So, I actually worked a job in a city that relied very heavily on public transportation and let me tell you a few things:
Despite the fact that the main town and the village were only twenty minutes away by car, I would spend 45 minutes to 1½ hours when going by bus
The bus schedule often meant that I walked from the bus station to home after dark in negative Fahrenheit weather. -20 to -30C. In the mornings, I would do that same walk and then wait at the station for it to show up when it was -30F/-34C. Don't ask me why it was colder at night than in the day, it was just Like That.
The bus schedule ran Normal Person hours, meaning that when I worked service industry hours and was at work until 1am (as is typical for restaurant workers), I had no way to leave the village unless a coworker had driven or I had a friend willing to pick me up. People who worked full time as service workers often lived in the village instead of town, despite the fact that they didn't have enough housing and would often have to rent expensive hotel rooms.
The bus service often meant I was late because it was always running behind.
My bus stop was also not very populated due to me being in a neighborhood instead of an apartment complex and bus drivers would frequently skip it to stay on schedule, meaning I often had to call the bus administrators and request they reroute a bus to pick me up or drive me up to work because there wasn't a bus within 20 minutes of me.
Getting groceries meant I could only purchase three days worth in a single trip because it had to be small enough to fit on my lap. Sometimes, it meant all I could get was a jug of milk and a few boxes of cereal for breakfasts.
People who lived closer to the main strip (in the apartment complex area) were frequently harassed by drunk bar patrons and made frequent noise complaints for the bars open late at night.
They still weren't close enough to the main grocery store to walk from the store to their apartment, meaning they could only carry three days of groceries at a time
They also usually had minimal apartments consisting of a bed and a bathroom, with the kitchen and living spaces being communal, so they often couldn't fit much by way of food anyway.
Biking became the go-to method of transportation within town in summer, which was not feasible during winter.
By the way, the busses were electric, so they couldn't match the cold and frequently the temperature inside the bus was as cold as outside.
Anyway, biking was very popular, but often restricted to people wealthy enough to have a large apartment that could store their bikes
It still was too long a route to properly go from the village to town in a reasonable manner on a bike.
People planned their entire lives around public transportation, from what days they could work to when their schedule was to which days to pick up groceries to what parts of town they could visit.
The only people with pets owned cars as pets weren't allowed on the busses and they wouldn't be able to attend vet visits or grooming.
