I live on the peninsula, in San Mateo County. That's about a half an hour south of San Francisco, and yeah that's Caltrain territory. At least with Caltrain I know where they are stopping. I had to take the bus for maybe 15 years before I decided to learn to drive and now I can't believe I lasted that long. It took like 45 minutes to an hour to get from where I live to South San Francisco. Also, it would suck when I'm coming back, and I'm at a stop light and I see the next bus go through the intersection that I needed to be on and have to wait an hour before the next one comes.
I haven't used samTrans very much, but some of their routes strike me as oddly circuitous, and of course they get stuck in traffic frequently. Plus, they seem to operate as "suburban" to some degree, i.e. infrequent service that's very limited during off-peak times.
Caltrain is pretty nice to ride, though I don't take it often. Of course, they're mired in a heap of logistical, operational, and funding problems, like most Bay Area transit agencies (and also, unique to Caltrain is its involvement in the ridiculous clusterfuck that is the California High Speed Rail planning situation along the peninsula corridor).
What amuses me is everyone loooves to bash the public transport in Melbourne. But venture overseas, or to another Aus city and it looks bloody fantastic. People have no idea.
Melbourne's transit looks pretty good from here (i.e. the perspective of a transit geek who's never actually been there.
). If nothing else, Southern Cross Station is really cool looking.
What you are describing happens in a lot of places, though. No system is
perfect, of course, but sometimes the grass just seems greener on the other side when it really isn't. Bay Area transit certainly isn't that
great, there are a LOT of problems with just about all of the agencies here (not the least of which is the fact there ARE so many agencies), but I know things could be a lot worse. I can't really call it "bad", because if it truly was, relying on it entirely and eschewing a car wouldn't really be feasible. So it's not "bad", but like most places in the US, it's not really very "good" either. BART exemplifies this: it's a vital service that's pretty decent, though not always pleasant, when it's working well, but their upper management makes a lot of really terrible decisions and the system has no depth for getting around breakdowns and delays.
Another interesting phenomenon is the disdain a lot of people have toward buses, while being ok with trains. It's even present to some degree in this thread. What most people don't realize is how
few of the apparent differences between the two are actually inherent to the vehicle being a bus vs. being a train. The vast majority of differences are about how they are used, how they are maintained, and how they are perceived culturally.
I've had people ask me if I'm car free because of the environment, so tempting to pull carbon footprint rank and come out on top with some folk. But I could not care less, I'm all about the saving money and not being personally burdened with a big hunk of ugly steel.
Ugly? Lots of modern cars are pretty. Some are downright gorgeous.
Matter of opinion, though. I personally really like the look of some cars (almost entirely modern ones), even though I don't drive and may never do so, but I've known people who just think all cars are generally ugly, with some being perhaps more "tolerable" than others.
