There have been many famines in Europe throughout the past few centuries. Perhaps we're now at the end of history and nothing like that will ever happen again but since countries aren't willing to take that bet.
The convoys barely worked. Parts of Europe were desperately short of food for several years. And the non-Axis countries couldn't manage to defeat the blockade on their own: they needed help from the USA to accomplish anything.
Most middle-class people, especially parents of small children, aren't going straight back and forth between home and work. They're making other stops for day care, school, shopping, after-school activities, gym, etc. Often there are tight time constraints which make public transit unusable. Like it would be impossible to use transit to pick my daughter up from school and get her to practice on time. It's a constant juggle and the childless young urbanites who dominate HN seem to be ignorant of how regular people live.
That depends on how you define "perfectly fine". All of the vegetarian alternatives have a lower protein quality index, which matters if you're trying to get enough of the essential amino acid s without increasing calorie intake.
I don't use the bike lanes because most of the places I go don't have secure bike parking. I'm worried my bike will be stolen, and the local police don't take bike theft seriously. Some of the local dedicated bike trails have been essentially taken over as homeless camps, which are ironically full of stolen bike parts.