There's a lot of reasons public transport isn't popular in the US. Where I live the homeless, some of whom are mentally ill, occupy the light rail trains and stations to escape the brutal cold during the winter. My friend's wife came home crying after finding a turd on a train seat. The cost is $5 for a day pass, far less than a downtown parking spot and it's not confusing at all though service is sparse
this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
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i thinks purposely designed that way, because the auto-companies have killed public transportation in the past, local govt simply never had the motivation to build out the infrastructure. the most famous is LA history.
In Toronto, you get free transfers for 2 hours for $3. I can run an errand across the city and come back for a single fixed price.
it used to 90min for the longest time in sf, like decades. until recently.
Same in nyc. For $2.9.
I actually lived there for most of my life, NY's metro does not compare. Only in-station transfers are free, one every 2hr. If you need to transfer from the 2 to the C in Brownsville, godspeed. Half the time it charges you anyways when it's not supposed to. Don't get me started on the lack of connection between the G and Atlantic, and the non-existent M loop.
Toronto is still about 50 cents cheaper via the exchange rate. Transit is far more reliable, and the average subway station is waaaaay nicer.
Fuck the MTA
You only get unlimited transfers in NYC until you leave a station. You get 1 reentrance or switch to / from a bus per 2 hours.
I've never been to Toronto but I'll be there next week. Parking is a mess where I'm staying near downtown, I may use this!
Parking honestly isn't terrible but a lot of it is residency based, so yeah it's harder as a visitor. I think you can get a temporary visitor parking pass at City Hall depending on how long you're staying for.
For the TTC (titty sea!), download the Presto app ahead of time or buy a Presto card when you get here. Also be sure to check out the PATH!
You picked a lovely time to visit, the weather is wonderful right now! (Aside from the week of rain we just had)
People pay to ride the train?
Some good-two shoes do, most do, but alot of people dont. hence reddit had whole host of people being, caught,evading fares,, you got people on there being a know it all, and you should be paying your fare share.
Oh for bay area, there are specific times of the year, that inspectors come out in droves to "ticket" as much people as possible, usually its around summer-to fall, and then maybe winter. there has been discussion how the evasion tickets are much more than TRAFFIC tickets/parking tickets. right now is about 135$ for each violation, and there are all sorts of tricks to avoid that even if yuo get ticketed. there is alot of justification for evading fares.
I pay my taxes, which I’m told goes to public transit, and there was a huge scandal with the transit department in my state a while back where we found out they were fucking everyone over and skimming a fucked up amount of money and the state did pretty much nothing about it, so when the transit department is stealing less from public transit than I am I’ll consider it, but I also feel that public transit should be free, especially if I’m already paying for it.
our taxes pay for it already, only amount to under 20% in fares of the budget. but federal govt decided it wasnt enough to give them money for the budget, so all these underhanded inspections have occured over the years. now with trump in power, the money coming from federal is even less certain.
As I said, if they decide to stop fucking us over I’ll decide to stop fucking them over. Also, my state was taxing enough to line the pockets of the conservative representatives that are bleeding the state dry on every other front of politics and social structure and ecology on top of this, which is why nobody had to face any music over the bullshit they’re continuing to pull, if they have problems with people not paying five bucks to go ten blocks then that is a problem they created and a problem for them to solve. And with the price gouging they are doing with the sea of university students having to bus or train from three districts away because they can’t afford dorms or housing in the city, my 8 block jump to work isn’t taking the food off of anyone’s table.
Edit the listed fare in the post is nearly 4x the actual fare.
As it turns out it doesn’t actually cost that much on regular transit, there’s an AIRPORT SURCHARGE because it’s an “airport train”.
If she's not going to an airport (the pictured station is in SF and not SFO) this is just strait up wrong. As a regular BART rider who's used transbay service for years BART can't tell what trains you ride. They bill purely on the entry and exit station. I've pulled some transfers that on other systems would be wildly expensive to work around occasional systemwide issues without increased cost.
Within SF it costs the fixed Muni rate which is a lot cheaper. It is disturbingly fast and reliable especially as parts of the system date from the Nixon administration. It can be annoying to get to and from though.
Edit: The furthest fare from Oakland (Coliseum) to the station in the photograph (Montgomery) is 5.20. Using the OAK connector does bring it up to 12.65. Going to SFO from Coliseum is 12.10. Going for some reason airport to airport is 19.55. Not sure where she got $16 from.
Even the listed price is cheaper than cabs or car rentals tho. Cabs charge about 3.50 and then 0.55 for every 5th of a mile. So about $35 for 13 miles.
I think the point is that public transport should be cheaper than driving your own car. That's the only way to encourage adoption.
Unfortunately our country is being run by the cartoon villain from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
Well, you also pay for parking in SF.
And a brand new car is like a 5 to 15 year loan. You have to subtract more than just fuel costs.
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No wonder Americans don't use public transit, even when the system exists it's ridiculously difficult and expensive to use.
Here is my daily commute to work:
The Public Transit option is literally greyed out, and Google goes “lmao get a fucking car, peasant.”
If I were going to minimize my car usage and strictly use public transit, it would be a ~20 minute bike ride (in the opposite direction of where I work) to the nearest bus station, to get to a public transit service that doesn’t even cover where I work. Then I’d take a bus to a train station, and ride it south through two cities. Then I’d make a transfer to a northern line, and ride it back north through those same two cities (and a third additional city) in order to get near another rail line. Then it would be another ~20 minute bike ride to transfer from one rail system to another, because the public transit in the southern cities doesn’t service the city where I work. Once I’m transferred to the service that covers where I work, it’s another ~20 minute rail ride, followed by a ~10 minute bike ride after getting off the train.
All in all, it would be about 2.5 hours of public transit riding, (and about an hour of riding my bike in +100°F/38°C weather), just to avoid driving 10 minutes. It would also require maintaining two separate transit passes, because the southern and northern transit systems don’t work with one another. Yeah, it’s no wonder I take my car to work.
I feel your pain.
10 minutes by car but 53 minutes by bike?? Do you live literally on the autobahn?
A lot of roads arent bike legal in America
I thought that was just most freeways?
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Seems to be more of a problem of your city or township having just crappy public transit systems. A problem that most cities, and nearly all townships, in America share.
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transit fares are regressive taxes
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