Would never buy a used car for more than max 8-9k, more to the 5k range...

The problem with public transport is, that it's cost scales inversely to the cost of cars.

If I ride with my family with 3 persons for example, in the car it's 1/3 of the cost per person as to compared to 1 person, in public transport it's 3x the cost of a single ride....