[photonios]

I am not sure what appealing alternative you could offer. I didn't have a car up until recently. I got one because I had a kid. Even though I live in a small European city [0] (400k inhabitants) with bus lines everywhere, taxi's that are dirt cheap etc.

It's impossible with a kid. I tried for the first few months. I don't have time to wait for the bus for 10 minutes with a screaming baby, neither do I want to stress that the entire bus or train needs to listen to my crying baby for the ride. Taking the kid to the doctor halfway across town is just a nightmare with any of the alternative modes of transport.

Give me a good alternative for taking a screaming baby to the doctor without pissing off everyone and I'll happily get rid of the car.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluj-Napoca

[fy20]

> Taking the kid to the doctor halfway across town

I live in a similar sized European city, and the one good thing the Soviets did here was to make sure services are available nearby to where people live.

I have a friend who has two toddlers, and when they need to go across the city they have no issues going by bus. If someone get pissed off because there is young human who is not mature at controlling (or more likely supressing) their emotions, that's their own problem.

Almost all of the services they need are nearby though. During the winter lockdowns they didn't need to leave their district for 4 months.

[perryizgr8]

Even without a kid, a car is almost always the best way to travel. If we lived in an ideal world with unlimited space and resources, everybody would be driving a car. Only restrictions due to population density or political incentives may create situations where one might prefer traveling by some other mode.