This may come as a surprise to some men, but taking cabs or car service (the predecessor to Uber) or Uber and its brothers, makes sense for women traveling alone. Especially at night. Especially if it is after peak hours ( 6 a.m. To 8 p.m.).
Because it just isn't safe.
Sure, men have concerns in big cities. They have their wallets lifted or are mugged, and they are more likely to be killed by a stranger than women. But they don't worry about it in the same way women do. They know that certain areas are better avoided and that drinking too much is a risk, but I don't think they are as concerned.
Women think about it a lot.
I took public transportation for a lot of my life. I didn't own a car because parking is expensive. If you lived in an older building, you parked on the street because they don't have parking garages. And often street parking is alternate side of the street parking, and the police give out tickets the way pediatricians hand out lollipops.
Like most of my friends, I relied on buses and subways to get to work. Unlike some of rhem, when I lived in Brooklyn and worked for library system, I worked two.nights a week. After an unpleasant encounter with a patron who may have had mental.health issues or may just have had anger issues, poor impulse control and a streak of pedophilia, I got nervous and asked my first husband to meet me at my branch. I had a two block walk to the bus stop which was on a deserted and dimly lit street corner with lots of trees and bushes for a would-be assailant to hide in. As it turns out, I was right to.be concerned. That patron got banned from the branch for chatting up young girls ( 11to 13-year-olds). He waited for the security guard to.leave and put a lot of stitches in his head with a set of brass knuckles. He went to jail; the guard was a retired cop with brothers and friends on the force.
I continued to have my late husband meet me after I changed branches. Again, the bus stop was on a deserted street corner with no lighting. All the shops were closed, as were the handful of restaurants. I worked two nights a week.
The fact that I would always work.several.nights as a librarian played a big role in why I moved to FL to be with my parents: I was a tad nervous about being out alone at night. My female friends were equally cautious. When they came over for a party or just to.hang or for dinner, we encouraged them to stay over and go home the next day in daylight. They usually took us up on it. Trains and buses run on a much-reduced schedule after midnight in NYC, so you can have a long, lonely ( and sometimes dangerous) wait.
A woman travelling alone at night ( and even during the day) develops a sense of situational awareness. When you wait for a bus, you try to do so on a " good" corner, one that is well-lit and where there are people around, near restaurants or coffee shops. A lot of times that corner doesn't exist. When you get on the bus, you try to sit near the driver or with another woman. You only sit near or next to a young male if there is no other choice.
If you are taking a subway, you look around the platform. If there is a group of young men ( teens and 20s) you look around for another woman to stand with. If that isn't possible, you move as far away as possible, pull out a book or newspaper, bury your nose in it, and try to look harmless and uninteresting. It has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It has to do with age. Rapists tend to be young males.
No, this isn't bigotry, just reality.
When the train arrives, you note which car the group gets into, and look for a car several cars away from them, preferably one with other people in it. And, again, keep an eye out f or danger while reading.
Lest you think we regard all men as equally dangerous -- we don't. Age is important, but so are behavior and dress. Anything resembling gang colors is a warning. Guys who are loud, obnoxious or intentionally drawing attention to themselves within their group are worth watching. Any male drunk or high is possibly dangerous, whether in gang colors or a suit is suspect. On the other hand, the men from the Nation of Islam in their white thobes were a blessing. I have seen them de-escalate tense situations, and they were always respectful of women regardless of age or race. Back in the 80s, the Guardian Angels were another group that made you feel safer than the rare transit cop. They travelled in sufficient numbers to be useful, checked in by sticking their heads out and doing a count at every stop, and were somewhat trained ( we met the martial artist who trained them, 3rd Dan black belt; he and my late husband had a fascinating discussion). I never saw more than one transit cop on a train or in a station at a time. One with a dog felt a bit safer-- those German Shepherds are HUGE. I had my doubts about a single guy with a nightstick being much use in a gang rape situation.
Add to this the fact that the NYC subway is ancient and is hard to maintain because you have to shut down sections of track and stations to.do repairs, which everyone hates because it means doubling back, and you can understand why trains run badly. There are frequent breakdowns. My personal nightmare was getting stuck in the dark.between stations-- in summer, no A/C; in winter, no heat. It happened fairly often. Weekends were especially bad because trains run infrequently after midnight ( sometimes I felt that they ran whenever they damned well felt like it, unlike in Japan where they are ALWAYS on time but stop running at around 2 a.m.). Yes, they call it the City That Never Sleeps, but that doesn't apply to public transportation
It is a whole other experience living in a large city as a woman alone. AOC knows that. She also knows that if you have to.be somewhere by a certain time without a lot of time to get there, you cannot count on the trains or buses. When I worked in Manhattan and commuted from Brooklyn, I always allotted a lot of extra time. Some times I left at 7:30 and got to.t h e office by 8:15/ Other times I made it by 9. You factor possible breakdowns into the time because it was better to be early than late. Then there is The fascinating truth that sometimes you can't get thete from.here. To get from.Brooklyn to Queens, you have to.go into Manhattan,and sometimes change trains 2 or even 3 times, or switch to a bus. Ah, the adventure! NOT.
So when some moron,-- er, Republican questions AOC's daring to call an Uber, you are now armed with the facts to demolish there accusation, as well as a look.at what it is really like being a woman in a big city.