Judging a city to live in: distilled to two primary elements
With regard to his second element, I fail to understand how a gated public transport system indicates a lack of trust by the government in its people: government or no, left to their own devices most people are cheating bastards. Installation of gates does not mean that anyone is 'scared', of lost revenue or whatever: some societies are just more honest than others. Consider, for just one example, those newspaper vending machines common to the streets of larger cities throughout North America; I can guarantee they wouldn't last a day on the streets of Dublin. #link