Public Transport

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1000+ Interesting Public Transportation Photos Pexels · Free Stock ...
As anyone who has been anywhere will tell you, public transport is amazing. 

From a traveler's perspective, the ability to get around an entire city, country, or even continent for a minimal rate appears nothing less than a gift from God Himself. If you ask most natives, they will relay appreciations of public transport despite the extra heft it adds to their taxes. However, one nation is left out of the rail and bus party: the United States. 

In a country that relied so much on rail travel for its early success, it is strange that America's transport infrastructure ranks so poorly compared to its first-world cohorts. Despite this, the large majority of what little public transit we have is still subsidized by your tax dollars--much more than it is in Europe or Asia. 

In a nutshell, we pay more to get less. 

Organizations across the United States are vying to remedy this issue. The LA Metro is desperately trying to expand its existing rail network. But, will this be enough?

From my adventures through internet comments and a couple in-person conversations, I have deduced that public transit's enemies are dedicated. There is a strange stigma that being beholden to the schedule of a bus or a train is less "free" than being able to pilot your gas-guzzling Ford Motorola whenever you please. However, I feel like it is the exact opposite. 

I can scarcely imagine a less liberated scenario than having to drag a massive box of metal with you whenever you go anywhere. With a bus or a metro, you could simply get on and get off, instead of having to find a place to park your car and then having to orbit around it for the duration of your trip.

I could go on about how cars increase travel times and pollution, but I assume that most people know that. The people that need to be convinced of public transport's benefits don't care about the environment or travel times; they're happy to use what little of their life there is left to pollute as much as they like. 

Public people-moving needs to take a pathos-based approach to convince all Americans that the transition away from cars and other private vehicles is not only in the greater community's interest but in the interest of every American.  


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