Is there really no better transportation solution for transportation?

I'm 24, autistic, and without a driver's license or car. Family/friends are usually responsible for most of my rides.  I'm currently taking the free Paratransit bus to work (which is currently only part time, two days a week) but that requires me to wake up much earlier than I'd like to in order to account for the time it takes to pick up other passengers (Work is about 20 minutes away by car). It costs $45~ round trip to get to a place that's 5 minutes  away by car. I've discussed potential better solutions with my family and half of them say that it really wouldn't be more cost effective to own a car when factoring in the cost of the car + gas+insurance+drivers ed+maintenance, and the other half say that I should be putting up with all of that anyway because I "should" have a car.

This is my first job and it doesn't pay a whole lot (weekly paycheck is about $150 for the 2 days of work). I think I might just continue to use the bus support for that for the time being, but that severely limits my freedom when it comes to other outings. I'm having to skip a lot of events that I'd otherwise love to go to because of the lack of transportation. And bumming rides from friends for places that we both go to frequently. They often say they don't mind but doing it enough times has gotta annoy them at least a little bit.

 I really just cannot get past the cost. There's a new place that opened up about 18 miles away that I've been really wanting to visit but an Uber one way is $50 on a good day. Surely there's gotta be a better way, right?

And that's not even considering the road trips I'd love to go on. Perhaps economically now is not the best time to be thinking about this, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while. it really sucks to have to spend money to get somewhere, spend more money while I'm there, and then spend even more money to get back.