I live in New York, frequently travel to suburbs around the country and world, and have not missed for a second the driver's license I gave up almost 5 years ago. This might be a generational thing.
I don't understand. Do places like the US national parks have train stations? And do you take an Uber all the way into the wilderness? Are Uber drivers really happy do that? Do you carry a SATCOM system so you can get a data connection to request an Uber to get home again? How long do you have to wait for one to turn up if you are doing a climb three hours drive into the wilderness?
For example look at the 'getting here' page for a random national park, like Zion. It only lists directions for private cars. Presumably if there was any other way of getting there then someone like the National Parks would make it extremely clear how to do that. Are there train stations near Zion? Would you literally take an Uber all the way there from a major city? It would be hundreds of dollars wouldn't it?
If you got an invite to join your friends hiking for a few days in Zion next week, how would you get there?
I think you're going to reply 'well obviously you can't quite do everything and I wouldn't be able to do a climb far from a central visitor centre or join those friends' and bingo, I think the bar for what you can do outdoors without a car to get you there is pretty sad and you'll be missing out rather than living some high life of car freedom.
My car's paid for, sits out of the way in my garage and costs me a week or so's wages a year in maintenance, fuel and insurance. It's an effective tool to get out there in the world and do things with basically zero negative impact on my life.
National parks do have buses. I live in NYC, and have backpacked from one bus stop to another (three days and 25 miles away) through state wilderness in the Catskills. How you get from place to place changes, and it does take a little bit more planning, but it's really not a big deal. I agree, if you're in the mountain west, it's really hard not to have a car and go hiking or camping or biking. But if you're in a well connected area of the country, with lots of buses, trains and boats connecting the relatively close together locales, it's really not that hard to get out without a car. And even in the mountain west, if you have a group of friends you always go out with, you really only need one or two cars amongst all of you (and it may be cheaper to rent when you need it).
Car rentals for those times you really need a car for a few days. Especially given the cost of parking in a city like DC or NYC (unless you want to play the "move your car every other day for street cleaning" game), it's possible to rent a car almost every weekend for the same cost.
You don't miss the freedom of not having to return to the spot where you left your personal vehicle because you never enjoyed it. If you are used to taking public transport you might be massively put off by the idea of being limited to round trips from wherever you left your car.
Theoretically, people could take the best of both worlds by substituting public for rental or personal for public when the other has an advantage, but that rarely happens because people tend to stick to the mode of transport they are most used to.
Personally, I am lucky to be just two days of cycling (or one really long day) from the Alps, and when I do that trip on external power it does not matter wether it is by train or by car, it always feels like cheating.
If my worst case is paying a few hundred dollars for a hired car to get to and from places as remote as Zion, places I don't go more than once or twice a year, I say good riddance to the cost and hassle of owning, maintaining and operating a car. All of this only gets easier when cars drive themselves.
What's what I'd said someone would say. 'replace much'. And I think 'much' would turn out to be a pretty poor standard compared to what you can do with a car. The logistical organisation involved in achieving what you could do would be a huge time and money sink - which is what people who give up cars often say was the benefit in the first place!
You wouldn't get to join your friends hiking in Zion is what would happen in reality.
No, you'd rent a car is what would happen in reality. Same way as the vast majority of people who visit Zion. I went to many remote areas in the western US before I moved from the east coast, and it was often in rental cars (and not once in the personal car I owned, which remained on the east coast.)
This just isn't the obstacle you're making it out to be.
I can totally understand doing this with a rental car, but upthread, the idea of not having a driver's license at all was being put forward in a positive light. So that means no renting a car. Without the ability to drive, you'd have to not just rent a car, but rent a driver as well; that's like an order of magnitude difference in price.
Rental cars are already a great alternative to private car ownership in a great many situations, basically any one where you don't need a car where you live most of the time, and just need one for travel/vacation/etc. purposes.
Speaking for myself as somewhat of an outdoors adventurer: my wife and I still need a car for that stuff, but we don't need two cars anymore, and we don't use the one car we still have very much during the week (which means it will last longer). This represents a smaller, but still tangible, difference in car buying needs.
Lots of types of bicyling require a car. Downhill mountain biking is very exciting and the mountains are absolutely beautiful. It's like skiing, but more dangerous because there's no snow.
