Comment Yes (Score 1) 654
A few years ago, I used it regularly and had no choice. I live in a smallish college town. We have 2 bus systems, the college (free for anyone), bu only near the university, and only a few of connector points with the city system.
Leaving the Uni's system out, let us take a common task, getting from a near downtown residential area to Walmart on the north side of town. This involves the following steps:
1. Wait for bus closest to home, it is on a 30 minute loop,takes 10 minutes to get downtown if you catch it, and downtown is a 20 minute walk, so depending on timing a walk is faster.
Time 10-30 minutes.
2. Exit at downtown xfer center, wait for bus that goes in that direction. It is on a 10 minute route, so typically not a long wait if any. Ride out to the mall (not the location for walmart), depending on stops 15-30 minutes.
3. Wait for transfer to route that completes journey, walking not a good option here as the last 2-3 miles are not very pedestrian friendly. 30 minute loop for this bus so up to 30 minute wait, time on bus 7 minutes. 7-40 minutes.
4. Shop, wait up to 30 for return bus. 15-45 minutes (long on return trip as this bus hits up a lot of apartments on way back from Walmart).
5. Catch the downtown connector 15-30 minutes
6. Wait for your bus home and ride it 10-40 minutes
Total time: 1:10 to 3:45, time if you drove from same location 15-25 minutes depending on traffic.
Our system is a pretty good one too, and this is one of the longest trips with the most xfers. Could you imagine trying to plan getting to work on time with a 2+ hour error margin? Or getting home to make dinner or get your kids to an event?
Not very feasible. Even if the longest time is rare, it is still quite a swing and an incredible portion of your day to waste riding a bus.