I still try to take public transit when I travel (Chicago is pretty good and Portland is OK when it goes close to where you want. Bay Area doesn't have enough tendrils to get you within a few miles of where you want to go unless you're in SF proper, and half my friends refuse to ride Muni even though it's totally fine compared to SMART busses in Detroit) but it's hard to convince most people that the train or the bus could ever be not disgusting and filled with people who exist to make your life miserable.

Uber style services is a market response to the problem of transportation, because public transit options have not grown form the market because the government is slow and outlaw most private public transportation.