I live in an older neighbourhood of Toronto that was considered a suburb when it was built in the 1930s and is considered fairly central now. I remember 20 years ago feeling amused when my elderly neighour said her husband had gone "into town" instead of "downtown". Both this house and my previous residences were well served by subways or buses, and even before I became a dedicated bike commuter 18 years ago, my wife and I and our kids were a 1 car family (her car) for about 27 or 28 of our 30 years of marriage. On a couple of occasions we've gotten a new car, and dragged our feet on getting rid or the old one, and usually it turns out after a few months or a year to have been a waste of licensing and insurance fees, because we would rarely use both at once.

Monday I needed to buy some simple Christmas gifts for staff, so I left the office at 1 pm, took a streetcar to Yonge St, shopped at 3 stores, took a streetcar part way back, shopped at another store and then walked the rest of the way back, all in under an hour at a cost of $5. I probably could not have done it by car and found parking along the way, but if I had tried, it would have taken longer and probably cost more for parking.