Also the public transport system in your city seems to suck.

Naturally, this is a result of a dysfunctional political system with overlapping jurisdictions between city and county and a focus on consensus building over getting anything done. About ten years ago we were supposed to build a system of monorails, of all things, but instead of actually building them the relevant authorities spent several years arguing and bringing it to a vote, so while the people of Seattle voted for the monorail twice, by the third time they were just frustrated and gave up on the whole thing.

In addition to the bus system and the light rail line--mostly because Paul Allen owns most of the neighborhood and really wanted one--South Lake Union has a trolley with a rather colorful nickname.

I'm shopping for cars right now. After 4 years of owning one, I've conceded that that has not turned out to be the case. At least, not entirely - I've found it isn't apples-to-oranges.

When I last owned a car, I bought it new. It was a fairly nice car, so of course I was paying for comprehensive insurance. I also thought nothing of driving it everywhere, making frequent weekend trips, driving out to the state park to go mountain biking after work, etc. etc. I dumped a lot of money on it, but much of that money was on what I have now come to view as unnecessary luxury.

Having not owned a car for 4 years, I had gotten into the habit of walking or taking the bus/train or riding my bike anywhere. I did have a membership to a car sharing company, so I could rent a car by the hour whenever I needed one, but I had gotten into the habit of only using it once every other month or so. Trips out of the city, Chicago, could generally be made by rail (the commuter rail system is extensive, and it's an Amtrak hub).

Then I moved to a different city, and a lot changed. The city's transit system is quite good, but the inter-city transit isn't so good. Renting cars began to happen much more frequently; we're doing it about once a month now. It also became more expensive - this state does not require rental companies to include the mandatory minimum coverage with rentals, and both non-owners' insurance policies and the daily rate insurance offered by the rental companies are priced exorbitantly.

So the new calculus is, owning a car can be quite a bit less expensive, under certain conditions: The 'new' car is actually quite old, and has some dings and dents, so it didn't cost much in the first place. And since it's not beautiful anyway, there's not much call for paying for comprehensive insurance. And we're walking, biking, and taking the bus in all the situations where we would previously have walked, biked, or taken the bus - this car is not for commuting, it's not for driving out to the mall, it's not for burning gas (and money) just because I don't want to get rained on. It's for visiting folks in other cities, and perhaps also for trips to Costco. Under this new calculus, the break-even point should be only about 2 years out, assuming no major repairs.

Also I admit that at lest when I was younger, it seems the kids who owned a car were a bit more spontaneous. They take trips to the sea at a whim or whatever.

Since I have not yet sorted out the renting thing, I can't say how easy it would be to just jump into a rented car on a whim. I already ran into problems trying to organize holidays, for example going most of the way by train and renting a car at the destination train station. I had imagined there to be a much better infrastructure than there really is. Hoping that will improve, though.

I actually consider it a luxury that I don't need a car.

Hiking, snowboarding, sure, that requires going out of town. (Zipcar or rent.) Staying in town doesn't need a car. (And try parking in Capitol Hill and let me know about preferable.)

It's 50 minutes from Capital Hill to Green Lake. Over an hour when you factor walking to the stop and waiting for the bus. That's over two hours round trip. Makes getting together for board games or dinner a huge pain in the ass.

Getting to Kirkland is 90 minutes one way. People and jobs are scattered all over the greater Seattle area. The vast majority of people I know have cars. The few who don't are rarely seen outside of their tiny bubble because it takes so long to get around.

Other than that... I'm really at a loss, I don't know what I can say. Again, this isn't a problem with living carless or even living carless in Seattle, it's a problem with your special case with your specific social group. If your bubble induces you to make a 25 mile round trip to Kirkland with any regularity, yeah, you should probably find a way of getting there that doesn't involve bumming rides all the time. But everyone lives in a bubble, there's different kinds, sizes, and geographical dispersion levels of bubbles, and there's nothing wrong with living in a geographically concentrated one. Capitol Hill gets you to either U District or Lower Queen Anne with an easy 20 minutes transfer-less bus trip, it's 15 minutes to Belltown, and so on - it's really far from a teeny tiny bubble. (Not to claim Cap Hill as centre of the universe, I'm merely using it as an example I'm familiar with, not living in Seattle.) You don't need a car unless your social group dictates that you do.

I agree that if you need to go to Renton regularly you do need a car.

One of them honestly doesn't need a car. He lives in the middle of Seattle, bikes everywhere (or used to) and lives right next to work. I don't see him as much of a movie going guy; and, the only time he ever needs to really be driven places is when they're way out of the way (like all of us going snow-sporting in the mountains), or it's super-late. I don't really hear him gloat, it's just not something he uses except in the edge cases. He's adapted to that 1-2 hour wait time so far as I can tell.

A second one uses the buses to get to and from work and even when he comes over to hang out. We just plan for him to bus home at X at night, rather than X+2 (where X is the last bus). He misses his car and wants to get another one.

tl;dr, depends on the friends, some of them adapt to the restrictions.