My transportation through Germany began with an airplane ride from Munich to Berlin. Since then, I have taken trains, trolleys, buses, and taxis. I had never ridden any of those but a plane in the US. My experience has been that you can get pretty much anywhere you want here without owning a car, and in a reasonable amount of time. I am not sure about the cost effectiveness, but considering gas prices in the US it is probably comparable. My plane ride over here was a little rough, the service was good and I had plenty of room and a good seat neighbor, but there were unfortunately at least 3 unhappy babies in the area that stayed unhappy nearly the entire flight.
We have taken train rides several times, while some of them have been long, it was much easier to deal with than a flight and cheaper. It is funny to watch what happens when a group of 10 Americans get on a train or any transportation really. If you close your eyes, you would think we are the only ones on the train. Germans tend to be pretty quite on trains and such even when in groups.
We ride the trolley to school every morning, it isn't something like the school bus where if you miss it you are screwed, they come every ten minutes, and go most anywhere, so you never have to wait too long. The are decently fast, although certainly slower than a car.
The buses run some places that the trolleys don't but they aren't as nice or dependable. I have only ridden them once or twice. We had to take a taxi once to get to a beach, the driver was pissy and didn't want to take us until Jay convinced him too. I had to ride in the front seat, which was ridiculously small, my head was touching the ceiling and my knees were touching the dash.
Overall I am very impressed with the transportation here and wish the US had a shadow of the system Germany has.
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