Why is public transit so packed during rush hour?
Overcrowded buses and cancelled trains make peak-hour commuting suffocating and unreliable. When vehicles fill to the point where passengers can barely breathe and missing one means a long wait, getting anywhere becomes an exhausting ordeal.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- The most recent one is from September 2026.
- This comes up 23.1× more often in r/travel than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1avoiding peak hoursDid this help you?
- 2using alternative transportationDid this help you?
- 3waiting for later buses or trainsDid this help you?
- 4trying to book private transport or alternative travel methodsDid this help you?
- 5Quitting the job or looking for other employmentDid this help you?
- 6Moving closer to the workplaceDid this help you?
- 7Making the commute more pleasant with podcasts or treatsDid this help you?
- 8Simplifying lesson prep to save time and energyDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“the only downside was it was a Pain getting there via Public Transport the Buses where quite full u couldn’t even breath 😭 and if u missed one it took a while for the next one and all the Trains where cancelled.”source ↗
“Id love to go, apparently the week I picked out is Golden Week... anyone have experience traveling there during that time?”source ↗
“anyone who’s ever been on the Transmilenio during peak hours can tell you that.”source ↗
“I recently moved states (nh to ma) and changed schools. I am totally overwhelmed. I’m crying every day, getting severe anxiety, and dread coming to work.”source ↗
“I have a lengthy commute (1-1.5 hours one way), and by the time I get home every day, I have very little time to prep for the next day.”source ↗
“Before I moved to my current job, I was traveling about the same amount of time. It was an amazing school with supportive admin, but the gas alone was simply not worth it.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3How to see famous European landmarks without dealing with massive crowds
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- 6Why is my website traffic suddenly spiking with no sales?
- 13Why are major tourist attraction tickets so expensive?
- 2Has anyone else experienced road rage during school drop-off?