Meanwhile here in Germany I can use any bus, tram, U-Bahn, or train (excluding high speed) anywhere in the country for 58€/month

No wonder Americans don't use public transit, even when the system exists it's ridiculously difficult and expensive to use.

Here is my daily commute to work:
The Public Transit option is literally greyed out, and Google goes “lmao get a fucking car, peasant.”

If I were going to minimize my car usage and strictly use public transit, it would be a ~20 minute bike ride (in the opposite direction of where I work) to the nearest bus station, to get to a public transit service that doesn’t even cover where I work. Then I’d take a bus to a train station, and ride it south through two cities. Then I’d make a transfer to a northern line, and ride it back north through those same two cities (and a third additional city) in order to get near another rail line. Then it would be another ~20 minute bike ride to transfer from one rail system to another, because the public transit in the southern cities doesn’t service the city where I work. Once I’m transferred to the service that covers where I work, it’s another ~20 minute rail ride, followed by a ~10 minute bike ride after getting off the train.

All in all, it would be about 2.5 hours of public transit riding, (and about an hour of riding my bike in +100°F/38°C weather), just to avoid driving 10 minutes. It would also require maintaining two separate transit passes, because the southern and northern transit systems don’t work with one another. Yeah, it’s no wonder I take my car to work.

Why do Americans think everything has to profit?

I just got to Panama City, buses are a flat $0.25 regardless of distance and the Metro is a flat $0.50 regardless of distance.

took the train for ~8 mi into town to get to my hotel for $0.50.

transit fares are regressive taxes

I hear she's running for governor of California! That would be amazing. Fuck Newsom.

Here in Kansas City our transit was free for the past four years.

The downer is that, since we subsidized the public transit here in the city, the various suburbs opted to stop funding the routes that went into their various towns and cities, so now fares are going to be re-introduced.

At least the streetcar is going to remain free here, for now, and likely through 2026 due to the World Cup.

In Toronto, you get free transfers for 2 hours for $3. I can run an errand across the city and come back for a single fixed price.

Imagine working minimum wage in SF and commuting in by BART + BUS / MUNI Lightrail / CALTRAIN / FERRY. Gotta work at least 2 hours just to cover the costs of your commute every day.

I once went through a BART gate line by mistake, I was trying to get to the trolley service and misread the signage. I immediately exited. The charge: $6.20. Still can’t believe it.

Toronto’s UP express checking in. $12.35 from down town to the airport. Sub way in the city is cheap and affordable but that dam airport thing is in its own world.

https://www.upexpress.com/en/about-up/things-are-looking-up

Next topic is toll roads. 407. Full there and back trip during main business hours. 274km = $173.50

FYI, airport surcharges are very common. Across the bay at Oakland has an airport surcharge. Sydney has them too, which I was happy about because Melbourne doesn't have a train (AU $25 for a bus ticket, which was sold out) nor did Hobart. I recall AREX in Incheon also having a significant fare jump for the airport stops.

For argument purposes, BART is $0.18/mile (19th Oakland <> Berryessa). That's still pretty high for regional public transit, which is mostly due to BART's high farebox recovery. That high recovery is now a problem with the whole pandemic and subsequent slow return of ridership.

It's still probably significantly cheaper than Uber/Lyft.

Edit the listed fare in the post is nearly 4x the actual fare.

As it turns out it doesn’t actually cost that much on regular transit, there’s an AIRPORT SURCHARGE because it’s an “airport train”.

If she's not going to an airport (the pictured station is in SF and not SFO) this is just strait up wrong. As a regular BART rider who's used transbay service for years BART can't tell what trains you ride. They bill purely on the entry and exit station. I've pulled some transfers that on other systems would be wildly expensive to work around occasional systemwide issues without increased cost.

Within SF it costs the fixed Muni rate which is a lot cheaper. It is disturbingly fast and reliable especially as parts of the system date from the Nixon administration. It can be annoying to get to and from though.

Edit: The furthest fare from Oakland (Coliseum) to the station in the photograph (Montgomery) is 5.20. Using the OAK connector does bring it up to 12.65. Going to SFO from Coliseum is 12.10. Going for some reason airport to airport is 19.55. Not sure where she got $16 from.

There's a lot of reasons public transport isn't popular in the US. Where I live the homeless, some of whom are mentally ill, occupy the light rail trains and stations to escape the brutal cold during the winter. My friend's wife came home crying after finding a turd on a train seat. The cost is $5 for a day pass, far less than a downtown parking spot and it's not confusing at all though service is sparse

for bart, it charges by the distance, for muni, they recently up thier fees for tickets, they are also have a budget mismangment issue which causes thier budget problems. they waste twice as much as they bring in through fare evasion fees, and transit fees, last i heard they are cutting some services in the summer. and there has some justification for fare evasion(just dont discuss this on reddit, because its mostly been infiltrated by do-gooders conservatives)

caltrain is a seperate agency than, bart, muni.

the mismangment parts: 1 of the problem is they spent twice as much as they are recouping in transit fees, lik 6+ million hiring inspectors over 2-3 million in fees. visit the reddit subs for more info.

i wondered, who is this person who is so out of touch that she thinks that is a reasonable price, and... she is a former member of congress from orange county who is currently campaigning to be governor of california 🤡

JFK rail transfer to Jamaica Queens is like... Shit like 8.50? Then you can get on the 'regular' subway. It's way cheaper (and can take about the same time from Manhattan) than using a taxi or an Uber.

So your airport transportation is 8.50 on top of your metro card (34 a week which easily is covered if you are about the city at all).

WAY cheaper using the subway in NYC than owning a vehicle. A month for the metro is 132 for comparison.

In case anyone is wondering, a one way trip from Oakland International Airport to the Civic Center station in San Francisco (the stop next to City Hall and the city's largest open air fent market) is exactly $12.65.

The trip from Oakland to Civic Center is "just" $5.20, but like OP said, there's a fuckass stupid airport surcharge for the last half mile or so.