julespitt

I was alluding to the fact that it a circular problem - frequent routes (within reason) become popular routes.

>it also doesn't solve the problem if you want to go somewhere unpopular.

The vast majority of trips are to popular locations, by definition. Everyone can still use cars for unpopular destinations.

>Waking up Saturday morning and deciding to drive out to a destination like this

One can wake up in the morning and decide to take a weekend trip without a car. The difference? It will take probably about an hour to get underway.

Meanwhile, a person in an urban area can have all of these car advantages for infrequent uses such as weekend trips or going somewhere unpopular with far less expense by having a Zipcar account.

Because I need milk for a recipe I just found online and I don't want to wait 15 minutes for the next train

Your perspective is very narrow. I asked why you should have to drive to get milk, your response is because you don't want to take a train to get milk.

There is a far simpler option than either of those.

The bigger question is - why is it strictly necessarily to have to use it for ten minutes - just to get milk?

And while most places in the US simply do not have it, the solution to public transportation scheduling is that they run so frequently no one bothers to check the schedule. This is, admittedly, a chicken-or-the-egg problem in most US cities, although some are starting to get it.

- I have Fishing, a Steakhouse, McDonalds, several seafood places better than Red Lobster within a 10-15 minute walk in NYC. Up until a few years ago, had horseback riding as well.

- If you expand this to a 10-15 minute subway ride, the selection gets insane.

So, no, you do not get access to more things in the suburbs, not by a lot. But as you said - you are closer to outdoorsy activities, have a yard, pay less.

These are the tradeoffs.

However, the point of the Federal Reserve Bank is primarily to create money, or destroy it, to affect inflation, deflation, or unemployment.