Originally Posted by
mconlonx
Greyhound and other inter-city buses have very limited stops, usually a terminal... to which one has to travel before even climbing on board a bus. In my neck of the woods, there is no convenient public transit to get to the local bus line, which means either a call to a friend for a ride or a taxi/rideshare service for the 8-10mi ride.
Where my commute is involved, I could do a bike/bus/bike commute, but the problem there is that I am locked into the bus schedule, additional wait time, and additional cycling time.
We just visited Quebec city for a week and they have a marvelous bus system -- from where we stayed in an airbnb rental, there was a choice of at least three bus lines within a 2-block radius which would get us downtown and back, including an express bus. Also within that radius was any number of services, including a grocery store, restaurants, entertainment venues, etc. It would be very easy to LCF there; not so much in the semi-rural area where we live in the USA...
I have talked with people familiar with rural areas in China who said most people living on farms did not have cars and that roads were so narrow that if two trucks or cars would be approaching head-on, one or both would need to pull off to let the other by.
So I would say that people in the 'semi-rural' areas you mention are a little bit spoiled when it comes to expecting to drive as a form of entitlement. I asked the person who told me about China how farmers transported their produce to market, and the response was that certain people in the area had trucks and they went around picking up crops to bring to market. So it's not like every person living in a (semi)rural area needs a truck or car, though they may want on and have a sense of entitlement/expectation that they will have one.
It seems like what you want to do here is make claims about it being easier to LCF in other places as a justification for people who don't or fail at it, but why do you feel the need to defend the choice to drive. If it is something you can afford, it is a choice you have. You are gambling with your money by spending/wasting it on driving, but that is your choice, is it not? What bothers me is when people start complaining about how hard it is to LCF in certain places as if to imply that driving is a right not a privilege, which I've always heard otherwise. You may not like the limitations that LCF puts on you in certain places, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to live without a car. It just means you might only be able to get to go to certain places every once in a while, and you will spend more time getting there and back. But the bright side of that is you waste less money and appreciate the trip more because it is more special.