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Comment by drb91 | Hacker News Reader

> bad public transit is 10x worse than just sitting in a bit of traffic, or dropping a few bucks on an Uber/Lyft.

How can this be true? Public transit allows your attention to wander and typically is much, much faster than traffic. Adding uber/lyft will get two of the worst attributes: traffic and high cost, although you’ll be able to do something else simultaneously.

Furthermore, it’s not clear how parking fees affect low income families: for my commute (between east bay and SF), public transit is an order of magnitude less expensive than driving, especially if you consider parking.

Finally, it’s not clear what homeless people have to do with this. The cost of affordable transit is interacting with your neighbors. If you don’t like your neighbors, please don’t screw them over by investing in car-oriented transit.

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Maybe you can travel in peace on public transportation but my 5 foot 3 inch 110 pound girlfriend cannot. She gets constantly harassed by guys when I'm not around and some (especially the homeless) get violent about it. And to make matters worse, when you are on a bus, there isn't really anywhere you can go to get away from some creepy guy. Your stuck having to deal with that person until you get to your destination.

It's so bad she refuses to use public transportation here in seattle without me due to how unsafe she feels.

Trains are faster than traffic.

Buses and trams are slower as they're still in traffic, and now have to stop every 500 m to pick up or drop off passengers.

I'll usually take an uber if I actually need to get somewhere on time and it's not near a train station.

Exclusive bus lanes with special traffic light queue-jumping makes this a more even comparison and costs a lot less than rail.

As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc. If this were stopped, then it might be better than being in a car.

>> As the GP said, there are people who are drunk, high, smelling of bodily fluids, etc. There are people who are rude, loud, etc.

Excuse me, but- where does that happen?

I mention in another comment that I live in a town in England, where I've never had any problems with homeless people in public transport. I also work in London, travel by rail across Europe and often use public transport in three different European countries, France, Italy and Greece. I have never noticed the kind of problem you and the GP flag up.

I'm getting the feeling that it's a problem local to a very specific part of the world and by no means a global issue that has to do with the nature of public transport, in general.

It's a problem in Melbourne. Although not as bad as America from what I've read here.

Trains are mostly fine, but I won't take a bus or a tram if I can avoid it. If I can get somewhere by train or bus, and the train would be 10 minutes slower, I'll take the train.

The other day on the tram I had to deal with drunk ex-con listening to his bluetooth speaker and verbally abusing a poor Asian lady to the point she had to get off the tram. I was disgusted, but I wanted my teeth to remain in my mouth, so I couldn't do anything.

I've had to deal with plenty of abusive arseholes on the bus too. And even just people being noisy, like South Americans treating the bus like it's a nightclub (which I personally don't mind) or just drunk people yelling at each other because they've forgotten their inside voice.

Then some people treat public transport like it's a landfill. Especially on a Friday or Saturday night, public transport will be filled with beer bottles.

The drivers don't care. They sit in a little perspex box so that they can't get assaulted by the passengers and just drive the bus or the tram around.

Just as another data point, I currently live in Sydney (used to live in Melbourne), and I haven't noticed any of these problems here. Trains are much more pleasant to ride compared to Melbourne. Ferry is the best option though. Sundays get you unlimited transport for $2.60, it's great. Perhaps it's because of the sunshine?

> Trains are much more pleasant to ride compared to Melbourne.

Sydneysider here. I didn't realise the trains were bad in Melbourne. I travel to Melbourne regularly but rely on cabs when my legs won't suffice i.e. to/from the domestic airport. The MEL CBD is very walkable thanks to being a grid.

Do you think trains are more affordable in Melbourne, thus a good option for the homeless? I can't figure out what the difference might be, but I imagine the Opal card system here might be a barrier to people with little money.

> Ferry is the best option though.

Being able to enjoy a beer/wine/cider on the ferry is great. That you can tap your credit card to pay the fare is cool too.

> Perhaps it's because of the sunshine?

I always thought Melbournians were more artsy (for lack of a better word) because of the cooler weather. Just as in Europe the colder climates encourage quieter pursuits (philosophers, poets and thinkers) while the Mediterranean caters to hedonistic pleasures.

GP here.

I don't think that trains are bad in Melbourne, although I haven't been to Sydney to compare, it's the buses and trams that have the anti-social behaviour. Having cops at all the train stations at night definitely helps keep the trains in a better state.

Affordability doesn't factor in at all here. The people who cause trouble on public transport don't pay for public transport. I'm not sure what it's like in Sydney, but most train stations don't have gates and the driver doesn't do anything if you don't tap on on the bus.

Ironic that you say that warmer weather caters to hedonistic pleasures when all the clubs in Sydney close at 3, meanwhile Melbourne is one of the few cities in the world that still has 24 hour clubs.

> most train stations don't have gates

Minor stations lack gates, popular stations have them. We still get people avoiding fares, homeless people sleeping on seats, people who leave a lot of rubbish etc. But Sydney's modern Waratah trains would be the best I've tried compared to trains in Japan and France...well the Shinkansen is pretty cool but it's not your average commuter train.

> all the clubs in Sydney close at 3

Depends on where you are. The CBD has lockout-laws but a lot of the nightlife migrated to areas like Newtown where pubs and bars can close at 5am. I've noticed Melbourne is very CBD centric, whereas Sydney is similar to LA in that there are many satellite cities/communities that are the cultural hubs. I'd say some of the most boring areas in Sydney are the tourist traps, i.e. CBD/Circular Quay.

When Melbourne made all trams free in the city centre, trams became unbearable to ride. It used to be just one tram line that was always filled up, now it's every single tram as soon as you get to the free zone.

The transport system was better before Myki in my opinion. More affordable, weekly passes, and paper tickets. In contrast, Sydney's transport used to be a mess with every operator requiring a different ticket, so no transfers from train to bus or ferry. Now with Opal, everything is much simpler, and the best part is going to the airport is really cheap now, if you let your Opal card go negative :)

I use public transport a lot (trains mostly, but the occasional bus) here in Scotland and I can't remember the last time I had anything unpleasant happen on public transport. And I've got a decent new car which I do use a fair amount but I'm perfectly happy taking the train or bus as well.

I think it's really something local to big US cities (or even smaller ones).

A friend who lived in Athens, Greece once told me how his sisters, who live in New York, came to visit him. He said that they were afraid to go on the tube, because they thought it wouldn't be safe. He said that they were used in the NY tube that they didn't think was safe.

I've had a few similar experiences myself (e.g. people being afraid of side streets in my cheery seaside town, where the biggest danger is someone from a hen or stag do getting sick on your new shoes). That's even more striking considering I don't actually meet that many US citizens. The few I do seem to always be looking over their shoulder.

I guess, the flip side of it is that people in Europe don't realise how safe our little region of the world is. We kind of take it for granted that just walking down a street in London or Paris, or other big European capitals doesn't automatically put your life and property in danger. For people living in places with high rates of violent crime, like the US, South Africa, Brazil or Mexico and so on, it's all very different.

I get that, in that sort of context, public transport is seen as unsafe- because anything "public" is seen as unsafe, and probably for good reasons. But that's not because public transport is inherently unsafe; it's public spaces that are unsafe in specific parts of the world. It's hard to decouple the two in peoples' minds though :/

San Francisco, for one.

Seattle too.

Even if they people on the bus are okay, they are still uncomfortable.

LA, Chicago, Portland, SF, any major metro area.

So what I'm getting from this thread is that it isn't a problem with public transport, it's a problem with the US.

It is a huge problem in the US. I've lived in SF, Seattle, LA, and Houston.

Happens in Portland also

It already is better than a car. It has a higher throughput and lower cost. If you value luxury, pay more for private transit. This isn’t contrary to a city that invests in public transit. SF is practically undrivable during the week rush hour because people prioritize comfort over economy. So the only knob a city has is to increase expense of driving, or to make public transit more comfortable. I don’t see any humanitarian route to the latter, so I am emphatically for the former.

High throughput and low cost are not the only metrics that commuters care about, clearly, or else they'd be riding public transit. If you offer to PAY ME a dollar to ride on BART next to a smelly, loud homeless person for an hour, versus me PAYING $10 in gas to drive to work, I'll pick the latter without hesitation.

Well, that’s the rational consumer side of you. What about the side of you that’s a member of a community—how do you start caring about externalities?

Theoretically that's what our elected officials should be dealing with. I've tried to intervene with loud or aggressive passengers before and I'll end up being the only person in 40 people on a BART car to do so, and after a couple experiences where I saw that nobody was going to back me up, I decided I should not risk my life over such things. I'd rather drive my car to work and make sure I get home to my children.

I agree, if elected officials want to reduce traffic, they would put barrier separated bike lanes and keep the trains clean and safe.

But the bay area local governments are self-sabotaging parody where it's difficult for anything like that to get done.

> If this were stopped

Sorry, but that's called society and it will never be able to compete with the bubble you've built for yourself.

If more people were willing too embrace society instead of hiding from it then there's a better chance of improving it.

It really depends on the public transit system. For me, driving to work takes about 8 minutes. Biking to work takes about 12 minutes. Walking to work takes about 35 minutes. Taking the bus to work takes about 45 minutes (which includes one transfer).

> How can this be true?

It's hot, noisy, uncomfortable, nausea inducing, and I have to put up with people falling asleep on me or homeless people harassing me.

The light rail (in Seattle) is fine, but the coverage isn't good enough.

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