I have noticed that others struggle with the daily commute choice like I do. I live east of Lake Como and can walk to two bus routes that serve downtown(61 or 3) or I could use the Green Line when it opens this summer (65 to GL). But they take 40 min or 1 hour and I can drive it in about 20 mins (my hours will be before rush hour). Do I really want to "give up" an hour of time every day to be a transit user vs driving myself???
This is the reason I can't really take the bus to work from Uptown to St. Paul. Since I work at a tech firm, the Green Line will finally allow me to reasonably use my laptop during the commute, meaning I basically save 80 minutes of the commute each day. Most people don't have that option.
I did choose to live in Uptown because of the transit options. When I was single and working in Mendota Heights it worked reasonably well to take bus or bike the Greenway to Hiawatha and then catch a bus from the 46th St. station to work. A lot of times I would bike from Fort Snelling across the Mendota Bridge.
The bus/LRT/bus option was surpringly competitive to driving, time-wise. Until they eliminated the bus to/from 46th and Mendota Heights.
I also took the bus a lot to Southdale and downtown. That's harder to do with a family simply because of the time commitment.