I have lived in New Delhi for 20 years, in Singapore for 5 years and in SF/Berkeley for 10 years.
Public transit in SF Bay area is horrible. You are right... it smells because of the homeless riding it all day, and service times are bad, and its quite expensive too.
Even New Delhi's metro is nicer and cleaner than the BART / Caltrain (because its newer but also because the company keeps it clean).
Singapore's public transit system is out of this world. Its absolutely amazing. Clean, efficient, reasonably priced, etc.
It was a shock to me when I landed in the "greatest country on earth" to see such a pathetic public transport systems.
I brought a motorcycle after my first year in US. We have 2 cars now, not only because we like the cars, but precisely because we would like to avoid the public transport.
However, people who have seen good public transport would always vote for that. I would love to see a Singapore like public transport in the US. I loved it and would give up 1 of our cars for that (still need 1 car to head out to Yosemite). But alas, I don't see that happening in the US because US people have not seen good public transport.
Well, you would probably have to switch trains/buses to go to a rural area, but those rural areas are very well served so you wouldn't mind.
Because speaking from someone that Uber's 10 times a week, rode busses all throughout college, I gotta say, I really really like car ownership.
There's no smells. There's no weird homeless people. I don't have to wait 45 minutes for the next bus to show up. I don't have to schedule a ride to go to the grocery store. The same vehicle takes me from the city to the rural areas. The driver doesn't cancel on you if you're destination is not far enough away. (Uber) I don't experience surge fees. (Uber) I don't have to cross 3 different types of transportation to get from point A to B.