moving furniture

Either rent a van or pay a moving company. Its not like you do this every week and it will still be cheaper if you do this every few years than paying for your own car.

or even larger amounts of groceries that are infinitely harder without a car.

In high density cities this just doesnt exist. Grocery shops are at worst a few blocks away, you can just go more often or just use your own shopping cart (or equivalent)

And then there is also the question of the environment on that public transport. IME "good enough that complaints remain manageable" seems to be the target here unlike a car where you can have private entertainment and air conditioning (not to mention sufficient ventilation) to whatever level you wish.

I get air conditioning in my cities bus/light rail/subways and its on a acceptable average level

And imo "entertainment" is a lot better in public transit where i can not only listen to music but also watch videos/read books/play games. When you are driving you shouldnt even be listening to an audio book since you could become distracted while operating your heavy machinery that can easily kill.

And even for relatively frequent public transit routes you end up wasting quite a bit of time waiting.

Here subways/light rails comes every three to 10 minutes, this is not a problem.