Enrique Peñalosa, Colombian politician and past mayor of Bogota, put it well: "An advanced city is not one where the poor can get around by car, but one where even the rich use public transportation."

Crime on public transit doesn't mean public transit is bad, it means that public transit is a last-resort option patronized by the most desperate members of society. If our cities were designed for more convenient public transit, more people would be willing to take the bus, and your average patron would be less likely to be one of the scaries that you and your visiting friend were worried about.