Why do people say things like this? Have you ever been to a major European city? Most have well designed public transit systems that are much more convenient than driving. They usually manage this through a combination of local subways, regional trains to go into and out of the city core, and high speed rail to travel between cities. Chinese and Indian cities are implementing the same thing.
If SF actually cared about making public transit convenient (i.e. if Transit First was anything other than an empty slogan), they would have police ticket those cars that drive in the bus only lanes.
I just don't understand this bizarre behavior of insisting that problems are insolvable, when plenty of others have implemented adequate solutions.
That is also technically achievable in US, but much less politically achievable.
Also other countries were able to solve this. It's a uniquely American problem.
In SF, this is made worse by the people's behavior. There is a dedicated line for the buses, but cars routinely drive on it to turn, get in/out parking or just feeling they can outsmart everybody by doing so. So in fact, the bus stops not once but 3-4 times per block to deal with these. And then there are traffic lights of course. And yes, as a result it's not too much faster than walking (though somewhat more relaxing, if you get a seat :)