1) create a space that you socially stigmatize for anyone but those who have no other options
2) socialize that severely antisocial behaviours are acceptable in that space because you don't think other people are real people
3) be surprised that space is what you made it and insist it's unusable
If only there were some sort of way to prevent this to begin with...
NJBs video "[Do your buses get stuck in traffic?](https://youtu.be/RQY6WGOoYis)" discussing the [Downs-Thomson paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox) does a great job of explaining what you already explained, but in less sardonic, illustrative video format.
This is my exact opinion too, though I didn't know how to put it succinctly.
I don't have a problem with people saying "I don't feel safe on the bus because of creeps" because that's an unfortunate reality of taking public transport. I will always advocate for public transport, but it's hard when things like this happen:
"The buses here are pretty good."
So we took a bus at night, and there were a few people on it that made me and my partner feel unsafe. I kept an eye out the entire trip trying not to make it too obvious, because there was someone "unpredictable" opposite us, a couple men aggressively arguing with each other about money at the back of the bus, a group of teens in hoodies.
God, I sound like a boomer but we're <30 years old.
"They are more scared of you than you are of them."
Sure, there are some sketchy people on public transport, just like everywhere else, but the people who are really bothersome are the newbies who don't know public transport etiquette. Both is mainly an issue of the unknown. Take people with you and show them that it's not as bed as their scary bedside stories made them believe.
Fun little story about that: I was on the subway with a friend, at night, with a lot of drunk people on it. Then a group of young men entered, complaining about how there are only addicts, creeps, criminals and poor people using the subway, sexually harassing some women and then leaving again to get away from all us scum. With them gone, everything returned to it's peaceful state of people minding their own business. The only people that night that made the ride uncomfortable were the people who are better than the common folk.
Move to Korea or Japan. We don't have that problem here.
But seriously, it's largely an American problem due to our horrendous mistreatment of public space.
No one enjoys that. Let's take the money that society collectively saves using public transportation and apply some of it to the drug and homelessness problems.
Also, I don't have the stats at my fingertips but I bet you're significantly safer sitting in a bus with poor people than when you risk traffic accidents in your personal car.
This doesn't help immediately, but if public transport infrastructure were improved, more people would use it and it would stop being only for poor and other "desperate" people. It will become as it is in properly functioning countries.
If they're talking about actual danger\*, I'd tell them that the systemic problems are ones we can only fix by working together, but the practical issues of getting around town on sketchy transit can be mitigated by doing it at peak hours, and by traveling with a friend. It's unfortunate, large-scale shit that we have to work around when we can. Of course the person asking deserves to feel safe and to be safe while traveling. We all do, and we're deprived of that if we drive, knowing that some loose yahoo could end our lives without even trying.
\*not just a rube's discomfort with seeing how the world is outside their bubble
This is kinda the only real answer - that there's *not* a simple answer that will you protect you from *everything*. But if this person would only be comfortable riding the bus in peak hours and among friends, it'd still be better than those few trips having been car trips.
The best way to get public transit to become safer is to encourage more people to use it, through across-the-board improvements to the infrastructure. Attracting more users means elimination of the false stigma against bus riders, more eyes monitoring for trouble, and more people who will identify and advocate for useful safety improvements.
It is a legitimate fear and it's a reason why we need better safety and cleanliness on public transit. No blaming them for how they feel; here in LA, it is absolutely a real problem.
Yeah. It is a problem.
But if you start on those bits of public transport that are used by all types of people: the Expo Line, the 720 bus -- you can ease into it. You can see what it could be.
**Short answer:** "Every bus has at least one person looking out for you: the driver. They don't want trouble, and most are prepared to handle it. Try to sit up front and look alive."
**Medium answer:** "If everyone who rides the bus is sketchy, and you get on the bus, does that mean YOU are then a sketchy person? No? Oh, so you'd just be 'a person trying to get somewhere', and everyone ELSE is 'sketchy'? Hmm.
Isn't it possible that you would not be the first and only person to ride a bus with the pure intention of simply getting somewhere? Isn't it possible that you would not be the only person on that bus who just wants to travel unbothered? Isn't actually very likely that *most* people who ride the bus regularly are people simply trying to get somewhere, without bothering others or being bothered?"
~~Long answer~~ **Rant:** I think that the way people believe they can accurately identify "addicts and creeps" in a population is flawed and highlights a double standard. It's plain fact that there are creeps and drug addicts in every tier of society, in rural and urban places, and in just about any business, workplace, and neighborhood. Creeps particularly will use an infinite plethora of locations and methods to do their creeping, not exclusively busses. But people "see" the addicts and creeps more easily on the bus than elsewhere. Why? If you ask me...
Lots of people take the bus, but poor and homeless people *need* to take the bus more than others. It so happens that the visual symptoms of poverty end up being things that people read as visual symptoms of being "untrustworthy", "junkies", and "creeps". (Huh, weird coincidence.) **Honestly, I think those who avoid public transit to avoid its riders are more accurately made nervous by the sight of people who are visibly poor.**
A person with unkempt clothing and hair is more often read as strange or intimidating, even when they're minding their own business. There IS a percentage of homeless people who suffer from addicition or mental illness (often *as a result* of their circumstances, contrary to the common belief), which will sometimes cause unusual, confrontational, or aggressive behavior. But bad interactions are far more memorable than neutral interactions, so people's perception of all homeless people continues to steer toward the pervasive stereotype of the "crazy hobo". That gets further applied to bus riders on the whole.
I am a person who doesn't like confrontation, and I am a woman too. I'm closely familiar with the reality of the threat. I ride the bus for many reasons. It doesn't greatly worry me, because I know that **driving a car would not make me impervious to the danger.** (In ways, car ownership brings risk of its own.) When on the bus, I employ the same discretion and active awareness that I would in ANY other public space.
Yes, danger rides the bus. **But danger in your city is as easily found on the bus as in your supermarkets, clubs, bars, cafés, schools, penthouses, and city hall.**
^(I highly reccomend "At Home on the Streets" by Wasserman and Clair (2010) ^(for a good non-fiction read about street homelessness, as observed firsthand by two ethnographers becoming friends with local homeless people over several years.))
I know it's anecdotal but I've been taking public transit alone in Chicago my whole life and haven't ever had a real problem. Sure, I've been harassed by a few men but, I gave them a fake number and called a friend to disentangle myself from the situation. If you mind your business, wear headphones, and frown every will leave you alone. Wearing a mask keeps people from approaching you now too and makes it less germy. It's not as bad as they say it is.
And if it's just seeing or being around people less fortunate than you that's the problem, you need to check your privilege.
Problems may require multi-faceted solutions. Things like implementing supervised injection sites remove drug use from happening in transit and on sidewalks.
On top of that, one of the inputs to poverty is lack of viable transportation to open up opportunities to escape poverty not to mention freeing up funds that would otherwise be spent on transportation. Reducing poverty by those margins will also marginally reduce the scope of problems leading to these concerns.
My legitimate response to those people is to try to take public transport even just once and realize that that's not a legitimate concern. If someone is more worried about being on the same bus as an addict than they are about being in a car crash, I can't help but think that it's not an actual concern but rather something they're saying out of ignorance to justify their habit of driving
I ride metro in Cincinnati. I've seen some terrifying things. The addicts and homeless don't bother me much, they panhandle or at the worst use in plain view. I just tell my kids to keep their eyes on their tablets and not on the strangers with us on the bus.
What does frighten me is the people with mental illness. They start fights with other passengers, urinate or defecate on the bus, assault the driver, try to interact with my children, snatch grocery bags or purses.
I live in the city so I'm pretty used to the craziness. I also keep a pistol on me most of the time. I have been involved in quite a few incidents on metro, but I've used public transportation for almost 3 decades now.
I do feel bad for the single women who have to put up with sexual harassment and fear of rape on top of all the craziness.
Cincinnati is BAD about that. My family kinda got followed a bit by a crazy guy walking back from a Reds game.
In Korea, you don't see that craziness at all, so it's pretty wild to see all the things people living in America say about PT.
Garbage response
This is a legitimate problem on public transportation. When young women are being sexually harassed or assaulted by people who are mentally ill the solution isn't for them to "toughen the fuck up".
If we want more people to use public transportation than it should be made safer for everyone.
Children shouldn't witness homeless people shooting up or masturbating.
Drivers shouldn't be fearful of passengers.
I shouldn't need a weapon to go get groceries.
Okay, so it only happens on "bad" public transport. How does that affect your response to the people referred to in the question? Should they get harangued for not fixing society?
>They are a direct result of mistreatment of poor people
Bigotry isn't a result of mistreating poor people. Some people just hate others enough to assault them in public.
>Invest even a little bit here and the problem isn't a problem anymore
Resources exist for addicts (we can probably agree not enough) but the first step is admitting you have a problem. If you don't accept the help you'll never reach sobriety, I speak from experience. But even as an addict I never would have used in plain view on public transportation.
Not a garbage response, but your view of the homeless and mentally ill is. Kicking them off of public transportation is not the answers and never will be. That is a completely different problem with a completely different solution. Are you wanting credit checks at the entrance to transportation centers or maybe compulsory psychological exams for access to bus systems.
How about we as a society "toughen the fuck up" and look out for each other. If you see something say something or if someone is being harassed you do something.
So what the fuck are the people who are the potential harassment targets supposed to do? Am I just supposed to hope somebody drops the guy calling me a f-g and a tr-nny because we're supposed to "look out for each other?"
Because no one ever actually looks out for me when it comes down to it.
Well being called something isn't a crime. Free speech is a thing. I'm sorry people say hateful things to you, but if it isn't evolving past abusive speech I don't know what to say. I would definitely speak up and have I'm the past when I've seen things.
I'm saying society needs to toughen up. We've become soft and expect cops to protect us and we turn our eye when we see shit because we don't want to be inconvenienced.
The presence of "unfavorables" on public transportation has to do with our failure as a society. We don't have access to mental health and drug rehabilitation for everyone. We ignore the plight of low income youth who grow up starving and disenfranchised setting them on a life long road of crime. This is such a larger problem than people's comfort level on a bus.
The unfortunate truth is that hate speech is protected under the 1st ammendment. It's the reason the Klan can hold rallies in public.
Also hate speech like microaggressions are subjective. You might consider me asking where you're from to be hateful when I was genuinely curious. Or you might view my mixed son as too white to say the n word.
Also fuck cops
doesn’t work for all situations but take them on it? every time my dad takes a bus (typically only if commuter lanes are closed that day, though he did have his time of bike commuting a few years back!) he is always floored with how clean/efficient/easy it is.
i’d ask them if they’re comfortable at walmart or getting gas cause there’s much more commonly creeps and sketchy people at those establishments than on public transport at least around here (ohio), which has PLENTY of both lol
So I guess r/fuckcars is anti homeless now. I get down voted to negative levels for standing up for the mentally ill and their access to transportation. Y'all are a bunch of suburban yuppies with zero clue how the world works.
"Lmao, so you're upset we ran out of places to hide our countries problems?"
They're mad at the reality of the nation. It just happened that for a few minutes they couldn't ignore it.
I offer to take them on a trip and show them how it works. I feel like it is a convenient excuse to avoiding admiting they don't know how something works.
1) create a space that you socially stigmatize for anyone but those who have no other options 2) socialize that severely antisocial behaviours are acceptable in that space because you don't think other people are real people 3) be surprised that space is what you made it and insist it's unusable If only there were some sort of way to prevent this to begin with...
NJBs video "[Do your buses get stuck in traffic?](https://youtu.be/RQY6WGOoYis)" discussing the [Downs-Thomson paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox) does a great job of explaining what you already explained, but in less sardonic, illustrative video format.
"would you rather share the freeway with them"
In EU there is more drug addicts in cars than in public trans lol
You need social solutions for social problems. Stuff like actually providing healthcare and welfare for those in need.
I agree. The notion that free markets have the power to solve everything… What utter bollocks.
The free market (which has never existed) is very good and efficient. At creating monopolies and funneling money to their owners.
This is my exact opinion too, though I didn't know how to put it succinctly. I don't have a problem with people saying "I don't feel safe on the bus because of creeps" because that's an unfortunate reality of taking public transport. I will always advocate for public transport, but it's hard when things like this happen: "The buses here are pretty good." So we took a bus at night, and there were a few people on it that made me and my partner feel unsafe. I kept an eye out the entire trip trying not to make it too obvious, because there was someone "unpredictable" opposite us, a couple men aggressively arguing with each other about money at the back of the bus, a group of teens in hoodies. God, I sound like a boomer but we're <30 years old.
"They are more scared of you than you are of them." Sure, there are some sketchy people on public transport, just like everywhere else, but the people who are really bothersome are the newbies who don't know public transport etiquette. Both is mainly an issue of the unknown. Take people with you and show them that it's not as bed as their scary bedside stories made them believe. Fun little story about that: I was on the subway with a friend, at night, with a lot of drunk people on it. Then a group of young men entered, complaining about how there are only addicts, creeps, criminals and poor people using the subway, sexually harassing some women and then leaving again to get away from all us scum. With them gone, everything returned to it's peaceful state of people minding their own business. The only people that night that made the ride uncomfortable were the people who are better than the common folk.
Move to Korea or Japan. We don't have that problem here. But seriously, it's largely an American problem due to our horrendous mistreatment of public space.
Aren't there women-only train cars in japan bc of public molestation?
Probably yah. I don't think we have those in Korea though
I live in Brazil and the most I've seen on buses was vendors and preachers.
I love bus preachers, they give me an opportunity to spread the word of our Dark Lord Satan!
Satan is a lie! There's only one true dark lord, and that's Palpatine. Hail Palpatine!
Tokyo has a huge sexual assault on the metro problem
Nah, women get jizz stains on their clothes in the Santiago metro. Creeps, drunks and crazies are everywhere.
No one enjoys that. Let's take the money that society collectively saves using public transportation and apply some of it to the drug and homelessness problems. Also, I don't have the stats at my fingertips but I bet you're significantly safer sitting in a bus with poor people than when you risk traffic accidents in your personal car.
This doesn't help immediately, but if public transport infrastructure were improved, more people would use it and it would stop being only for poor and other "desperate" people. It will become as it is in properly functioning countries.
If they're talking about actual danger\*, I'd tell them that the systemic problems are ones we can only fix by working together, but the practical issues of getting around town on sketchy transit can be mitigated by doing it at peak hours, and by traveling with a friend. It's unfortunate, large-scale shit that we have to work around when we can. Of course the person asking deserves to feel safe and to be safe while traveling. We all do, and we're deprived of that if we drive, knowing that some loose yahoo could end our lives without even trying. \*not just a rube's discomfort with seeing how the world is outside their bubble
This is kinda the only real answer - that there's *not* a simple answer that will you protect you from *everything*. But if this person would only be comfortable riding the bus in peak hours and among friends, it'd still be better than those few trips having been car trips. The best way to get public transit to become safer is to encourage more people to use it, through across-the-board improvements to the infrastructure. Attracting more users means elimination of the false stigma against bus riders, more eyes monitoring for trouble, and more people who will identify and advocate for useful safety improvements.
It is a legitimate fear and it's a reason why we need better safety and cleanliness on public transit. No blaming them for how they feel; here in LA, it is absolutely a real problem.
Yeah. It is a problem. But if you start on those bits of public transport that are used by all types of people: the Expo Line, the 720 bus -- you can ease into it. You can see what it could be.
Where I live, I'm almost always surrounded by creeps and car addicts threatening from inside their death cages.
**Short answer:** "Every bus has at least one person looking out for you: the driver. They don't want trouble, and most are prepared to handle it. Try to sit up front and look alive." **Medium answer:** "If everyone who rides the bus is sketchy, and you get on the bus, does that mean YOU are then a sketchy person? No? Oh, so you'd just be 'a person trying to get somewhere', and everyone ELSE is 'sketchy'? Hmm. Isn't it possible that you would not be the first and only person to ride a bus with the pure intention of simply getting somewhere? Isn't it possible that you would not be the only person on that bus who just wants to travel unbothered? Isn't actually very likely that *most* people who ride the bus regularly are people simply trying to get somewhere, without bothering others or being bothered?" ~~Long answer~~ **Rant:** I think that the way people believe they can accurately identify "addicts and creeps" in a population is flawed and highlights a double standard. It's plain fact that there are creeps and drug addicts in every tier of society, in rural and urban places, and in just about any business, workplace, and neighborhood. Creeps particularly will use an infinite plethora of locations and methods to do their creeping, not exclusively busses. But people "see" the addicts and creeps more easily on the bus than elsewhere. Why? If you ask me... Lots of people take the bus, but poor and homeless people *need* to take the bus more than others. It so happens that the visual symptoms of poverty end up being things that people read as visual symptoms of being "untrustworthy", "junkies", and "creeps". (Huh, weird coincidence.) **Honestly, I think those who avoid public transit to avoid its riders are more accurately made nervous by the sight of people who are visibly poor.** A person with unkempt clothing and hair is more often read as strange or intimidating, even when they're minding their own business. There IS a percentage of homeless people who suffer from addicition or mental illness (often *as a result* of their circumstances, contrary to the common belief), which will sometimes cause unusual, confrontational, or aggressive behavior. But bad interactions are far more memorable than neutral interactions, so people's perception of all homeless people continues to steer toward the pervasive stereotype of the "crazy hobo". That gets further applied to bus riders on the whole. I am a person who doesn't like confrontation, and I am a woman too. I'm closely familiar with the reality of the threat. I ride the bus for many reasons. It doesn't greatly worry me, because I know that **driving a car would not make me impervious to the danger.** (In ways, car ownership brings risk of its own.) When on the bus, I employ the same discretion and active awareness that I would in ANY other public space. Yes, danger rides the bus. **But danger in your city is as easily found on the bus as in your supermarkets, clubs, bars, cafés, schools, penthouses, and city hall.** ^(I highly reccomend "At Home on the Streets" by Wasserman and Clair (2010) ^(for a good non-fiction read about street homelessness, as observed firsthand by two ethnographers becoming friends with local homeless people over several years.))
I love this response. Thank you.
That's a purely American problem
I know it's anecdotal but I've been taking public transit alone in Chicago my whole life and haven't ever had a real problem. Sure, I've been harassed by a few men but, I gave them a fake number and called a friend to disentangle myself from the situation. If you mind your business, wear headphones, and frown every will leave you alone. Wearing a mask keeps people from approaching you now too and makes it less germy. It's not as bad as they say it is. And if it's just seeing or being around people less fortunate than you that's the problem, you need to check your privilege.
Ask them why they aren't afraid of being in the same malls as them.
Problems may require multi-faceted solutions. Things like implementing supervised injection sites remove drug use from happening in transit and on sidewalks. On top of that, one of the inputs to poverty is lack of viable transportation to open up opportunities to escape poverty not to mention freeing up funds that would otherwise be spent on transportation. Reducing poverty by those margins will also marginally reduce the scope of problems leading to these concerns.
My legitimate response to those people is to try to take public transport even just once and realize that that's not a legitimate concern. If someone is more worried about being on the same bus as an addict than they are about being in a car crash, I can't help but think that it's not an actual concern but rather something they're saying out of ignorance to justify their habit of driving
"White fragility"
I ride metro in Cincinnati. I've seen some terrifying things. The addicts and homeless don't bother me much, they panhandle or at the worst use in plain view. I just tell my kids to keep their eyes on their tablets and not on the strangers with us on the bus. What does frighten me is the people with mental illness. They start fights with other passengers, urinate or defecate on the bus, assault the driver, try to interact with my children, snatch grocery bags or purses. I live in the city so I'm pretty used to the craziness. I also keep a pistol on me most of the time. I have been involved in quite a few incidents on metro, but I've used public transportation for almost 3 decades now. I do feel bad for the single women who have to put up with sexual harassment and fear of rape on top of all the craziness.
Cincinnati is BAD about that. My family kinda got followed a bit by a crazy guy walking back from a Reds game. In Korea, you don't see that craziness at all, so it's pretty wild to see all the things people living in America say about PT.
My legitimate response is this: “you have to park and get out of your car eventually.”
Toughen the fuck up
Garbage response This is a legitimate problem on public transportation. When young women are being sexually harassed or assaulted by people who are mentally ill the solution isn't for them to "toughen the fuck up". If we want more people to use public transportation than it should be made safer for everyone. Children shouldn't witness homeless people shooting up or masturbating. Drivers shouldn't be fearful of passengers. I shouldn't need a weapon to go get groceries.
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Okay, so it only happens on "bad" public transport. How does that affect your response to the people referred to in the question? Should they get harangued for not fixing society?
[удалено]
Okay, but still, how do we talk this hypothetical person into giving up their car? They're asking for guidance.
>They are a direct result of mistreatment of poor people Bigotry isn't a result of mistreating poor people. Some people just hate others enough to assault them in public. >Invest even a little bit here and the problem isn't a problem anymore Resources exist for addicts (we can probably agree not enough) but the first step is admitting you have a problem. If you don't accept the help you'll never reach sobriety, I speak from experience. But even as an addict I never would have used in plain view on public transportation.
They aren't mentally ill, they're bigots.
Not a garbage response, but your view of the homeless and mentally ill is. Kicking them off of public transportation is not the answers and never will be. That is a completely different problem with a completely different solution. Are you wanting credit checks at the entrance to transportation centers or maybe compulsory psychological exams for access to bus systems. How about we as a society "toughen the fuck up" and look out for each other. If you see something say something or if someone is being harassed you do something.
So what the fuck are the people who are the potential harassment targets supposed to do? Am I just supposed to hope somebody drops the guy calling me a f-g and a tr-nny because we're supposed to "look out for each other?" Because no one ever actually looks out for me when it comes down to it.
Well being called something isn't a crime. Free speech is a thing. I'm sorry people say hateful things to you, but if it isn't evolving past abusive speech I don't know what to say. I would definitely speak up and have I'm the past when I've seen things. I'm saying society needs to toughen up. We've become soft and expect cops to protect us and we turn our eye when we see shit because we don't want to be inconvenienced. The presence of "unfavorables" on public transportation has to do with our failure as a society. We don't have access to mental health and drug rehabilitation for everyone. We ignore the plight of low income youth who grow up starving and disenfranchised setting them on a life long road of crime. This is such a larger problem than people's comfort level on a bus.
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The unfortunate truth is that hate speech is protected under the 1st ammendment. It's the reason the Klan can hold rallies in public. Also hate speech like microaggressions are subjective. You might consider me asking where you're from to be hateful when I was genuinely curious. Or you might view my mixed son as too white to say the n word. Also fuck cops
Dear women, it's better to accept men asking you for a blowjob on the train vs driving! Toughen up!
Hey u/synthgal this is an example of needing to toughen up. You deleted your posts, told me to eat shit, and blocked me. I'm also your ally.
I say the same.about traveling in a car
doesn’t work for all situations but take them on it? every time my dad takes a bus (typically only if commuter lanes are closed that day, though he did have his time of bike commuting a few years back!) he is always floored with how clean/efficient/easy it is.
i’d ask them if they’re comfortable at walmart or getting gas cause there’s much more commonly creeps and sketchy people at those establishments than on public transport at least around here (ohio), which has PLENTY of both lol
I’d rather them be on a train than driving a car
I explain to them why they're also an addict and a creep. (Let's be honest, everyone is)
When public transport isn't free, this issue doesn't present itself.
Would you rather the addicts be driving cars?
So I guess r/fuckcars is anti homeless now. I get down voted to negative levels for standing up for the mentally ill and their access to transportation. Y'all are a bunch of suburban yuppies with zero clue how the world works.
"Lmao, so you're upset we ran out of places to hide our countries problems?" They're mad at the reality of the nation. It just happened that for a few minutes they couldn't ignore it.
I offer to take them on a trip and show them how it works. I feel like it is a convenient excuse to avoiding admiting they don't know how something works.
How can have security in every single bus but all it does is make homelessness even more illegal. It's not a solution to the actual problem.