what's public transportation like in your town?

I have to take 2 buses to uni and 2 buses back every day. It's horrible, every bus is late all the time. If I don't get a stupidly early first bus I will miss the second bus so I end up catching one that leaves me standing around for 25+ mins waiting for the second.

I hate it, it adds this whole new stressful level to my life. There is only one university bus an hour so if I miss it I'm fucked. I hate the bit where I just stand in the freezing cold for ages the worst though. It's a waste of my life. And I wouldn't even leave the house at all if I didn't have to.

Sounds like a car would be justifiable!

London public transport is pretty good, except the trains and underground stop at midnight. So annoying! It takes me ten minutes to get to work on the DLR (East London automated light metro train). The buses are ok and mostly 24hrs but full of annoying teenagers playing loud 'music' on their phones. I drive at the weekend or in the evening. I love my car.

Where I grew up there was one bus, which went about twice a day within 30 minutes of each service.

It is terrible. The only people who use it are the very poor. Around here, if you have a choice, you have a car. It is pretty hard to get by without one.

I can't afford a car though, not at all! And also I cannot drive.

I take the tram and the subway to get to school. Buses suck, I'm lucky to live close to a tram station that links my neighbourhood to the city centre. And from there my college is only one or two stops away, depending on which building I'm in.

It does take me 40-45 minutes to get anywhere I need, though.

There is no public transportation of any kind where I live.

I live in the largest city in the United States (Arlington, Texas) without public transportation.

I grew up here and then moved away for college and now came back (still for college). There are no buses and if you call a cab, it takes like an hour to get to you. It's also not a very bike friendly city. So yeah. You either own a car or you befriend a car owner or you deal with only shopping at the gas station or maybe the local Walgreens if you're feeling extra vigorous.

editeditedit

Buses yes. Actually took a taxi the other day. We actually have lots of transportation available but of course it's more convenient to have a car.

I was taking 3 buses to get to work 2 to get to school. 15 min commute turned to 45min, 45 min commute turned to 1 hr and 30 min sometimes 2 hr depending if I miss a bus or it's late. A few of the cities I frequent have their own bus lines within the city that are pretty convenient for jr high/high school students or senior citizens. I always thought that was nice.

In my hometown they have free transportation from the schools to the libraries for after school tutoring.

I'm glad there is some sort of public transportation here even though it's not the best/safest option.

New York City, so.. yeah, apart from being over crowded, it's pretty good.

I loved the transit system where I grew up, went every where everyday with it, but have never used the Portland public transit much at all.

We have buses and the MAX light rail system that travels east to west across the length of not just the city pf Portland but the outlaying metro as far as it goes, as well a MAX that travels north to south from the airport (edge of Portland/Oregon, right near the Columbia river/Washington border all the way to Clackamas which is the the south end of Portland.)

I have taken the MAX her and there, mostly only if there is a big event in the city or I am planing an activity that driving will not work for.

I am wrapping my head around the idea of using the public transit more and more. I have about a mile long hill to get to the first bus stop, little further to get to the nearest bridge I can take by foot across the river and be at the nearest bus transit station.

I used to do this and enjoy it while doing so, time to get over whatever the anxiety is and go for it again. Car nowhere on the horizon and, I mean, it is just a hill and a bunch of rain. Neither of which are things I hate too much.

Maybe I will walk down and cross the river and take a bus somewhere sometime next week just because. nothing better to do, and I need to get the hang of it at this point. If I am ever to get off this hill and out of this empty house.

bus extends a 15 minute journey by car into an hour long unholy ride

How do kids get jobs before they can drive in cities with no public transport? Boo

I don't know about other places, but here you have to be fifteen to work, and you have to get a special permit at that age. You can get your license at sixteen.

I worked only a few blocks from my house, so I walked.

14 if you work on a farm and drive a tractor.

What is the reason for there not being public transportation in a city like the one Jessica lives in?

Public transportation's pretty good where I live. When I still lived outside the city and was going to school, I had to take 2 buses both ways and my total commute time was 4 hours. It wasn't very fun. Now that I live in the city and work here as well, I don't use public transportation at all anymore. I walk to work and back again, which takes me a total of about 50 minutes.

We don't own a car either, because we don't need one. I would use it maybe once a month, so it'd be a waste of money to buy one.

I took the bus to and from work until I went on maternity leave last year.

Public transport is pretty good in Wellington. I live in a kind of out of the way suburb, so the bus goes into town/Wellington every 20 minutes during peak hours (7-9am) in the morning and then back to the burbs from town every 20 mins in the evening peak hour (4.30-6.30).
During the day there's a bus to this suburb every hour that will take you to the town's mall and train station where you can catch the train into wellington which goes every half an hour.

There's a cable car up to the uni too which is pretty fun and convenient.

I had to sit through many a high school class discussions about this.

I guess one reason could be that while this particular city has a decent population, it's spread over a vast African savanna's worth of land. Everything is far away from everything. Add to that (I'm sure this a problem in many places) the weather during the summer just sucks for anyone standing or walking outside for any amount of time. You avoid it at all costs.

And also, everyone here hates taxes more than they hate... anything. Anything at all. Unless it's for a sports stadium (we have quite a few of those). Another popular theory is that they don't want to make things easier for poor people because then they'll all move here and ruin everything. I'm not sure what exactly they'll ruin but some people worry about this. We're between two much larger cities (Ft Worth and Dallas) that both have public transportation systems and more apparent poverty. I guess... if we buy buses, they'll all migrate over here. Oh no!

And also also, the truth is, almost everyone has a car. Because of all these reasons.

tl;rd - The layout of the city would make public transport very expensive and an absolute hellish thing to use, and nobody would use it anyway except for poor people who I guess we've decided to not care about.

There's a pretty big bus route in Houston, i had to use it for years and it was pretty ghetto but whatever, it worked. We have a lightrail system but it doesn't go very far and asshole hipsters like to protest any new routes because they don't like the construction or something dumb. Yeah, our mass transit sucks.

The bus can be quite good, but it takes some time and can be quite tight a lot of the time. The metro and the train can be rather spastic at times, as they have to stop to regulate the time between trains, and when there are people who get sick, who jump on the tracks, or when there are mechanical problems. However, for the most part, there is no problem. The problem is the people.

There are a loooooooot of fucking creeps in the metro, and it can be quite worrying, especially if you take it to the end of some of the lines, and into the ghetto. There are a lot of creepy, drunk fuckers who go out that way. Drunkenness is something you see a lot here, and it's kind of annoying and bothersome. Especially because a large majority of the people just block out what's going on, so if a woman is being harassed in the metro, people just don't look. The few times that I've seen people get mouthy or handsy with a woman, there have been other guys around thankfully (I was not nearby, but could see what was happening), but it's scary.

So yeah, as a system, it's okay, but the people on it fucking suck balls.

This is public transportation where I used to live.

I only used it a few times when I was younger and needed to get downtown and didn't want to use my car for whatever reason.

You still taking MetroNorth? Public transport sucks up thataway.

Yeah. It's not that bad. It's at least at like 98.8% on-time accuracy this year. The only thing that's fucking horrid about it is that the trains strictly only run north-south. I have no way whatsoever to get east-west. Like, not even to the next town directly east. I tried taking a bus once but the guy was like WE DON'T TAKE MONEY. I said Any Money? and he said NO GET A BUS PASS and I said Where? and he said THE TRAIN STATION. Lo and behold, at the train station, you can only get train tickets.

At least they're doing away with the dollar coins soon. I have a cup with at least seventy of them for emergencies because no way in Hell am I ever paying someone with those.

I guess we have good public transport here. We have a lot of buses and bus stops wherein transients have arguments with themselves quite often, usually alienating the people waiting on the bus as well as transplants and tourists. Don't even interrupt one, however, as we do not know what chaos that will cause. We also have a train for the people up north around Roundrock as well as a new Car2Go system wherein people can use a credit card to rent an electric vehicle to skirt around town once they are off the train. I've never used any of these, however. I have often though about it during my late night drunken escapades downtown, however I don't know any schedules and would probably just end up riding the bus into Bat country or all night just drifting like a transient, also alienating those same transplants and tourists.