Public transit isnt generally dangerous.
It just generally sucks. Depending on where you have to go and the public means to get there, it can take hours to get somewhere that takes 15-20 minutes by car.
Almost as if its intentionally designed to encourage car ownership.
…only because it has other Americans on it.
Yes, but the automobile industry does not want you to know that. The same auto industry that made crossing the road at any non-90° angle a crime.
As a Taiwanese, I have a perception that the US is dangerous, with lots of drug users and gun shots, and even in schools. Is that stereotype or fact?
There are lots of drug users, and lots of gun shots, and yes even in schools
But I feel you’re vastly underestimating the size of the US.
There’s a lot of nuance. I’ve lived in a major west coast city for years and I never heard any gunshots in public. Drug users are sometimes visible, it seems to be less common in recent years but you can see it at times. I suppose it depends on what you mean by “drug users”, cannabis is legal in my state and its pretty common to see in public but no one really cares about that, to me “drug users” means hard stuff like fentanyl.
Violent gun crime is a real problem and it is much worse in other parts of the country. Most of the time it isn’t random. There are still mass shootings and random violent crime. I assume Taiwan is much safer. I’ve never been robbed or witnessed any serious violent crime in my 30+ years living here.
Meh, close ‘nuff
You are afraid of public transit because of inflated crime statistics.
I am afraid of public transit because I was late for the bus in kindergarten and got run over chasing it.
We are not the same.
Most brainwashed nation there is, was, and hopefully ever will be.
Meanwhile Australia is like “Hold my beer, cunts” while it drinks the anti-migration, pro-mining no revenue coolaid.
Personal experience and thus anecdotal I know, but the light rail line I used to take for work has had issues to say the least. A coworker ended up murdered in one of the more secluded stations two years ago. I’ve personally had a taser pulled on my face only to find out the guy was trying to sell it. All the cars reek of piss and I’ve seen someone having a mental health crisis try to peel off the thin padding off one of the seats.
I really want public transit to work but it does require a firm hand to keep people in line and safe in such enclosed areas. It’s one of the few venues I’d actually welcome some increased security and fare enforcement in.
Those issues aren’t intrinsic to the situation, the solutions are rooted in better social services and education, so people aren’t struggling with untreated issues to begin with.
I almost puked while this 40 something yr old Asian women across from me on the subway methodically peeled skin off of her bare feet.
Everyone banded together and threw her off at the next stop, right?
it is, but its quite inadequete in many parts of the country. and quite limited in well “funded” areas. also the distates for HSR. also covid made people forget how to drive safely.
I have never in my entire life heard anyone in the US say public transportation is more dangerous than driving.
This is not a thing. We are all very aware that driving is incredibly dangerous.
It’s a very common thing. People are programmed to think it here. I heard someone mention a bus and 3 other people immediately piped up to agree they would never ride a bus because they would get stabbed/its far to dangerous. Fox news did it intentionally.
The fear of public transit is part of the racism and classism baked into our country.
Yeah, it’s kind of odd that Americans seem to be scared to have to interact with strangers. Internationally, the American stereotype is of being very friendly, the person who sits next to you on the bus and wants to have a conversation - which is sometimes a bit socially awkward in countries where we pretty much ignore each other. Maybe they’re different abroad? Or maybe we shouldn’t stereotype lol
It’s not about strangers == danger. I love in one of the biggest metros in the US and we have pretty crap public transport. The commuter lines from the suburbs are full of middle-income professionals, and nobody blinks about those. But transfer over to regular city lines, and it’s mostly low-income minority demographics, and people will immediately caution me about taking those lines to get to my office.
Yeah that sounds like a classism thing. TBF we have the same shit here too, and I bet most countries do.
It’s not entirely unreasonable either, I’ve lived almost all my life in inner city areas with all the problems they have. In fact, I’ve been part of the problem. I’ve been mugged, stabbed (crap stabbing, he wasn’t really committed. But I still gave him my stuff lol), stalked, beaten, hassled cos of my race, all sorts of shit. TBF some - but not all - of that was because I was engaged with that inner city life as a junkie crackhead and occasional runner. Lived much of my life like that.
But underneath that, people make community. There’s also lots of good people in those low income communities who will help you if you get in trouble, feed you if you’re hungry, just generally look out for a fellow human. I’ve had a genuine friendship with at least one very scary person. Most people, if they’re in their right minds, are pretty much okay.
I’d go so far as you say there’s more genuine community in low income areas than there is in suburbia.
Obvs I don’t know where you live and you would know much better than me what the risks are and what you’re comfortable with. Not encouraging you to step outside your comfort zone.
And it feels kinda facile to say ‘No war but the class war!’ But it’s also true that the wealthy want us to be scared of each other. They don’t want us to build community. And that’s one really good way of fighting back - just solidarity and acceptance with other people who might be different from us in one way or another.
Sorry mate, it’s evening here and I just wrote a slightly drunken rant. But after all the shit I’ve seen, I feel like most people are generally pretty decent. And we gotta look out for each other.
I definitely agree with your observations on community vs neighbors.
I do take the bus, thru those poor parts of town as it’s the only bus route that stops at my office (cheaper real estate, near an airport). There is definitely a need to be more alert and guarded in those areas, but not because of classism. It’s because in the US poor == less access health care and mental care and food security. So there’s a higher likelihood that a person who smells like piss asking for free bus fare is experiencing some mental issues that may lead to a dangerous situation. I don’t think we need to fund better security or add express routes to bypass neighborhoods. I think we need to provide a stronger social safety network to reduce the number of people walking around with mental issues and desperate economic situations.
More likely the Americans who travel abroad at all are just a different type of person. As far as I know there are plenty of Americans who will never even leave their home state, some barely leave their own town. Those are the people who have never seen a Muslim and still think they are all terrorists. Those are the people who think entire cities are constantly on fire due to evil leftists. The people who travel abroad are rarely like that, because they know better.
In other words, we meet the sane ones when they’re visiting our countries.
Yeah, in my experience regardless of country the people who want to travel are not the same ones that want a regression to isolationist BS. Especially with the US, where going to another country on holiday is not a casual thing (like with the massive influx of tourists into the spanish coast in summer, for example), the people who are there are generally are the ones that want to be there and are curious about other cultures. I don’t know if that 1:1 correlates with being “nice” or “sane”, but it certainly sets people up for not being intolerant and that’s a big part of not being a jerk.
Also I was curious and looked up the figures on travel rates. According to these rigorously validated sources (i.e. “they looked pretty good to me”) it looks like:
11% of US citizens have never traveled outside of the state where they were born. [1]
27% of US citizens have never been outside the country[2]
29% of US citizens currently live in their home town[3]
(source 1) (source 2) (source 3)This is in a surprising contrast to the EU demographics, where:
37% of European citizens have never been outside their home country[1]
(source 1)(I could find no sources for the other statistics for Europe, I’m sorry!)
Important Note:
There are other commonly cited surveys (from far less reputable research groups than Pew, it really should be noted. One of them is literally just an ad for an AI language-learning app) which put the amount of americans that have never left the country closer to 40% (forbes) or 42% (preply) so ymmv with these numbers. Personally, I trust pew over Forbes or some slop factory, but for transparency’s sake I felt I should include them!
It is extremely frustrating how often reading into “why are things like this in the US” leads to racism as the explanation
Do you really think at this point it’s racism? It’s not. Racism, trans, gays, blah blah blah exuse… They care about money. They would murder any person any time for money
The current federal administration has literally implemented objectively racist policies
I agree
Plenty of stereotypes, especially in TV and movies, paint public transportation as populated by the poor and downtrodden, and therefore anyone out of their comfort zone on a bus or subway is a target for mugging or worse.
It’s just classism and racism.
And IMO also it would be highly unlikely that the average person would understand that driving is indeed more dangerous, at best most would only parrot the statement back.
Must depend on where you are. I hear it constantly in the South and Midwest. They’re shocked and horrified when they learn about our coworkers who take the local light rail for their daily commute.
I’d kill for a local light rail. I’m so sick of driving.
I’d kill for a local light rail.
Look at the dangerous people who take trains. This is why we need a 1.5 ton
safety blankettruck to keep us safe.1.5 ton truck? What kind of pinko commie BS is a 1.5 ton truck. Son in 'merica the trucks start at 2.5 tons, unless you’re driving one of those rinky-dink soda can things made by “Toyohta” or “kneesan” or whatever. 1.5 ton truck, what a joke…
I’ve never heard the transportation it’s self is dangerous but the people you will be forced into sharing a small inescapable space could be. Equating car accidents to being assaulted is comparing apples to oranges. No one is going to assault you or sexually assault you in your car, do drugs in your car without your consent, make your car smell horrible, piss in your car, etc. for your average driver, all those things are completely possible and more on public transit.
In my experience people tend to operate in their own bubble when they are driving. Most people are fine and still have enough empathy to not be assholes, but some kinda treat it like they are the main character and will endanger everyone else with their vehicle. I don’t see this as being any different than being in close personal contact with other humans. If anything, being in your own person bubble of a car can remove you from the shared environment and make people more willing to be reckless and dangerous.
Agreed. Nobody thinks public transit is dangerous. If anything I would say upper class people like to say it’s for the poors. Generally everyone in my life has been jealous of other countries with better public transit.
I think when it’s thoroughly planned out it’s amazing. The problem is budgeting and stipulations on how long thy have to spend the money; If they had more time to figure out how to make rails better and redo infrastructure in a way whet wit can make a little more sense people wouldn’t complain as much. Blowing out lanes and making sidewalks bigger to scrunch in lanes and making it one car lane and one bike/bus lane that’s not a good infrastructure option.
I’m for public transportation but there has to be coherent planning not just fuck all we have money let’s do this one part while we can and hope it works out.
I fully believe driving is safer (less likely for anything to go wrong) but more likely to get me killed.
I love driving and I know you’re wrong.
You’re not going to die. You are going to get sick, you’re going to be exposed to that 1:10,000 people that are doing something truly awful within eyesight. You’re going to be late. You’re going to spend a lot of time waiting for a ride without any idea who long it’s going to be. You’re probably going to have to change transports multiple times.
And all this assumes you’re in the urban sprawl or the burbs.
Even rural US public transit isn’t that bad, be more skeptical of the propaganda.
It’s not propaganda, There is no bus service within 5 miles of my house.
At my old house I rode the light-rail for 6 months before I gave up and replaced my dead car.
… Where did distance to transit come from? That wasn’t part of the initial comment I responded to, I’m not sure why you’re bringing that up.
Even rural US public transit isn’t that bad,
5 miles from a bus is considerably bad for public transit imo.
Sure, and if you’d said that instead of the classist propaganda lines you went with I might not have called it out, but… You didn’t. And you keep trying to bring it up afterwards instead of addressing the actual criticism, which is kinda weird.
You’re not going to die.
You are going to get sick,
you’re going to be exposed to that 1:10,000 people that are doing something truly awful within eyesight.
You’re going to be late.
You’re going to spend a lot of time waiting for a ride without any idea who long it’s going to be.
You’re probably going to have to change transports multiple times.
And all this assumes you’re in the urban sprawl or the burbs.
Every single point stands perfectly well on its own for anyone who’s relied on public transportation in the US for an exptended period of time. Even in our pinnacle of subways NYC, The same shit happens. It happens in DC. It’s not every day, but it’s certainly not rare.
Personally, I find calling that out as propaganda kinda weird.
Yeah, exactly, that’s exactly the classist propaganda I was talking about.
“You’re going to be late.” well maybe? My local transit is good to ±5min on all but the most notorious routes, and in the city proper the light rail is pretty much always bang on time. I’ll grant you it exposes you to more people and thus you have a higher chance of getting sick, but especially post-covid cabin air is filtered and you just need to like, bring hand sanitizer? The fearmongering about 1:10,000 people doing something “truly awful” thing is just straight BS - I’ve taken transit my entire life and the worst I’ve seen is someone getting thrown off the bus for yelling too loud out the window.
Every single point stands perfectly well on its own for anyone who’s relied on public transportation in the US for an exptended period of time.
You’re taking your own experience and assuming it’s representative of everyone’s experience - and it’s not. You’re also repeating the same BS that gets brought out any time public transit is portrayed in media, or when the topic of budgets are brought up. It’s largely fearmongering. Obviously it changes drastically by region - the transit systems in rural alabama are likely not as nice as on the coasts, but the part that’s propaganda is how impressions are taken from the most tragically underfunded systems and used to paint all transit systems like that, and that you’re asserting them as definitely and always going to be true, which is just horseshit. You’re repeating are the same tired lines that get rolled out during budget season, and it’s just… exhausting to see it repeated even within extremely liberal spaces like lemmy.
I know we all like to think we’re an exception, but the cat really is never wrong.
Side note:
Personally, I find calling that out as propaganda kinda weird.
A depressing commentary on the state of the country. But it got you to address the criticism, so I’m not sure it’s a great thing to try and turn around “no u” style.
As a European, I absolutely love public transit. But I’m not gonna lie, I’d never even approach an American subway station. That shit looks, and to some degree functions, like medieval dungeons.
That shit looks, and to some degree functions, like medieval dungeons.
As criticism, this one kind of confuses me. I’ve taken public transit in the UK, Oslo in Norway and Istanbul in Turkey, and major transit hubs seem pretty similar in terms of design. Getting to the train platform from the airport to Oslo proper feels like taking the endless series of escalators to reach the Long Island Rail Road in Grand Central. The metro stations near where I was staying in Istanbul wouldn’t have looked terribly out of place in the Bronx or Brooklyn.
The major difference was that the stations and vehicles outside of the US were kept much cleaner, and people actually showed consideration for one another while using it. People would queue up in a more orderly fashion, let others disembark before trying to rush in, and there wasn’t anybody (aside from one kid in Oslo on the last tram for the night one day) blasting music or TikTok videos on their phones. Even on the occasions where I encountered homeless people in those systems, it was night and day between what you deal with in the US and what you see over there. That, and the systems were way more developed than what we have in the US. I don’t just mean in terms of destinations or the sheer reach of the transit systems, but that you’ll have cities with metros, trams, buses, light rail and inter-city high speed rail options all within (mostly, aside from the weirdness of the UK) a single system, giving you tons of options to get around.
In short, I’d be less worried about the apparently sinister design of the stations in an American subway system, and more concerned that you have to share that system with Americans.
It’s very different if you’re looking at NYC or high volume subway on East Coast v a smaller bus or subway station not in top tier city. The busiest subways trend to be nicer than small ones.
The MBTA (Boston and Greater Boston Transit) = polish a turd, it’s still a turd.
I would be happy to take the subway in Boston any day. It beats driving.
Depends on where you’re going. If you had to get to Atrius in Somerville from Melrose you’re better off driving. Otherwise you’re taking the bus to the orange line to take the red line. When if you drove or even used an ebike you’re better off because of how much mroe of a straight shot there it is.
I know, leave earlier but you can’t pay me to think that an hour and a half bus and train commute to what could be a 16 min drive or a 23min ebike ride is more convenient, easy and worth any of the shit that comes with it.
Absolutely true. My city had a very violent incident occur a couple years ago on the bus, and it is still brought up now as to why busses are unsafe. Meanwhile you can ask any of these people how many people died this week on the highways/driving and they have no idea. Busses feel unsafe because of personal perceptions, while driving feels safer because it’s what you’re used to. Feelings though are not facts.
Just like roller coasters. They seem dangerous because the 3-4 deaths a year are covered with a wild amount of attention.
I wish I could take a roller coaster to work.
That’s just a train isn’t it?
Yes, but more thrilling!
Try the M2 metro in Lausanne, it’s steep enough to basically be a roller coaster haha
People don’t like giving up control. But the fact of the matter is that giving up control of a vehicle to a professional who drives for a living is way safer than doing it yourself. (I have family who refuse to fly and I’ve had this conversation before.)
i love the control and freedom of having to spend all my attention on not killing anyone, making sure other drivers don’t kill me, paying tolls to use the fastest routes, being tracked everywhere I go, paying tons in taxes to maintain all these roads and subsidize fuel, and being forced to drive so every time i want to leave my home even if i don’t feel like it. /s
Yep have a family member like that. They think it’s safer. I’ve also seen them drive while using a cell phone and have argued with me that “its cool man I only had a couple in fine to drive”
Same with air travel. No matter how you slice the statistics air travel is so much safer than pretty much anything else. Only trains are close.
Yet an unsignificant percentage of people have a fear of flying, but almost no one has a fear of driving/passenger.
Different kinds of danger. It’s the same reason why a shark feels more threatening than your steering wheel or a bottle of beer; our brains are not good at recognising abstract threats. If you see a disorderly drunk guy one time on the train and felt threatened, your amygdala will remember that literally forever
nothing abstract about being cut off by an F150 or SUV crossing 3 lanes of traffic to take an exit at the last minute
True. But most of the time people feel pretty safe driving, safe enough to fall asleep while hurtling down the highway at 110kmph (70mph)
that only tells me that most people haven’t evolved past primal instincts, and again is feelings. It feels dangerous, but it’s not.
There’s research done on our nervous systems and stress responses, and how they evolved in an environment that we’re so estranged from today that they’re basically irrelevant and maladaptive, but they haven’t caught up to modern lifestyles.
Basically we have the same stress/anxiety/fear responses that have been hardwired since we were hunter gatherers. Back then, threats were acute and immediate. You see a big cat with sharp teeth, you have a sympathetic nervous response where you feel an adrenaline kick, you run away or you face it with a spear. You either get away from or eliminate the threat, or you die. Either way, it’s over in like twenty minutes tops, and then the parasympathetic response kicks in. It purges all the stress hormones from your blood, replaces them with endorphins, and within ten minutes all your body’s systems equalize and reset to their calmer baselines. Respiratory rate, heartbeat, digestion and metabolism, etc.
Nowadays, the perceived threats we face each day aren’t like that. Deadlines, performance reports, layoffs, getting yelled at by your boss; being left by your partner for someone else; climate change, cost of living crisis, nuclear annihilation, random mass shooters, the list goes on. All these lingering threats that never quite go away and are always just hovering over us. Not quite enough to trigger a full fight-or-flight response. Just enough to let out a trickle of constant cortisol. And never really being resolved so that your parasympathetic response kicks in and replaces all those stress hormones with feel-good hormones.
A lot of modern self-care techniques are basically “body hacks” designed to use this notion. Grounding techniques to concentrate on something calm to move focus away from the stressors and activate the calming response. Focused breathing to tell your body it’s safe and slow your heart rate. Watch a horror movie to activate a full adrenaline response so that your body can recalibrate when it passes. Go for a run or an intense workout to release endorphins and flush out all that cortisol.
It all centers on “how do we shift away from the body’s stress response and activate the calming response?” And it’s only necessary because of how radically different the modern context is from the one where those systems developed originally.
When I see a drunk driver not able to hold a lane I feel threatened and I remember that literally forever… It must be down to mediacoverage, ads etc, because also while driving on the roads you see fucking dangerous shit all the time
Another part of this is the disruptive people are more visible on public transport. On a bus you can see two people arguing loudly and feel unsafe from it, whereas on the road those same two people could be arguing just as much and you’d never notice it in your bubble.
The people arguing in the car are more dangerous though because:
-
One of them may be driving while operating a vehicle is not the biggest thing on their mind.
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You can’t see that they may be dangerous and move away from them because you don’t know what’s happening
It’s not only people arguing, assholes who drive dangerously aren’t too likely to kill you if you took the train for your commute, but in a car you’re always a few deciseconds away from death.
this is a great point, well articulated
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I’d rather have some dude freak out at me on the bus than behind the wheel of a multi-ton death machine
It’s just that the American infrastructure is so far behind. The subway trains are so old, dirty and rundown. Not to mention graffiti everywhere. Much of the NYC Subway system, specifically track switches and signals, is still manually operated, as it still relies on the 100-year-old technology.
Most busses are still combustion engine instead of electric like most of the western world.
The US train infrastructure is an embarrassment. What China build in 20 years in high speed train is insane. The US or in this case California agreed in the same year 2008 to start om a high speed rail network. The 725 miles of track will maybe completed by 2033. In the meantime China build over 15000 km of high speed railway track. The comfort on the trains can’t even compare to air travel. Most Chinese prefer train over air.
The NYC subway system is impressive, in a way. Imagine a system that has been brutally underfunded for an entire century and basically frozen in time with barely any extension since then. Yet they still manage to keep it running and (mostly) functioning. It doesn’t surprise me that much of it relies on 100 year old technology. The money isn’t even enough for maintaining everything, let alone, massive improvements. And yes, it is an embarrassment. There are other subway networks in the world that have a similarly long history and don’t feel even remotely as neglected.
Comparing China might be a bit unfair with their wages and … efficient way of handling property, environmental and other laws but there is no need to. Just have a look at Spain for example. They started 34 years ago with their first line. It is also interesting because they built the HSR in a gauge that is incompatible with the rest of the national rail network.
You hit the nail on the head. Things get done in China. In my birth country, Netherlands, it is a drama with environmental concerns, paperwork, licenses, animals etc.
For example Netherlands introduced toll for trucks to move them to electric. But to install a charger at the trucking company, it will take upto 7 years!! That is totally insane. And since there is a change of government every 4 years or 2 years currently, everything changes again.
At least all the investment in infrastructure in China benefits its citizens. Unlike investing more in the military industrial complex.
Don’t you think having clean, reliable, innovative transport should be prioritized? How can you be proud of a 100 year old system that is crumbling and no notion of any investment. Maybe now NYC has a ‘socialist’ mayor, things will improve. But to catch up will take a long time.
That is totally insane. And since there is a change of government every 4 years or 2 years currently, everything changes again.
That’s the other thing, that I bring up with a lot of these wants (not saying that in a hateful way), is that relative to now everything seems like a good idea but in the US too, we have a new administration every so often, for us it’s 4 to 8 years (depending on how elections play out), so there’s no way for anything to really get done on an effective scale with a lot of projects that can have numerous positive societal impacts.
Relative to now all these ideas seem amazing but what happens when the next president doesn’t like them and goes, “funding cut!”?
