> you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable
This is the same argument has "what about the rain ?" for people who don't want to commute by bicycle.
Yes, it happens. But it's only a few days a year. Contrary to traffic. So you can adapt. Human is supposed to be great at adaptation.
And the rest of the year it just works.
As for rain, the average where I am is about 120 days a year. While some of those days are "not much rain", it's still enough that walking/biking to/from work would be fairly annoying a large number of days per year. Plus... winter and snow (which is included in the number above, but more of an issue).
To imply that in some parts of the world (desert climate, reliable public transit service), the disruption is infrequent and manageable, and in others (wet and cold climates, unreliable public transit service) the disruption is significant enough to render the bicycle or the public transit economically non-viable for some users.
This is the same argument has "what about the rain ?" for people who don't want to commute by bicycle.
Yes, it happens. But it's only a few days a year. Contrary to traffic. So you can adapt. Human is supposed to be great at adaptation. And the rest of the year it just works.