^ Since he only drives to that office ~3x per week, at best it is $120 a month savings. And that is if you don't consider his time to be worth anything.
Other things to consider (since I have been in the bus riding trenches):
When there is a traffic jam, a person in a car or on a bike or on foot easily chooses to divert to a flowing route. A person on a bus is stuck on the bus in traffic . . . even if the traffic is completely stopped on that road for a long period of time, buses rarely go off route and the driver would need special permission from dispatch to do that. Similarly, the bus driver will not let you get off unless he or she is at a bus stop (for safety reasons). You can't just decide "screw this, I'm getting off right now to catch a cab!" You are literally trapped on the bus.
In bad weather, many more bus drivers call in sick than on a sunny day (source: my Mom who was a city bus driver). So, the bus is supposed to show up on schedule, perhaps every 20 minutes, but you might not actually see one for an hour if it is snowing. Same is true if there is bad traffic on the route leading up to your stop . . . it will be a Loooooong time before that bus shows up on some days.
I can go on . . .
Thanks for this perspective! These are all probably reasons why he doesn't want to bother with the bus, but he blows me off with, "It's not saving that much!!!"
The bus pick up is on Main Street in our small town at 6:52 AM, which we can see from the top our hill. It's less than 2 miles away. We all leave our house at 7:10 AM--me with the kids for daycare drop off before work, husband heading straight to work. I drive past the bus stop on my way to daycare so I could theoretically drop him off if we all left 35 minutes earlier. "Daycare" is grandma who lives across town, and the main reason we still live in this small town instead of moving closer to husband's work.
(Leaving 35 minutes earlier would be a hardship for everyone in the family. I won't pretend it won't be.)
There are NOT multiple buses coming every 20 minutes, or even every hour. If he misses the bus home, for example, he has to wait 1.5 hours for the next bus. The only mid-day route back home is at 1:25 pm. So...you're right. He's stuck down there for the duration. There is no emergency coming home.
The home bus stop is covered, but I don't know about the Pittsburgh stop. The stop is actually the same lot where he parks his car, so whether he rides the bus or drives he has a 15 minute walk to and from his office in the city. He's already in the elements no matter what he does.
He would arrive at the stop in our town at 5:20. I would be driving through that area at between 5:30-5:40 after picking up the kids after work. He'd have to wait 20 minutes max. It's downtown in our city, and there are a few restaurants/bars/coffee shops where he could sit down and get out of the elements until I get there. We have cell phones so we could stay in touch during delays.
He also could avoiding riding/waiting on me if he wanted to drive his car to the bus stop and park in the lot there. It seems wasteful to do that, since I'm driving right by there, but I guess it's no more wasteful than following the same bus down the highway in his car.
If our roles were switched and I worked in Pittsburgh, I would give the bus a shot. I may discover that it was absolutely terrible and I wanted my car back, but I would want to try it first. We have friends who have used this same bus line in the past and didn't experience problems with it. It sounds like a decent alternative than driving in every day.
And yes, I'm saying all of this as someone who has never had to take a bus to work. I see it driving past and I've caught it making stops, and it looks like a nice bus to me. It's a charter bus, not a city line.