A car to me is a personal, climate controlled cocoon, where I can turn on whatever music I want, have a coffee or a snack, and escape for the 30 minutes or however long it takes to reach my destination...without the chance of being bothered by anyone else, much less any of the other belligerents that you are sure to find on public transit from time to time.
I will continue to own and drive my own car for this simple fact...
I get it might not be exactly the same, but walking/biking/Public Transiting with headphones in for a period of time is all that and more. And with the exception of a bike, you can do all of those things without having to sit in traffic...
This would probably make some people uncomfortable, but one fantasy I can imagine which might be nice is to have private transport capsules. We could own our own capsule and decorate/style it to our liking. It has common exterior form factor, with power, plumbing, etc. connectors.
We go from home to the nearest capsule station (where ours is in automated storage). We schedule picking of the capsule so it is ready for us upon our arrival. We set the destination, hop in, and the delivery system takes us for a ride. Hell, with a nice private capsule you could sleep, watch movies, work, even have "fun" with a partner. The system (ideally) ensures you arrive at your desired capsule station end point, whereby you exit and set your storage option.
This would take more space than current public transport (a lot more!), but it would take less space than a typical individual car, not to mention less roads as the exchange systems would be optimized and operating in three dimensions.
Anything that's giving you a per-person riding experience is not going to perform as well as batching a bunch of people together for a common ride.
I think GP's point is that it's more about space than about travel. Walking, or being on a public transport with headphones on, doesn't replace that - it's at most a very poor substitute.
The point is to be able to hide from other people - to have some minimum personal time, in a personal space, free from nagging and expectations of your spouse, children, friends, co-workers and bosses. Driving in a car to work enables this, because for the duration of your commute, you can ignore everyone's calls and requests guilt-free. It's the law that says you can't pick up a phone on the road. It's dangerous. You're also not driving for fun, you're driving to/from work. Nobody can have any expectations of you during that time. Yes, commute in traffic is torture. That's a feature. It gives you plausible deniability.
I may be breaking some unwritten fight club rule by spelling it out loud. Sorry. Also, I don't drive - to work or otherwise. But to the extent what I described above is a major part of car ownership, more and better public transport won't help, because it doesn't address this major part.
Long ago I briefly shared an office with an "old guy" - an expert in a particular topic which gave him more freedom to behave strangely and not get fired. His strange behavior was to spend half of his lunch hour at his desk, leaned back, mouth wide open, napping. That was traditionally not acceptable behavior in a professional environment, but he apparently decided it was for him. So he did it. While it was a bit of a shock at first to the other employees, eventually we all became accustomed to it and even kept our voices down in the hallway outside when we new it was his nap time.
The point is that we have the freedom, even if it seems scary, to make some decisions about how we want our lives and how to get the balance we need. I am only just starting to learn how to do this.
The commute drive solo time is clearly not the same quality of solo time as many other options (choose your favorite).
When I had young children and a busy house, and my normal full time job, the bathroom was my solo space. Unsurprisingly, people didn't seem too interested to come bother me when I was in there. So I would read entire books while seeking solitude. Instead, it is conceivable that I could have just gathered everyone and made some agreements about what we all need, including sometimes privacy and quiet. Granted, a toddler will not respect those agreements, but the spouse can help ensure it works most of the time.
In the summer bike is nice alternative, but during bad weather there's nothing comparable to the comfort of car.
Please remember not everyone lives in bay area with long commute and mild weather all year long :-)
A 15min commute as you have is a different situation (much better!). Nobody is trying to take away your car. I realize that it is often framed that way in US media, as if the options are public transport OR private cars. I have a car in the Netherlands which I use for some trips where public transport is not the better choice. But when possible, especially when going from one major city to another, public transport is such a nice luxury. (It also means I can go have fun at that late night party and never face the decision of whether to drive somewhat inebriated or not.)
I totally get this, and I was in the same situation for many years (the young children period of my life).
However, imagine that instead of a 1hr commute, the commute was 30 minutes. Now your day has 1 hour "free" that you could choose to spend doing something for yourself. Maybe it's gym time, or maybe a music practice room in a building near your office, or yoga in the garden of the office rooftop.
As I say, I did share that same feeling when I was doing the normal commute/family thing. But it still points to a problem. We should be able to find or make the time and space to have a cocoon of calm or whatever we need and still have a life+family+work. I don't think that a small side-effect of solo driving in traffic which provides something like that cocoon is at all the right way to get the life balance we need.
They can still crash into you. Belligerance also exist behind the wheel, and it can can kill you.
