Where I grew up (western Massachusetts, USA), the most frequent bus ran once every half-hour; the majority ran once per hour, and many came less frequently. I

Where I grew up (western Massachusetts, USA), the most frequent bus ran once every half-hour; the majority ran once per hour, and many came less frequently. I spent about a month living in Hamburg, and visited Berlin for a day, and I never had to wait more than a few minutes for a bus or (more often) train. As importantly, they consistently run on time, so I don't need to leave a massive amount of padding if I want to arrive somewhere on time. I don't know I'm qualified to say whether your public transit is objectively bad, but to me it's subjectively amazing.