Edit: my family has only one car, but it’s because I hate driving / commuting and have worked remotely for 10 years. If I had to drive to work, we’d have two cars.

But as someone who used to live in the uk where car ownership was practically forced on you due to economic reasons and seeing the destruction of public transport such that you should see a trip to the next city akin to taking a flight to another country, fuck em.

A car is a huge expense, i won’t lie and say it doesn’t have advantages, like if you have a family, but i’m single, and now i live in a country with an expansive public transport system and i realised, actually, car ownership is just passing on the cost of a public transport system to the general public at a huge cost to themselves.

I have a shared car scheme where i can rent a car by the hour, they have stations everywhere and i use it like twice a year to go to ikea.

I can’t go out with a car and drink, i have to find parking spaces, i cannot do anything productive while driving a car and i’m of the opinion that anyone who drives to work is on work time while doing it, mostly unpaid.

I take frequent taxis, but adding up the cost of all those is nowhere comparable to the cost of a car, sitting idle in a garage that would also cost me extra each month.

Car ownership was forced on us.

Well, I didn't.

I lived in European towns/cities from ~10k to 350k people. Rural areas exist obviously but compared to US suburbs or even most US urban areas we're talking far far smaller % of people who need a car for most aspects of day-to-day life in Europe.

Later I spent a few months in Europe living without a car to try the lifestyle. Even with adequate buses and intercity trains, I missed having a car.

Now I live in a rural area, the kind of place where it's close to impossible to live without a car.

Owning a car means the freedom to go where you want, when you want, with who and what you want. Even the best public transportation is a poor alternative outside of the densest cities.

(Of course, Singapore is a dense city so this policy makes more sense there.)

Perhaps people still own cars, but only one to a couple instead of two?

i bought my first car in my mid-30s. if you'd have asked me a year earlier i'd have assured you that i don't need a car and don't intend to own one ever.

if i needed one i'd just rent it. but taking an hour long trip to the airport or somewhere else for the rental station got old after a while. especially the stress of having to be back at a certain time. planning traffic issues into the schedule. because overrunning the rented duration can come with disproportional cost.

then came corona, the lockdowns, restricted public transportation and i started to crave for easy access to nature while at the same time living in the city. and i don't mean crowded parks. actual forests where you are alone. away from cars.

you might say i got a car because i hate cars and i still do.

but a car provides me with a freedom that now seems so obvious that people who claim they don't want a car seem almost brainwashed.

especially because nobody says that having car means you have to use it all the time. i'd still prefer to go to work either by public transportation or by bike or even by foot. my car is standing somewhere about 5 days a week. but those 2 days i need the car or my options are limited.

as a matter of fact i bought a car because i prefer the bicycle. at first i was taking the train for more remote bike tours. but taking the train with a bike in germany is torture. it wastes a lot of time. confronts you with problems like no place left, what ticket do i need, where do i get it, train not even coming and so on.

now - i just hook up the bike and off i go.

this you-don't-need-a-car thing really feels like some manipulative agenda with the intention to reeducate the simple people towards believing it and also accepting it - because no car is going to be the future for most of us - that's already been decided ("you'll own nothing and be happy"). i'm still looking forward to this future as well as i anticipate it with horror because i fear it's not going to be so great having your movement restricted. and of course those who decide those policies will continue owning and using cars.

i'd totally ban cars from the city and certainly favor a tempolimit of 130 on the autobahn but it will need solutions that still allow people to flee from the city if they feel like it or spontaneously visit relatives whose villages can't be reached by public transportation.

I love not owning a car. This is made possible by lots of good public transportation options around me. On the few occasions that I need a car I can easily rent one. I've only rented a car 3 times in the last 10 years, excluding trips to the US (where I always need to rent a car).

But also, modern cars are bananas. Between the flat screens replacing physical controls and the paid subscriptions to enable existing functionality, I want nothing to do with car ownership anymore.

Personal anecdote: I was born, grew up and lived up to my mid-20s in São Paulo, Brazil. It's a city where a car is a basic necessity, much like in the US, public transportation sucks and is spotty, never on time. I owned cars, I loved the frictionless way to get out, getting the elevator out of my apartment, down to the underground garage, turning my car on and driving away, easy. But that car sat idle 98% of the time, I paid road taxes, maintenance, parking spot, etc. for the convenience of having a car ready to go at an instant time.

Nowadays I live in Sweden, I never need a car apart from moving houses or carrying some large furniture. A few times for a road trip here and there, I can just rent a car when needed and I come out on top of expenses still, the peace of mind of not having to take care of a car is another huge bonus.

The pre-COVID world will still exist, cities are a necessity if you want to have good public services, without higher density a city has no way to fund high quality public services.

I would like to know what clear downsides, apart from disease spread, has COVID showed from living in high density cities? And I mean cities like Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and so on.

There are certainly instances where a car is necessary, or sufficiently convenient. For example, I rent a truck when I move homes or get new furniture, and I get a taxi after surgery or a night out, and rent a car when doing something time/convenience-sensitive like hopping between locations on elaborate wedding days that involve a ceremony, food, drinks and after-party all around the city. But all in all, about 5% of my trips need to happen by personal vehicle, at most. Everything else is can be done via public transport or bicycles.

Nowadays we have ride-sharing and electric 'public transportation' mini-cars available that you can rent for 15 minutes or a few days. The costs are about twice that of a normal car, but as I only use it in 5% of my trips my total expenses are barely affected, while giving me the convenience of a car when necessary.

There's no real reason to keep a personal car myself. Actually I've never owned one, but it's become easier and more convenient over time. Borrowing a car from a friend or traveling far to a car rental, or expenses of renting aren't problems anymore.

Having kids or working very far from home changes the incentives quite a bit. But I think there's a lot of value in optimising for distance. As a species we spend way too much time on mundane travel, even to the point of inefficiency. I've seen people chase a job that pays $300 more for $250 in self-paid traveling costs per month. These are people who will pay $10 for delivery of groceries instead of spending 30 minutes to go to the store, but are willing to travel 20 hours more each month for a $50 net benefit.