Everybody knows that public transportation system is important and essential for every relatively big city.

Except for Americans.

Public transportation system in America is dead.

If you want to get from point A to point B, you basically have three options:

1. Use aircraft. Even small cities have airports. For example, Madison has two of them. Prices are relatively low and frequency of flights is high.
2. Use your personal car. If I was asked to describe Americans in one word, I'd choose „car-lovers“. Everybody has a car and everybody loves his car. There are drive-ins for everything you can imagine, the amount of roads and lanes is unbelievable, and multiple-story parking lots are almost everywhere.
3. Call a cab. Cabs are available 24/7. The prices vary a lot. For example, you could get identical service from both companies, but one will charge you $3.5 for a mile, and another one will ask for $1.8 only. So pick wisely.

Fortunately, the public transportation in Madison is slighly more developed than in general throughout the country. Citizens of Madison are proud to note that they've developed quite a few of bus routes through the city, which can possibly help you to get somewhere. There are some caveats though.

1. The prices are high: $2.00 for a trip. Fortunately, as a student, you don't have to worry about those sorts of things. But remember, every time you board on the bus and swipe your buss pass, the University is paying $1.5 for you. So travel wisely.
2. The time of bus arrival is unpredictable. Remember those days in Prague when you come to bus stop at 17:34 because you know that at 17:35 there must be a bus, and here we go - you can see the friendly lights of a bus driving out of the corner..? Forget about it. In Madison, if the schedule says that the bus must arrive at 12:44, it basically means that it is highly likely that the bus will arrive somewhere between 12:42 and 13:04. In general, it will be 5-8 minutes late. Sometimes it will be on time, but the driver will not notice you, so he will not stop on the bus station and swing by you. So you will have to wait for another 30 minutes until the next bus arrives, which brings us to the next bullet:
3. The frequency of buses and number of bus routes is ridiculously low. For example, on weekends the intervals for the most widely used bus are 30 minutes.
4. In general, there are no bus stops on the streets. You can see the typical bus stop on the photo below, taken by me. As you can notice, there is no roof to protect you from rain or snow, there is no waste bin around, and there is no boarding place for you, so you have to jump to the bus from the sidewalk if you don't want to step in the mud.

No, I didn't. Every once in a while you can spot a cargo-train passing through the town loaded with goods, but no passenger trains exist. Imagine, Madison is the capital of the state of Wisconsin, and they don't even seem to have a train station here! As far as I know, the closest train station is in Milwaukee.

Well, yeah, it is. The good thing though is that you probably will not need to travel a lot. University campus with all its stores, pubs, libraries, classrooms and dorms is right in the center of Madison. So if you choose your housing responsibly, you can find yourself in the middle of the action and with absolutely no need to use the public transportation services whatsoever.

As a last resort, you can always bike, since the bike lanes are everywhere and it's healthy. But don't forget to buy a couple of locks for your bike. Otherwise it will probably get stolen. And I mean it. Mine bike was stolen just in front of the university, even thought it was locked (with a too cheap lock).