I worked for a government lab where the commute was 45 miles each way and the bus tickets were 50 cents. Very few (idiots) drove. I had to walk about half a mile across a pasture and a canal to the bus stop and wait in the cold. In Idaho it's typically 40 degrees at 7 AM in July and August, even though it will be 90-100 by 5 PM. In the winter it could be 30 below. Many men were dropped off by their wives wearing light jackets. One day the hill up to the bus stop was covered with black ice and the buses got stuck a half mile away. There was much suffering that morning, but because of my walk through snow drifts I was wearing insulated pants and a mountain parka. I was like the Emperor Penguins and could stand there all day if necessary. But for urban commuting, who would put up with that? I had no interface problems and the buses came by continuously every few minutes. It took less than 45 minutes to go the 45 miles, with no towns, houses, or traffic control signals for the entire distance. I really liked it out there, with antelopes and coyotes visible nearby out my office window. The labs area was and is 900 sq miles of sagebrush desert, so parking was not a problem.

Now that is where public transportation really is practical.

I live in a neighborhood of about 50 houses, all on one-acre lots. There are no sidewalks, but when the weather is nice there are lots of walkers and a few joggers. The neighborhood has only one access road, so driving through it to get somewhere else is impossible. We have a neighborhood picnic every fall, which is well attended. Everyone knows everyone else. There has never been a burglary, probably because of the lack of escape routes. Of course everyone owns at least two cars, and since the nearest store is 3 miles away they are necessary. The neighborhood is surrounded by farm fields and pastures. As soon as it was developed the county (under pressure from developers) changed the zoning to require 5 acre lots, to prevent "sprawl". The average house is 2000-3000 sq. ft. and sells for less than $250,000. We violate the rule that middle-middle class people can live on large lots with affordable houses in a decent neighborhood. There are no fences between lots, but equivalent houses on quarter to third acre lots are divided by sight fences, very ugly. They also have lots of crime, and no one knows their neighbors. We had friends who went from our neighborhood to the "properly" zoned ones and hated it.

My wife and I are getting old enough so the maintenance of a one-acre lot is getting difficult, but we will not move until we absolutely have to.

The concentrated living that appeals to the "socialists" really sucks.

We live in a very rural area, but the town has about 50,000 and is 3 miles away. Just past our neighborhood is a sign on the highway "Next Gas 65 Miles". Our decentralized lifestyle could not be duplicated east of the Mississippi, or on the Left Coast. So we are in an unusual circumstance. Boise is 250 miles away on a US Highway. We drive it to avoid the Interstate. We pass through four towns on the way to Boise, the largest of which has 1200 people, the rest are well below 1000. It's pretty scenic if you like high desert. Our town because of its relative isolation has a symphony, an opera theater, several acting companies, and decent restaurants. We can get to the opera or the symphony in 10 minutes and park within 100 yards of each. After we leave we are among the cows, potatoes, and wheat in 10 minutes.

In the winter we can XC ski in complete wilderness, parking our car in a plowed lot(by the Forest Service), with the dozen or fewer other cars there, and ski for miles seeing perhaps a dozen other people. Jackson Hole is 85 miles away and we can drive there, attend world class symphony and chamber music concerts all summer, parking less than 100 yards (for free) from the concert hall. The next morning we can drive to Teton Park and hike in the wilderness to lovely and swimmable moraine lakes, where on a crowded day there might be 6 other people on a half mile of white sand beach. We took our sailboat to Yellowstone Lake in August, assembled and launched it at the marina, parking our car and trailer 100 feet from the ramp, with the other three cars and trailers. Cost: nothing. We sailed 25 miles to a wilderness cove, seeing two other boats in the distance the whole day. The nearest other human being was at least two miles away, but there might have been no one.

We are spoiled rotten. The lifestyle I described cannot be lived in many places. No people, no parking problems. I was also able to start a high tech materials company that I ran until I retired a couple of years ago. I traveled on business to lots of large cities, I don't see how anyone can stand it. Luckily I lived for long periods in LA and NY so I knew how to drive among the hordes, but I didn't like it.