What is a public transit system? What a quaint idea.
Seriously though, public transit is such a joke in most parts of the USA (especially the rural areas) that this is basically a non-starter.
I live in a part of the country that does have a pretty good public transit system, I just checked on taking public transit from my neighborhood to my son's high school and discovered that it's not possible. There is no public transit (bus, light rail, tram, trolley - all of which we have) within 2 miles of the high school.
People say "flyover country" as metonymy of the two different realities that are both called "USA", but "transit country" and "SUV country" may be better images.
Outside the USA, 80% of what we see on TV shows is NYC. Sometimes I have this acute FOMO that I should be miserably scraping by in NYC just to be in the Navel of the World. It's just a mindfuck to us unamericans how big the US really is and how empty and boring.
Empty, yes. Boring? No. The empty parts are where the national parks are like the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zions, Canyonlands, Arches, Yellowstone, Crate Lake, etc.
> There is no public transit (bus, light rail, tram, trolley - all of which we have) within 2 miles of the high school.
The way it works in Australia (at least in the parts of Australia I've lived in, obviously can't speak for the whole country) – as well as the scheduled route bus services scheduled for general transport needs, we have special school bus services dedicated[1] to taking kids to/from school. But, the school bus services and the route bus services are run by the same bus company, using the same pool of buses and drivers. So, even if there is no regular bus route going near a school, doesn't mean they can't run a school service to/from it.
In other words, if a public transit system provides ordinary bus routes, why can't the same public transit system (using same buses and drivers) provide special school services?
[1] Strictly speaking, at least in NSW, they aren't completely dedicated to school kids, since in theory any adult can buy a fare on them–but, in practice, very few adults ever do that.
Seriously though, public transit is such a joke in most parts of the USA (especially the rural areas) that this is basically a non-starter.
I live in a part of the country that does have a pretty good public transit system, I just checked on taking public transit from my neighborhood to my son's high school and discovered that it's not possible. There is no public transit (bus, light rail, tram, trolley - all of which we have) within 2 miles of the high school.