Fair, but where I am it certainly is an argument I hear from many people - particularly women - that refuse to use public transport alone, particularly at night. There's only so many reports you can read about people being groped, sexually harassed or hurt, see the security being buddies with the loudest and rowdiest pack of gangsters in the section and look a female friend in the eye as they recount someone whipping our their wiener in front of them, then walking away like nothing happened. Eventually, "that won't happen to me" turns into "shit, it just might".

This may be an issue of selection bias, but downplaying it does the progress of public transport a disservice - infrastructural improvements need to go hand in hand with service improvements, if we want them to become a viable alternative.

Oh, by the way, this is a big city in southern Germany. We're not even the worst place.