Just because public transport is a poverty tax where you went to school does not mean buses and especially other transit are inherently for poor people. Buses do tend to be mediocre for longer distances, but the main issue is general quality of service.

I grew up in a region with fairly mediocre transit, but because the living environment is not hostile most things can easily be done by bike unless you need to go to another city. Hell, I biked 8km to school, and while somewhat time consuming it was quite literally free exercise.

When I went to uni, before moving to that city I relied on transit. Because of the low density in the region, trains are only half-hourly (which is by far the most sucky part) and it's on single-track rails so every train stops at all stations. However during rush hour it's still time-competitive with cars, and transfers are generally pretty good because those are the reason transit works in that region at all.

Something like "you need a car to be able to get to (store)" that's mentioned in another comment would be literally unthinkable here. You can get practically anywhere with a bike and a transit card.