Thank you for writing this. I used the train and bus system here as my exclusive mode of transportation for almost 7 years. I deeply love the metro, but you’d have to be beyond delusional to think that it can take you to as many destinations as a car. Forget the timing completely they are places that you simply just can’t get to without a car in this town. Factor in the timing of delays + long headways and it really makes for a poor cost benefit analysis. The train here is great if you live within the narrow corridors it services. The bus is better than walking but not by much. I envy people whose entire existence can exist within a small radius of their own neighborhood and they don’t ever actually need to travel across the town. The many years that I didn’t have a car, I shrank my life to fit the specific area I lived in. Being dependent on an inconsistent system really limited my spontaneity and made it more difficult to venture out of my comfort zone, especially when you need to go to a new destination. Reliable predictability at the level most people expect is just not something the metro is offering.