Reply #4: No public transport worthy of the name in Tacoma.

[newswolf56]

Buses stop running before midnight, and only run once an hour for most of the weekends. To grocery shop by bus will take me three to four hours compared to about an hour by car, and by bus I would be severely limited in my purchases by whatever quantities I could carry in a backpack and lug up a steep hill. Worse, in far too many neighborhoods, the bus stops are unsafe even during daylight hours, especially if you are an elderly Caucasian -- this because of the establishment's "politically correct" refusal to crack down on gang-bangers and street crime. Indeed -- largely because of the abysmal lack of adequate police protection -- Tacoma is by far the most frighteningly dangerous place I have ever lived, and that includes Alphabet City in NYC (Avenue B between 3rd and 4th Streets) when it was the second most dangerous neighborhood in Manhattan. To give up the safety of a car in Tacoma (or any place like it) is therefore very literally to subject yourself to living in constant terror whenever you are outside -- not something I would wish on my worse enemy.