# How's public transportation where you live? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 13, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996 "2010-12-13T17:21:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/61 "2010-12-15T03:51:11Z")
I live in Arlington, TX, which has the distinction of being the largest city in the United States with _no_ public transportation system. Somebody ship me back to Chicago … ---
**Author:** ![moejoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/62 "2010-12-15T04:08:43Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > … The whole system seems to be set up for people who have cars, but don’t want to actually park in San Francisco, which is pretty understandable. > > . Yes, almost no one lives close enough to a Caltrain station to get there without a car, and parking is $3. And why on earth is there NO parking lot at the 4th & Townsend station? On the other hand I take the train into San Jose a few times per week and they have the Dash, which is a free shuttle that runs from the train station into and around downtown San Jose every 15 minutes. The Dash rocks. ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/63 "2010-12-15T05:32:21Z")
AWESOME!!! Light rail, it’s a good good thing. 😃 The bus system in Anchorage is (and has been since its inception), a piece of crap. The only buses that are more frequent than an hour apart are the ones bringing the panhandlers from cracktown to downtown. Imagine the pleasant surprise I experienced when I first started taking the light rail here. They’re about every 5-10 minutes and go straight from near my house to within a block and a half of where I work. I can walk it in about 20 minutes and it’s about 10 minutes if I take the car (it’s only 2 minutes drive, but getting in and out of the car, finding a spot at the park n ride, walking from the park n ride to the station etc, it’s almost as much time as if I just walk, how great is that?) I even lost a few pounds 😃 Now, one thing confuses me. I’m not a liberal, but I AM all for conservation and efficiency and the light rail sure seems to fit both needs. Seattle is a progressive, liberal city and yet the light rail gets panned and almost didn’t make it past the planning phase due to protests etc. For people who want to be green, there sure is a lot of NIMBYism. Weird. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/64 "2010-12-15T07:13:05Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I don’t feel badly about it. I feel annoyed that whenever I’ve discussed this with New Yorkers (okay, this has happened at least twice, maybe three times, so it’s not exactly a big problem in my life), they’ve gone on about how _easy_ it is. It’s hard not to infer that they think I’m dumb, and although I will freely admit that I suck at many things, figuring out how to use a subway system is usually not one of them. So it sticks in my craw a little. Well… that’s because it \*is \*easy. Sorry, but it is. As long as you have a map to know where you are going I don’t understand where the confusion comes in, and there are maps in every station and most cars. 😕 Most people who ask questions about the subway are tourists, and most tourists only go between certain areas, which \*are \*the simplest routes. The lines are color coded and tourists typically don’t even need to worry about local/express stops. I think London’s system is a bit more user friendly by listing all stops along the route on the back of each track, but the very first time I got around London on the tube I had no problems whatsoever. What parts of the NYC subway are confusing to you? (And if you say it’s only confusing if you don’t have a map, well duh. Any unfamiliar place will be hard to navigate if you don’t know where you are going and how to get around. It’s not like most New Yorkers know every stop on every line, most people know the lines they take every day and the main stops on most other lines, but they still have to check the maps when going places out of their everyday & familiar travels.) ---
**Author:** ![moejoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/65 "2010-12-15T18:06:42Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Well… that’s because it \*is \*easy. Sorry, but it is. As long as you have a map to know where you are going I don’t understand where the confusion comes in, and there are maps in every station and most cars. 😕 Most people who ask questions about the subway are tourists, and most tourists only go between certain areas, which \*are \*the simplest routes. The lines are color coded and tourists typically don’t even need to worry about local/express stops. I think London’s system is a bit more user friendly by listing all stops along the route on the back of each track, but the very first time I got around London on the tube I had no problems whatsoever. > > What parts of the NYC subway are confusing to you? > > (And if you say it’s only confusing if you don’t have a map, well duh. Any unfamiliar place will be hard to navigate if you don’t know where you are going and how to get around. It’s not like most New Yorkers know every stop on every line, most people know the lines they take every day and the main stops on most other lines, but they still have to check the maps when going places out of their everyday & familiar travels.) What was confusing to me was figuring out when it was time to get off the subway, when I’d reached my destination. I figured out the map ok, I knew where I was going and where I wanted to get off, but I couldn’t understand the announcer (conductor?) when he named the stops, just sounded like gibberish to me and it’s not like you can look out the window and see where you are like on the bus or the train. I finally just counted the stops. That worked ok, but it seems like a pretty risky fix. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/66 "2010-12-15T20:50:54Z")
> [@EvilTOJ](#): > > Portland has a wonderful public transit system. We have four light rail lines, and the buses run on time. All the stops have a Stop ID and a phone number to call if you want to look up when the next bus/train arrives. The transit centers and most Max stops have TV screens showing which train is arriving soon and which way they’re going. They even have smartphone apps so you can look up the closest stops and what time the bus should be there. Their website also has a trip planning map that rivals google maps in its ease of use. My work pays for my mass transit pass so I ride the Max in to work fairly often. I’m now down to buying gas around once a month, sometimes longer. Downtown is free, and there’s multizone passes. Agree. Portland’s system is fantastic. Seen the new thingy on the TriMet App? A strobe light with three different alternating flashing colors that you can flash at the driver so he’ll see you waiting at the dark busstop. ---
**Author:** ![ShelliBean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@ShelliBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShelliBean)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/67 "2010-12-15T20:58:57Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I live in the Schenectady/Albany/Troy area of New York. Public transportation is good if you live on the right bus line, and terrible if you don’t. For me to get to work from my house I would have to make two transfers and take an hour and three-quarters for a half-hour drive. That’s assuming no delays. I just accidentally reported your post as spam. Sorry about that. The iPhone is smarter than I, apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/68 "2010-12-15T21:35:49Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Well… that’s because it \*is \*easy. Sorry, but it is. As long as you have a map to know where you are going I don’t understand where the confusion comes in, and there are maps in every station and most cars. 😕 Most people who ask questions about the subway are tourists, and most tourists only go between certain areas, which \*are \*the simplest routes. The lines are color coded and tourists typically don’t even need to worry about local/express stops. I think London’s system is a bit more user friendly by listing all stops along the route on the back of each track, but the very first time I got around London on the tube I had no problems whatsoever. > > What parts of the NYC subway are confusing to you? I wouldn’t say it’s impossibly confusing, or unneccessarily confusing - but there are certainly trickier bits, especially if you’re a tourist trying to save some money. For example, I normally stay way up on the Upper West Side, almost (or actually in) Harlem. That means I actually _do_ need to worry about express/local trains. Further, crossing Central Park is notoriously tricky. Google Maps, admittedly, is a great help with all of this - NYC’s transit data is integrated into that system, so once I learned to use that I was more-or-less okay. You know what took a bit of doing? Learning how to swipe my farecard through the reader. Not too fast, not too slow … I’m sure the locals standing behind me were amused/annoyed. By the way, as I mentioned upthread, I’ve lived in DC for some years now - so I’m not exactly a Public Transit Rube. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/69 "2010-12-16T00:19:04Z")
> [@moejoe](#): > > And why on earth is there NO parking lot at the 4th & Townsend station? Why would there be? You need parking lots where the cars are, and the cars are generally going to be on the Peninsula. (Also, [there is parking](http://www.caltrain.com/projectsplans/Projects/Caltrain_Capital_Program/San_Francisco_Bike_Parking_Facility.html).) **Dr. Drake** & **Kyla** - Marin/Sonoma transit rally is a pain in the ass. Sometimes I’d like to be able to just hop on a bus or something to Petaluma/Santa Rosa/Healdsburg, but it’d take hours upon hours to get there. I was going to a birthday party at Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma on a Saturday once. Being that it’s an awesome brewery, I didn’t really want to drive. But as it turns out, I would have had to get to a random corner in downtown San Francisco by lie 8:15 to make it to downtown Petaluma (which is nowhere near Lagunitas Brewing) by noon. And god help me trying to get home. I can’t wait for [SMART](http://www.sonomamarintrain.org/) to get going. Come to think of it, Santa Rosa really is the only reason I keep my car. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/70 "2010-12-16T01:15:45Z")
I live in both Chicago and Kansas City. The transit system in Chicago is wonderful, as others have mentioned. We’ve lived there more more than twenty years without a car. Kansas City? Not so much. Bus service is very limited here, and even though the citizens voted for light rail, the City Council over-ruled the will of the electorate. The last bus on the most popular route stops just after midnight, significantly impacting nightlife. ---
**Author:** ![moejoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@moejoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moejoe)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/71 "2010-12-16T02:54:39Z")
> [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](#): > > Why would there be? You need parking lots where the cars are, and the cars are generally going to be on the Peninsula. (Also, [there is parking](http://www.caltrain.com/projectsplans/Projects/Caltrain_Capital_Program/San_Francisco_Bike_Parking_Facility.html).) Oh, a wise guy eh? 😃 Actually if you live across the city and don’t want to take a bus to the train…a place to park your car might be helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996/72 "2011-01-10T22:00:19Z")
> [@moejoe](#): > > Oh, a wise guy eh? 😃 > > Actually if you live across the city and don’t want to take a bus to the train…a place to park your car might be helpful. I dunno; that still doesn’t make that much sense to me. If you’re across the city (Sunset or Richmond), and you’re going to drive anyway, why not just hop on 280? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hows-public-transportation-where-you-live/563996.md?page=3)