In my area, public transit is something that people who don't use it themselves love to criticize others for not using, either.
It's little used specifically because it is badly planned and operated with an eye toward political positioning, not serving would-be passengers.
Guess what, the moment this nonsense becomes indefensible or plain too expensive is when that train or bus suddenly starts working and running on time.
Please, regail us with tales of your bus ridership.
Do you enjoy being squished between people, unable to move? Do you like to "accidentally touch" people on the bus? Or do you get on the bus early and "silently judge" the people who have to stand? Do you pretend to read or work during the ride? (The bus bounces around too much to do any actual work, and that's if you can get a seat.) Or are you one of those annoying people that won't stop talking about Tuscany?
Have you been on a bus when it's had to pull over on the freeway, and turn itself off and on again, to "reboot the bus"? Ever wonder what state the bus has entered that it needs a reboot? What is the driver seeing, or not seeing? How many screens went blank and controls stopped working at highway speeds?
It's because it's a reverse commute, and so while everyone is trying to get into the city I'm trying to get out. The bus would be pretty good if I lived south of Northgate and worked in the city.
On the other hand it's very efficient for getting in to the city, as I can hop on a single bus and be in Green Lake or the U district in about 15 minutes, and it's another 10 to cross the canal.
Some good reading:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action#Collective...
When I worked downtown in SF, the options were clear. Take transit or deal with ridiculous traffic and costs of close to $600 a month.
Now that work south of SF, I can either take the company shuttle, which takes 40 min and if I miss it, I have to wait another hour. Or, drive my car which takes 20 min and I can arrive/leave whenever I please. Easy decision.
You can't fault people for making a rational choice.
For people who can make full use of their time on the shuttle, driving is a 20-minute loss of productivity each way.
The value-math works differently for different people.
If it's anything like the commuter buses, you can try to open your laptop on your lap with no elbow room, but the bus bounces too much to focus on what you're coding/reading. What you wind up doing is "work theater" where you appear to be working but aren't productive.
And that's if you can get a seat on the bus. For bus companies to make money, they have to pack in commuters like a mosh pit. And you're trapped there; a literal prisoner of the bus. Will the shuttle pull over if you need to step out for a moment?
The commuter routes subsidize all of the mostly-empty city buses that less-able people ride. (These are people who won't/can't walk/drive 6 blocks to the store.)
After driving for 6 months, I moved across the street from my workplace (literally). Since then, I've moved onto another job in Redmond, which is just 15 minutes down 520. And the traffic on that part of 520 is so good that half of the drivers go 70 until they reach Microsoft.
MT 550 running 6 buses an hour felt the same in 2016 - packed in like a mosh pit during rush hour. That's when I gave in and bought a truck, and dealt with parking 6 blocks away instead of hiking 9 blocks down Cherry (and past the perpetual tent city) to the tunnel.