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> Admittedly some of the problems you mention like a rolling homeless shelter or the smell of weed share a solution which is more, and better policing and as a society us having higher standards for ourselves and others, but they are problems that can be solved much more easily in my opinion than the problems associated with car-only infrastructure.

They seem pretty equally hopeless to solve. How are we going to "change society's standards?" This isn't even a public transit problem--it's a "dealing with other human beings" problem.

Ever since the pandemic, going out in public and trying to do basically anything is like entering a probabilistic mental facility, where some non-trivial percentage of the time, some member of the public is going to enter your life as an obstacle, aggressor, or at least as an irritant. It's always been kind of the case, but the percentage chance just seems much larger today.

Road ragers are out in equal number to smokers on the train, sidewalk poopers while you're trying to walk, and coal rollers while you're trying to bicycle. It's not the mode of transportation, it's the growing belligerence of the general public.

My point is that most people don't consider externalities when deciding on their transit. Sitting in your car is far more comfortable than navigating smelly and dirty transit with unstable individuals roaming. Yes transit is safer, but people really don't do that calculus on the morning of their commute.

Weed smell is going to be a problem simply from the fact that users stink ALL THE TIME, even if they aren't smoking in the actual metro. It like an epidemic of BO.

What Costco do you shop where you are pressed up against people for half an hour? A loaded train is a sealed environment with poor ventilation and way more density than almost any other scenario in modern life. Regardless it's also people's perception, and a huge warehouse feels better ventilated than a subway car.

I have a feeling that if people made one of those pros and cons sheets and did the crossing off equal things, these conversations would go easier

I can't imagine equating things like the smell of weed and having to share a train with a homeless person, with death, death, accident clean up, new barriers added, and then more death anyways

I've never died in a car, but I experienced awful negative externalities with public transportation all the time (back when I used it). You're comparing a 95% occurrence to a <1% occurrence.