You are definitely singing the song of my people. I bought my car when I was working 2 jobs with heavy overtime, and it mattered a lot that I could drive 20 minutes instead of the 1hr bus ride. I put about 20k kilometers on the odometer. Things changed recently, and I've found myself doing maintenance on it based on a time schedule rather than distance. I could buy 200 round-trip Uber rides per year for what I'm paying.
I tried getting into cycling, but there's a lack of cycle paths and protected bike lanes here. It's one of those areas that has "sharrows." Pro tip: drivers do not share the road even with the sharrows.
That's my understanding, too. It's a fact I was exploiting in a kind of underhanded way for humor. I like the clarity of not splitting infinitives, but I agree that it and a lot of other grammer suggestions don't really matter as long as good communication occurs. Anything more than that will probably be defined by far more specific conventions in whatever professional specialty applies. Thanks for having fun with me on the internet.
Depending on the route, I'd argue that you should be careful what you wish for. Having said that, I found your response extremely wholesome to a Kenneth Parcell level.
"Oh, hi, new friend! Is that a test tube in your mouth? You must be a scientist!"
"Golly, that sure is a big knife! Thanks for defending all of us bus friends!"
As someone who owns a vehicle, I feel more like I've escaped the matrix when on public transportation than when I'm driving. I still have to have a car to get places public transit won't go, but I always look forward to the completion of each new station, one more area I don't have to drive to.
Thanks for your support.