Would be interested to see a similar visualization for major European cities. As someone living in London I would be very surprised if public transport isn't quicker on average.
- Local neighborhood? Walking or cycling is fastest
- Next high street over? Bus or cycling is fastest
- Most places in central London? Tube or train is fastest
- That neighborhood a mile away that inexplicably has bad bus connections to you but you need to go because that's where the vet/store/whatever you need to visit is? Driving is often the best way, especially if you need to carry something. Cycling is pretty good, too.
- That village 30 miles away? Driving or train (depending on your train line connections)
- Full-size Ikea in Wembley? Driving (pretty hard to get there any other way) and you are probably going to want to bring something back
- Mini-Ikea in Hammersmith? Take the Underground, driving wouldn't even really be possible
Overall, I end up driving fairly rarely to never except for vacations or home repair type stuff. But having a multitude of transit options is really nice and most daily activities just require walking or quick local bus rides.
I'm as pro-public-transit and cycling as they come, but there are definitely some types of trips where cars make sense. But I probably only drive 2-3 times a month vs. multiple times a day in the US. Zip cars are fairly omnipresent around London, so you don't need to own a car to drive those rare trips.
My problem is that I have very little data or intuitive feel for how the 8 million people in London actually move during the average day