> They are slow, too infrequent, and generally uncomfortable.

Uh, make them more frequent, more comfortable and faster?

I spend the last 15 minutes of my commute on a bus. Driving vs. bus + train = 3 minutes. I can drive, probably get stuck in traffic, get pissed at angry drivers ... or just chill on a bus and train for 45 minutes.

The only time it is worth driving is when I need to-the-minute exactness of when to arrive, which is rarely ever. IOW, I show up 10 minutes early to work (and also leave 10 minutes early) to be on the public transportation schedule.

Trains come every 10 minutes, busses every 15. I've never had any issues. Sure, I walk a whole 300 meters (1000ft) from the bus to my house, and again from the bus to work. But that is probably good for me since I don't get enough exercise as it is.

Uncomfortable is harder to fix than it looks.

Chairs in our bus stops are designed to be uncomfy to make sure people don't sleep in them, especially not when laying down.

There were too many drunk people sleeping in them, making things messy. The bus company gave up and decided low-comfort chairs were better than puke-filled chairs.

The bus stops around here don't even have seats usually. However, they run every 15 minutes on weekdays, and every 30 minutes on weekends. So, you usually just walk or bike there a few minutes before the bus shows up. You maybe wait 3 minutes for the bus. Google Maps is awesome for knowing exactly when the bus will show up too.

> Uh, make them more frequent, more comfortable and faster?

This is a spot-on description of self-driving cars.

I’m not convinced that self-driving cars is faster than a bus with a dedicated lane.

Still significantly fewer billions than are being invested in road infrastructure.

Have you been to Switzerland? Their public transport system is a mix of busses/short trams and long trip trains. They aren't precisely a high density urban country. They have suburban sectors. The difference here is that they don't make walking a punishment. You can count that everywhere you want to go there's a walking path, even when going off-road. Yes, it's not 100%, but it doesn't need to be. If you can reach 70% of all the places you will ever want to go using public transport, that is enough.

I've been to Switzerland and it was _great_. Only had to grab an Uber a handful of times. However, Switzerland is like the size of the Houston metroplex. Getting to the corners of Switzerland seems like a problem on a different scale from the US.

Switzerland only has a bit more population than the Houston metroplex and is about the same size - why can't the Houston metroplex be great like Switzerland? I wouldn't be moving away from Houston if they could accomplish that.

Switzerland is significantly smaller than the US, even ignoring all of the other countless differences. Why can't a startup do the same thing as Google infrastructure and be successful?

Do you know the density of Switzerland? People in the US like owning homes.