[ehartsuyker]

As someone who lived in SF for a while, I found that SF public transit was utter shit. Muni delays could be as bad as 20 minutes in the tunnel between two stop or a line showing up 45 minutes late. Or even catching everything on time getting from the middle of the Sunset to the middle of the Richmond took over an hour.

On the other hand, I've never had Bart break on me or be delayed (in SF itself).

So yes, when people have be money and want to take a cab, it's usually a better bet.

[doff]

If you've never had Bart break on you or be delayed, then you weren't taking it enough.

SF public transportation is limited in its geographic coverage and the fact that it's not 24 hours. And that sucks. But San Francisco is also a much smaller city then Madrid, New York, Chicago, and the other places listed. Add a couple more million people to SF, South SF, and East Bay, and you can bet that public transportation will improve.

[PinguTS]

Sorry, but that is BS. SF too small? Really.

Go and visit other countries in the world. Public transportation works pretty well also in smaller cities with a couple 100.000 people. Go look to Nuremberg, Germany with about 500.000 people. Go look to Jena, Germany with about 100.000 people. Cities in France or Spain or Estland or Lithuania. Look in Denmark or Sweden.

The reason in the US is simple: you love cars.

[kordless]

We love cars simply because of the fact we could fit all of Europe INSIDE the US and still have room left over for Japan, the Philippines and a few other Asian countries.

It's about the only way to get around if you are traveling from one state to another - which we frequently do. Also, ~330M people.

[PinguTS]

You are traveling cross country with your car? o.O

Yes, a road trip in the US is cool, but I would never ever do it for just getting somewhere.

There is another nice public transport system called airplanes. Works pretty well, is comfortable, and is fast. It works also pretty well in the US. I used it several times as my frequent millage card tells me.

BTW: The US aren't that big compared to Europe. Don't mix up US and Russia, which interestingly many Amercians do, as they believe that the US is the biggest country in the world. Actually, Russia is the biggest country in the world, size wise.

[arethuza]

That's kind of odd as Europe (the Continent - 10,180,000 km2) is actually larger in area than the United States (the Country - 9,826,675 km2).

I take it you mean the EU - which covers less than half the area of Europe?

[kordless]

Yes, you are correct. I pulled up a map off Google that overlayed 'europe' over the continental US. That map omitted Ukraine and Turkey, which are included in Europe (among other non-EU countries).

[arethuza]

Only a small part of Turkey is in Europe - making Istanbul one of the few transcontinental cities :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_spanning_more_th...