France is a weird case (or at least, the case I know better). First of, a lot of those statistic tend to be skew because of Paris, because France tend to be ve

France is a weird case (or at least, the case I know better). First of, a lot of those statistic tend to be skew because of Paris, because France tend to be very Paris-centric (its getting better, but Paris is still the center of "everything"). When it come to Paris, a lot of time, it's often faster to take the public transportation than your own car because of the systemic traffic jam at rush hour (which is common for this type of cities). But as more people move out of Paris or take the public transport or other form of transportation (the city has made a lot of effort to be more bicycle friendly in the last years), travel time by car actually start to decrease. In my own city, car was almost always faster than public transportation. I had different commute time, from 1h30 to 10 minutes, and I could have always shave some of it by taking the car. But for me, the 10-15 minutes I could have gain from taking the car was nothing compared to the comfort I was gaining by using the public transportation. I can just hop in a tram or in a bus, listen to my music, read a book, ... I don't have to do any of the mental effort that driving require, which is very valuable for me after a day of work. I also feel more safe, if my bus or my tram has an accident, I know I am more protected. And in general, I really do enjoy my city a lot more the less car there is. I grew up mostly in the country side and next the the amazonian forest. The noise, and most importantly, the awful smell created by car traffic is very disturbing to me. Staying for too long next to a busy street will usually give me nausea very quickly. I also feel safer as I don't have to worry about my surrounding has much. Since there is no car, I don't have to check if I am going to be run over. Finally, road are just plain ugly, I rather have green area, pedestrian way, and art lying around. Its for these reason that I accept all the inconvenience that public transportation brings. I rather have a slightly longer commute by feel good in the city than the opposite.