As an European I don't mind buses at all. I neither feel unsafe nor I find them dirty.
A single bus carries on average 20 times the people cars occupying the same space would (as you rarely get more than 1 person per car in peak hours).
I'd rather take buses than the car in any city. Cars make cities dangerous, noisy, polluted, congestions make people nervous behind the wheel, fights are far from uncommon. Finding parking, paying for it is another issue, common in Europe where (luckily) city centers are often millenia older than cars.
At no point of me living in the US I found the car-centric model anywhere better.
A single bus carries on average 20 times the people cars occupying the same space would (as you rarely get more than 1 person per car in peak hours).
I'd rather take buses than the car in any city. Cars make cities dangerous, noisy, polluted, congestions make people nervous behind the wheel, fights are far from uncommon. Finding parking, paying for it is another issue, common in Europe where (luckily) city centers are often millenia older than cars.
At no point of me living in the US I found the car-centric model anywhere better.