Many yeridim, people who ruin their lives by moving to SSOI, don't have cars because cars are twice the price here and salaries for most yeridim are 1/4 that of what they made in the USA. So that means buses.
The bus system in Israel is like everything in Israel, barely adequate. To go from city to city, expect a multi-hour trip with buses that leave once every two hours or once a day or some days not at all. As for buses in the city, in some cities it's not bad, eg Jerusalem, Beitar, Beit Shemesh. The buses are very crowded in Jerusalem. It isn't a pleasant trip, but there is bus service of some kind.
However, you need a Rav Kav, ie a bus pass. Drivers no longer accept cash. And there are ticket checkers everywhere. Sometimes it seems there are more checkers than drivers. Sometimes, I get checked three times on the same ride. In this land of militarism, this quasi police state, even the bus ride is stressful because of the relentless ticket checking. And if your card doesn't work, or you forgot to swipe your card, or you made a mistake and didn't realize that the monthly pass doesn't cover the ride to Jerusalem and the machine doesn't automatically take the right amount from the cash part of your card (even though in the past it did take the cash) as happened to me once, be prepared for an embarrassing scene that the heartless ticket checkers make as embarrassing as possible. They call you a thief about 20 times before issuing the ticket. The whole bus will know that you are getting a ticket.
But filling up the bus pass is not easy. You can't do it on the bus. You must use machines that are found in a few places in the city. But many times they don't work. Other times they are unusable because the blazing sun washes out the screen and the machines don't have sun shields on them. The bus people tried a system of home readers for the computer but alas they don't work in this land of alleged "all the modern conveniences." It's also possible to fill up the card in many shuls, but that's only if the machine works.
Today, I went to the shul and waited 20 minutes for some guy to try to use it. So I left there and went to a street machine 10 minutes away but the sun was so blinding I couldn't see anything. I came back to the shul machine and he was there for another 10 minutes. Then I tried the shul machine and it didn't work. So I went back to the street machine with a sheet of cardboard to block the sun. I could barely see and make my order but the machine wouldn't accept my credit card. So I walked 10 minutes to another machine which again was washed out by the sun and the machine wouldn't take my card. So I went to the Rav Kav office where a grumpy woman managed to force herself to load the card. There was no good morning, no can I help you, no small talk, no jokes, no have a nice day. Just a grumpy lady. In other words, the secular state of Israel.
This is life in Israel, daily life. No, it doesn't have all the modern conveniences. Anybody who tells you it does probably lives in the USA and dreams of living in Israel a place he knows nothing about. His dream is your nightmare.
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