Dave:
This afternoon, I sold my car. It was a great car – a 2002 Subaru WRX with 36,700 miles. It did 0-60 in 5.9 seconds (and I’d tested it out enough times to appreciate that). Super fun. Carried groceries and anything I needed. Good for city. Good for climbing and camping trips. Worked well. Nothing wrong with it.
Good riddance.
I’m an abnormal car owner, for sure, but one of the points I raise below (better uses of the capital expense of the car) applies pretty broadly. Over the life of the car, I paid more than $4 per mile traveled. Even if all of my travel was one-mile trips, Uber ($2 base fee + $1.25 per mile in Pittsburgh) would have been far cheaper. You can substitute Lyft or Yellow Cab for Uber in that equation, of course, assuming you could actually get a cab in Pittsburgh to pick you up when you needed.