My wife and I were driving our own cars before we got married, and we continued having our own car even after we married. We just celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary, which means that our family has been owning 2 cars for 29 years.

Now that we are nearer to retirement we planned to have just 1 car when we retire. As we stay very near to an MRT station (practically at our doorstep) we thought perhaps maybe we might even do away with the car altogether.

So we tried moving around using public transportation for a week. Here's our findings:

The good parts
1. The MRT and buses are comfortable enough to travel in (as long as not during super peak periods) - spacious and air conditioned.
2. The fares are very reasonable
3. Sometimes, taking the MRT brings us faster to our destination even with changes to different lines
4. No worries about finding car parking lot when you reached your destination.

The bad parts
1. No privacy
2. Have to squeeze and it gets worse when your fellow passengers are sweaty and smelly
3. No flexibility to change destination at your whims and fancy
4. Involves a lot more walking (ok granted walking is good for health)
5. It gets difficult when you have bulky items like your weekly groceries or other big items. (With a car, we never feel this is a problem as we just dump them in the boot.)
6. Difficult for elderly to squeeze with the younger crowd for space, getting up and down busses.
7. Not all destination are accessible by MRT and busses. You would need to take taxis or private hire cars.
8. When traveling as a family of four, it is difficult to sit together and not really cheaper from driving your own car.

After that 1 week experiment, we concluded we will still want a car even in retirement. We want flexibility and our family can continue to go out together in comfort and privacy. As we buy our groceries once a week, the car comes in very handy. We can just put everything in the boot and not have to break our buys into smaller batches over a few trips.