[ehnto]

Your experience matches mine here in Australia, and it's fine justification for why we don't take public transport, but not why there shouldn't be more and better public transport. I would much much prefer to be taking a train from nearby into the CBD as it is faster point to point, more predictable and less stressful. The trouble is I live too far away from a station so every train journy starts with 30 minutes of car travel in the wrong direction.

The consensus seems to be on my side in spite of lower share of total commutes, because housing near stations is significantly more expensive. From that I infer two things, public transport is desired, and there's not enough of it to support demand.

[HPsquared]

I agree it's something that would be nice, but it's so far away - decades at the current rate. We can't even build housing in the UK, never mind infrastructure or industry.