> Well... yes, that is precisely what's needed to wean America off its unhealthy dependence on cars.
HIGHLY disagree. If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative. Granted, I love cars. I would have cars whether I needed one or not, but I know I'm absolutely 100% in the minority on that issue, and like, when I say I would have cars either way, I mean fun cars. I wouldn't keep and maintain vehicles to just get around in my daily life if I didn't have to. I'd very much prefer to have just the vehicles I actually enjoy, and probably one truck and trailer to get around to tracks.
Most people don't like cars and don't like driving which is why most people drive like shit. It's a chore, a required to-do item on the way to doing something they actually want to do.
> If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative
Never going to happen, outside of few dense city centers. Once an area is platted for detached single family homes and big box stores on stroads, the physical layout is incompatible with non car life, and hence you have to literally destroy everything and start over with narrow streets and smaller plots of land.
The expense of this is not going to win you any votes, especially as results will not be evident for at least 20 years while infrastructure is completely rebuilt and legal disputes are hashed out, hence it will not happen until nature forces it.
> Once an area is platted for detached single family homes and big box stores on stroads, the physical layout is incompatible with non car life, and hence you have to literally destroy everything and start over with narrow streets and smaller plots of land.
Not really. Repave the roads to make them slimmer, use the space gained to provide elevated sidewalks and bike lanes so people can see it with their own eyes that they can now participate in traffic without sharing infrastructure with cars. And whenever a reasonable sized lot goes up for sale, buy it up and convert it to a small store.
It won’t work, because until you provide everything without a car, people will want a car, which means space for a car, and once they have a car, they are going to use the car to travel to big box stores where they want parking for the car to buy their goods at lower prices due to economies of scale.
And you can’t just repave roads, there are utilities and sewer that needs to be moved, and that’s the small problem. The big problem is facing the outcry of very active voters for reducing their road space and making their commutes even a minute longer.
And if all the homes around this repaved area are detached homes with garages in 0.1+ acre lots, you will never have the density of customers to support businesses.
It kind of has to start at a city center and slowly, very slowly spread outward. But as soon as you hit the higher end suburbs with bigger plats, that’s where any of that high density hope stops, because the political will simply isn’t going to be there. Look at any US city and you will see the “trendy” or “hipster” or whatever areas with a few restaurants and whatever in a small walkable area are all in areas with postage stamp houses in tiny lots.
"And you can’t just repave roads, there are utilities and sewer that needs to be moved, and that’s the small problem. The big problem is facing the outcry of very active voters for reducing their road space and making their commutes even a minute longer."
You don't have to redo sewers etc when you just change the surface by removing stroad space and adding bike lane space.
> If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative.
And to provide that infrastructure, you need space. Space that is reserved for parking cars at the moment. Just compare how much you pay per m² for the parking spot in your average city center vs the average rent mer m² that someone has to pay just for a basic shack.
the alternative is here and it's ebikes/scooters/something. it requires a huge culture change so it's gonna take some time, but batteries plus a motor is viable and is going to cause cities to evolve yet again.
HIGHLY disagree. If you want people off cars, you need to give them an alternative. Granted, I love cars. I would have cars whether I needed one or not, but I know I'm absolutely 100% in the minority on that issue, and like, when I say I would have cars either way, I mean fun cars. I wouldn't keep and maintain vehicles to just get around in my daily life if I didn't have to. I'd very much prefer to have just the vehicles I actually enjoy, and probably one truck and trailer to get around to tracks.
Most people don't like cars and don't like driving which is why most people drive like shit. It's a chore, a required to-do item on the way to doing something they actually want to do.