On the whole, I think city planners should design everything around public transport and it should be seen for the societal value add, rather than as a public expense.

Sadly, in Canberra it is buses, often once an hour. And most people feel as though if you catch a bus, it is a social signal that you are not doing very well.

Doing public transport well is hard.

But Canberra laid a good foundation for great bicycle riding!

What it isn't is in anyway useful to anybody. It shouldn't even be called public transit, be honest and call it last ditch option.

Real public transit needs to run more often. Half hour service is marginal public transit.

Designed and planned from the beginning, founded in 1913.

Has several "town centres" with the similar idea of "close to everywhere you need to be".

But imbalances of distribution through all the various factors of life mean one town centre has better [X], another has better [Y], your [Z] hobby group may be mostly in another area and your friends and family end up all over the place.

And so you travel everywhere anyway.