The stations are filthy, have poor accessibility, the signage is tattered, the PA systems almost never work, the ETAs are often wrong if they’re even offered. That’s aside from the not uncommon sights and smells of piss in the cars themselves. The bus system is a different crapshoot altogether.
I find it interesting how often when people complain about how poor the experience is, there are those like you who seem to be quite content with maintaining a fairly low standard.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree on all counts and it really is decades behind other (non-US) cities – but again, I'd take it over driving a car myself and having to worry about traffic and parking any day, congestion charge or not.
I don't have a great idea for addressing all of these problems, but I strongly suspect that people who can afford it opting out of public transit in favor of cars would be even worse.
> I find it interesting how often when people complain about how poor the experience is, there are those like you who seem to be quite content with maintaining a fairly low standard.
Those of us from outside Manhattan envy what you have because it's better than what we have.
I was just in Manhattan last week and commenting to my friend how I didn't even need to look it up ahead of time -- I knew that I could get where I needed to go using the MTA. Can't say the same for pretty much any other city.
I find it interesting how often when people complain about how poor the experience is, there are those like you who seem to be quite content with maintaining a fairly low standard.