I hear very often that in the US the public transportation systems suck. Is it true? What can you say based on your experience?

31 comments

  1. My specific city doesn’t have a public transport system.

    I mean technically the county runs a door-to-door shuttle, but it is $3 each way, only serves my specific county, and is really meant for seniors and the disabled. So it isn’t really convenient, you have to pre-book, etc…

    Indianapolis’ transit system is…okay and is making improvements. But like many systems, its a hub-and-spoke model so if you have to go across town, you have to go downtown and then transfer. Honestly its often quicker to bicycle somewhere than to ride the bus unless your starting and ending point are on the same bus line.

    Ubers in Indianapolis are available, but aren’t as easy to get as they used to be and are much more expensive.

    Amtrak comes to Indianapolis 3x a week at 6am headed to Chicago, and comes back the same day at midnight headed back to DC and NYC. Not very convenient.

    I’ve used intercity bus service to get to Chicago and it is cheap, quick, and super easy to use. You get dropped off right downtown and then hop any other number forms of transit from there.

    I took the Amtrak train out to Los Angeles last month and it was nice to disconnect a bit from the world, but it isn’t a cruise and is more akin to camping than a moving resort lol. The southwest was fucking beautiful to see, and my 30 minute stop in ABQ omg it was so fucking hot i don’t know if I’ve ever experienced heat like that.

  2. TriMet, the public transit system in Portland, OR, is actually pretty decent. The security on the light rail is not great, but the bus system here in Portland isn’t bad at all. Once upon a time we were rated one of the best public transit systems in the USA. But that was in the “before times” (pre-COVID). Things have gone downhill a bit since then.

  3. I’m indifferent to the public transportation system (or lack thereof.) Most of us have cars that we would prefer to drive, rather than having to use public transportation.

  4. Not satisfied but among American cities it’s like top 5 by a lot of metrics so I’ll take what I can get.

  5. No but I also know where I live and it’s unrealistic for my small(er) town to have such a thing when most people wouldn’t use it, it wouldn’t be accessible to most people (as most people live very spreadout apart) and it would be a drain on tax dollars.

    Think it would be nice to start small by having trolleys or trams in main hubs / city centers, where you park in a parking deck (that has surveillance and security) and take the trolley or tram throughout the main street at least.

    EDIT: Let’s say a tram, light rail or trolley system for those city centers.

  6. I am aware they exist. Having never used it, I can’t report on if it’s any good or not

  8. I’m satisfied with it in the sense that I only rarely get stuck behind a bus in traffic.

    I’m dissatisfied with it in the sense that there are rarely buses with which to avoid traffic.

  9. Hell no. It’s fine for if you’re already in the city and going somewhere also in the city that happens to be conveniently located near a bus/train stop.

    If I wanted to get to work on our public transit I’d have to drive to the train station five miles away, ride a train for forty minutes into the city, then take a series of busses out to roughly where my office is on the edge of the city (I think last time I checked the route it was 2 bus transfers after the train and would take about 2 hours), and then I’d STILL be stuck walking the last four miles. Alternatively, I can hop in my car and drive there in 20 minutes. It’s like 22 miles.

    There are some other cities though where I definitely use and enjoy public transit extensively. DC and New York City are places I commonly visit and I wouldn’t even consider bringing my car with me because I really don’t need it there. But here in Baltimore I don’t even consider it as an option for the most part. I’ll take the airport shuttle in from the parking lot but that’s about it.

  11. Definitely. Ours is *absolute* crap, busses run from about 7am until 7pm, but I have never used it so I don’t really care about it at all. Satisfaction level 100.

  13. As much as New Yorkers make a hobby out of complaining about our public transit system, I’m pretty happy with it. There are certainly many ways that it could be better, but it still efficiently gets me from just about anywhere in the city to just about anywhere else in the city, any time of day and for a relatively low fare compared to other systems.

  14. Mostly yes, but there is plenty of room for improvement. I mostly use the train to get around and while Chicago’s train system (the L) is quite expansive it is also overly focused on getting people downtown -so if I’m on the northwest side and I want to get to a neighborhood a few miles directly south on the southwest side using the train I first have to take it east to “the loop” and then come out the other side of it rather than just being able to take a direct route.

    The main issue is that building infrastructure is, for many complicated reasons, more expensive in the US than it is in most places. Here’s hoping that process gets simplified in the coming years and we see more urban rail built as a result.

  15. Mine could be better but we’re trying. I live in Seattle and myself and a lot of my friends don’t drive or keep a car

  17. My city pretty much just has a bus. We do have an attempt at street cars, but they’re pretty much never used and they only take you around small parts of downtown. Generally, Kansas City is just the type of place you need a car in.

  18. I don’t really have a need for public transit. I have a car so I’d never use it.so I guess yes I’m satisfied.

  19. Will you get from point A to point B? YES

    Will you get a job if you have to take it? NO

    Will someone pull out a box cutter on you? YES

    Am I satisfied with this system? Well depends on how you look at it really

  21. In the cities I’ve lived in that had transit I would grade them as…

    * Seattle – B
    * Raleigh – D-
    * Ann Arbor – B
    * San Jose – C-

  22. Absolutely not satisfied. Nothing near me and takes forever to get anywhere if the buses even show

  23. I’m in LA. They’re expanding the subway but it doesn’t go where I need it to go. There’s busses but you have to add so much extra time to get anywhere. I often have to go from office to another and if I had to do it by bus, it wouldn’t be feasible.

    I used to live in NYC and while the subway DID have a ton of issues, it was so much easier to get to like 95% of the places I had to be.

  24. San Francisco’s is usable enough that I rely on it on a daily basis, but lacking enough that the experience can often be frustrating.

    Most American transit systems aren’t useful enough for most people to use them on a daily basis. Ironically, this means people tend to complain more about public transit in San Francisco than they would in cities with less robust transit, because in order to want to complain about a transit system, you need to be using it regularly.

    This makes Muni/BART better than 99% of American transit systems (which is borne out by the ridership stats – the SF/Oakland area is second only to New York in per-capita public transit ridership) but far worse than systems in Western Europe or East Asia.

    To take an example, yesterday I rode the 38 Geary to work at rush hour. It was packed to the gills. I had to shove my way on. That bus comes every 4 minutes and it’s an articulated bus that fits 200 people, but it’s still full. It takes 15 minutes to go about a mile to my office.

    In a better system, that bus would be an underground train. The ridership is obviously there to support it, if it’s got >200 people boarding every 4 minutes, and to top it off, an underground train could go a mile in like 2-4 minutes instead of 15.

    I rank Muni thusly:

    Speed: 2/10

    Coverage: 8/10

    Frequency: 7/10

    Comfort: 5/10

    Safety: 7/10

    Cleanliness: 4/10

  25. The one I used to use in NYC is pretty good, the LIRR was OK, but expensive. I haven’t used Baltimore’s yet, so I can’t comment on it.

  26. They stopped driving the busses on saturdays in my city in Alaska because they can’t find people to.

  27. All public transportation systems are bad without exception.

    The United States just has less of it. It’s far more common for Americans to drive themselves and I prefer that. I lived in NYC for a decade where we had basically the most extensive public transportation system in the country but it still sucked so I kept a car.

  28. No. I live close to but not in NYC. Most busses in and out are hourly, which means I end up driving most of the time when I wouldn’t have to. Also, NYC transit really focuses on Manhattan and not the outer boroughs, where I normally am.

  30. I used a bus in my city once. I should have walked as it would have been faster. I did look at taking a bus to work. It would involve a significant enough walk (10 minutes or so), and a transfer, and would probably take 45 minutes all in if I timed it right. If I missed it, I’d ave to wait an hour for the next option. Or I could just walk and get to work in 45 minutes anyway. In practice, I drive since I drop my kids off at school. It’s a very short drive.

    I would only plan to take public transit here if my legs were broken, nobody could give me a ride, and the ride sharing apps were down.

  31. My city has a bus rapid transit system, and its pretty good. Building it has been a political slog every step of the way.

    My district is in the middle of a city council recall election. Our councilor voted in favor of a plan that was already identified by multiple neighborhood processes as the best option, to extend the bus rapid transit system a couple miles up a really busy road that is always full of traffic.

    Two extremely wealthy people who are from out of state and still own a home and spend part of the year out of state, whose *second home is in a different council district*, are funding and promoting the recall election. Now we have to take it seriously and the newspaper has to publish “for and against” pieces even though the entire exercise is *ABSURD*. Meanwhile this pro renter pro transit city council member has to deal with this nonsense and pay money to put out flyers and signs and so on.

    The bus rapid transit system eventually really needs to be extended up two more major, busy thoroughfares that are already poorly designed traffic messes, in order to be fully effective and connected. The process is going to be a nightmare. I don’t imagine it will be done until 2050, if it ever gets completed. The need is only going to grow, though.

    On top of the political process, building new transit is just an incredibly difficult logistical lift. Things projected to take four years and one billion dollars end up taking eight years and four billion dollars. I was involved in several transit projects in San Francisco; one was a new bus rapid transit line on a major street, choked with traffic. It was years behind schedule and many many millions of dollars over budget. They are building a new subway in a badly underserved part of town – years behind schedule, billions over budget. There is a proposal to build a bus rapid transit line down *another* major thoroughfare that is badly underserved by transit. The business owners along the route are fighting desperately, tooth and nail, to stop it because they can’t imagine what will happen when they lose street parking spaces.

    I am very downbeat about transit in the US even despite some places where it works well.

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