owning a car is almost always the convenient option, especially if you disregard all the downsides like the (monetary) cost to one personally and to society at

owning a car is almost always the convenient option, especially if you disregard all the downsides like the (monetary) cost to one personally and to society at large. i agree that living car-free is not practical for many, mostly those living in rural or suburban areas, but even here the car is part of the problem, having made this possible in the first place for people who shouldn't even live there. we've got to break the self-reinforcing loop on car dependency, starting with the cities. we'll lose a lot of convenience and some things will be unreasonably hard compared to before but i think it's the future and it'll pay off in increased quality of life.