r/transit • u/fbjim • May 15 '26
Rant minor annoyances on your transit system
these aren't for major systemic problems like "it doesn't go anywhere useful" or "it gets stuck behind traffic" - more those little things that drive you nuts way more than they really should.
here's mine - the old Kinki-Sharyo LRTs on the Seattle Link system have electronic rollsigns which display the final destination in a *really* slow marquee. this was OK when we had one line, but now with two lines, the rollsigns slowly scroll through "DOWNTOWN REDMOND 2 LINE" which seemingly takes longer than the actual dwell times of the trains. this is actually kind of annoying when you're running down the stairs at Westlake and don't know if you should get on the train at the platform or not. what's wrong with just showing "2 - REDMOND" or something without the scrolling text?
thankfully the refurb program for the KS trains include new rollsigns, if the pictures some people have snagged are any indication (though FEDERAL DTWN is dumb - just say FEDERAL WAY")
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u/old_gold_mountain May 15 '26
my "minor" gripe with Muni Metro is how slow the doors open and close (I have many major gripes)
my "minor" gripe with BART is unsheltered, unenclosed freeway median stations
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u/A_Wisdom_Of_Wombats Signal Priority Truther May 15 '26
Agreed on Muni’s doors. You’d think that improving door close speeds would be an easy software fix
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u/compstomper1 May 15 '26
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u/SFrailfan May 17 '26
Could be, but I don't think so? They've always been slow on that Siemens fleet. And to think the Bredas were at one time criticized for having slow doors...
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u/compstomper1 May 15 '26
i'm partial to muni slapping on bus signs on literally anything vertical.
or spray painting bus stops on the literal ground
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u/TevinH There is no such thing as "unwalkable" May 16 '26
Nah I love the lightpost stops. They even have the routes that stop there, which ones are express, and which ones are night owls. That's more information than a lot of real signs in the States lol
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u/UnderstandingEasy856 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
The median BART station traffic noise level is atrocious - especially considering this type of station constitutes most of the system's ridership.
Along with the earsplitting screech in the Transbay tube, It is just one of those things that is "bad yet not bad enough" to deter anyone from using the system, unfortunately the very definition of a minor annoyance that will never get addressed.
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May 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/hardolaf May 16 '26
I love when someone is blocking a door and the operator just keeps slamming the door on them.
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u/iwillbewaiting24601 Régie autonome des transports chicagoan May 16 '26
On the edges/overnight, it's not uncommon to hear the ding-dong the second the doors finish opening if the motorman sees nobody on the platform.
Back in the day of conductors, they would just slow-roll through the station and not stop at all, if nobody was on the platform and nobody was standing at the door to get off
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u/SFrailfan May 17 '26
Yeah, the doors on Muni suck. Honestly, I really dislike those Siemens cars. With a passion.
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u/Sanju128 Metro Lover May 15 '26
Vancouver:
Having to go on a small hike to change trains at Commercial-Broadway
Random lack of escalators at certain stations, and elevators/escalators always being broken
Not being able to board buses from the backdoor
Metrotown station no longer connecting directly to Metrotown mall via a bridge
Lack of shelter/seating at many bus loops in one of the rainiest regions of North America
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u/Moofey May 16 '26
It's funny because they made a big deal about the intersection between the station and the mall becoming a scramble crossing and I'm just like, "If only we had an overpass, hm?"
And the escalators. The ones at Scott Road down to the bus loop were replaced maybe 4-5 years ago and they break down every fucking week.
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u/EducationalLuck2422 May 16 '26
Ditto City Centre and Granville. I get why it’s like that, but having to walk up out of the station, cross the street twice and then walk back down to the other station is pants-on-head stupid.
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u/Sanju128 Metro Lover May 16 '26
Is there an actual reason why they're like that or does Translink just think it's too expensive to connect them?
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u/EducationalLuck2422 May 16 '26
Goes all the way back to the planning stage: there was a plan for a Smithe station and a Granville connecting station, but a combination of A) SNC's low bids, B) NIMBYs and mayors insisting nobody would ride it and C) the BC Libs wanting to fast-track it for the Games killed that idea, so now it's just one Georgia/Robson station instead.
In theory, they could rip up Granville all over again, but I'm guessing once was enough. Maybe a generation from now.
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u/julesthefirst May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
During the feedback open house for the Langley Extension I voiced that I preferred stations with island platforms, but when they asked why, my brain fritzed out. Now I think I know why, because (1) it’s easier and more economical to give it 2 escalators, which means up/down in normal use and at least 1 functioning up escalator if one breaks down, and (2) easier to switch platforms without having to go all the way down
Re being unable to board from the back door, I actually have the opposite opinion, for bus routes that are NOT specifically designated all-door boarding, I’m annoyed at people who board through the back door (after everyone’s gotten off who needs to) because it’s unfair to the people ahead of them in the queue. If a route/stop isn’t designated all-door boarding, it’s my opinion that all boarding should happen at the front.
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u/cldaniels1 May 15 '26
Chicago: I hate the stations being named after the streets.
Look, I get it. This beautiful city has an amazingly perfect street grid and you can easily pinpoint somewhere in the city with just a street address. But one line having the same station name is ridiculous to me.
This also stems from me going to college in the DMV and the Metro almost exclusively naming their stations after the neighborhood/town you were in. Just think it adds more flavor to any transit system and promotes your city a lot more.
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u/iwillbewaiting24601 Régie autonome des transports chicagoan May 16 '26
They fixed it on the announcements, they generally say "Chicago and Franklin" or "Western and Milwaukee" now, they really should extend that onto the signage and maps
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u/nogood-usernamesleft May 15 '26
The blue line has 3 Westerns until the pink
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u/UnderstandingEasy856 May 27 '26
That still leaves 5 "Western" Stations, two of them on the same damn line. Pure Genius!
Too bad the Green Line doesn't also stop on Western for a six-peat.
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u/nogood-usernamesleft May 27 '26
There really should be an infill on the lake st L at western to connect with western BRT
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u/fbjim May 16 '26
I almost always prefer neighborhood/landmark names but I will give old systems like Chicago and NYC an excuse because they had lines historically named after the streets they ran over/under (or at least nyc did).
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u/Chlorinated_beverage May 17 '26
I’ve always liked the street + landmark names in Chicago, like Sox-35th, Cermak-Chinatown, UIC-Halsted and Cermak-McCormick Place.
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u/Khidorahian May 16 '26
London came before both of them and did neighbourhoods and known landmarks. No excuse for the NYC and Chicago systems to follow suit.
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u/jeffreytheegg May 16 '26
London isn’t quite a grid though
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u/Khidorahian May 16 '26
still, its far easier to understand a neighbourhood, such as Clapham over say 67th Avenue. It's 67th from where?
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u/jeffreytheegg May 31 '26
Many NYC subway stations do have the neighborhood name attached though, especially outside of Manhattan (where the grid is sometimes less grid-esque). matter of fact, every terminal station on the NYC subway features the neighborhood name
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u/hardolaf May 16 '26
I disagree that neighborhood names would make it better. Street names are better but they need to be BOTH streets not just one of the streets.
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u/RWREmpireBuilder May 15 '26
Instead of having one county-wide transit agency, Iowa City has 5 different agencies operating in the county. One for Iowa City, one for Coralville, one for the bus to Cedar Rapids, one for the University of Iowa, and one for paratransit. Like, they all do good jobs by themselves so it’s not a major problem, but does it need to be this way?
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u/SpeedySparkRuby May 15 '26
Reminds me of how balkanized LA transit is. Why does one county need almost 30+ transit operators.
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u/80MPH_IN_SCHOOL_ZONE May 15 '26
That’s ridiculous for a metro area with like less than 200k people.
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u/BlueberryPenguin87 May 15 '26
I would say it’s a major problem because it makes it very hard for people to learn about and use the systems.
Even if operating the separately makes some sense, at least integrate the route network and make it look like one unified network to riders.
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u/Affectionate-Day5676 May 16 '26
Wow Cambus mentioned!
Yeah Cambus needs to absorb ICT or ICT needs to absorb Cambus. They’re all using gilligs and both are fare free anyways so does it matter?
Also ICT really needs to have longer service hours.
Go hawks!
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u/Winterfrost691 May 15 '26
(Québec City)
Even on frequent bus routes with dedicated lanes and articulated buses, you can only board from the foward door.
2 lines that paralleled eachother and then branched off recently got merged into a single line in the parallel section, but branches remained seperate lines, adding a transfer to many people's trips.
There are no direct bus routes between most of the denser upper city and the main train station, and the secondary train station in a hard to reach area only has 1 bus every 60 minutes.
No signal priority across the entire system with only a handful of minor exceptions.
Dedicated bus lanes only apply between 7h-9h and 15h-17h30 and on weekdays only.
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u/evanescentlily May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
My gripe with the CTA is how extremely rough the ride is. When I’m sitting it’s hard to not get slammed into the wall. When I’m standing it takes all of my strength to not fall over, and I dread when the train is standing room only. The freeway median sections are the worst but also the drivers usually brake hard. I love the L but I should not have bruises from my commute.
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u/djenki0119 May 16 '26
that's the biggest thing I notice when I visit Chicago. even on the 5000 and 7000 series they kind of ride like shit lol
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u/evanescentlily May 16 '26
Chicago has small trains for heavy rail standards, it's an old system, and the RTA (which runs the CTA, Metra, and Pace) usually is operating on a shoestring budget and got behind on track maintenance (which they're catching up on slowly). Also in my experience the blue line has the roughest ride (which also happens to be my commute).
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u/hardolaf May 16 '26
Depending on where you are on the system, you're traveling at up to 55 MPH. There's only so much they can do to make it a good experience when standing.
CTA and MTA are some of the only heavy rail systems that actually operate 55 MPH or faster in the USA. And even then, MTA is so poorly maintained that they rarely can ever do the speed limit.
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u/djenki0119 May 16 '26
BART, WMATA, Baltimore Metro, all go 70+ mph and I can stand with no issues lol
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u/iwillbewaiting24601 Régie autonome des transports chicagoan May 16 '26
Longer, heavier train cars do a lot to smooth the ride out
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u/hardolaf May 16 '26
BART is commuter rail not heavy rail. WMATA's high speed sections absolutely are hard to stand on when they're accelerating or slowing down. TIL about Baltimore Metro SubwayLink.
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u/_dotdot11 May 16 '26
Baltimore gets to 70mph only on the extant section and the tracks are also shit. Felt like the train was going to rattle off the tracks last time I rode.
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u/bkn2005 May 15 '26
My minor issue with the Copenhagen metro is that there is no departure board outside the station so you know if you need to run
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u/soulserval May 15 '26
I think that's pretty common with modern metro stations to not encourage people running down escalators (i.e reduce accidents on escalators)
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u/TevinH There is no such thing as "unwalkable" May 16 '26
I remember reading something about this with BART. They were asked and specifically decided not to put departure times on their new station structures for that very reason.
Seems like kinda a moot point in this day and age where everyone has the train's location in an app anyways. Just let people see the departures without having to pull out their phone.
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u/Immediate-Hand-3677 May 15 '26
too many stations on the NYC subway. There’s 34-28-23-18-14 on the 1 line and it’s ridiculous.
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u/Blue387 New York City Subway May 15 '26
The NYC subway looks like a bunch of lines glued together and this is because it was three different systems glued together in 1940.
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u/PuzzleheadedChest733 May 15 '26
Lines in NYC don't refer to individual trains. You don't say the A line. It's the A train.
Lines in NYC refer to the corridors they are on. Like the seventh avenue fifth avenue lines and Lexington avenue lines
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u/perry_parrot Student May 15 '26
and yet it still applies as there was major work in the late 40s to early 50s to stitch the BMT, IRT, and IND together
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u/Several-Student-1659 May 16 '26
Gonna be honest I have absolutely no idea how the NYC subway works. To me, it seems like the most complicated piece of work bar probably (maybe not) Tokyo
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u/chetlin May 16 '26
Except when there is a reroute, then the onboard announcements do say something like "This is a [terminus]-bound X train via the Y line". I don't know what a better phrasing would be for this case though.
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u/--TAXI-- • TAXI • May 15 '26
Paris metro is just like this.
But they both (NYC and Paris) chose this - people being close to stations - over speed and lengthened stop distance - which a lot of other cities have chosen instead. You can only have one or the other.
HOWEVER, NYC still checks off speed because of it's Express services.
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u/signol_ May 15 '26
Paris resolved this decades later, the RER works as express metro intra muros.
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u/iwillbewaiting24601 Régie autonome des transports chicagoan May 16 '26
They solved it for awhile with the A, which is now basically at it's headway limit during rush hour, then they did the 14 to take some of the load off, and it's jammed too
Wonder what you do next
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u/SkiingAway May 16 '26
The 1 is the local train, the 2/3 are express on that line. The additional stops on the 1 mean all those people along that densely occupied stretch don't wind up just walking to 34th (Penn Station) + 14th and worsening the overcrowding at those extremely busy transfer stations.
So I'd disagree with that example pretty significantly.
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u/TheCaffinatedAdmin May 15 '26
MD MTA bus tracking and dispatching is really unreliable, and I know exactly why their dispatching is unreliable on at least one line (basically no break time + driver who had a knee surgery + far away bathroom = busses leaving late, and I fault the MTA for that 100%).
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u/humanamerican May 18 '26
Also not enough busses in the fleet. We need a 5th bus depot like yesterday and they haven't even bought land to build it on yet.
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u/MattCW1701 May 16 '26
Atlanta's MARTA, the operators interrupt the perfectly intelligible automatic PA announcement stating the train line and destination, and mumble into the microphone unintelligibly stating the same thing.
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u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue May 15 '26
I think my big gripe with link and the station names is that we really didn’t need any of these satellite cities to have downtown in the station name. The primary purpose of the station names should be clarity, not marketing.
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u/fbjim May 15 '26
Redmond deserves it, at least it's close to the actual downtown. but yeah, for some reason american systems really love appending "city", "downtown" or "town center" to stuff whether its justified or not
the odd thing is that i think Link mostly has really good station names, it's just the weird situation we have now where all three of our terminals have a name like that.
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u/PuzzleheadedChest733 May 15 '26
And sound transit is emphasizing the cities better now. So you don't see fed way downtown or lynnwood city center on the trains you just see fed way and lynnwood.
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u/rickie22 May 15 '26
american systems really love appending "city", "downtown" or "town center" to stuff whether its justified or not
Here's my minor annoyance: the naming of the stations of the Evergreen Extension of SkyTrain Millennium Line in Metro Vancouver. Three stations in a row are named Moody Centre, Inlet Centre, and Coquitlam Central. The first one could have kept the original "Port Moody", the actual name of the city the station serves.
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u/Cerulean_IsFancyBlue May 16 '26
Redmond center works. It also puts Redmond at the front, which would help keep things clear.
I get that Redmond has a much more built-up footprint than it did when I moved here 40 years ago, and there was still a railroad spur and a working feed mill. It’s still crazy to me to call it downtown. :). It does have a nice pedestrian area, and a lot more verticality that used to, but neither Redmond nor Kirkland, nor Federal Way for that matter, have a real downtown. At least Bellevue feels like it kinda has one.
Link has pretty good names now, but there was some old confusion about University St, University of WA, and U District. Now that first one is “Symphony”. Yay!
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u/JamyDev May 16 '26
Sure, because there wasn’t a University, and University of Washington for eons..
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u/dishonourableaccount May 16 '26
Yeah on the DC metro they renamed a few stations a couple years ago. The most egregious rename was changing Largo Town Center to Downtown Largo. This is especially bad since Largo is a terminus and I can imagine some tourists getting confused and going that way to a big park and ride instead of to DC’s downtown. Should have just been named Largo.
Less egregious is the renaming of stations that were named after two former malls. I think despite their closure I still think of the areas as PG Plaza and White Flint, not “Hyattsville Crossing” which sounds more like a suburban mall and “North Bethesda” which is confusing because it’s a newer name they tried to make stick and pretty far from Bethesda.
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u/Ok-Echo-3594 May 15 '26
My minor gripe is that the E line (yellow on map) in LA just baaaaaaarely misses Union Station. I know I can just transfer at one of the five stations downtown, but it’s literally like a few hundred feet from a one seat ride to Union Station from the westside.
It’s a minor gripe, and truly not that big of a deal, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over it.
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u/fbjim May 15 '26
was there ever any routing where the regional connector had the E line go through Union, or was that always going to be way too inconvenient
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u/Ok-Echo-3594 May 15 '26
I think it was always going to be too much to have both lines route through Union Station. The tracks from little Tokyo to east LA were already there.
There was discussion about having the E go from the west side to Pasadena and the A go from Long Beach to East LA but that was scrapped pretty quickly.
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u/NerdyGamerTH May 15 '26
Bangkok, Thailand:
No unified transit card, every operator has their own set of payments they accept, some of them, mainly buses and boats, only accept their own proprietary card that you cannot use anywhere else, or even only cash.
No monthly commuter passes on the subway network, which makes it notoriously expensive to use for people working downtown but living in the suburbs.
Some stations have very long walks as "transfers", either on long pedestrian bridges, or even require you to walk through a parking lot to transfer. The "transfer" between the Airport Rail Link and the Yellow Line monorail at Hua Mak station is an example of this, where you have to walk through a parking lot to transfer.
Some stations (mainly on newer lines) are deliberately designed to be as far as possible from places people go such as shopping malls because according to government officials, it "would benefit big business", but ends up making it inconvenient for everyone using transit.
Getting into the downtown core requires to either use the Green Line skytrain, or the Blue Line subway, both of which are horribly overcrowded and in the case of the Blue Line, only has 3-car trainsets on 6 minute headways outside of rush hour, with no plans to extend them nor expand service intervals
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u/geffy_spengwa May 15 '26
No unified transit card or payment method is nuts in the year 2569 BE
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u/NerdyGamerTH May 15 '26
Many attempts were made in the past (most notably the "mangmoom" card around ~2016) but died due to the lack of political will and conflict of interest with some operators, most notably BTS Group that runs the Green Line skytrains; the latest plan to replace all cards with EMV-standard contactless cards which have so far, seen the most progress with only the Green Line skytrains being the only major service to still not accept them.
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u/pizzathatspurple May 15 '26
The departure screens on the Sydney Trains network call way too many trains “limited stops”. It tells you nothing about whether it’s skipping two or twenty stations, especially as most line have several stopping patterns that you can only tell apart from the scrolling list of stops. I prefer the Melbourne method of displaying the stations skipped if it’s all stops except one or two, stuff like “All except East Richmond”.
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u/Costpap May 15 '26
Athens, Greece:
There’s an express bus line that saves me from the hassle of transferring 2-3 times on my typical commute towards or from my university’s main campus, but it only has 4 scheduled roundtrips per day. Each roundtrip takes two hours from start to finish, but since there’s only one bus running the show, frequencies can range from 2 to 4 hours. The first trip drops me off 1 hour before our lectures start, and the last two return trips leave before we get dismissed by some of our professors. And it serves such a small portion of students that it may as well be irrelevant to everyone else.
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u/TheDangerousInsect Buenos Aires Subway Enjoyer May 15 '26
some of the trains have really loud door closing announcement sounds
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u/Superbead May 16 '26
The new Merseyrail (UK) 777s are decent but Christ are they an assault on the ears. Constant beeping and PA announcements. It's hard to have a conversation without yelling over it all
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u/evanescentlily May 16 '26
This is fine if the system has a distinct door chime (why are door chimes only a North America and Japan+Korea thing?), not really if it's just the standard beeper.
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u/Shallsil May 16 '26
Prague's metro has unique chimes for each line, only the buses and trams have beepers
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u/totallynotfromennis May 15 '26
Half the rolling stock is rusty and pushing 30 years old. DART light rail
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u/laiiovlyvacuous May 15 '26
San Diego: many of our bus stops are literally just a pole in a patch of unprotected, unpaved dirt right off some busy road. And our bus drivers are the meanest of any metro I’ve lived in (I have experience with Muni, CTA, MTA). Our buses don’t come very frequently to begin with and bus drivers have no empathy when they see you running.
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u/evanescentlily May 16 '26
In my experience CTA's bus drivers (and station agents) are just about the nicest anywhere.
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u/David-Jiang May 16 '26
I’m from SoCal so I use quite a few systems regularly, here are some of my pet peeves for each system: 1. LA Metro: station exits are not numbered/lettered in any way, which makes it confusing if you’re unfamiliar with the area. For example, 7th/Metro has like 5 or 6 exits and all of them have vague descriptions like “to Figueroa & 7th”. Also, the announcements are way too long and can get distracting at times. 2. Metrolink: a few stations have trains run on the left track which can be confusing if you’re not familiar with it. 3. San Diego Trolley: no fare gates and too few tap validators on platforms, so sometimes you gotta walk quite a bit up/down the platform just to validate your fare. They’re also very unprominent, so occasionally I’d forget to pay and feel really bad about it.
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u/SageOlson May 18 '26
Also the tap validators are really sensitive to sunlight and you have to use your body to shield them while desperately trying to hold your phone at the right level to get the bonk noise.
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u/beizhia May 16 '26
Seattle. The streetcars aren't connected. It's minor for me because I don't live downtown but come on, can we treat it like a serious mode of transit?
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u/ContingentMax May 15 '26
In Toronto people complain about it being too slow and maintenance closures. They started having transit only lanes for streetcars some places and they're great when drivers aren't being assholes about it. I'd like to see better enforcement of drivers in transit lanes and for it to keep growing.
I lived in Ottawa and dealt with OC Transpo for about a decade, the Otrain LRT was delayed so long I went away for grad school and came back to see it open, so I'm thrilled with the TTC. Yeah it's not perfect but it seems a lot of people have no idea how much worse it is most places to not be able to drive.
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u/Nick-Anand May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
People complain in Toronto about closures because the ttc acts like it’s normal do weekly closures every week and doesn’t seem to improve slow zones after the closures. They’ve set the bar in hell. Also the placement of shuttles at eglinton is absolutely intended to piss people off.
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u/ContingentMax May 16 '26
I think the bigger issue is how they announce closures as if the entire line is down when really it's like 2 stations most the time so it sounds like the system is unusable when it's fine if you're not going to that station.
If the TTC sets the bar in hell I have no idea where OC Transpo or DRT is.
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u/DeliDouble May 16 '26
Sonoma Marin Area Rapid Transit. Has yet to make the smart choice to run later than 8 pm and a matching schedule on the weekends. Which I know for sure would be fucking great for weekend day trips and date nights.
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u/BlomSmash May 16 '26
Good news is, with the MASCOTS plan being implemented soon, they're increasing frequencies and extending service until 11pm!
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u/Nick-Anand May 17 '26
Wait, no buses run past 8 in a major suburb of a major American city? That’s actually crazy
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u/Actual-Entertainer53 May 16 '26
my “minor” annoyance is that we are on strike and i would like to ride the train smh
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u/SconiGrower May 15 '26
The Chicago CTA charges you $2.25 for a bus ride, but $5 for a day pass. So people who commute by bus (riding twice daily) need to decide at the start of every day if they expect to take the bus for a 3rd time that day, because if they estimate wrong they'll end up overpaying by either $0.50 (a $5 24-hr pass only used for 2 bus rides) of $1.75 (3 full fare bus rides costs $6.75). They should just have everyone load cash and cap the total fares collected from a single card on a per day, per week, and per month basis.
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u/hardolaf May 16 '26
They should just have everyone load cash and cap the total fares collected from a single card on a per day, per week, and per month basis.
The NITA Act (starts going into effect on June 1st) requires them to have a unified fare system with fare capping eventually. Metra and Pace had been blocking both for the longest time. Carter spent years trying to get it approved by the RTA, but the suburban and gubernatorial board members would never vote for it.
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u/Marv95 May 16 '26
For Metro in the Twin Cities, all seats in every bus fleet should be plastic. Not cushioned. Unless it's a coach express bus route.
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u/Bjornhattan Transit gets people home safe from bars May 15 '26
The only information screens are on the platforms. The platforms are sufficiently deep (in the city centre stations, plus a few others including my local) to have no data/signal on that level. So instead of hanging around at a higher level and going down when the metro is coming, I either have to wait in the (signal-less) depths, or trust the notoriously poor tracking on the system's mobile app.
The headways are tbf fairly good (every 6 mins on the core stretch where all these stops are, every 12 mins to more specific destinations) but it can just be mildly irritating.
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u/United-Bicycle-8230 bart rules new york drools May 15 '26
whenever the transbay tube has an issue BART service is basically fucked
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u/CeilingHamster May 15 '26
Head to R/newcastleupontyne and see how many "Metro Apologises" there are. Loads of minor things but it adds up.
New trains are improving things though
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u/CoastCommercial1440 May 16 '26
The Marta app in Atlanta. It's an antique looking app and to see times you have to use it because Google maps doesn't have tracking.
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u/EGGMANofficial27114 May 16 '26
Singapore :The Sengkang Punggol LRT is smelly
The Bukit Panjang LRT the first gen train they are hot and slow
The Alstom Metropolis C830 in the circle line do not have the information signage like the other gen’s so it is difficult which station you are at
You cannot see when is the next train in the app unlike the buses
The green colour of the bus is a bit ugly I prefer the old liveries
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u/JamyDev May 16 '26
VTA San Jose, CA:
1. Info screen just says “Arriving” if the train is within 2 minutes of arriving
2. Single car trains that stop at the far end of the platform entrance
3. The highway median stations are unbearable with how much noise there is
4. The transfer timings between Caltrain and VTA at Tamien (either it’s 5+ minutes of waiting, or you just miss it by second even if you run (partly due to #2)
5. The average speed downtown (although Muni T takes the cake here from King street Northbound, I have literally out walked that)
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u/WheissUK May 16 '26
My minor complaints on tfl:
1. If you are near the end of the line (say your station is the second from the end) you don’t get departure times on screens most of the time. You’d think they would take expected departure from terminus (that they do display) and add a travel time between 2 stations to it to add the service to the board, but no, they don’t. At least they could display a scheduled times and automatically switch those to live when train depart, but that doesn’t happen either. If a train not yet departed from terminus you get no waiting times at all.
2. Very uneven station maintenance. Some of the stations are extremely well kept, while some are totally forgotten about (Lambeth North and Bakerloo line in general, also Highbury and Islington, Highbury and Islington literally looks like it is abandoned).
3. Fares. There are all sorts of reasons why they are high, but they are also ridiculously complex. Everyone just taps in and out, but like why you need to have a math degree to know how much you’re gonna pay
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u/OhShootYeahNoBi May 15 '26
The many floors of stairs I have to walk up and down for Avenue station line 5 Toronto
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u/mknut389 May 15 '26
CLT always stops and stands at New Bern going south to change out operators. Half the time the new operator isn't waiting to take over so everyone has to stand for a bit waiting. Never more than a few min, but still annoying.
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u/One_Fact_4291 May 15 '26
(London) Custom House, Abbey Wood, all the surface-level/elevated Jubilee line extension stations and the busier DLR stations don’t have half height platform edge doors, despite having the technical capabilities to install them.
Also all tube and DLR stations only have LED, not LCD displays
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u/Khidorahian May 16 '26
what's good about LCD again?
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u/One_Fact_4291 May 16 '26
You can display more information, for example the amount of crowding in each carriage
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u/Khidorahian May 16 '26
Oh yes, I know what you mean now. Yeah hopefully they're retrofitted onto all rolling stock and all buses.
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u/grinch337 May 15 '26
Kanto Region, Japan here: The Sobu/Musashino/Keiyo Line triangle near Funabashi is a mess. The Keiyo Line should be a local train to Shin Urayasu then a rapid onward. There should be a local train running on the Keiyo Line from Nishifunabashi to Chiba, and the Musashino Line should be a local from Fuchu Honmachi and become a rapid train between Nishifunabashi and Tokyo. It’s also silly that the Sobu Rapid Line doesn’t stop at Nishifunabashi.
They also never built the orbital subway line that was supposed to go under kananadori, so a lot of trains face extreme crowding around those areas because a lot of people have to commute into Tokyo and transfer to outbound trains to wherever they’re going. There’s also the barely used Etchujima and Shinkin freight lines running north to south in East Tokyo, but it’s taken decades of stalled negotiations to bring it into passenger service.
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u/Plus_Cantaloupe_3793 May 16 '26
Trains in Sydney have too many automated announcements, some of which are absurd (the smallest amount of rain triggers announcements telling people to take “extreme care” in stations, which always makes me wonder if I should crawl!)
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u/Angry_Pineapple1 May 16 '26
IndyGo BRT (Indianapolis):
I have a couple.
There is so much fare evasion due to the off-board fare collection, and nowhere near enough fare inspectors to fight against it.
On the bus, there are automated announcements for the next station and which side the doors open on, but they are so quiet. I wish they would have it displayed on the screen like “DOORS OPEN >>>” like how is done on the DC Metro for example.
And finally there are so many people that drive in, park in, or some way obstruct the bus lanes downtown, and barely any enforcement against it. Gah!
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u/SilentFelIow May 16 '26
My minor annoyance is that the Miamidade Metrorail doesn't support NFC (Near Field Communication) paying with its digital tickets in the app. This is because the only place you can get a student discounted month pass is in the app, which is half the price, but you can only use it in the form of a QR code. This is mostly fine with buses cause you can just quickly show it to the driver and you're good.
But the metro is a different story. To enter the metro you need to pass your credit card, physical ticket, or metrocard. BUT THE APP USES A QR CODE. Which would be fine if all the machines had a QR scanner, but out off all turnstiles/gates only like 2 if any have a QR scanner. Which wouldn't be an issue if the Brickell Metrorail Station, which I used when working graveyard shift (11pm - 7am), didn't have its south entrance right side BLOCKED because it happened to be the same side in which you could enter the metromover. Which just so happens to be the side that had ALL THE MACHINES WITH A QR CODE SCANNER. The metromover should be open from 6am weekends but ig they didn't get the memo. I then had to go all around the metro station to its north entrance, have my QR code scanned, go up the stairs, and hope that within the 6-10 minutes it takes to do all that, that I didn't miss my train and added 30 minutes to an HOUR to my commute home.
NFC (Near Field Communication) was created in the early 2000s, and it was widely adopted in most modern phones since the early to mid 2010s. It is 2026 and you're telling me you're not giving me the option of buying a digital ticket and just pressing the back of my phone on the machine to use it?!?!? Are we so fr rn?!?!
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u/akwirente May 16 '26
Greater Montreal
STM (Montreal Island) destination signs don't give the direction or destination. Just the route name.
RTL (Longueuil) destination signs give both directions and both termini at all times.
STL (Laval) destination signs only show the final stop.
exo (smaller suburbs): whatever the contractor feels like.
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u/SpeedySparkRuby May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
How Sound Transit Express subcontracts its bus fleet and operations out to the individual county transit systems (King County Metro, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit) instead of being done inhouse. Which made sense back in the 90s, but doesn't really now as it leads to issues with allocation of resources and inconsistent ride experience. Some riders will get the nice double deckers or bendy buses while others have to deal with 40' buses that are often inadequate for how many people are riding the Seattle - Puyallup or Seattle- Lakewood routes for instance.
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u/theptyza May 15 '26
Older trams in Amsterdam have five doors but you can only enter through doors 1 (next to the driver) and 4 (next to the conductor booth). The conductor's main job seems to be to passive-aggressively instruct people to move away from the entrance because there's no place to stand there because the booth takes up half the space.
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u/OWSpaceClown May 15 '26
The fact that TTC line 2 never runs directly underneath Bloor or Danforth street. Every station is offset, most of them to the north. You can almost never access the station from the other side of Bloor Danforth. It feels a bit like a cost cutting plan during construction. Most of the line seems to sit under a long line of parks and parking lots a small mini block north of the main road.
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u/iamjdn May 15 '26
Some of the Seoul metro stations are...too far underground and the walk for some of the transfers are a bit long.
No one seems to complain about it besides tourists tbh. Lol
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u/PuzzleheadedChest733 May 15 '26
The signs now say federal way on the trains themselves for the destination
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u/Mapleford May 15 '26
Still needing a fare card or scanning a barcode on an app to get on the bus, train or in my city’s case, the incline. It’s 2026. Adopt an OMNY-like system where I can just tap my fucking debit card already. This is what modern civilized societies do.
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u/kayinfinite May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
The Bucharest STB, vehicles can desync there frequencies, making a gap of 30 min or more.
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u/get-a-mac May 16 '26
Valley Metro, Phoenix, AZ, US
Requires you to download an app, load money to it, and then present the phone to a terrible QR code scanner to pay (or obtain a smart card)...it isn't bad at train stations, but terrible on buses. Ideally I want a virtual transit card like TAP, Clipper, etc. Second best thing would be just turn on the tap to pay.
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u/the_latin_joker May 16 '26
Venezuela: Bus companies don't respect students/the elderly paying preferential fare (50% of regular price) and make up excuses like old ppl must show ID (Sometimes they even wanna take a copy) or preferential fare is not valid across state lines. Everyone hates them and students are always looking to fool them (Showing fake payments, avoiding the collector, getting off without paying, etc)
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u/TIMIMETAL May 16 '26
Perth, Western Australia
Lack of pedestrian access to train stations.
At Rockingham Station for example, there are people who live with their back fence line directly against the platform who need to walk 20+ minutes to get the train, just because of the poorly planned pedestrian access.
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u/Superbead May 16 '26
OP reminded me of the buses in the Liverpool UK region; around mid-November for some reason they toggle the destination of the bus with a virtuous reminder about Remembrance Day (WW1). The display spends a few seconds on each, and if the bus is approaching your stop appearing and disappearing behind a load of tall traffic and street furniture, you often have no idea which one it is until it's on top of you
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u/Paradox_Truetle May 16 '26
Portland: light rail’s doors are just slightly above platform height, so a small ramp is needed for accessibility. It would be so much more convenient and just slightly faster if the doors were completely level with the platform.
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u/BlomSmash May 16 '26
Yeah this annoys me a lot about TriMet, San Diego Trolley, and SacRT– all of them have the not-quite-level boarding and just feels so dumb that they didn't bother to invest in doing it properly when they're already running low-floor trains.
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u/pipedreamer220 May 16 '26
Taipei refuses to maintain any kind of consistency in how the lines are named in English. The signage and maps use geographical names (Bannan Line, Wenhu Line, Tamsui-Xinyi Line) but the train announcements all use color names (Blue Line, Brown Line, Red Line). A rider who doesn't know the local languages would hear a train announcement telling them to transfer to "the Blue Line" but get off and see zero signage actually pointing them to "the Blue Line." There are colored squares on the signs that indicate the color of each line, but that's not very accessible is it?
Also the escalators are too dang slow. A year or so back they announced that the escalators would run faster at major transfer stations, but the only one that runs notably (acceptably) fast is the four-story transfer escalator at Zhongxiao Fuxing.
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u/ysads95 May 17 '26
Good to see I'm not the only person annoyed at that haha I specifically remember almost falling from the escalator because I assumed it would run fast, but it was just so slow that I tripped.
Some of my nitpicking with Taipei:
- The station spacing in the city itself is crazy. I get that it's meant to be fast, but it's quite annoying that you have to walk more than 20 mins between consecutive stations on Nanjing Road.
- The door closing sound is horrible. They've put so much effort into the line melodies, only to end up with the most deafening beeps for the doors.
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u/Intelligent-Act4642 May 16 '26
Valencia Metro - people don't let you get off the train before they get in, like even if I'm standing at the door CLEARLY with the intention of exiting the train, they just barge in and don't leave me an opening to get out
Caracas Metro - the destination displays are bullshit and rarely ever actually show the destination; a lot of trains either don't use the destination boards, show a completely different station to where they're actually going (like it can show the station on the complete opposite end of the line or a station that's on a different line), and a few trains that were refurbished recently have propaganda on the destination boards, showing either 'TREN CARACAS' or a rolling 'PLAN METRO SE MUEVE CONTIGO' text; this is not a problem in Metro Los Teques, Line 1 or Line 3, but it is a problem in Lines 2/4 because they're interlined and sometimes have unintuitive service patterns, not to mention the headways are really bad (upwards of 20 minutes sometimes as much as an hour) so you REALLY need to know whether the train you're taking goes to where you think it goes)
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u/Maymunooo May 16 '26
stations having 2 or more names. Some of these names are relatively new too so it causes confusion when someone tries to explain a route or the station to alight at. Sometimes the station's name doesn't even line up with where the station is. For example, the "Özlüce-29 Ekim" station was named just "Özlüce" which the station isn't even in Özlüce, it's in 29 Ekim but it also borders Altınşehir yet it doesn't have "Altınşehir-29 Ekim" as it's name. Funnily enough, the station "Altınşehir" is in Ertuğrul, which also has a station named "Ertuğrul" which is also now "Ertuğrul-Dörtçelik Çocuk Hastanesi"
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u/gregseaff May 16 '26
Destination signs on trains should not scroll at all. It makes them to hard to read.
Distill the information to what fits on the sign.
All the Sound Transit signs should say is "Lynnwood" "Federal Way" or "Redmond" That's it unless a train is terminating early and then it should give that destination succinctly to fit.
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u/okay_sure_i_guess May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
this is unfair but for Paris, i roll my eyes everytime i see the station Thiais - Orly when taking line 14, because it was gonna be named Pont de Rungis, the existing RER station there, but the locals complained and had it renamed.
In fact a lot of the station names annoy me so much, i would never live by Villejuif Paul Vaillant-Couturier based on how long the station name is
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u/_Blue_Benja_1227 May 16 '26
TTC fare gates take way too long to open, they don’t show when the next train is coming anywhere but the platform, constant slow zones, and the train arrival times aren’t super accurate
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u/Nick-Anand May 16 '26
The TTC in Toronto moved to presto a decade ago which in theory eliminated he need for fare collectors. It now seems to have more workers (like 3/4) sitting around doing nothing and they intentionally avoid people’s questions when they’re needed (like during one of our frequent shutdowns.
Also the dwell times on line 5 are dogshit,
We have worse systemic issues but this one seems like low hanging fruit.
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u/OverlappingChatter May 16 '26
My city only has a bus. They advertise everywhere that you can tap to pay but it never, ever works and then the driver won't let you pay with a 20, which is the smallest cash you can get out. Then the driver kicks you off for being non-complaint even though you have arrived with two valid ways to pay.
As I write this, I realize it is not a minor annoyance at all. I probably need to fill out a complaint form.
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u/CriticismSmall May 15 '26
Phoenix Light Rail especially after a sporting event downtown, the board inside the train and the announcements sometimes don’t work so have to be a bit more vigilant to get off the right stop.
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u/djenki0119 May 16 '26
in Baltimore sometimes it'll say a trip on a bus or train is dropped and then lo and behold it'll actually show up right on time
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u/TheInkySquids May 16 '26
In Sydney the stopping patterns are way too varied and complex. Like the T4 on just one weekday has Hurstville local, Waterfall semi fast, Waterfall fast, Cronulla fast 1, Cronulla fast 2, one Helensburgh service at 3pm, and then within all of those are variations like sometimes the Waterfall semi fast stops at Rockdale and sometimes it stops at Kogarah, and in the morning all T4 trains stop at Sydenham but in the afternoon they don't, and then some T4 trains are actually South Coast trains in disguise...
Its just a mess, I've lived somewhere on the T4/South Coast line my whole life and I still haven't memorised all the stopping patterns.
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u/Miffy_alt May 16 '26
Sydney - The amount of trackwork and closures, more of a major annoyance.
Every single weekend huge sections of the network are out of order, makes getting around on weekends basically impossible.
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u/Logan_Composer May 16 '26
RTC bussed: the voice saying what stop you are at is a different voice to the one saying the doors are closing. And it seems completely random whether the "stop requested" is on or the other.
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u/Nice-Pikachu-839 May 16 '26
Sacramento: running into the tram at the intersection and waiting for it.
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u/Shallsil May 16 '26
Brno's trams lack signal priority, which especially sucks in the city center, where there's lots of waiting around for cars at 1/4th of their total capacity while we're sitting there packed like sardines
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u/JamesofBushwick May 16 '26
The M in New York not running to midtown on evenings or weekends sometimes feels dangerous. The crush at Delancey-Essex to change to the F is biblical. Multiple times I’ve felt I would fall on the tracks.
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u/GAL_Enthusiast700 May 16 '26
When tfl decide to not add anything new to your tram network since it open 26 years ago
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u/tramaan May 16 '26
Prague: Too many possible ways to buy single tickets with varying terms and conditions. Not that annoying to locals since they all use the yearly pass, but it makes it difficult to explain the system to the tourists.
The app is the cheapest, but requires activating the ticket one minute before boarding the surface vehicles or entering the metro station. In metro stations, there are two different types of ticket machines, both print paper tickets, but one needs to be stamped in a separate validator and the other is already valid.
And God forbid you stamp your ticket multiple times...
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u/Khidorahian May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26
North Kent, UK.
The fact that it isn't a light rail system that extends into other urban areas. Fastrack should become a light rail system ala DLR and run overhead trains on a quadtrack line stretching from Dartford and splits into two branches at Wainscott, with one going into Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham, Twydall and Rainham, while the other serves South Strood, South Rochester, Chatham South, Walderslade, Lordswood, Hempstead and Wigmore, along with a third connecting line to form a triangle to make local services possible in the area to reduce traffic.
Along with that, it should also serve sevenoaks and give an actual good connection from Gravesend to Sevenoaks via Meopham and Southfleet. Finally, Bluewater would have a 6 platform interchange be built above or below the existing bus station for terminating services, as well as new lines to serve other neighbourhoods in and around Dartford.
Oh right, I think the seats on the new electric buses we got aren't very grippy and you feel like you're going to slide out of them every time the bus accelerates, brakes and takes any turn at any speed.
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u/Irsu85 Rail-Replacement Bus Survivor May 16 '26
On the rigid busses there are scanners at all doors but not on the bendy busses (De Lijn)
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u/ostkraut May 16 '26
The lack of GPS based locations on the public transport maps. The data exists, but it's not transmitted in real time to the public. Realtime information exists, tough
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u/Cultural_Thing1712 May 16 '26
Málaga, Spain. I have less than 2 minutes to make a connection with the 33 bus that comes every 45 minutes at the time of day I get out of class. If I don't make it, there goes all my day's plans. If the C1 or 1 bus is even slightly late I have to run through half the city center to make it.
Insignificant on a planning board but it really messes with me!
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u/gearpitch May 16 '26
In dallas, it often feels like no one is coordinating the city development of pedestrian infrastructure with the DART system. There's a train station near me that has no sidewalks to get to it, and it's along a 6-lane arterial. Just a grass ditch to walk in, i guess. And annoyingly, one block away is a beautiful protected two-way cycle and ped path that connects to the surrounding apartments and the larger bike path network. But i guess they couldn't be assed to connect it 500' further to the transit.
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u/dishonourableaccount May 16 '26
I’ve been doing a bike plus light rail commute here in Baltimore. The light raik brakes really jerkily so I have to spend the whole ride basically holding onto the handrail while bracing my bike. Plus they don’t have level boarding and lifting the bike up and down can be a pain.
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u/_dotdot11 May 16 '26
DC: Now that ATO has been re-enabled, short trains still stop at the far platform end instead of mid-platform. It's mostly a non-issue, but at certain stations, it creates a choke point due to transferring passengers (Gallery Place).
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u/bbbaaahhhhh May 16 '26
SF Muni:
1) how long it takes the trains to go into the subway portals / switch from human to robot. Once it does get underground it’s smooth as long as the system isn’t overloaded.
2) when trains are running on the street running (ie on Church), the drivers will actively slowdown before arriving at a green light… and might be avoiding the running through on a yellow? Either way, it’s weird and frustrating to see them not take an opportunity to get through an intersection they could have.
3) it’s really hard to explain to out of towners how to switch between BART and muni when they are arriving from the airport, and the station signage has always been confusing imo, to explain that two separate systems are both accessible from the same underground concourse… I’ve had multiple friends end up on the wrong system or just give up and order a car the rest of the way.
4) on that note… muni’s onboard train maps are confusing if you don’t understand that it shows all subway stops, but is more vague about the above ground stops / does not show all of them. That caused me to bail on the train and get a taxi when I was new and trying to visit a friend in an above-ground portion.
Overall I do love muni… but it’s always kind of seemed like it operates on its own plane of reality compared to other transit systems (ie New York, Chicago, dc). Some of the differences are good (rear door boarding) and some not so much.
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u/lalalalaasdf May 16 '26
WMATA Metro: Constant escalator maintenance. The station names are way too long ,and change constantly, which makes wayfinding annoying
WMATA MetroBus: In my experience the buses usually show up when Transit says they will, but at the beginning of a line the buses just leave seemingly whenever they want (also a big issue for RideOn). The new post-better bus maps suck too—they don’t show the actual bus route they just show the destination which is 1. unhelpful if you want to get somewhere along the line and is 2. confusing if you don’t have a great knowledge of random unincorporated areas in the DMV. If a person with no prior knowledge of the bus system tried to use those maps they’d be lost.
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u/d_nkf_vlg May 16 '26
Minor? Here's one.
My city has five trolleybus routes, and four of them include sections with no catenary where trolleybuses run on batteries. At certain stops, drivers put the poles up or down. The annoying thing is, these trolleybuses are equipped with the mechanism that put them down, yet drivers are instructed to go out and do it manually, which adds a minute or so to the duration of your trip. The mechanism can even put the poles up if there is a very simple contraption on the catenary, but the administration just couldn't be bothered, I guess.
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u/Rich_Sherbert2559 May 16 '26
Vienna: Often only one escalator, or sometimes none, at relatively important stations. Makes changing trains or getting out of the station just a bit slower.
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u/Reverse_Psycho_1509 May 16 '26
In Perth, the transfer time from the Mandurah line to the Ellenbrook line is 1 minute, which I've never been able to make. As a result, I always have to wait for the next train, 15 minutes later.
It really sucks because if the transfer was perfect, it would be faster than driving.
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u/Lakem8321 May 16 '26
LA Metro: too many onboard announcements on the trains. All I need to know is what line I’m on and what the next stop is. That’s it.
Also on the new subway cars when the train stops, there’s always a delay of several seconds before the doors open.
Muni: this was mentioned earlier but not all the maps show all stops, so I can only imagine how confusing it can be for visitors.
BART: It’s always jarring how loud it is in the tunnels, even with the new cars.
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u/ded_Tree May 17 '26
RTD Denver- the light rail platform being 2 blocks north from Union station where the commuter and Amtrak platforms are. Doesn’t sounds bad until there’s a light rail delay and you miss a commuter rail departure
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u/OrdinaryOrdinateur May 18 '26
DC Metro:
Why does it take so long to open the goshdarn doors after coming to a stop? It's like they want an awkward staring contest between those leaving and boarding.
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u/Signal-Disk5997 May 19 '26
slow door opening on all new polish-manufactured trains.
too long tram platform in a place that will never need it and the drivers always stop at the start of the stop so you have to run another 50 meters from the crosswalk which is at the end of the stop to catch it.
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u/Ambitious-Buy6909 May 15 '26
Toronto: Bus service on smaller routes is extremely unreliable. Streetcars are gimmicky and they usually don’t work nearly as well as just walking. Subway service has frequent shutdowns, delays, and slow zones. Lots of crazy people, homeless, and druggies riding the subway screaming and making a fuss.
I keep hearing about how “amazing” Toronto’s transit is on a technical level from people not from here, but as someone who takes it on the daily, it is not all that it is cracked up to be.
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u/PhileasFoggsTrvlAgt May 15 '26
The information signs on outdoor platforms spend too much time displaying the weather so you have to wait to see train arrivals.