As an American living in a region with halfway decent (by American standards) public transit, I feel like I hear more comments aligned with the European side than the American side. If public transit has literally any downsides, that’s justification enough to drive for so many people.
There’s definitely a lot of variables in that decision, so it’s not a “one size fits all” recommendation. A timed release feeder can be helpful if your cat is constantly pestering you for food, but having your cat associate you with food can also be beneficial to your relationship and can be a tool to address some behavioral challenges. If your cat is only pestering you near meal times, adjusting your routines might also work. For example, if your cats are harassing you to wake up in the morning to feed them, then adjusting your routine so that feeding them is no longer the first thing you do will likely help to reduce or eliminate the unwanted behavior since they won’t associate you getting up with them getting food.
Another potential issue is that wet food doesn’t really work with most timed release feeders, and I don’t think there’s any microchip-based timed feeders that are compatible with wet food. Wet food is much better for cats than kibble, so even if you use a timed feeder for kibble, they should also still get wet food regularly too.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/4B_movement