I never cease to be amazed by Angelinos out here who muse that they wish they had public transportation as New York City has. Imagine: No need for a car. No need for traffic jams on the 134, the 101, the 405, the 110, the 10, the 5, even the 73. How much better it would be for the environment if only we had a subway like New York’s alongside bans on plastic bags, plastic straws, and cars that run on nearly $6 gasoline!

I listen. I smile. I don’t contradict. I save my arguments for only two subjects: (1) Left vs. Right in America, and (2) Israel-Zionism vs. The Rest of the World.
But what about public transportation, New York-style?
Been there. Done that.
I lived and worked in New York — Brooklyn, Manhattan — until the age of 32. Through many of those years, I rode the subways. I hated it.
New York’s vaunted subways are dehumanizing. Around rush hour, you struggle to get into the car. If you don’t push, you don’t get in. It is survival of the fittest or the meanest. You push, and then the train doors slide to close, but they cannot close because a few sardines are sticking out. So the sticker-outers have to decide rapidly: Do I back off, get out, and wait for the next train — or do I push even harder?
Once in the car, if it is crowded, “fuggediboud” a seat. You grab an overhead strap and become a “strap hanger.” You stand throughout the ride. If the train suddenly stops, as often happens, you lurch — but so do all the other strap hangers, so it works out. You shake left and right with the train. At the next stop, you hope many will exit so you can get a seat. But that does not happen; instead, more sardines fight their way into the can.
This is dehumanizing even when you manage a ride without a worm publicly shouting a warning that all Zionists must get off the train — or else.
In a Los Angeles automobile, you may get stuck interminably long on a freeway, but you control your environment: heat or air conditioning; standard AM/FM radio or XM; Fox or CNN or a sports ch...