I live in a town of 5000. It’s a tourist town and has relatively good bus connections as well as a train line.
But if I want to go literally anywhere the buses are usually every 1.5h (more often directly to the capital but that one is either a 2h bus ride or goes there directly without inbetween stops) and the trains are every 2.5h.
Let’s say I need to go to the hardware store.
I can take the bus leaving in 40mins, walk 15 mins to the store, 15 mins back and then wait another 30-40 mins for the bus back.
Or I can take the train 10mins to a completely different town, switch trains (hopefully I got the one that has a connection on the other line) and take another 10 mins to the same spot the bus would drop me off. Then repeat the 30+min of going to the store and back. Take the train back to the other town. Hopefully catch the train on the line back home (or wait 2-3 hr for the next one).
Both the train and bus stations are about 10-15min walk from where I live. But any of those options take me at least 1hr of just commuting in best case scenario (no waiting or minimal waiting for bus/train).
Or I can take a car, get to the store in 10min find whatever I need and be back home in 30min from when I left.
Yeah I am not trying to detract from your experience. Just saying that even in cases where public transport is a bit better it still makes sense to have a car. If I lived in the capital I could get pretty much anywhere just using the buses and that would be fine. But outside the capital it just does not work
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I live in a town of 5000. It’s a tourist town and has relatively good bus connections as well as a train line.
But if I want to go literally anywhere the buses are usually every 1.5h (more often directly to the capital but that one is either a 2h bus ride or goes there directly without inbetween stops) and the trains are every 2.5h.
Let’s say I need to go to the hardware store. I can take the bus leaving in 40mins, walk 15 mins to the store, 15 mins back and then wait another 30-40 mins for the bus back.
Or I can take the train 10mins to a completely different town, switch trains (hopefully I got the one that has a connection on the other line) and take another 10 mins to the same spot the bus would drop me off. Then repeat the 30+min of going to the store and back. Take the train back to the other town. Hopefully catch the train on the line back home (or wait 2-3 hr for the next one).
Both the train and bus stations are about 10-15min walk from where I live. But any of those options take me at least 1hr of just commuting in best case scenario (no waiting or minimal waiting for bus/train).
Or I can take a car, get to the store in 10min find whatever I need and be back home in 30min from when I left.
Try 1000 people in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah I am not trying to detract from your experience. Just saying that even in cases where public transport is a bit better it still makes sense to have a car. If I lived in the capital I could get pretty much anywhere just using the buses and that would be fine. But outside the capital it just does not work