[jschwartzi]

I think London and New York will be among the few places this bears out. In Seattle many of my trips double, triple, or even quadruple in time if I try to take public transit. EG driving to the Amazon locker for a pickup takes 10 minutes, or 45 minutes by bus. The bus time is for travel time only, and doesn't include time spent waiting.

And trying to get to my SO's house by bus takes a 15 minute trip up to about an hour and a half of walking and transferring.

[JAlexoid]

That's not the case. There are more dense places with good public transport than just NYC and London.

(We shall exclude all of American cities from any consideration, because even in NYC the public transport is pretty bad)

[benatkin]

If they don't also have really bad traffic, driving will tend to be significantly faster for most routes. They don't look like Seattle, but they don't look like NYC or London either. That said it's nice to be able to relax and take public transportation and is often a win even if it's a little bit slower, but there's no need to deny that it usually takes at least 10 minutes longer to take public transportation in a place that has good public transportation but not horrendous traffic.