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.
I've never owned a car, and never struggled with carrying shopping/luggage. I guess my lifestyle is kind of different to the typical North American style, where I am not buying large amounts of stuff in bulk, such that I cannot carry it. Instead I wear a backpack and take a few tote bags and buy the amount of groceries etc that I can carry. If I did buy something large like a sofa, I'd get it delivered. I'd probably do so even if I had a car, because the delivery people would be able to help with moving it into the house, too.
> The real way forward is to have electric cars, nuclear power plants, remote work, and maybe this new Musk tunnel thing.
It seems you're looking at this very one-dimensionally, only thinking of exhaust emissions. Cars still produce pollution through tyre and brake dust, noise pollution from tyre hum, and of course the source of power for the engine has zero impact on the safety of a vehicle.
Efficient public transportation + shared cars services/rental cars can help a lot with that for people who can't leverage using a bicycle or prefer not to during bad weather.