Trains can be extremely comfortable, actually. You can have things like food/drink service on them, not to mention WiFi.

The lack of comfort people refer to usually involves the other passengers, not the amenities. But everyone knows you're not supposed to talk specifically about that aspect of public transportation.

Ha, I will! I once had a guy behind me on the train whip out his penis and pee on the floor. Looked right at me in the reflection of the window as he did it. He wasn't even crazy, either, as far as I could tell, just antisocial.

And yes, before you say it, that isn't an everyday occurrence. But jackasses refusing to take their bag off the seat so you can sit down is. As are people who can't be bothered to take a shower, or think that cologne will make up for it. The list goes on. Many people are just unpleasant to be around, and I don't see any problem with that observation.

For me, public transit comfort comes down to a couple things. First, the hard plastic seats make my butt hurt, and standing makes my left foot ache. Sorry, I'm getting old :). Second, the 2x time it takes to get anywhere means I'm on that terrible seat for even longer. And third, because yes, it's absolutely true, I find that perhaps one in ten people is unpleasant enough that I want to be out of visual and/or aromatic range.

> First, the hard plastic seats make my butt hurt,

Yeah, same for me. And I've heard that the ~80s crop of NYC subway cars were made in Japan. Except there, they have upholstered seats. But that wouldn't work out well in NYC, so they got hard plastic. But on the other hand, the oldest LIRR cars (refurbished for the 1966 World's Fair) had upholstered seats, and they were ~OK.

Some Finnish trains have play-areas for children on them. I was pleasantly surprised the last time I rode a train with my 1.5 year old child. He had a lot of fun going up and down the slide, sitting in the toy-train (on a train!) and reading books in the "library".

Never in my life have I experienced a puddle of urine in my personal vehicle. This happens about 5% of the time with my city’s public transport.

Similarly, never have I been given religious literature or panhandled. This happens about 90% of the time.

Sounds like you just have poor public transport. It doesn't have to be that way, and I've never experienced anything like it in Europe.

Yes,precisely. I found Vienna and Tokyo’s subway pretty immaculate. But London, Paris, Bilbao, Amsterdam all had some experiences similar to my other post. Much smaller sample so hard to say how frequently it occurs in any useful way.

Or maybe a dysfunctional society :(

5% is a staggering number! I rode the trains for four and a half years in NYC and just avoided the empty cars and never had too many issues.

Also people seem to focus exclusively on the negative interactions which is a very human thing to do, but this discounts the positive interactions.

It can be really nice seeing people offer their seats to the elderly, or kids meeting and playing, or the occasional furry companion in a cute bag.

But I enjoy people watching in general. It can be neat to try to imagine a persons world and how it looks.

I still think public transport is a net positive. But completely understand the allure of my own car. Or an Uber managed self driver where each rider rates the past.

My car has WiFi, and it is not even automated yet. And food & drink are perfectly feasible as well, remember we're talking about automated cars now. All kinds of options suddenly make sense when you don't have to worry about the chore of driving.