Great writeup! I enjoyed reading it. As someone who moved to the Bay Area last year, I think most American systems are geared toward utterly fast and effortless everyday use at the cost of steep initial learning curves.

Which probably makes sense, I take the Caltrain everyday and almost 99% of the passengers on the express trains are everyday seasoned commuters.

Airports on the contrary are geared toward first-time use rather than everyday efficiency -- which sounds sensible too.

However, none of this explains the awful analog Caltrain ticket machines.

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