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by decafninja
1429 days ago
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Unfortunately, you're not going to convince people by laying out statistics, otherwise you'd (you as in transit advocates, not you specifically) would have succeeded already. What you need to do is address how people feel, and transit advocates have been doing a poor job at that in the US. People feel safe in their cars. People feel unsafe on transit. I don't know why this perception deviates from reality, but it does. Maybe it's because in a car you have tons of steel surrounding you from the drunk driver, while in transit you have at best your clothes protecting you from the psycho. Address this, and you will win over many people to transit. But again - I feel like most transit advocates are highly resistant to doing what needs to be done. I have nothing against well run transit. I love taking the subways in Seoul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and other cities where subways are ultraclean and nearly devoid of potentially dangerous individuals. I hate taking the NYC subways because almost every other day I encounter someone I feel wary being in the same car or station with. You're simply not going to win over hearts and minds by stating the homeless guy in the subway car raving about some lunacy is completely harmless and you should just ignore him and let him be. Even if he is actually harmless beyond just stinking up the air and causing a nuisance. |
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Most Asian cities have horrendous track records on dealing with mentally ill and homeless, that's why. They're frequently driven out, dumped into homeless ghettos, incarcerated, or dumped into the countryside. Western society has higher expectations of their marginalized, for better or for worse. This is why US planners look to Europe for models to emulate instead of Asia.
> Address this, and you will win over many people to transit. But again - I feel like most transit advocates are highly resistant to doing what needs to be done.
Most advantages surrounding driving cars in the US are based around culture and perception. The mythos of the car in the US is huge and many parts of car culture is based around the mythos. Transit advocates by nature of not buying into the mythos are going to be types that are hard to sway through feelings and perception. I agree that transit has a perception problem that needs to be fixed in US big cities. The reason why this disconnect exists is because transit fans are by nature more driven by data and less driven by mythos or narrative. That doesn't mean this isn't a problem.