JCC The public transit brigade

I believe I created this thread back in the temp forums, but never on the actual boards, so... I'm interested to see/hear how many others, aside from a few I already know, who rely on public transit most (or all) of the time to get around. For me, the biggest plus is the monies not spent on gas, insurance, maintenance, etc. Of course there are drawbacks, to which the biggest for me is having to leave my home about 2 hours before work starts, for I've got to catch 2 buses to get there, and having to deal with the occasional crazy ne'er–do–well, along with certain times of the day when a bus can get too crowded .



Though I still wish, and will eventually obtain a driver's license, I'd think there would be something about using the buses (and occasional subway) that I'd miss.

 

+2 Zuckuss

 

Tunick, this may be a phenomenon unique to Los Angeles because it has a fairly woeful public transport network. Most cities in Europe and Asia are based around public transport.

 

Also, they're your colleagues Tunes, isn't that a bit, well, judgemental?

Darth Punk, you realise this means people in this city where Tunick lives make eye contact with one another on public transport?

 

I keep to myself, unless someone asks me a reasonable question.



Darth Punk Mostly people who clearly are drunk, high, etc, which isn't anything unique or spectacular; the verbal fights that can occur can get really annoying.

 

Tunick, start digging more subway lines. Chop chop!

 

Is LA typical of a lot of American cities, in terms of bad PT?

 

I would say typical for southwestern cities. The Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle have much better public transport that the L.A. area, but still nothing like I encountered in London. New York City is likely the only place where you'd find a system comparable to that in European cities.

 

Ender: Not really. LA has definitely gotta be the worst big city in the nation as far as public transportation. Chicago, NY, the Bay Area... all are much better with an array of options. I don't really know Texas cities well enough, but from what little I've seen, they're all pretty much like LA.

 

I know the NY subway is quite good, but otherwise I've no frame of reference. The tube is great in London (to be fair, so is the overland rail that brings people in from Reading or Kent or Surry or wherever else on the commuter belt they live), as is the Metro in Paris (excepting of course the antiquated bloody tickets and Roma beggars) or Berlin. But nothing beats the MRT in Singapore and Taipei, or the MTR in Hong Kong. So amazing.

Tunes, Sydney wasn't designed so much as thrown up onto a cartographical template so basically everyone converges on this area of central business district from north (the best), south (racists), east (****s) and west (usually poor and without any culture). Driving is therefore the domain of the stubborn or silly, and so ferries, buses, light rail and trains form the basis of most people's transit plans.

I believe the same is true in Melbourne but they're so insufferably smug we don't care to ask.

Canberra, where the soul goes to die, has a bus network but it's always full of addicts complaining about how sick they feel so I drove all the time.

 

Ender Sai Aside from the ferries, that's essentially what we got here in La La Land, though our main impediment is how sprawled out we are; is there a subway in Sydney?

 

No, just a rail network. Parts are underground but the majority is overland.

But we're not like LA. LA is awful tunes. Awful.

 

The love affair with the car in the Southwest seems to have crippled public transport (especially combined with the low population density relatively speaking).

I catch PT every day. Great cost savings on parking.

 

Public transport in the US is a nightmare compared to Europe. One of those "needs to improve" areas.

 

Some of it is, sure.

 

One other reason that public transit hasn't taken off here in many (if not most) areas is that it tends to be associated primarily with lower income people, particularly minorities. It goes without saying that for many, particularly those in power and those with money, it's a negative association. The stigma many have about public transit can be traced to that same association. Along those lines, those same folks frequently see improving public transit as helping "other" people (i.e. minorities, the lazy, undeserving, etc.).

I've been using public transit here in Phoenix for almost fifteen years, and the majority of riders are minorities. Obviously that's just based on anecdotal experience, but I wouldn't have any hesitation to match it up against empirical research.

The introduction of the light rail here changed things a bit, because the rail serves a wider population, including those with considerably more personal resources. I think that's part of why a transit tax passed so decisively last year.

 

lol what a stupid assumption.

 

It does have connotations of poverty in here, Ender. I know you are always quick to defend the common American citizen, but this time it's completely true.

 

I hate encountering phantom homeless syndrome on the NYC subways. That's when you enter a subway car with much bravado being there are no homeless people in that car but yet your nostrils are stung by the foul rotten odor of a deceased homeless person.

 

A pet peeve of L.A. Metro: too many bus stops don't have a trash can, so there's been too many times to which litter dominated sections of the stop. How hard can it be to install cans for each stop? Can't be too expensive to do.

 

I would have expected a typical pet-peeve in LA Metro to be "this station has three armed thugs opening fire on pregnant women instead of the typical two".

 

Once I got off the train and Mayor Emanuel was standing right there at the stop, shaking people's hands. I shook his hand too. I said, "isn't this ironic? The last time I saw you, we were boarding the same flight for D.C. We've done planes and trains. I think we should take an automobile ride together."

Actually, I didn't say that. But everything else about this amazing story is 100% accurate.

 

People need to drive more if only to run down cyclists.