IIRC, Apple said in the keynote that the app community handles public transportation routing and other services better than they could, and so they'll provide the hooks and leave it for people to find apps that they like to handle that aspect.
I like Apple's approach. For example a transit authority could have an application that for example included real-time GPS tracking of buses, they could have options in the app to buy passes, request stops, etc, etc. Within the Google Map's ecosystem it seems to me they would have to wait around for Google to do support all this. It's a very top heavy approach. It looks like Apple wants to basically build a mini-app store inside of Maps.
Not holding my breath. Cash-strapped transit authorities are not going to be able to drive innovation here and losing the integration with maps will mean you'll have to know ahead of time that a transit route is available on your journey.
Better than Apple can without Google? Maybe. Better than the existing Maps app? I use transit directions in Maps a lot and the transit apps I've downloaded very rarely.
