> It's slower, a round trip I could make in 30 minutes in a car would take careful scheduling and two hours on a bus. That isn't a fundamental problem with bus

> It's slower, a round trip I could make in 30 minutes in a car would take careful scheduling and two hours on a bus. That isn't a fundamental problem with buses, that is a problem with your local implementation. A proper mass transit system gets to avoid all or most street traffic, including signaling and such. Traveling through the streets of a city, you are lucky if your average speed hits 15mph. Mass transit can easily beat that if implemented well.