#and everyone just pointedly ignores the fact that road infrastructure is STILL government-funded

[stahl-tier]

Not to read too much into a joke but...

What about living in a country where there’s no public transport for you to complain about? Or maybe, on the whole opposite end: imagine living in a country where public transport is actually so pleasant and convenient to use that you really gladly contribute a little bit each year to keep it running? Or where tickets simply do not exist because all public transport is free?

(Long rant incoming...?)

I know that this is difficult to imagine, because what you guys see with many railways and public transit organizations in Europe is two decades or more into systematic decay... Even here in Austria which apparently has the best public railway service in Europe just after Switzerland according to the frequent riders, never buying a ticket and just paying the fee for being caught fare-doding once a year or so is the smarter and cheaper alternative to buying tickets. But the majority of regular commuters has all-year passes, not because they are afraid of being caught. It’s more about habitually being a part of society in a social country, and - at least until the past 15 years or so - a feeling of the federal railway being an important part of the country’s identity.

See, the truth is that fare-dodging doesn’t actually hurt the public transport infrastructure and everyone who claims it does has no ideas about the actual costs of running these services. Since its funding ideally comes from the government itself and passenger transit in particular never has been profitable nor ever will be (and that’s alright, it’s supposed to be a public service after all, and should not be measured in terms of profit/loss), I really beg people to reconsider how they view public transport. The only "public" transport that NEEDS you to pay for your tickets is the privatized companies that are in it for the profit because by their very definition, they need to charge people for using their service to fund their operation. Federal and truly public transportation does not need to charge passengers for using it, because its operation costs are covered by the government's budget.

I know that most countries have really poorly working public transport and public transport infrastructure in the present day, or privatized public transport that presents itself as federal, and that it’s the cool thing to hate on it, but you're hating on the wrong thing and you’ll hate a lot more when it’s gone entirely.

Please think fondly of the railway yard workers, of all the mechanics and station staff, technicians, of the train/tram/bus/metro drivers, cleaning personnel, and yes even the attendants checking the tickets, all the workers who are not getting paid nearly enough for the service they provide for you 24/7 all year round on weekends and holidays from your first ride in the morning to your last ride home. And how they continue to do it, many for all their adult working lives until they retire (or bite the dust), despite being faced with vandalism, media gossip, stressed out rude people, and even physical attacks against them, many of them daily. I’m not even going to get into the whole can of worms that is accidents/incidents involving deaths. No one asks for thanks or acknowledgement. Just please don't make their lives harder by making them the target of your anger. That's really all we ask for.

Very few are doing it for the money, at least not for long, cause despite what people like to think, there is really no paycheck high enough to compensate for the kind of responsibility and risk involved in mass transport of people and goods. (And have you ever met anyone as passionate about their jobs and the tools and its history as railway workers? Have you ever heard someone say, genuinely, in person, in the middle of nowhere at 3am, "Despite everything, this is still the best job I’ve ever done and I am proud to do it"?)

Railway workers have been going on strikes lately, and when the entire public transport stands still for a day, the country itself grinds to a halt. This isn’t done out of spite. Many couldn’t bring themselves to lay down their work even then, out of a sense of duty for people they don’t know and who will never thank them, this sense so strong it borders on blind loyalty. Many of the strikes and meetings leading up to the strikes were timed in a way to cause the least possible impairment/inconvenience on the commuters. Many railway workers ended up volunteering to keep up critical operations during the strikes or pooled together their private vehicles to help out locals with unpostponable trips.

The reason for these strikes is bad working conditions that lead to people working themselves into early graves while they struggle to pay their rent. Not greed. I mean, just look at me making a fool out of myself bursting into an emotional ranting breakdown on social media about it right now. And I’ve only been part of this circus for a very short time compared to many of my colleagues.

I don’t mean to tear-jerk here or lecture anyone, because I know first-hand how growing up in a place where public transport is trivial makes you frustrated with things like tickets being unreasonably expensive or missing an appointment because of a train being late/cancelled, or the seats being uncomfortable to sit on after 30 minutes. I don't expect anyone who hasn't seen "behind the scenes" to have the insights needed to know why things suck.

So, please, take it from me: someone who somehow manages to still have so much love for a system of which I have seen the ugliest cracks. Maybe because I also see the importance of this system in whatever better future we hope to build.

I implore people to see the fault for these shortcomings in their government’s absolute neglect and short-sightedness (or in the many cases where public transit has been partly or fully privatized, profit-focused mismanagement). It is not an inherent fault of the concept of public transit, or the people doing their best every single minute of every single day to keep beating those decomposing horse corpses they’re given to work with. It's the parasites in charge you should be angry at, who reap only the benefits for as long as they can until it’s time to move on to a new host.

All I’m trying to say is, if you’re going to be radical about anything, be radical about things getting better.

The attendant isn’t happy to kick you out for not having a valid ticket either - many of them will look the other way or just not do any checking at all if they can get away with it (but then passengers will just complain about them “hiding instead of doing their jobs”) - they’re just doing what they were hired to do. Checking tickets is also actually just a small part of the many tasks that make up their job. (Did you know that attendants have to help with coupling cars, for example? And with preparing the coaches for operation, doing maintenance and checks together with the driver? That they will be blamed and put in front of a court if someone gets hurt during boarding/unboarding, even if that passenger got injured by falling out of the train as they forced open a closed door outside of a station while looking at their phone? Or that their typical shift is at least 12 hours long, but usually adds up to around 14 hours, with multiple shifts back to back and no guarantee they'll be dropped off after the shift where they started it, or that they'll get to sleep at home at all between shifts?) Countless times I’ve heard train drivers lament how the passengers were giving them grief and taking apart the vehicle to the point of breaking down while it was transporting them. And if you ask them “so why do you transport them anyway?”, they will firmly respond “it is our duty to the passenger”. Again: We don't ask for pity or gratitude. We're just people doing our job and hoping to make the world a slightly better place to live in for ourselves and our fellow citizens. Don't abuse us for doing that. We already get enough shit from our employers and the media.

Public transport, by its nature, is for all of the public. Whether you like that particular part of the public or not, whether it’s grateful or not. Public means you, it means me, it means the kids and teens and adults and elderly, it means the pupils and students and workers and unemployed and retired, the wealthy and poor, the strangers and the friends and enemies, the sober and intoxicated, the healthy and the ill, and we all gotta somehow arrange ourselves with each other and make it as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.

That’s also why ideally, all public transport should be completely free to use and convenient to access for everyone, and the vehicles and stations should be clean and intact and warm. It’s possible. But as a public service, it depends on the public as much as the public depends on it.

Please treat the vehicles and buildings with care; they belong to you, just the same as they belong to everyone else. Treat them like you would treat a possession that you hope to keep for your entire life. These places and machines can continue to serve you and your country for longer than you live, if they are maintained and cared for. I've operated locomotives that are older than I am, that have been operated by generations of train drivers before me, that are in daily regular operation even today and hopefully will continue to be - just because they are old does not mean they are bad. It just means we are familiar with all their quirks and how to fix them when they break down or how to operate them without damaging them, and most old equipment can be retrofitted with improved safety mechanisms or more comfortable interior, and even repaired with modern parts/tools.

But that's just what the operators can do to keep it all intact. We have to send our vehicles out every day and what happens between the time they leave the shed in the morning and return to it at night is entirely up to you. Everytime you put your boots on a train seat, someone who comes after you will have to sit on it for the rest of the day. Everytime you break or “decorate” something, someone else will be denied a seat (even if they’re elderly or impaired) or the entire ride (even if it was important for them to do this trip), and someone will have to fix or clean it in the middle of the night (and they’re not going to be paid enough for it). That next someone is inevitably going to be you, every now and then. No one likes sitting in dirty, smelly, barely working vehicles, but who do you think puts trash inside them and damages the interior? There’s only so much daily maintenance and repairing you can do on a vehicle that transports thousands of people per day, over thousands of kilometers. Leave these places and vehicles in the same condition you yourself wish to find them. Make the time spent in and around them peaceful and quiet, because one day it will be you who’s in need of that peace and quiet.

Not to mention that everytime you speak disparagingly about your public transit, you’ll internalize it a little more, and even if you don’t mean it that way and you’re just venting your frustrations to the heavens, someone is going to hear it and take it seriously - and eventually it’s going to be someone who will use you and people like you as ammunition in their campaign for cutting budget and cutting costs and cutting jobs.

You are allowed to complain and make jokes, of course, and all your frustrations are valid and true. But if you take it out on the staff or your fellow passengers or the equipment and stations, you are shooting the messenger. Invest this energy in productive, positive change, instead. Blind rage has never helped anyone. Criticize the symptoms but point out the roots, make it impossible for anyone to ignore the source of the problems and to push the blame onto the staff working hard to keep these tired wheels turning.

Every corner the higher ups can cut, they will cut, and it will contribute towards the slow downwards spiral of the service being worse and less people using it and more corners being cut to “justify” keeping it going with worse and worse service and worse and worse ridership.

If they can get away with letting it rot, they will. And if the public sees this happening and says “good riddance!” rather than crying out in rage and most importantly in support for their transit, I hope all of you have enough money saved up for a car.

It’s never happening all of a sudden in a single day or week. It’s a slow process taking many years, the temperature in the train car with the broken ventilation slowly rising degree by degree each year and never being fixed because it’s still evaluated as “bearable” until one day you board it on a hot summer day and think “well, now it’s unbearable. I want this decrepit tincan scrapped immediately”. At that point, you’re just saying out loud the words they were waiting to hear. And they’ll scrap it, but there’s no shiny new modern train car hiding somewhere in the back of the shed just waiting to go. It was commissioned from the cheapest bidder and constructed in a rush by poorly trained underpaid laborers, and broke down the moment it left the factory grounds already.

english is a terrible language, you guys don't even have a word for "using public transport without a valid ticket or pass"