Originally Posted by
bocastephen
In the end it was a toss up on whether or not we should have taken transit vs driving, there are arguments for both. We paid a decent premium for the car when accounting for tolls, parking and gas, but we also avoided lengthy waits for overstuffed, hot uncomfortable buses, subways and possibly fewer places to see given the public transit schedules and sheer volume of people we saw waiting.
I'm glad that you felt that it worked for you. For the sake of comparison, I think that the alternative to consider is to use a combination of public transport and taxis whenever convenient. That's my prefered approach for tourism within Kyoto City. I find it more valuable to have my own wheels when I go off the beaten path, where bus and train services are less frequent, and taxis less ubiquitous.