I live near a rapid bus line in Seattle. One stop is a block away from my house, and the other stop is 2 blocks from the office.
The traffic to the office is always awful, so a pleasant ride to the office, skipping traffic via dedicated bus lanes on the route, without needing to drive, sounds great to me in principle. I WANT to like this. I WANT to use this. But, there are several problems with it in practice.
For me, the bus is still significantly slower than driving because of all of the stops, even though it skips car traffic. For my wife, who needs to walk 10 blocks from the bus stop to her office, it's even slower.
My wife and I both get motion sick, especially if I don't get a forward facing seat.
Other people riding the bus smoke drugs, don't clean themselves & smell awful, scream loudly & incoherently, etc.
On the 10 block walk from the stop to her office, my wife saw homeless folks fighting, some screaming, and other smoking fentanyl. As a small woman, she did not feel safe, and informed me she wouldn't be taking the bus again. With our car, she can drive directly to the secured parking garage in her office, no safety risk.
We're going to stick to the safety, security, and speed of the car, thanks. It's not the lack of infrastructure, public transit is just a much worse experience.
None of this will get better, our transit agency doesn't even have the guts to reduce fare evasion via real enforcement because of the wacky political climate here.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/sound-transit-fare-...
Find a way to make public transit clean & safe and we'd probably ignore the other negatives listed above. Unfortunately, the political climate in the US in areas with adequate public transit makes that impossible.