Public transportation is a joke most places in the USA. Without public funding it would not last a month.
“Public transportation is a joke most places in the USA. Without public funding it would not last a month.”
A large part of the problem (IMHO) is that public transportation is run as a monopoly. The municipal government doesn’t want any competition; because they think that competition would just cut into their bottom line even more.
Municipalities also regulate the taxi and limo industries & they keep a wide gulf between the services offered by taxis and transit. If competition were allowed (with some consumer protection regulation, perhaps) — then there would likely be a much wider range of services. For instance, perhaps you could take a van, with luxury seating, from your home to work. Like a taxi, the van would come when you summoned it (maybe by a simple text message from your cell) — unlike a taxi, there would be other riders to share the cost of the trip. Unlike a bus, these other riders would be well behaved, or they would be blacklisted.
There is no way to “fix” public transit as it exists — throwing more money at it, just turns it into a money pit. The service model needs a complete overhaul & competition is the best way to achieve that.