> ...but I was lying to myself. Rounding friends up to drive 90 minutes then hop on light rail for a half hour before even getting in the vicinity of where you're going has a very real chilling effect on planning fun time.

1000%. I would complain about driving the 12 minutes just to get out of my subdivision (before moving into town). Just what you say, there's a "chilling effect" when everything you want to do is 30 mins away.