I used to live in Jamaica and trying to get anywhere that's not Manhattan is a chore. For example going to Flushing would take twice as long because you have to get close to Manhatten before you can switch from F line to 7.
Bus in this case works fine most of the time though. But you still need to walk to a bus station.
That’s a fair point — there are a couple of pathological routes in the subway system, and traveling between Jamaica and Flushing is definitely one of them. But yeah — IME the bus tends to cover those gaps relatively well; the MTA’s priority (for better or worse) is high-traffic routes, meaning routes between the outer boroughs and Manhattan.
IMO, the key idea here is that public transit is slower in places that have bad public transit. To find examples of really good public transit, you have to look outside the United States.