You hit the nail right on the head. Right after high school, both my parents lived in the same small town on the outskirts of a larger city. From my father's ho

You hit the nail right on the head. Right after high school, both my parents lived in the same small town on the outskirts of a larger city. From my father's house, it was a 30min walk to get to the bus stop, which had one passage every 30 minutes. Even from my mother's place, going to school was ~2h to get halfway to downtown. My only decent option was driving to the train stating further from home, and going straight downtown that way. Cut a good 30-40 min off my commute, just mean I hit traffic every day. Anyway, all this to say, public transportation gets pretty light past a certain distance from city center, and you most definitely needed a car if you want to have some sort of life outside commuting. Admittedly, we're 17 years past that time, but from what I've heard from a friend still living there, it's still the very same situation.