It takes me about 45 minutes to get to work by walking + train, and there's about one train every hour (less often in the morning), so it's inflexible.

If I go by bike, it's about 55 minutes (but then I need a shower, which can take a bit more if your company doesn't provide the right facilities). I'd say that the time saving for a train is ridiculous if we factor in the price for the railway system.

If I go by car it's 25 minutes, but then I need to find a parking spot, and usually pay for it.

If I could rideshare to work and just be dropped in front of my office, and forget about it, with a price on par (even slightly higher) than my car ride, I'd pick that solution most of the times (I'd still ride my bike for training that's it).

Given equal travel time I'd pick an autonomous car over train or bus 100% of the time. I'd pick a self driven car 100% of the time when not inebriated. For the most part faster travel time in a train or bus isn't a sign of their superiority but a sign of failure in proper infrastructure for cars. =I've been throughout Europe. Including two weeks in Vienna. I still think public transportation sucks and asking for more is asking for a faster horse.

In the United States I'd argue there isn't a single city with good public transportation. Not one. Some folks will list NYC as a good example. I don't consider a city with the single worst commute time in the entire country as a positive example. [1]

[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/longest-...

I've spent vast amounts of time commuting on public transport and by car.

You can't pay me to ever get on a bus again.

And not just in the US/Canada either. Even in the dense cities of Europe, public transportation << car transport. No bus can ever beat the comfort and convenience of putting a large amount of shopping / luggage in the back, getting in your private bubble, and going directly to your destination.

Then there's the people you meet on public transport. 99 / 100 of them are just people who want to go from A to B. But then there are the trouble-makers and weirdos. Do you really want to be stuck on a bus or train, straining under shopping bags or holiday luggage, with some unpredictable idiot eyeing you?

Some people, like newyorker.com, have a platonic ideal of public transport where we are all happily whisked from A to B on hyper-efficient and advanced vehicles, perhaps humming kumbaya to ourselves. But the reality is that it will always be inconvenient and slow - at best - and dangerous and super unpleasant in reality.

The one instance where public transport works well is when you want to travel 5-10 blocks, there's a lot of traffic, and you are carrying nothing, and there just so happens to be a subway going the right way.

The real way forward is to have electric cars, nuclear power plants, remote work, and maybe this new Musk tunnel thing.

I don't want to force a lifestyle on anyone, but for me it is glorious just popping on a skytrain or a subway, listening to my music, and watching the world go by. I don't have to buy a car, pay for insurance, get gas every week, change the oil, repair it when it inevitably breaks down or things wear out, thus easily doubling the initial cost, find parking, and wash and clean it. I don't like dealing with different vehicle sizes, pedestrians on their phone, and drivers who think their time is worth my safety.

Buses come in short/long/articulated/double-decker sizes and don't need to be on rails or require overhead electrical lines. The only argument I can think of is that you get a smoother ride and no need to burn fuel with a tram.

(I've only ridden the trams in one city, and they were pretty much slower buses on rails that happened to make a lot of dinging noises. Worked fine in the central district, I guess.)

No one wants to be stuck in bay area traffic every day either. Public transit is used for a higher percentage of journeys in Europe though because it's a better option relative to the available alternatives than it is in much of the US. If we had free teleportation I imagine you'd see very few people using any other form of transport.

There is probably a degree to which public transit usage is higher in Europe not because it is a better experience than it is in the US but because driving is a worse experience. Based on my own experience it's a bit of both but clearly usage levels vary around the world due in part to varying tradeoffs between transport options based on historical, geographical, political and economic factors. There may also be a cultural element as well where preferences vary but I don't think that's the biggest factor.

I hate dealing with crowds of people.

I hate waiting for whatever conveyence I'm going to ride on.

I hate feeling like I need a full bath after riding on said conveyence.

I hate dealing with the inevitable schizos, drug addicts, mental illness, and other malcontents that will undoubtedly pan handle or beg. And no, it isn't my problem to care or deal with them.

Once I got enough money to ride in my own car to and from work, I stopped public transit and never looked back. If I somehow become stupid rich(doubt), I would charter private jets for the same reason.

I see you're from Italy and will concede that European public transit is better when it comes to frequency so there's less waiting but that's about it. Still have the drug addict schizos and cleanliness problems.

I still owned a car when I lived in Europe and if I do it again I'll be owning another, especially now with kids.

By comparison, where I live now public transit is as fast or faster than driving, unless you're going somewhere not covered by the subway or trains. It's fast paced, because a majority of people actually depend on it to get anywhere. If I have to wait more than 3 minutes for the train, I'm annoyed. I'm not saying this would work in most American cities, because they're built for cars and you can't just undo that, but in European cities, yes, public transit is often better than driving. In Portland, the trains feel like they were built for old and poor people who cannot drive, and have all the time in the world to get wherever they're going.

I have to drive a car everywhere.

It works great! Less cars on the road and flexibility you just won’t get without a lot more empty buses driving around all the time.

And it makes money cause there’s enough popular destinations that the buses often have 3-5 riders sharing rides.

Let’s not assume people needing transportation are all single people carrying a backpack with perfect physical abilities. Ever tried to get a stroller down the subway steps in New York? In those relatively few stations that have elevators, they’re all filled with piss and shit. Don’t want my 3 year old walking around amongst that. Even in “enlightened” European cities, subway elevators are often disgusting messes, not to mention more unsafe than having an Uber driver drop you at your front door.

Public transport could be great — but I live in real-ville where it isn’t — except maybe in Zurich — which is an extremely rich small, and compact city — you could put twenty Zurichs in the Los Angeles metro at least. On paper, places like New York have great public transport — but the UX is about 100x harder than using Uber — especially with kids: walking up and down multiple stairs, down long corridors, waiting on station platforms literally next to crazy people, getting on a train, finding a seat — then trying to get back home doing all that in reverse. Compare that to the literal seconds it takes to order an Uber, wait outside your door, hop in, ride in quiet, mostly pathogen-free comfort directly to your destination.

Public transport is “efficient” the same way a prison cafeteria is efficient. I am not against public transport — it serves a valuable purpose as one facet of a comprehensive transportation policy. But to claim it is more efficient is really a matter of opinion — there are a lot of variables that make up what “efficient” means.

Cities in Europe, for the most part, do just fine with public transit. It's all publicly-run. And they have solved the problem with a way that would be seemingly unacceptable in the US: Segregated rights-of-way for buses and trams, an extensive metro and regional rail network, and depending on the city, sometimes heavy subsidies. And that's fine, because if public transit is run as a public service, it's not all going to make money.

1. No long walk to a bus stop or train station. In good weather, such a walk can be good, pleasant exercise. In bad weather...ugh.

2. If you have several places you need to go, the wait time at the start of each segment can really add up. Consider a trip where you want to go to (1) the bank to get some cash, (2) the post office to mail something, (3) your pharmacist to pick up some medicine, (4) a grocery store for some food, and (5) back to home. That's at least 5 waits at bus stops. Maybe more if those places are not all on the same route. A car will usually be much faster (especially if the bank has a drive up ATM and the pharmacy has a drug through pick up). (The post office probably has a drive though mail drop, but I'm assuming the post office is on the itinerary because you need to buy postage--otherwise you'd be mailing the item from home).

3. Public transit too often is treated as a collection of independent routes, each assessed in isolation when the bean counters tweak things, rather than as a complete system that should be assessed globally.

If I buy a house or condo or rent an apartment based on a good car commute to my work and good car access to the other places I need to or like to go to, there is a good chance 10 or 20 years from now I'll still have good car access to those places.

If I buy a house based on good bus routes to those places with stops close to my house and to my destinations and buses running frequently enough that the waiting is not too bad, what are the chances that will still be true in 10 years? In 20 years?

Much lower than with the car, I think. It's far too easy for the transit authorities to decide that my important routes are not getting enough ridership, and that some other, more popular router, need more resources, and shift buses away from my routes or even cancel mine completely.

I think #3 is the big one. It means that even if the public transit is good enough in my area that #1 and #2 are acceptable now, I can't count on it remaining that way long term (and in some cities, probably not even short term).