I live in Seattle, work downtown, and the bus is significantly cheaper than all my other commute options (except for riding my bike) and takes about as long to

I live in Seattle, work downtown, and the bus is significantly cheaper than all my other commute options (except for riding my bike) and takes about as long to get me home as it takes me to drive myself in a car that was parked in the perfect spot to avoid the bad blocks. I would be very skeptical of the claim that Uber (with today's public infrastructure and vehicles driven by human drivers) could do the job just as well if none of our public transit infrastructure existed. We have a lot of buses and a still-expanding light rail, and they are packed every day at rush hour. If they really were more expensive and/or slower than the alternatives and/or filled with crusty, ranting hobos crapping their pants and smearing it on the seats (which is what you imagine reading some of the comments in here) then people wouldn't ride them, which simply is not the case. Sure, there are some bad buses, but "just take an Uber" is not a useful answer to that problem for most people or society at large, and I don't know how out of touch you have to be to suggest a public two-tiered poor/rich system with a straight face.