I can't comment on small towns, but I live in a medium-ish size place of around 100k people though it really depends how far you're going. If you're going just

I can't comment on small towns, but I live in a medium-ish size place of around 100k people though it really depends how far you're going. If you're going just a few (<10) km then cars would be a bit faster. On Google maps I see that it takes 9 minutes to a store 6km away by car. It takes 36 minutes by public transport, however it takes only 20 minutes by bike (almost everyone has a bike here). However a lot of roads are bike-only or similar (esp in parts of the city centre), which (imo) makes it super frustrating to drive. On longer distances yes cars do get much faster. Amsterdam to Rotterdam by car is 52 mins (74km), vs 1hr18min by train, however this was station to station. Once you add the time to go from the station to your destination it's often longer. Edit - re:costs, it feels moderately expensive to me as an Indian. It's €5.4 from Rotterdam to Den Haag (Hague) station, which is 21km by road (20 min by road, 30 min by train). You get 20-30% off passes for monthly use I believe, though that's only useful if you use it a lot.