[afavour]

I think a lot of people would be happy to use it if it was convenient and reliable. I live in NYC and haven’t had to drive to/from work in over a decade. I consider the subway ride a vast, vast improvement over driving… but only when the subway works right.

[nomel]

The vast majority of people I talk to, including myself, don't use public transportation for:

1. Time. For example, my commute is 25 minutes, but 2 hours ride and three mile walk by public transport.

2. Safety, intimately tied to the homeless problem.

3. Cleanliness. In my experience, related to #2, and the fact that government institutions are incapable of caring about user experience, because they get funding regardless. Matted, stained fabric seat cushions, and dried whatever caked on the floor.

There's nothing better or remotely alluring about public transportation for the vast majority of people (as shown by gridlock traffic).

[afavour]

Like I said, when it works right. A 2 hour ride and three mile walk is very obviously not a viable commute.

As for safety, you’re orders of magnitude more likely to get into a car crash than have anything happen to you on the NYC subway. Yes, incidents happen but they’re dramatically inflated in the public consciousness.

Your objection (and most of the others I see) aren’t objections to the fundamental nature of public transit, rather they’re objections to shit public transit or to urban life in general (whole lotta city car parks that aren’t clean!). Which is entirely understandable. But there are plenty of examples of functional public transit serving millions of people in cities across the world. Those people aren’t all secretly wishing they were in a car.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

I just think you have shite public transport, mate. I can’t imagine anywhere in nyc you’d have to walk 3 mi to get anywhere??

Sure if I said public transport is strictly superior because I drive a car that breaks down constantly, you’d see the problems not cars, yeah?

[maxerickson]

It's kind of boring to respond to a comment about public transit needing to work well by complaining about how it doesn't. Especially when limiting investment has often been an explicit choice in whatever given area.

[nomel]

Yes, I was just listing specifically how it doesn't work well, for me and most people. I'm not arguing against the concept or something. It's an extreme chicken and egg problem, with almost certainly no solution that would work outside of SF and NY type densities.