So suppose we don't like cars and want to not need them. What are the transportation alternatives for rural areas? Are there viable options?
Edit:
Thank you all for interesting comments. I should certainly have been more specific-- obviously the term "rural" means different things to different people. Most of you assumed commuting; I should have specified that I meant more for hauling bulk groceries, animal feed, hay bales, etc. For that application I really see no alternative to cars, unfortunately. Maybe horse and buggy in a town or village scenrio.
For posterity and any country dwellers who try to ditch cars in the future, here are the suggestions:
Train infrastructure, and busses where trains aren't possible
Park and rides, hopefully with associated bike infrastructure
No real alternative and/or not really a problem at this scale
Bikes, ebikes, dirtbikes
Horse and buggy
Ride share and carpooling
Don't live in the country
Walkable towns and villages
Our greatgrandparents and the amish did it
A lot of you gave similar suggestions, so I won't copy/paste answers, but just respond to a few comments individually.
Trucks.
Why do you hate cars? Like, do you literally just hate cars? Would you happily replace them with gas motorcycles pulling large undetachable trailers?
In rural areas you need a vehicle capable of carrying cargo or large items over bad terrain. An electric truck makes perfect sense, more than a gas truck, even, since they can be more reliable and need almost no consumables for long periods of time.
Having spent a fair amount of time in a farm growing up, walking works a lot of the time, and then you use a truck. Cars are not particularly useful, bicycles are minimally useful, you certainly won’t be using buses or trains!
Truck sharing could be a thing in a small community, in particular with self driving to send it on its own.
Basically, what are you trying to accomplish?