Hacker News Reader

Comment by brightlancer | Hacker News Reader

> I guess the stigma that only poor people (And we Mexicans are poor you know haha) take the bus is pretty alive in some parts of the US.

Because it's mostly true.

It's not _always_ true and we shouldn't hold prejudices, but it would be just as wrong (though not as un-PC) to claim that public transit was used equally across income levels, racial/ ethnic checkboxes, etc.

"Americans who are lower-income, black or Hispanic, immigrants or under 50 are especially likely to use public transportation on a regular basis, Pew Research Center data show."

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/04/07/who-relie...

The bigger problem for most folks (not your racist co-worker) is the crime, drug use and general anti-social behavior on public transit. This will vary by city/ transit district, but it's gotten much worse in the last decade (after it had gotten much better for the previous two).

View on HN

The funny thing is that a lot of the “crime, drug use, and general anti-social behavior” on transit is overblown in the very minds of people who don’t take transit regularly. Sure, in the US it’s nowhere near as pleasant as it could (or should) be, but it’s really not that bad, nor as slow as people with a car imagine it is.

My realtor said I was the only person she’s worked with who has ever bought a house that doesn’t own a car — in Los Angeles, of all places.

Yet 8 years later, I still get around by a mix of Uber and trains and bus. And the funny part is, I am almost always the first to arrive because I don’t have to worry about parking, and even with 50% of my trips done via Uber to fill in gaps in the network, after gas/insurance/parking I am still spending less!

I do walk a lot too, but that’s one place I would agree LA has absolutely systemically dropped the ball on outside of the historic pockets that the city didn’t demolish. I often feel like I’m the only one who has walked on a given sidewalk in years, and wonder if I’m supposed to be walking there

> The funny thing is that a lot of the “crime, drug use, and general anti-social behavior” on transit is overblown in the very minds of people who don’t take transit regularly.

Yes, it's unheard of that folks can become accustomed to circumstances which most people would view as abnormal or dangerous.

I've been riding public transit almost my entire life; I started riding _by myself_ when I was 8 so I could get to and from school, back when the Bronx was much more violent.

Riding during rush hour is a very different experience than riding off-hours. While I almost never felt unsafe (gotta keep your head on a swivel), lots of women have told me how they've regularly felt unsafe. Maybe it's some dude ranting on a subway car. Maybe it's one ranting on the subway platform. Maybe it's a dude sitting WAY too close on an empty bus. Then there's the open drug use on some systems like BART.

> but it’s really not that bad,

Maybe you're just more tolerant of crime, drug use and general anti-social behavior.

> general anti-social behavior

This term always amazes me, along with ‘loitering, was it designed to criminalise undesirables?

I’ve seen police called for ‘antisocial behaviour’ on kids swimming in a river and on teenagers hanging out and chatting at night.

I didn’t say it wasn’t pleasant— there’s so many ways transit comfort and safety could be improved — but it’s really not as bad as people who have never taken a train or bus, and never will regardless of how comfortable it is, say it is

I agree with you and I think it's the main point of the article: cities need to push to make public transport a "first class transportation medium" so that people from all Socioeconomic levels take it.

The same thing happens here in my city in Mexico: public transport is uncomfortable, slow, insecure and dirty. So, mid/high income population avoid using it and instead buy cars. The government then has to spend more money in infra for those cars; money that could be used to improve public transport.

I guess a difference between Mexico and USA is that because here the m as majority of people are "poor" , more people use public transport.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com