[unethical_ban]

> the big car won't fit in the city well, and your other options is paying a lot more on public transit because odds are there isn't a family pass, so the big car is probably cheaper.

The TCO for a car is thousands of dollars per year. Granted the US only has three or four cities that come close to facilitating carless society, but in those cities, I doubt public transit costs $5000 a year or more.

[bluGill]

If you are buying a new car every 3 years the $5000year price for a car is reasonable, but cars last for 15 years and so the total lifetime costs average out to less, and if you buy a used car you costs are much less. My cars are down to more like $2000/year now.

$100/month 12 month (2 parents + 3 kids). Of course it depends on where you live, but $100/month per person is a normal price for a monthly pass. If the kids are younger and riding with a parent the price is lower, but kids have places to go (particularity as teens!) without parents (which should be advantage of the city). When you consider the convenience of the car being ready to go when and where you want to go - unlike transit systems - it isn't hard to justify paying more (Read this as a rant about how useless most transit systems are in the US)