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Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

I really don't this this, I think the average person really wants a good reliable car. Cars are pretty nice to have. Travelled to an Airbnb 3 hours away with my dogs and kids last weekend. No way I could have done that in 3 hours with public transportation. Even if I took a train that allowed my pets, you still face the issue of the last mile or 5 from the terminal. There are also no crazy people in my car and I don't have to worry about someone sitting next to me coughing. If anything this pandemic has made me appreciate cars all the more so.

Without a car, everything transportation related has to be planned and weighed.

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Coming from someone who grew up in a car culture city, learned to drive at 18, bought my first car at 19, and drove most days of the week... I'm much happier without a car. I don't want to have to own one again. In hindsight, car culture feels like a jail that I didn't realize I was born into.

I moved to Tokyo 5 years ago. If I want to get somewhere, I walk to one of three train stations within a 10 minute walk, hop on the train, and am there in – usually – about 30 minutes. There's always the option to take a taxi, but they're often no faster than train. I can still drive out to the mountains if there's no train to the one I want to climb, because there are more car rental shops within walking distance than there are train stations.

Sure, there are cars in this city. They're useful tools that make a lot of sense for many people to own. But the average person chooses to live without one, because in a city designed for people instead of cars, life can actually be better that way.

I am very possibly incorrect in my assumption and if so I apologize but it does sound like you don't have kids. For me the idea of having kids and not having a car is choosing to play a first world life on hard mode. I know there are a million other issues in the world but not having a car to move my kids / pets / groceries / hardware is just a complicating factor I dont want.

With that said, more power to those people that don't want or need one, life is all about what works for the individual.

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