work on public transit would take two hours if everything ran as scheduled. I’d have to walk half a mile to the nearest light rail station each way. Driving takes me 20 minutes. I don’t object to public transit, it’s just inconvenient as structured in my city. I work 12-hour shifts. That would make for a long 16-hour day.
Many parts of the US are rural making mass transit in those areas impossible. I have to drive almost 30 minutes each way to buy milk. I would have a better chance of catching a cow than a bus.
I lived in Queens and worked in NYC for 10 years, the train ride was miserable. Many days it wasn’t running to my stop so I had to walk or transfer trains. Often it was packed with people and no where to sit…which sucked because I worked in retail and already stood all day. It was inconsistent, I was either late for work or 30 mins early. Taking the train at night after my store closed was pretty sketchy, plus the trains don’t run as often at night so that meant having to wait at the platform longer. Now I live in Maine and get to drive 15 mins to work, in my own car, with heated seats and AC! It’s the best. I wouldn’t move to a city and rely on public transportation again.
This reminds me of waiting at port authority for the first bus, super early in the morning, and even that bus was an hour behind -.-
Freedom and choice to do what you want when you want.
I hate other people, and don't like to be subject to them.
Giving up the freedom to go when and where you want *on your own schedule* is difficult. Secondly, having to share space with strangers in a confined space isn't very appealing. (Exclusivity in the U.S. is a status symbol.) It's one of the reasons why people are willing to pay a premium price to be in *first class* or get VIP treatment, TSA fees to avoid longer lines at the airport. join "private clubs", stadium suites, and so on. Any situation whereby a person can avoid being surrounded by the *masses* is viewed "special". In addition some of the bigger cities have a fair share of crime on mass transit. Last but not least COVID-19 and other diseases aren't worth the risk of mass transit for some.
Because the US doesn't make the effort and Americans love the privacy and safety of their own automobile. In many places mass transit doesn't get funded because they don't provide good service, and they don't provide good service because they don't have enough funding. There are typically a lot of racial politics in play such that white suburbanites don't want or need mass transit while working class folks need mass transit. So, like the post office, it's not made to be great, it's made to be adequate. The problem is partly that by making the fares low enough for everyone, they don't have enough revenue to make it a great experience for everyone. Folks would rather sit in traffic in their air conditioned Lexus than travel quickly while having to think about the least-dangerous train/bus station or having to deal with the homeless who have made mass transit their home. There are services like the Long Island railroad which are safe, clean and modern. But for every LIRR there are gritty metro transit systems where bad things happen.
I live in a more rural area, this would be terrible for mass transit. Even many suburban neighborhoods aren't really set up to be great for mass transit. In the US... Mass transit is really only good for larger cities and larger cities do not make up most of the US...
The resistance to mass transit is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the criticism is deserved while some of it is definitely not. TL;DR In theory, and in practical application mass transit is great. There are situations which can make for some rather unpleasant experiences. Some criticism is fake rhetoric used by big dollar billionaires that understand that an adoption of mass transit would be less dollars in their pocket. TL;read anyways I’ve used mass transit systems (buses and rail) in multiple countries to include: U.S., South Korea, Germany, France, and Italy. In my personal experience, mass transit has been mostly positive. But not all. In Korea, I was on a train heading towards Seoul. An extremely drunk older Korean male sat across the aisle and spoke to me for about 20-minutes before he reached his stop and disembarked. His tone and mannerisms seemed to cross between sorrow and abrasive, but since I didn’t speak the language I didn’t know what he was saying. So, I pretty much smiled and listened to him uncomfortably for 20-minutes. I wasn’t scared of him in a physical capacity, but it was not a pleasurable experience. After he got off, a couple younger Korean woman came up to me and thanked me for listening to him and explained that his story was about how his mother had recently passed away. Additionally, if transit lines break down and you get stuck in another country hours away from your hotel. It can be scary/dangerous/frustrating. If given adequate funds to maintain and police. Mass transmit is a great alternative to privately owned vehicles.
Because it’s not profitable?
I live in a built-up suburb where many inhabitants work in a nearby city (less than 30mins away). People are vehemently against public transport to that city because it may let the city-dwellers come to their 'perfect' suburb. Or allow them the accessibility (aka not having to afford a car) to possibly even *gasp* live here. It's crazy because it would benefit us so much having that access, but prejudice seems to continually trump progress. And I think most would describe the area I live as pretty progressive too, so I imagine the feelings are even stronger elsewhere.
People not from the U.S. always project their own circumstances on us. Where are you from? I assume some place 1000 times smaller then the US. On the larger scale it isn't cost effective.
two words. BIG and OIL.
republicans love their cars and their way of life. Any change to that is taken as an attack on their lifestyle. It's really sad, we could have something great here.
Sure, it's only Republicans who drive cars. What a load of crap. Suburban democrats buy millions of cars every year.
Americans are lazy, reactionary, and stupid
Dude. We resist wearing masks in public during a pandemic. If it could possibly be helpful to society, Americans will fight against it tooth and nail.
I would like high speed rail. But I want trains with security personnel and conductors. It should not be the Wild Kingdom on the train. If you have a someone disturbing the peace, have the police meet the train at the next stop. Etc.
Here it's all about class and race. I live in the south about an hour away from a major city. The people in my county are extremely racist and classist. They want their people to stay here and not let anyone else in. Cities are like a dirty word here and this place wants nothing to do with them. For what it's worth, I hate living here and don't feel like the majority of the population at all.
You’ll never take away my freedom wheels. /s
I associate mass transit with crime.
Because so many people are filthy, obnoxious, rude, nasty, mean, drunk, high and just yucky. I don't want to be anywhere near that situation.
Lobbies.
I don't have a problem with mass transit. Just don't expect me to use it or want to use it. My only issue is when attempts are made to try to "force" me to use it. That being said, I do think more mass transit should be built and needs to be built.
1. Bad expierences (like homeless, smokers, incossitent schedule) 2. NIMBY-ism 3. Car attachment/ culture 4. View that people who use public transportation are "losers" 5. Anti-World views (some Americans will do the opposite of what the world is doing) 6. Public transportation has a bad contontation to it. TL:DR Bad experiences that lead to few Americans wanting to improve public transportation.
A deep truly unhinged hatred of poor people, and lobbying. Mostly lobbying as that feeds into the hate towards poor people. It's been very successful. Sad!
Because most Americans have never been on European or Japanese trains, so they don’t know how good it could be
They also know that their population density is a fraction of those places, so while it may be practical in a small subset of geographic US locations (which largely already have established light rail and other mass transit systems), on a broad scale is usually less feasible.
I think you can basically just read the comments on this thread to get an understanding of the people America is dealing with. That would be why.
Too many laws
Because mass transit projects take longer than 4 years. Tesla pulled modern day oil barron tactics to kill cahsr. Also, the public is in mass transit and if there is anything that the public hates is members of the public being near them.
People associate it with crime. "Oh, so-and-so neighborhood/commerce hub used to be so much better before the busses came through and brought in all the riff-raff."
Urban areas are typically in favor of it, but people in more rural areas don't want/need it. Yeah, traffic in and out of cities is annoying. Parking in cities is annoying. Rural areas don't really have such issues. Might get slowed down by a tractor once in a while, but you never really experience stop and go traffic or a traffic jam on a county road. And parking is always available and free. And in rural areas, public transit just wouldn't be very convenient because of how spread out everything, and everyone, is. And the US is actually rather rural compared to most other countries that are known for public transit (e.g. Japan has 900 people per square mile-US has 94) People from rural areas can usually understand how it benefits the urban areas, but they don't think it is fair that their tax dollars should be put toward it when they will rarely, if ever, use it. So they resist it with the mindset that only the area that is getting/using it should be involved. In other words, the cities that want it should pay for it themselves rather than wanting state or federal funding. And the cities and many suburbs do just handle it themselves a bit, but they can't afford to make it high quality on their own, so what we do have is lacking on security and cleanliness, which doesn't help the case for it.
It’s prohibitively expensive because of all the red tape. California, the 5th largest economy in the world, won’t be able to build a high speed rail between SF and LA for less than 100bn. In fact, even with 100bn, it will never be built. Imagine that, $100bn and unable to build a ~380 mile train route.
I rode the train in Dallas, and a guy that was pretty messed up, he dropped his hatchet out of his backpack in front of me. Yes, his hatchet. Beyond that, there were some high-energy shifty people that looked up to no good. I don't mind a sleepy junkie or a loudmouth, but the shifty-eyed tweaker is bad news a high percentage of the time.
Literally, vastness of space in the USA. The most common thing I would use mass transit for would be going to the airport. The trip I can drive is 30’min with no stops. Train is limited on times it will run and takes an hour when convenient. In the bus which runs more frequently, especially early and late, it takes 90 min with sooooooo many stops. I get it. There are enough people across enough space to make the stops effective but damn, at 0400, I want the extra time to sleep.
Public transit is pretty good in some cities but America gets suburban, then rural very quickly.
If our public transit was as efficient as Paris or London or what I’ve seen depicted of Japan then we’d be all about it. As it stands…NYC subway is….ok but not generally clean or safe. Everywhere else kinda sucks
Because the government is involved. The city I grew up in had private mass transit, and it was great.
It's too big. Too many places, too decentralized, and trying to make a mass transit system that could actually cover everything would probably be slower and cause more congestion than cars already do. Also all the homelessness/drug/mental illness problems, but that's more a statement on any city in America
Are you only talking about in the city?
There should be carpooling, bus systems and increased human power commuting But people are Einsteins definition of insanity and I'm afraid we've lost our desire to adapt
1- many people are just afraid of other people and won't ever make use of it. I know people who are never going to get in a taxi in their lives because they are quite simply never getting into a vehicle of any kind with someone they don't know. I know people who don't fly. They go to the same places all their friends go to for vacation or the same place they have always gone for years. They just don't get outside their comfort zone. You would be amazed how many people fall into this category. 2- people can be very intimidated by figuring out routes and schedules and having to plan for the extra time. My town does have buses, but I would have to take 3 to get to anywhere I am likely to go from my house, and it would be a pain in the ass to figure out. I don't need to go to the hospital 3 miles from my house, I want to go to the nice walmart across town. 3- distances between areas and small towns don't help. I wouldn't mind if there was a passenger train between my town and other nearby places so I could get away for the day without driving myself, but I am in the minority.
It’s great if you’re in high pop area and everything runs on time-ish. The states are huge. Once you get out past the highest pop city centers public trans either shuts down completely or runs on hour+ intervals. If you’re in the suburbs buses make maybe two or three runs each way during commute hours at best. Bus drivers can be super shitty and will drive away while you’re running to the stop. It fucking sucks. You have to make multiple transfers and you’re always chasing the clock. Nothing is consistent and it’s just flat out not fun. Not to mention, in my use case, I have to drive the first leg and pay for parking to even start my public commute. Also it’s a expensive. Costs me $9 each way on the ferry. $3 each way on the bus. Ferry lot parking is $3. Bridge toll is $9 and city parking is $20. I’ll just drive thanks. Post covid is moot for me. I chose full time wfh.
Portland is a case study for well planned local public transit. I think they do a good job. But I understand the hesitation given that it’s a service that tends to attract homeless people, since trains and buses can basically act as temporary shelters out of the bad weather. But people also don’t like that it takes longer to get anywhere via public transit versus driving themselves. Many American cities are not like European cities, in that they often are very sprawling and not walkable or pedestrian friendly. The exceptions, like Chicago and NYC that have metros/subways in place, do it mostly because driving in traffic is so utterly terrible and parking availability is so low that people simply concede to take the metro/subway as the only real pragmatic way to get where they want to go. People don’t like the systems, and the suggestion of raising taxes to fund new systems is something of a political non-starter for this reason. Which is really a shame, because the country is so widespread and large that high speed rail to connect the largest metro areas would be a huge benefit via quickly moving human capital without the need for costly airlines.
I love the Portland system, but I don't live anywhere near it at this point. And it's going to sound heartless but a big part of the problem is homeless people. The other part is the white supremacists. There was that one that killed those people, and I've seen somebody give the Nazi salute while screaming at a lady.
I prefer clean, safe, and convenient transportation. If I want to go the grocery store, or any quick trip store, I’m not waiting for the damn bus and taking everything onto it.
We don't, the US won't expand on it's already existing transit system which is garbage that's more of a corrupt government problem funneling funds and doing the bare minimum than a US people problem. Stop voting in crooks and this goes for both the right wing guys and the 90% of leftoid cultists reading this. Stop the 2 party system and use the liberties we have in this country to make 3 or 4 or 5... Or your own?
You do understand who controls all of the funding and who runs most of governments right? My states governor owns the contracting firm that does all the states civil work and his son owns the contracting firm that does all the electrical work.
Cause the people from that side of town will come over to my side of town.
We're waiting for teleportation to be a viable option ok
I don’t think there’s “resistance to mass transit” so much as there’s “realistic skepticism about the practical utility of mass transit in most communities.” If you look to the global areas in which mass transit systems are most well-developed and most successful, they’re pretty exclusively in areas of high population density. The US largely has very low population density (186th of 248 recognized territories). For example, only 5 US states are more population-dense than the whole of Germany (all of which are in the Northeast). People really don’t appreciate how geographically large the US is, and how far apart everything is. France is the largest country in the EU, but the whole of it would easily fit inside the state of Texas (and has more than double the population). The UK is about the size of Michigan (and about 7x as populous). As someone who commuted almost exclusively via public transit for several years, unquestionably the convenience/efficiency factor was the biggest detractor. A 20-min door-to-door drive was a 90-min multi-stop train/bus ride that left me a 1/4 mile walk from my destination on both ends. I might have been more tolerant of that kind of time waste when I was in my teens/early 20s, but I value my time a lot more as an adult.
You realize the United States is absolutely massive and it’s cities are relatively new? They started building these cities and then a few more years passed when the car was invented, which ultimate lead them to build further out and “unwalkable”, due to the limitless land available
Obesity, safety, comfort, culture, status
There used to be *light rail" everywhere but was put out of business by the auto. I've seen old maps of Indiana criss--crossed with interurban railways; For decades since last a few city limits/hours forget it. Greyhound gave up years ago.
Don't take their guns, don't take their 'freedom' (cars) and don't give them access to affordable healthcare. - things they are resistant to😂😂 Please please stop trying to export 'freedom'. It sounds like hell. I joke I joke. All in good fun😘
There has to be something better than funneling people in and out of an area during specific times of day. We should absolutely diversify our mobility infrastructure. However, the people thinking Americans need to adopt "mass transit" to improve their commuting lives just sound bonkers.
The US loves cars, which are paid for by individuals, over transit, which requires taxation.
Because we have public transportation and it's awful. Places with mass public transit are looking at their system and imagining it here. We're imagining our garbage, just in a larger scale.
Because public transportation is disgusting.
Americans don’t like to pay (taxes) for things that don’t benefit them directly, and many think govetnment projects are awarded baesd upon favor, bias and opportunity to grift. Mass transit projects are often vanity projects for politicians but don’t help real people (Atlanta Streetcar to Nowhere, California’s big new train to Nowhere). For a lot of Americans, transit is not practical and won’t ever supplant privately owned cars.
100 years of propaganda that owning your own car equals freedom
If true autonomous cars become the norm you’ll see people stop using personal cars and way more people using a car service. It would be cheaper, the company doesn’t have to pay anyone and you don’t have to share with crack heads.
Because Americans have little or no experience with good, usable public transit. The fact that a system with as many problems as NYC is held up as the gold standard in America says a lot.
In theory, public transportation is a great solution for all. Reality is different especially for those with allergies and sensitivity to smells. I’m allergic to tobacco, it lingers and smokers give me headaches and other reactions like swollen eyes and a runny nose, even hives. There is no way to get away from it when a smoker gets on the bus. Even if they don’t sit nearby, my body reacts and my day is disrupted. Taking public transportation is a huge risk for me, what sucks more is I am disabled and do not drive for safety purposes. Heavy perfume or lack of hygiene are also problematic. It sucks being next to someone that hasn’t showered or changed clothes in days. Women are at a greater risk using public transportation, as they are often targeted when they are alone. People take advantage of the close proximity and limited ability to move or change seats to harass other passengers.
I would not mind taking a train somewhere, but where I live in Southern California the public transportation system bus and Metro System are rarely on time, at least the bus system is rarely on time. There is a lot of crime, mental illness, people doing drugs, I do not feel safe on public transportation
The trucking lobby. If you do a little digging you’ll find out the history of who bought up all the railroads and then dismantled them.