[maxfurman]

> For example, it takes me 20 minutes to go from 1 side of the city to the other. Using the bus routes, its 2 hours

Compared to SEPTA (Philly's bus system) this seems way off base. Yes, it takes longer to take the bus than to drive yourself because the bus has to stop for passengers. But your own car will still have to stop at red lights, wait for pedestrians, etc., nearly as much as a bus. I can see 30-45 minutes for a bus ride comparable to a 20 minute direct drive, but any more than that points to some other problem with your city's roads.

[pierat]

Try visiting the Midwest. Its like my anecdote, but for every city. And the larger the city, the worse the times with public transit vs car.

I would LOVE nice public transit where I would call a taxi OR walk to the public transit station, then get to a hub, and then head to the east/west coast. That *used* to be possible, with even commuter train stations available at cities with 1000 people. No more.

I WfH, so I'm already reducing my vehicular load on the atmo. I mow perhaps 4 times a year. Again, less poison in atmo. But when I want to pop over to the nearest big city (You know, microcenter/electronics/hobby/etc) I have only 1 choice. Car.

Maybe in eastern seabed cities that actually built their cities with public transit, it just works for you, cause those cities weren't completely demolished for interstates (well, just the redlined/black population of cities; they were demolished). But past your east coast mentality, the rest of us have no real choices. And it sucks.

And also, major shoutout to "Not Just Bikes" yt channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/notjustbikes

[jonhohle]

I rarely took non-express busses when I lived in Seattle, but once took the bus into the international district for work and then had to get to 23rd & Jackson (about 20 blocks, straight shot). First I had to wait for a route that went straight down Jackson - 10-15 minutes. Then the bus ride - 30 minutes. Then the same thing on the way back. Nearly an hour and a half, not including having to walk a few blocks to get to my destination. In retrospect, walking would have been faster, and had I driven that day, round trip would have been around 20 minutes, with traffic including the pickup I needed to make.

It may be a problem with the city, but it’s still a problem.

[BeetleB]

You're not accounting for time spent waiting for transfers.

[PaulHoule]

Where I live the major employer is Cornell University and almost all of the buses stop there. A Cornell id will get you on any bus in Tompkins County and it is almost always a single-seat ride to Cornell and to the downtown area. Transfers in the downtown-Cornell-Mall triangle are also easy because you can always get a bus in 15 minutes or less.

Overall transit works great if most people are going to a few central points. It's much more difficult if the destinations are distributed. Frequent service could be a balm for that: if you had buses every ten minutes on all routes transfers would not be bad at all.

[BeetleB]

Yes, but Cornell lives in a small city.

Concrete example for my city. Going from the east end to the west end took over 2 hours. And most of it was on the rail system - so not competing with traffic. But it involved one transfer for the train, and another for the bus near the end of my destination.

Frequent stops - by both the train and the bus, as well as the stops, made it take a lot longer. In my case a car would have done it in about 40 minutes.