Why Public transportations fails.

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I started my day with a goal in mind. Get to a neighboring town and retrieve a copy of my birth certificate. Now my family owns a car, a really old truck but it's only to be used for work purposes. So I'm stuck taking the bus. Not that bad. I go to a website hoping to print out a bus schedule and am greeted with broken images and links, and outdated information. Not that big of a deal, because there's a customer service number. After dialing the number, I end up with waiting on hold for half an hour for a lady to give me the schedule and mention I should pick one next time I'm on the bus or print one out from the website, she did this quite rudely I might add. So I begin the over 2 hour walk to one of only 4 bus stops in a pretty nice size city (60k pop), all happen to be on the outskirts of town. The bus was late, no place to sit while waiting. I get in, sit down on a grimy seat and get out my ipod for the journey. A man stands up and start with "It is the season of easter the day the lord come back to us draws closer! Let him into..." It was kind of awkward, but oh well. Not a big deal, I have goo goo dolls to take me away from this. He does this 3 more times before my stop is reached. Fast forward to the way back, a man is currently dancing at the front the bus. The guy behind me is talking really loudly over a cell phone about a drug deal he got burned in. And a toddler is walking around on shakey legs while the bus is in motion. This is all after I had to wait at the wrong stop due to bad direction given to me by the lady i spoke with in the morning. And the bus was a full 20 minutes late. So what have the last times been like for you riding the bus/airplane/train been like? good or bad Do you think most bus systems need serious work or no? Do prefer public or group transportation to taking your car or other means?