[kylehotchkiss]

Yeah, it's frustrating to always see "people should use public transit" in opinion pieces every week without ever making efforts to discover why people aren't - for me, like yourself, it's safety. California public transport feels entirely unpoliced to me. I live next to a transit station in southern california, which goes to places I often want to visit, but I don't ever ride it because I read news about people getting attacked on it. Which of course happens when there isn't even the bare minimum of fare verification/enforcement at the stations.

I spent a few years living in India, where most major cities require you to go through a metal detector/bags though X-ray to board. Plus decent security coverage at the stations. Yeah, it takes a lot of human resources to do all that, but really gives the population confidence they can safely take the metro to work and back.