So if they work in an area without public transport and the roads are too full to park elsewhere, it's not going to happen.
I know this is a pro rail and public transport site, even you know they won't run at 5am or right up to industrial estates or ever at all, a car is the only viable option.
No a car is not the only option, it the only option which many consider but that doesn't make it the only option.
First up the e-bike which allows the user to pedal at a sedate pace and get where they are going with little effort (it's entirely possible to use them with full assist and so be like a motorbike just with a lower top speed).
Of that is too slow and/or the distance too far then there's motorbikes, such take up a lot less space when parked up.
Either would, if more people used them, reduce the need for quite so much land to be used for parking. In that you can fit at least 4 in the space of a single parked car.
Yes you are more at risk when using them than in a car, but often because car drivers aren't used to them and so forget that they are there. If more people considered them then chances are the risk wouldn't be all that much worse.
Yes neither are good for getting lots of stuff about, but relatively few people need that for their work and with the rise of online shopping that's becoming less of an issue for more people.
A terraced street would then be able to have parked cars on one side and motorbikes on the other and still house at least the same number of vehicles.
There's even some terraced streets where a motorbike would be able to be parked in the small front gardens where a there wouldn't be sufficient space to park a car.
Anyway some cars exist to take children to and from school, some where that distance is less than 600m (as is the case for one car near where I live).
I've spent the vast majority of my life in a household with one car, yes it means compromises. However they are fairly limited, but can often be worked around with some planning.
As a child my dad would car share to get to/from work and the days he drive to work it was a mile walk each way to school.
(Just picking up something from some back in this thread, if a child is more than 2 miles from their nearest suitable school whilst under 8 or more than 3 once they are 8 then the local education authority must provide free transport to the child, be that bus or taxi).
My children regularly walk/scoot/cycle as their main mode of transport for that day, including in all weathers and (in winter) when it's dark (with lights on their scooters/bikes) in the early evening. My eldest isn't 10 yet and my youngest isn't 3.
Yes the complain at times, but by not having a second car it frees up a significant amount of money to allow us to do other things (the average cost of a car, including purchase costs it's over £3,000/year - yes it's possible to get it lower than that as that's how averages work, however few actually know the true cost of running their car each year).
As to getting wet, that rarely is an issue. Partly as we have decent coats and partly as whilst there's a fair number of days where it rains is mostly light and quite often limited to part of the day (which may mean we miss being out in our) with the number of days that it's very heavy rain and we're out in it being only about 6 to 10 times a year.
I challenge you to record when it's actually very wet when you're traveling and you're likely to find a similar pattern. In some locations where is wetter it might be 20 times, but given that you go to work ~225 days a year (assuming a 5 day working week) that's not all that many.
