I'm curious what percent of HN is based in the bay area for this to hit the front page so quickly. I suppose it could in part be that it was posted when people are commuting in?
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Public transit wasn't as gross as stories I've heard of elsewhere, but it also wasn't something I wanted to take on a regular basis if I could help it. I think I used it regularly for about six months or so one year in particular, and the lack of warm bus stops meant standing in freezing rain, sleet, snow and more.
Maybe things have improved since I lived there, but hearing that they are the high bar is pretty sad.
> it was still notably slower than driving, so many if not most people still drove everywhere
I'd argue that those folks are missing the point. Sure, when I was commuting by Minneapolis public transit, it was slower than driving. But you know what I wasn't doing while I was on the bus/train? Driving! I was reading, writing, daydreaming, sleeping, any number of activities more pleasant than sitting on I-94.
Standing out there in the winter could be brutal, I'll admit. Then again, the light rail stops were heated, and the park & ride I transferred at in Plymouth had a nice climate-controlled lobby. The only time I was really out there was standing in the driveway in front of my office, waiting for the shuttle to pick me up.
Twin Cities public transit is a damn sight better than what we have in Milwaukee, that's for sure. Low bar, but the Twin Cities clear it handily.
Sadly, my neighborhood had long waits between buses that connected to university ave, and neither my neighborhood or university ave had heated stops. So, odds were pretty good that I'd suffer the weather for 20-30 minutes each trip.
I also tend to get motion sickness if I read or use a laptop in cars or busses, so there really wasn't anything I could do on them that I couldn't do by driving anyway.