Public transportation in the City of Angels is amazing. There are at least 6 separate bus lines: Metro, Orange County Transporation Authority, Foothills, Big Blue Bus to Santa Monica, Culver City Green Line, and Laguna Beach. Fares for the various train and bus systems range from $.50 to around $5.00.
Orange County (OCTA) is probably the best one; according to their own propaganda it's supposedly voted the best in the USA. Foothills was the worst, it serves the far-out suburbs and busses normally run only every hour. Even at that, there are often only 2 or 3 people on the bus. Millions of people are theoretically served by the Foothills line.
Imagine if the entire North end of Calgary was served by 5 bus lines that ran once every hour, plus a larger express line that ran every 15 minutes from Brentwood station to Downtown. This is Foothills Transit. Now imagine if on the south side of Calgary existed a transit system with hundreds of bus lines running every 15-30 minutes going everywhere all the time. This would be OCTA.
Sheer insanity.
If you'd rather not take the Foothills express bus downtown, you can go to a Metrolink train station. You are probably imagining a light rail or even a subway system. Wrong! For about $5.00, you can board an old double-decker passenger train pulled by a diesel locomotive that runs every hour and will take you downtown. It runs paralell to the Foothills bus line, costs about twice as much, and takes the same amount of time or slightly longer. Inexplicably, the trains are full but the express busses are always nearly empty.
Madness.
Now imagine you want to go somewhere that requires Foothills and OCTA. You buy a transfer for $.50 on top of your $1.00 Foothills fare, and OCTA accepts this transfer and takes you to your destination. Coming home you board an OCTA bus, pay $1.50 and get a transfer, which you then give to Foothills. But that isn't enough for THEM. They want another $.50. So going out costs $1.50 and coming back costs $2.00.
Now imagine you want to transfer from a Metro bus to Foothills. This is fine, you can purchase a Metro transfer for an additional $.50 on top of your Metro Fare and board a Foothills bus, only this time Foothills doesn't need any more money from you. It's like the Metro transfer is better to them than an OCTA one. Maybe they are more jealous of OCTA? Teenage angst amongst the two systems boards of directors?
What if, instead of a Foothills bus, you wanted to transfer from a Metro to another Metro bus? Would they want money, or would they accept the Metro transfer without additional fare? NEITHER! They won't accept their own transfer at all, so you pay full fare again. You can only transfer AWAY from a Metro Bus, not TO one. I have no idea if a Metro Bus will accept a Foothills or other Agency's transfer, as this particular permutation was never hit on.
But that's not all!
Suppose you want to transfer from one Foothills bus to another. You pay your fare of $1.00 plus $.50 for the transfer, which you can use only once. But when you use it, you can buy another one for $.50. Then you can use this transfer, and buy yet another one for $.50. This seems like a reasonable enough system. First bus costs $1.00, each additional one is $.50. Except it stops there. After three busses, you have to pay full fare again.
What if you got off your Deisel-pulled Metrolink train and wanted to take the bus from Union Station downtown to Santa Monica. Your Metrolink ticket that you paid $5.00 for will get you on the Big Blue Bus to Santa Monica. It won't get you on the Metro subway. To ride the subway, which does exist and runs an abbreviated route downtown, you have to pay $1.25.
Every bus seems to have a different fare. Express busses typically cost a lot more. For instance, Foothills regular line costs $1.00, express line is $3.50. You need both to get downtown, but you can buy a transfer on the regular line which actually saves you $2.00 on the express line (if you transferred to another Foothills non-express bus, it would only save you $1.00).
Welcome to Los Angeles, better rent a car!
I could go on, but hopefully this has given you pause to think about how comparatively sane the Calgary bus system is. Calgary Transit, we love you!