I wanted to travel between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, where my family is. Driving, that takes about 2.5 hours depending on traffic. In theory, the mass transit way of doing things is to take Caltrain from SF to San Jose and then a bus over highway 17.

Here are some of the problems I encountered.

- Caltrain leaves once an hour. This is forgivable, but incredibly inconvenient, and the express train (same distance, half the time) leaves much less often. It would matter less than it does, except...

- I once arrived at the station on time, saw people being let through the gate, bought a ticket, and was turned away from the gate by the guard. The people I had just seen were clearly visible on the platform, walking to the train. But hey, why not make me sit in the station for another hour.

- Multiple times I experienced indefinite delays as the train just sat on the track in the middle of nowhere, unmoving. No explanation was given.

- Caltrain arrives at (and leaves from) Diridon roughly once per hour. The highway 17 bus leaves from (and arrives at) Diridon roughly once per hour. They've been anti-synced: the bus leaves about ten minutes before the train arrives, and the train leaves about ten minutes before the bus arrives. The only explanation I can even imagine for this is that whoever set the schedule specifically hated the passengers.

The upshot is that you spend the better part of your day on what would have been a 2-2.5 hour drive. It's not even feasible to make the trip both ways in a single day.