Cars are a hidden drain on society. In part because, like you said, its a $10k-$30k admission ticket just to participate in society. In fact its worse than that, because people don't see the hidden costs. When you pay for an Uber or a train ticket, the full price of your transit is up front. When someone gets in their car, they aren't thinking about all the effective price of owning the car per day. They just see the immediate marginal price of things like gas and tolls. As a result, they have extremely skewed view and make deeply irrational choices. Eg people see the sticker price of using Uber and think its "obviously" more expensive than driving yourself. In truth, if there are public transit options most of the time but you would still sometimes be stranded without a car, taking an Uber up to 3 times per week is cheaper than owning it yourself.
Say you own a $36,500 car for 10 years. I'd call that a bit more pricey than normal, but also a bit longer than normal. You can buy cheaper but the lower quality won't last as long so let's just use these numbers for now. When you work it out, owning such a car will cost $10 per day just to have the privilege of letting it sit in your drive way. Tack on insurance price per day ($4.50 per day by some quote I looked up) and effective maintenance costs ($? per day) and you've already spent over $15 each day before even leaving your garage. Even in your costco card example, say you treat it well and made a $5000 car last for 3 years. That's still about $4.50 per day just for the privilege of having it plus the insurance (maybe a bit cheaper for the cheap car?). The "costco car" option is still more expensive per day than taking the metro, and that's before you even left your driveway!
Sad this is down voted, IIAOPSW has a great point.
We as a society pay a lot to support a car infrastructure. From crappy land usage for parking lots, which necessitates increased property taxes on everyone else, to land that could be used for housing/businesses instead being used for roads.
Add on top of that the number of injuries, and how much time we have to spend in cars because we live in a society designed around cars, personal vehicles are a huge dead weight cost.
I'm not saying everyone needs to give up their cars, but families having more cars than people is insane.
> We as a society pay a lot to support a car infrastructure.
With a large part of the world having had lockdowns, I’ve been surprised at the readiness to go back to normal where cars are concerned.
As someone currently locked down, the silence is amazing. I hear the odd power tool, or pet, lots of bird song and maybe some noisey human. I hear push bikes coming down the hill, long before they pass me.
The typical city noise of cars, engines, tyres, horns etc is so very very obnoxious, quite apart from the points raised above.
There was an interesting thread here on HN recently on a link between road noise and dementia.
You are right, few people are aware how high the costs of just owning a car are. Fortunately, here in Europe, a car isn't mandatory everywhere. While there are remote locations in the countryside where you really want a car, a large part of the population can get by quite well with public transport. And once you got rid of your car, you save so much money that you can easily afford to occasionally call a taxi, if a car is absolutely needed.
Say you own a $36,500 car for 10 years. I'd call that a bit more pricey than normal, but also a bit longer than normal. You can buy cheaper but the lower quality won't last as long so let's just use these numbers for now. When you work it out, owning such a car will cost $10 per day just to have the privilege of letting it sit in your drive way. Tack on insurance price per day ($4.50 per day by some quote I looked up) and effective maintenance costs ($? per day) and you've already spent over $15 each day before even leaving your garage. Even in your costco card example, say you treat it well and made a $5000 car last for 3 years. That's still about $4.50 per day just for the privilege of having it plus the insurance (maybe a bit cheaper for the cheap car?). The "costco car" option is still more expensive per day than taking the metro, and that's before you even left your driveway!
Cars are a racket!