When everyone uses it, then the share of regular people who just want to go somewhere instead of harassing others gets up. But if only marginal people take public transit, then of course you'll mostly encounter marginal people there. The problem is how to start making everyone take it again.
Here, children are driven to school by their parents. When school ends, the parents are there waiting in their cars. Kids mostly don't even play outside anymore.
Those of you thinking public transport is fine are likely at least a little bit physically imposing and/or you are in relatively fancy locations.
Conversely, are there large cities in other countries that are similar to the US, where this does not happen? I'm going to suspect the Middle East, due to ubiquitous air-conditioning.
When I moved to London for university, there were 5-6 year olds on buses and trains, accompanied by an older sibling. And they were the rich children attending the private school I lived close to, normal children that age would live close enough to walk to their local school.
Yes, GP appears to be ill-informed about how kids get to school in large parts of the US. In NYC, students take public transit (and are provided passes, if necessary) from approx 13 years old. The same concept applies in most cities I know of on the East Coast (I can't speak for further west, though it appears Chicago has a similar system).
Obviously if people took the time to look at the crime statistics, the chances of being a victim of a crime is less than half of what it was when I walked a mile to elementary school every day.
For more normal crimes, the lifetime chance of being a crime victim is serious. For stranger-on-stranger violent crime, there is a total lifetime probability of about 5.3%.
You might think "oh that is just 5.3% so no big deal", but the chance of dying in a fire is only 0.09% and we still bother with smoke detectors.
Violent crime is a life-altering event. Given the potential for horrific consequences, it is reasonable to be concerned about the possibility. Transportation choices change that risk.
Do parents get out of their work in the middle of the afternoon to drive their kids from school to home? Do they go back to work for the last couple hours after that? Or do kids have 8-hour schooldays?
Some people have fully flexible time. Some people have a part-time job or two, so they simply don't agree to work shifts during the times they need to drive the kids around. Some people don't work, often because a single income is supporting a two-parent household.
It might have been better if the addition of woman to the workplace included an equal shift of men to a househusband role.
PS I like your username.
And I did stayed some time while the kids were small and disliked that a lot. You get used to depression as a normal state, basically.
Weird, here in New York I see kids riding the subway to school every day. I must be imagining them.
That is how your comment sounds to people who use public transport. It sounds ridiculous.
My father got mugged at knifepoint on one. That is 100% not acceptable. It is a major reason why normal non-poor people encase themselves in cars.
My father wasn't even blind. He was just slightly old, maybe 50 years old. At that age, he could no longer sprint away.
The comment might sound ridiculous to the people who voluntarily use public transport, but your sampling bias is gigantic in that case.
Here in Germany, crime rates have been declining pretty consistently [1], with homicides and robberies down from "low" to "very low". The thought of getting mugged on the street or on public transit is just absurd to me. I don't know anyone whom it happened to. It's something that happens on CSI, not in real life.
[1] Except for internet-related fraud and Crystal Method abuse (since these are still pretty new), and stuff like unlawful border crossing (because of the refugee situation).
> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.
You've just engaged in an ideological rant about muslim rapists in a thread about people being too old to drive.
You linked to the Gatestone institute, twice. Started by a known anti-muslim zionist and the reporting has been repeatedly accused of deliberate inaccuracies.
You also linked to WND twice. A publication known for perpetuating shaky conspiracy theories and white supremacism.
You chose two extremely right-wing (and unreliable) sources twice each. Not one countering article did you submit as a comparison.
We can all see exactly where you stand here.
You mean they aren’t safe where you live?
Blimey. I’ve been attacked once, in total, and that was as a teen and an adult intervened within seconds.
I used to walk to school if I missed the bus (or if I wanted to miss mandatory religious activities), and that took me an hour. Sometimes I’d walk home afterwards, because the school had a then-novel internet connection. I’ve walked a few hundred kilometres around Berlin in the last few months, and explored several other European cities by walking around on foot for hours each day. If you go to Venice, your only options are foot or boat, and the boats don’t go everywhere.
You may care to consider that people get held up in cars, even in their own homes.
If you're really concerned about mugging in public areas, there are basic safety steps that everyone can (should) take. Stick to well lit areas; don't wear headphones; don't use your phone; avoid any situation that doesn't feel right. If possible plan your route. In other words, have your wits about you.
Also, re the non-poor encasing themselves in cars. Crime increases when people perceive an increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots. Does this mean the rich should use footpaths to reduce mugging? Probably not. But it might mean that public transport should get major investment so it's not seen as a shitty option only for the poor. If that's really how it's seen, everyone who has no option but to walk must feel constantly pissed off.
But during commuter hours, there isn't usually space for crime. And a real comparison of injuries per passenger mile would be instructive - cars aren't exactly safe either.
I do think we should avoid painting public transport as a utopia when it also can have access issues. We should just recognise it as an equal option that can be more comfortable and faster than sitting in a traffic jam and cheaper than paying the real cost of parking (which is often subsidised or hidden in the US)
It looks like you've decided the risk is worthwhile. I hope your luck holds. I think I'd be completely terrified. I found big cities scary even when I was a strong/fast 20-year-old male.
I do suppose you might have to share space with poor people instead of ignoring them.