I used to visit my father in law in MK. He lived in a nice area near Willen Lakes. He called it "donut city" because all the roundabouts.
My views, his flat was too far from the railway station to walk (45 minutes) but I used to take my bike on the train. Taxis were expensive, buses, what buses. Cycling was the only option, to get around. The red ways are great for riding but they're tired now and need resurfacing. MK was built for the car.
The Redways were in a terrible state around 2005 ish, but there has been and is a major programme of working on them and many have been improved. I don't agree that they're tired
now - but they had got into that state. I believe the difficulty was funding - they're technically highways but not something other Councils have as many of.
Taxis (private hire) are now dirt cheap, there is a lot of competition and they are easy to book via an app. Uber is also here but there's no point using it as it's more expensive. The Hackney carriages are to be avoided - expensive and untrustworthy. The buses are rubbish, but not
as rubbish as they used to be, at least they're now mostly full sized single-deckers or medium-sized Streetlites and not back-breaking Mercedes breadvans, and if you want to get from the station to by Willen Lake that's easily enough done.
It is, and was, the "city" of the car, and its future probably lies not in traditional public transport (though a tramway would probably wash its face as well as anywhere else along the 4/5/6 bus routes) but self-driving electric vehicles on demand, and I would struggle to think of somewhere in the UK better suited to the electric bicycle or scooter (the latter not technically being allowed but you do see them - I've even seen the very occasional Segway - and as there's no law enforcement at all on the Redway network as such they do get used and don't cause any issues).
