I've spent vast amounts of time commuting on public transport and by car.
You can't pay me to ever get on a bus again.
And not just in the US/Canada either. Even in the dense cities of Europe, public transportation << car transport. No bus can ever beat the comfort and convenience of putting a large amount of shopping / luggage in the back, getting in your private bubble, and going directly to your destination.
Then there's the people you meet on public transport. 99 / 100 of them are just people who want to go from A to B. But then there are the trouble-makers and weirdos. Do you really want to be stuck on a bus or train, straining under shopping bags or holiday luggage, with some unpredictable idiot eyeing you?
Some people, like newyorker.com, have a platonic ideal of public transport where we are all happily whisked from A to B on hyper-efficient and advanced vehicles, perhaps humming kumbaya to ourselves. But the reality is that it will always be inconvenient and slow - at best - and dangerous and super unpleasant in reality.
The one instance where public transport works well is when you want to travel 5-10 blocks, there's a lot of traffic, and you are carrying nothing, and there just so happens to be a subway going the right way.
The real way forward is to have electric cars, nuclear power plants, remote work, and maybe this new Musk tunnel thing.
>But then there are the trouble-makers and weirdos. Do you really want to be stuck on a bus or train, straining under shopping bags or holiday luggage, with some unpredictable idiot eyeing you?
I feel this is just as true as with driving a car or walking a street. My friend was hit by a drunkard running red lights (hey received no permanent injury, but did fly in quite an arc). I'm constantly weary of people not using turn signals and not looking to their sides, multiple times I've almost gotten hit. Lots of situations where one driver will stop in front of a zebra crossing, and someone on another lane speeds through like a guillotine. Tons of users signal they're turning in an intersection, then take that signal off and drive straight, leading you to almost T-bone them. Road-ragers like to drive in front of you and hit the brakes, people try to take over constantly when you try to keep a safe distance to the car in front of you.
In general I feel non-professional drivers are unsuited for cars.