I agree these are civic issues, not issues with public transportation. However I always get the impression that many ardent public transit advocates are the ones who are also resistant to cleaning up public transit so that it is more attractive.

Yes, let's definitely work towards providing mental health solutions, but let's also not let the psycho claim an entire subway car because "he has every right to be there" or "it's inhumane to forcibly remove him" and still expect the general public to delight in giving up their cars and take the subway instead.

They both are and they aren't. It is a civic issue that is inherently worse for public transportation, especially those that have nearly no supervision like subways. I totally agree that the issue is a civic one that should be solved, but if we're not going to solve it, then it's a problem that will prevent public transportation from reaching its potential. Would you rather encounter a crazy person out in the open or be trapped in a steel box with them? That's essentially the decision people are making when they board public transit in a major American metro. If a person is smelly out in the open, at least there's a breeze that can blow the odor away, but on a bus or train you are trapped in the recirculating smell cloud. Out in the open, one might have to pass by such things, but being on public transit can mean experiencing them for hours.

> But that doesn't actually make them less frequent; it just converts the drunk guy shouting on the subway bench into the drunk guy who's about to T-bone you.

That's a bit of a false equivalence. While there's indeed some mathematical soundness to what you're saying, I'd argue the vast majority of trouble makers (for lack of a better term) on public transit aren't there out of commuting necessity. They hang out on public transit because it's out of the elements and they are unlikely to be harassed themselves. It's somewhere for them to go. If all public transit closed, they'd just be out on the curb or in front of a gas station.

There is an incentive for city officials to ignore the problem as much as they can get away with. They know that the vast majority of their constituents aren't taking public transit, so what better place to allow the unwanted to be off the streets?

That's why it is a public transit issue. It's a much greater challenge to solve civic problems at a higher level, but cities could actually hire security to be on their trains and actually enforce tickets. No matter what, it's an inferior daily experience to being in one's own car. You can never get rid of smells and the low-level bad behavior. Not without society changing itself.