As someone who generally prefers public transit to driving (especially in a foreign country - a lot will depend on where you're traveling. I usually travel solo but think in general it would scale pretty well. Of course if your kids are poorly behaved then it'll be more of a challenge.
I think having some familiarity with the infrastructure can go a long way into making the trip easier. Knowing where platforms are, which stations are easier to transfer at, etc.
2 – Don't forget road tolls, parking, and surprise maintenance.
3 – The most consistent "pain point" I've seen with transferring is simply walking from platform to platform. I can only think of a handful of stations that I'd actually consider difficult (e.g. BART's Millbrae and Madrid's Atocha station).
4 – Again, parking. In most big cities you're not going to roll right up to your destination and park.
5 – My experience has been it's as difficult as you make it. Hell I saw someone bring a refrigerator on Muni. Some places like Japan have low cost courier services that entirely negate the need to bring luggage with you. Just drop it off with the courier at the airport and have it sent to the hotel or nearest 7-11. In other places you'll find luggage racks or areas on the trains. Alternatively, pack less stuff. If you're traveling by car and need to use a rooftop box don't forget the hefty fuel consumption penalty.
A good public transport system is not difficult for families and even easier. Berlin has a pretty good public transport. We had a car when we first moved here (we're a family) but we never had the need to use it other than 1-2 occasions in a year because public transport + biking is easier, faster and more comfortable.
At the end we got rid of our car and not planning to buy another one. For those occasions that happens 1-2 times a year, we just use a car sharing app. It's also a lot cheaper than maintaining a car.
It depends. If I was going to a conference at the Moscone center I would take the BART. If I was going to go visit friends in San Luis Obpiso or go see the redwoods I'd rent a car. Most of the times I've flown to Montreal for work I have taken the excellent 747 bus (always stayed downtown or one subway hop away) but I have had times when the hour was crazy late or I hurt my foot and then I take a cab. To the extent that I can I plan the trip around taking transit.
So far as traveling with kids I'd say that many kids who grow up in suburban and exurban areas are driven around in cars all the time and taking the train is more of a special thing for them. Driving and parking is atrocious in Boston or DC so even as a motortourist visiting the region I am inclined to park my car near the end of the commuter rail line and ride in with the possibility of staying in a hotel on the outskirts or one further in.
There is the issue of traveling light or not. I travel light, some people might need to bring a lot of clothes or sporting gear or maybe a CPAP Machine and an Apple Vision and a lot of other stuff but I usually travel out of a backpack. Because shopping sucks where I live it is not unusual for me to not pack extra underwear but buy a bag in town and stuff it with underwear from the Nike store and other items I can get from shops in the city.
Right now I am planning a trip to see the New York Red Bulls play soccer in Harrison, NJ. The PATH train goes right there, it looks very low stress to take the bus from home to midtown, catch a train, spend a night in a hotel somewhere, go see the Intrepid museum, ride home. If I was traveling in a party of 4 or more the cost adds up for taking transit so I would take the car and figure out parking though I would probably design the trip around finding a hotel close to transit and parking just once. Going myself the bus is a slam dunk, even with one friend the bus wins, at three I'd have to think about it.
I'm in a rural location so I am unlikely to take transit to the airport at home but there are times I have. The airport itself has good bus service but the bus home runs a limited number of times a day and I almost always fly in and out early and late respectively. Our local airport has degraded considerably since the pandemic so I think next time I fly it will be out of SYR airport which is about an hour away but is super-competitive almost like a European airport, I am thinking of flying somewhere like Charleston, SC on Breeze Airways mainly because I want to fly on an Airbus 220 and for less than $100 it's a steal. Unfortunately bus and air connections don't work well on this route so it will likely be a "kiss and ride"
Transfers add latency and uncertainty. It's just about tolerable on a metro system with trains every 5 minutes, but that's super expensive and only the largest, well-run cities have it.
Comfort level includes transportation reliability:
Anecdote: I rode the BART/MUNI every day in San Francisco to work for over 10 years. When I moved to the suburbs, I would drive to the BART and then take BART in, rather than take the bus to BART. What I noticed was whenever I had a bus transfer, the wait time and frustration would increase substantially. Buses were less reliable and trying to catch a connection was stressful. Driving enabled me to avoid those frustrating transfers by going to the most direct route on my own accord.
Sadly, Paris is not that. It's a great public transport system without families, but not for anyone with young children or with mobility problems. I can make do, but only if I have my 18 mos. old in the stroller OR my 3 year old walking, but not both. (It's a bit easier for my wife, because people will stop and help her up and down the stairs with the stroller.)
Buses do tend to be a bit easier if you're travelling outside of peak hours. Otherwise, you might have to let a bus or two pass you before one comes with enough space for the stroller.
Things are supposed to be a lot better with the Grand Paris Express, although that won't help much intramuros.
It's only easier if you know you'll have parking at your destination. If you live in a city with convenient transit service, you don't need to worry about parking.
And if you want to take a long stroll down the waterfront, you don't need to return to your car to go home, you just hop on a different train.
Interconnections too. I have had to keep a car around because even if the train can comfortably take me to my family's city, I would then need a bus to the bus central and from there a bus to the specific suburb.
Point two, I've now a daughter, and in a car I can stop whenever she needs, find comfortable places to fix whatever the issue is, and resume journey.
I think you're making it more complicated than it is in many places. In many you'd need not get in a bus at all, because the rail stations are dense enough to always be a couple blocks away. That requires having more than just 1 train line though, which is only really true in NYC (and maybe Chicago? You have to squint really hard for but to be the case even in sf) if you're looking in the us.
Even in Japan if you only rely on Public Transportation (and you probably have heard its one of the best out there, worldwide), there are a number of situation where it just does not work. For example: you want to come back later than 11h30 pm ? Bad luck, most of the metro/train lines have stopped.
Or, there's usually always a way to get from point A to B with public transport, but unless you go to major stations or hubs you need to change several times, take an additional bus and walk an additional x minutes. It's very tiring and inefficient, and costly as well, because public transports aren't subsidized here as much as in Europe for example.
And of course, if you ever want to carry something large and heavy with you, welcome to hell, with a number of stations with no elevators and just stairs, and lack of space in trains to even put your stuff.
It's fairly obvious there are excellent use cases for having a car. Or at least renting one when you need it.
ANd that's not even considering : confort, risk of viral transmission (did you take this in account when considering the cost on society ?) and freedom aspects.
The shift to trains/bikes is harder, but the shift to buses is not as bad from what I've seen, because it re-uses car infrastructure well, and can be improved with minimal construction (often, just signage making a lane bus-only or similar).
A good public transport system is more convenient than a car. I see kids as young as 10 (maybe younger but I haven't seen it) riding my local city bus system alone - compare that to the other parents who drive their kids to school. When the public transport system goes where you want about when you want it is really nice to not have to drive.
Most people have never experienced a good transport system. Even in Europe most have not. Paris is good for some people, but not even everyone in Paris. It is even worse in the US.
That's a good start but if you're old or with multiple young children it requires careful planning. I drive into the city with my family rather than trying to remember exactly which stations I won't be trapped in.
You lost me at “plan your travel”. Logistically, public transportation is awful. You can’t bring any cargo with you, you can’t tow anything, you need to buy an expensive ticket for each person (Even a compact car can fit 5 people), trains don’t turn around if you have a family emergency, and the comfort level of the most advanced trains in Europe and Japan frankly sucks compared to even a mid-level SUV in the most basic trim.
Don’t get me wrong, public transportation is an interesting novelty. But for short trips it’s worse than a car, and for long trips it’s inferior to an airplane. There’s a sweet spot where it works if you’re trying to beat commuter traffic but I’d say that’s about it. The people trying to spend billions to build out these networks have an agenda and frankly I’d prefer if we just fixed our roads and airports.
Unless you are in an area where parking is not easy, for most Americans taking their own car easily beats taking public transit, especially if the public transit is buses.
1. No long walk to a bus stop or train station. In good weather, such a walk can be good, pleasant exercise. In bad weather...ugh.
2. If you have several places you need to go, the wait time at the start of each segment can really add up. Consider a trip where you want to go to (1) the bank to get some cash, (2) the post office to mail something, (3) your pharmacist to pick up some medicine, (4) a grocery store for some food, and (5) back to home. That's at least 5 waits at bus stops. Maybe more if those places are not all on the same route. A car will usually be much faster (especially if the bank has a drive up ATM and the pharmacy has a drug through pick up). (The post office probably has a drive though mail drop, but I'm assuming the post office is on the itinerary because you need to buy postage--otherwise you'd be mailing the item from home).
3. Public transit too often is treated as a collection of independent routes, each assessed in isolation when the bean counters tweak things, rather than as a complete system that should be assessed globally.
If I buy a house or condo or rent an apartment based on a good car commute to my work and good car access to the other places I need to or like to go to, there is a good chance 10 or 20 years from now I'll still have good car access to those places.
If I buy a house based on good bus routes to those places with stops close to my house and to my destinations and buses running frequently enough that the waiting is not too bad, what are the chances that will still be true in 10 years? In 20 years?
Much lower than with the car, I think. It's far too easy for the transit authorities to decide that my important routes are not getting enough ridership, and that some other, more popular router, need more resources, and shift buses away from my routes or even cancel mine completely.
I think #3 is the big one. It means that even if the public transit is good enough in my area that #1 and #2 are acceptable now, I can't count on it remaining that way long term (and in some cities, probably not even short term).
It's tricky to do, though, and I think in the US, only NYC has really come close. Even in Cambridge and Boston, most people still drive, partly because the transit takes a really long time from many parts of the city. And in San Francisco, an absolutely tiny city geographically (about 6 miles across), it's not much faster to take Muni than to walk at a brisk pace (Muni averages 8 mph).
Taking a subway then transferring to a bus, followed by a streetcar is going to be a long trip.
Well, sure. Taking a Maglev, then a bus, then a street car would also be a longer trip. And let's face it, it would be a lot easier to set up multiple bus routes than multiple Maglev routes.
I’d add another factor, safety (perceived or real). Most people are going to prefer a transfer to their car in a quiet suburban parking lot, than transferring to another form of transit in an urban city where there might be a high level of homelessness/vagrancy/drug use/ crime/harassment
I think having some familiarity with the infrastructure can go a long way into making the trip easier. Knowing where platforms are, which stations are easier to transfer at, etc.
2 – Don't forget road tolls, parking, and surprise maintenance.
3 – The most consistent "pain point" I've seen with transferring is simply walking from platform to platform. I can only think of a handful of stations that I'd actually consider difficult (e.g. BART's Millbrae and Madrid's Atocha station).
4 – Again, parking. In most big cities you're not going to roll right up to your destination and park.
5 – My experience has been it's as difficult as you make it. Hell I saw someone bring a refrigerator on Muni. Some places like Japan have low cost courier services that entirely negate the need to bring luggage with you. Just drop it off with the courier at the airport and have it sent to the hotel or nearest 7-11. In other places you'll find luggage racks or areas on the trains. Alternatively, pack less stuff. If you're traveling by car and need to use a rooftop box don't forget the hefty fuel consumption penalty.
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