Having been to the UK and Germany, it’s incredibly convenient and much quicker than driving in many cases. I’ve used the metro where I live and it’s also much quicker, the only issue is the closest bus stop is 20 minutes away by foot. That’s easy to fix though.
I live in the UK, and I can say it depends greatly on your circumstances.
In general, if you’re traveling between an outside town to a city it’s usually an alright experience.
However, if your commute is between two outside towns then you have to be lucky, otherwise a car ends up being the only real viable option. My work is about 15 miles away, and before I had a car I had the only option of a railway line that ran through my town. If that line ever had issues getting cancelled or on the train strikes were on that day I couldn’t get to work because to get my work was 2 buses and 2 hours to go 15 miles. The train ran once an hour and didn’t call at half the stops on a Sunday including the stop I needed for work so if it was a Sunday I literally could not get to work.
It’s not even cheaper than a car when I factor in leisure travel, many places I regularly go to take longer to get to by car and are usually a worse experience whether that be service infrequency, long layover times or services getting cancelled/being on strike.
Oh sure, I agree that it’s not always perfect, but neither is driving. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been randomly stuck in gridlock because someone got in a crash on the freeway.
The issue here is entirely that there is no choice that can be made. You either drive, or you don’t go anywhere. I don’t want to need a car, I want to want a car. Cars are convenient, but when they’re required to do literally everything then they’re a massive inconvenience.
If I was able to make a choice, I could share a car with someone else. As it stands, we both have to own one.
Having lived in Germany, you obviously didn’t meet enough people. They fucking love thier cars dude. Yeah their buses are better, but I was shown many people’s cars as if they were a child.
Oh sure, obviously people like cars, but in the cities we’d park and switch from car to rail because it’s significantly faster. I also stayed in the city for a couple of weeks and didn’t need a car at all.
Compare that to the US where you need a car or you die, even in the city, and it’s not even a contest.