Brainwashing and the fact that i have literally no other choice besides a car where i live.

1. Public transport is being actively sabotaged.
2. Car culture. It's a status symbol, a symbol of freedom, a masculinity enhancer, etc.
3. Lots of places are built around cars.

Public transit is almost never the fastest option. Even when I lived in New York City, it wasn't the fastest option. If you were running late, you'd spend the extra money on a taxi to get to the airport or to get across town and except for the very peak of rush hour, it was faster. That's broadly been true in my travels in Europe, as well: taxis are almost always faster, from London to Rome.

Add to that, in the US, the actual experience of using public transit is often quite bad. Public transit is, well, public. You share a limited space, sometimes a very limited space, with literally anyone. Women are groped. The smell of urine is common. The seats are sticky. It's just gross, even in wealthy areas.

In contrast, with a car, you have a private, controlled environment. The temperature is what you want it to be. There's music. You can have a private conversation with your spouse. The chair is comfortable. Maybe you even have heated seats with a massage function. But whatever car you have, it's probably more luxurious than even a great public transit option.

So:

• Faster
• More personal space
• More private
• No perverts, no bodily fluids, no body odor, no one on the way home from the fish market

because public transportation sucks in most of the US. I just did a very typical commute for my area in Detroit region. The commute from Grosse Pointe Woods to Warren, takes an hour and 35 minutes by public transport. In that time I would have to walk a mile and a half total. or, I can get a car and get there in 22 minutes.

and now, because there is basically an expectation that everyone has a car, our communities are sprawled out over a very large distance. I could totally see how if you live in a city, you might need to ask this question, but if you lived in a suburb, it would be very obvious why public transportation isn’t popular everywhere.

Public transportation is not a viable option where I live.
Besides, a car takes me exactly where I want when I want.

Public transit is the slowest option everywhere I've lived(cities from 5k to 500k population).

Disturbed people, smelly people, loud music, unwelcome conversation, fights, and urine/food/filth on the seating has also made public transit a last resort for me.

Driving and all it's privileges is an absolute pleasure when you don't live in too big a city.

Excellent transit infrastructure and pedestrian-centric planning (to the point that few people see a practical need to drive or get a license) is basically synonymous with higher living standards. Just like having access to great and affordable medical care, or healthy food, clean air, etc.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't live in places that meet those standards.

I'm 49 and I've been driving since I was 16. I'm done with cars. I live downtown and bike or subway everywhere I can. My car is 14 years old and I fill up the tank every couple months. it's a way better way to live.

Because i may need to be across town with 5 minutes notice

Because our light rail transit system can't handle snow, or rain, or heat

Because I like freedom

Because it's extremely unreliable. (Bus comes at 2, never shows until 2:20 and it's full so it skips the stop)

Sticky floors and seats, drug addicts, random fights, etc...

Where I live, public transporation is unsafe.

Personally, I'm highly sensitive and need a place during the workday to get away from all the overstimulation. My car is my safe, sacred space that is isolated and quiet, and I have curtains in addition to my sunscreen put across my windshield to block out the light. I can pause and meditate, or take it on the road and go have dinner in my car one night. I can stretch out in the back and nap.

But don't get me wrong, I still take public transportation when it makes sense. Like last month when I went to a festival in the city and it was much cheaper to the 2 buses and the metro rather than pay for parking. Sure it took a bit more time, but I just used the time to listen to podcasts or audiobooks and felt like the time wasn't wasted at all.

So TLDR I'm a both types guy. I like my car because I'm super introverted and need the space to recharge when out in public, but I use public transportation when it's cheaper or makes more sense.

Freedom and flexibility. I can go 3 blocks, 30 minutes or 3000 miles whenever i want. I start in my driveway and end in the parking lot of my destination. I don't have to worry about timing, connections, or how much i need to transport. I can be early, late, go for a 3am snack or start a trip at 4am so i catch the whole day at the mountains.

I prefer public transportation, but I have to drive to save time when I commute to the office. If I drive myself it takes 25 minutes. If i take a bus, it would take like 1.5 hours (there's no direct route there). So my choice is like literally 3 hours a day on a bus or a bit under 1 hour in my car. With long hours of work and limited time to see the kids, I can't throw away 2 hours a day on transportation. Since COVID, though, I've been able to WFH so now I almost never drive.

My dad drove a car to work everyday for the last 35 years while he could have driven the same distance with bicycle in 10 minutes. I have not been behind the wheel since I got my driver's license. I guess some people just love cars

I live in the Netherlands so public transport is usually great(and free when you're a student) I use it almost every day to attend university. But lately the trains have been overcrowded which makes for a bad experience. Other passenger's are annoying. When I can get somewhere using only trains, metro or trams I will most likely chose to go with public transport because it's free and I don't have to park my car. But when I have to take a bus I will most likely drive. I despise busses because they're slow and make me sick. Also when I have to attend something important like an exam I drive as well. People I know have failed classes due to delays.

To all annoying people... Keep your kids in check, don't play loud music, please watch your reality tv series with headphones and don't talk about your sex lives out loud in a silent compartment, please.

For all het people without drivers license: How do you move large objects like furniture, dishwashers and ovens? I'm genuinely curious.

Depends where you live to be honest. Here in the Netherlands everyone i know, and this is not an exaggeration, prefers to travel by public transport when it's available instead of car, or by bike for smaller distances. They would only use a car if they need to go somewhere far away that's not very accessible by public transport. But even then you have busses that go in every small rural town, although they are not as frequent and I believe a lot of times they do not go on weekends.

Personally, I have also never felt the need to get a car and I will always pick public transport over car. It's cheap, convenient, fast and reliable. But if there is no other alternative then you don't have a choice.

One last thing i would like to mention is that I see a lot of people in this thread, but also in general, that they say they prefer a car because it's faster. The thing is, that if you get stuck in a traffic jam, with all the other like minded people, then it's not faster at all.

It's tough... I enjoy biking places when I have the time and the weather permits, but most of the time a vehicle is the way to go in my neck of the woods at least.

I need to transport a bunch of tools with me so driving to work is required but if I didn't then I'd probably invest in an e-bike and use that most of the time to commute (need an e-bike to handle the winter paths here) instead of public transport. Where I am the car is super hard to beat most of the time though, and most people aren't willing to brave the elements or own and store an e-bike as the alternative.

Let me use my commute to work as an example:

The walk is too long (a bit over an hour) and you're in the elements the whole time, and forget about getting groceries or something on the way home from work. Biking would take about 20-25 mins but now I'm still exposed to the elements and have a similar limited carrying capacity as with walking, and will need to invest the couple of thousand in an e-bike (let's hope it doesn't get stolen while it's locked up outside) to manage the winter paths. Public buses take about 45 mins (the schedules line up for my path to work, otherwise it's twice as long), cost about the same as the fuel/maintenance on a vehicle ($3/trip), I need to be dressed to stand/walk in the elements for much longer than driving, and if I'm running 5 mins late I can end up being an hour late (gotta wait for the next bus) instead of just 5 mins, never mind turning back if I forgot something etc... I only ever use the bus when my vehicle is in for repairs and it's either pouring rain or winter, otherwise the bike beats it every time.

Motion sickness for me. I travel 2+ hours a day, and get really motion sick. It would be unbearable if I couldn't drive. Also, I don't believe I actually have reliable public transport between my home and workplace.

In my current case, because my local public transport service is not the most convenient.

I live in a medium sized city were we only have bus service. We have many lines covering "almost" all the city, but each of the lines only has a relatively small number of buses available. This causes long delays between arrivals and makes combinations very difficult when needing to use more than one line. Waiting times of 40 minutes in the bus stops are not uncommon. By car, it takes me 15 minutes to go anywhere.

Another issue is with pricing: in our case buying individual tickets VS a monthly pass only makes sense when you do more than 40 trips every month. It literally costs me more to use the bus than to pay for gas.

In the past I lived in much bigger cities with underground service and plenty of buses available, and I barely used the car, and didn't even considered the pricing.

The answer depends on where you live.

In a good city with well funded public transportation, it makes sense to use it.

But in other cities either public transportation doesn't exist, or is so limited/crippled that you need a car anyways to get it places. Then it becomes a question about time.

Yes I could take a bus, but to get from Halifax to Dartmouth it would take the same time on a bike, or half the time with a car.

Or well if I miss my bus in Fredericton I will need to wait 30 minutes for another one. Or I can walk and get to my destination before it gets here and leave on my own time and leisure.

In the US, the state of public transit outside of a handful of (very expensive) cities is significantly slower and less reliable than taking a car. I would pin the reason for this on the shift of people outside of urban areas into suburban ones, and the lobbying power of the automotive industry to convince the government and citizens alike that cars were the right choice.

If public transit is the fastest option in the area, people do choose to take it! That's the case for me too in the past couple of cities I've lived in. But most cities have a long way to go before they get there.

Aside from just talking about this from a convenience angle, a message that might help explain the issues with car dependency is how much more it costs! People that are more hesitant about public services might be easier to convince with a cost-based argument. This is a great video explaining the actual cost of car ownership.

Hopefully there will be a Lemmy equivalent to r/fuckcars and r/YIMBY soon enough.

I've got 2 kids, and the public transportation in my area is basically non existent. My choices are taking a bus that doesn't get me even remotely close to where I need to be... or... uber? A taxi?

There's just nothing else here.

There is a substantial YouTube library of breakdowns on why we (usually North Americans) continually choose cars.

https://youtu.be/-cjfTG8DbwA

https://youtu.be/j4s9WDDRE2A

https://youtu.be/V3yXSD2O95E

https://youtu.be/n94-_yE4IeU

There are so many.

I would definitely use public transportation if it were an option where I live. Cars are too damn expensive.

Public transportation (the buses at least) takes twice as long as a bicycle where I live and bicycling takes twice as long as a car. That's it, that's why I still drive a car. Also it's really difficult to move my kid and her stuff 10 miles to school.

I am all for public transport but where I am right now it is either borderline non-existent or useless. So I have to use my car. If I lived in a city with good and affordable public transport (which I plan to), I wouldn't be using my car that often.

Public transport is barely an option where I live. Can't take it to work because work is 30 miles away in a far-flung suburb. I live in the city and public transpo is either total shit or unsafe. I can drive to where I need to go in 3-5 minutes. Taking a bus would take 30-60 minutes, and that's if it even shows up on time.

I can answer for Israel at least, public transport is really bad and slow here, it doesn't reach everywhere, it doesn't work on Saturdays and generally isn't on time, sometimes they skip stops altogether and sometimes trips are just suddenly cancelled.

Seatspacing on public transport are ~10 cm too close to fit my knees.

I've got a 25 year old relative without a license. Guess what he always needs? A ride.

Not to say OP is the same burden. I'm sure you just live in a city with decent transit.

Shorter commute time and privacy. I already have a car and I HATE lugging my groceries around on the bus.

Sometimes there's no direct public transportation route. I'm in NYC and to get to Queens I have to go through another borough. Or I could do a half hour drive.

Sometimes you just don't want to deal with the crowds. I have an invisible health issue which can make it hard to stand on a bus or train.

I take public transport whenever possible. But I'm not going to say it would be easy to give up cars.

Are you confused as to why people would prefer to be in charge of their own transportation and set their own schedule instead of being at the whims of whatever forces that might cause buses & trains to be delayed, cancelled, rerouted, full, etc.?

I would love to use public transit, or even bike to where I need to go, but I live in a more rural area. The nearest, decent hospital is a 30 minute drive. A better hospital? Nearly an hour. Work is a 30 minute drive past farmland and lightly forested areas. No buses run between towns, since they're so far apart, and the train only comes around 1-2 times per day.

Basically, where I live we have no choice. Even the buses that run in town have rather inconvenient schedules, making it hard to get to where you need to go (in a timely manner, anyway). Lots of places are like this in the US, unfortunately.

My main mode of transportation is by bike (I’m Dutch so that’s not surprising). For most trips a bicycle is much faster than a car. I only use my car if need to go a long distance or if I need to transport something too big to transport by bike. I only need to fill up my car with gas once or twice a year.

@clueless_stoner [American perspective]
This country has been built around cars for at least the past 70 years. All of our infrastructure is optimized towards cars. Public transit has been (some would say intentionally) held back to further encourage people to invest in cars and perpetuate the cycle.

I'm a driving enthusiast, but there's so much driving that could be rendered unnecessary with just an iota of added bike infrastructure.

Also, busses suck. Light rail is the way to go.

Even in places where public transport is very good, a lot of people value the illusion of power when steering the vehicle themselves. It makes them feel independent and in control.

Myself, I don’t get it. I’m over 40 and I don’t have a driver’s license. I used to live in a place where I could get anywhere by bike; now I live in a place where public transport is really good. I can’t see myself moving to a US city where public transport is a joke.

I used to use public transit almost exclusively, but I was priced out of the neighborhoods I used to live in that had ready access to bus and light rail.

Now, it's a 90 minute commute to work each way via bus and/or light rail, and that's assuming I don't miss a transfer. 30 minute drive. My best friend is almost 2 hours by bus, but only a 15 minute drive. My nearest grocery store is a 5 minute drive or a 20 minute walk. I never tried the janky ass route that could theoretically get me there.

What's bonkers is that I didn't move out to the suburbs or anything. I still live within the city limits. And I'm pretty sure that my metro area is considered to have among the better public transit systems in the region.