The alternative is the status quo of the past half century where we pay lip service to city livability then expand our automobile-dependent suburban sprawl outward while adding one bus line that runs once an hour until it's cut for low ridership
Defeating the status quo always takes a motivated group, and hatred of cars is a good motivator as any. Cars shouldn't be outright banned, but they should be the most expensive and inconvenient option for commuters (which implies building transit infrastructure)
There are many alternatives. You can even go live in car-free areas right now and have been able to do so for decades, e.g. the island Hydra in Greece.
> Defeating the status quo always takes a motivated group, and hatred of cars is a good motivator as any.
I happen to like the status quo and don't want a loud minority to "defeat" it based on their hatred.
This is certainly a valid opinion. I'm simply saying, some of us really like having viable transit options, which is opposing the status quo. To oppose the status quo we must be motivated. One motivation is to hate all the externalities of a car-dependent society.
Right now I take a bus to a transit centre, then another bus to work. This works well for me.
There is a new LRT (Light Rail Transit) line under construction with a station in walking distance from my house. The LRT line will go to downtown, but not to my work. So I will take a train downtown, then a bus or another train to work.
This all sounds good, except for three problems:
1. Based on information from the City, the train will actually be slower than the express buses that it is replacing. It also doesn't go to the same places which means that some trips that can be done by one bus will require transfers. I expect that with the slower train and worse transfers, it will take about 15 minutes longer to get to work.
2. The city is revamping all the bus routes to fit in with the new train line. Unfortunately the revamp is scheduled to go in "mid-2020" whereas the train is scheduled to start operating in "December 2020". Everything they've shown about the new bus schedule shows no routes from my transit centre to downtown and they haven't said that they will keep the current routes until the train is operating.
3. The city has a very poor track record when it comes to LRT projects. The last line they built was supposed to open in spring 2014, but didn't open until September 2015 and even then was operating in a degraded capacity. Problems with the signalling system are so bad that the city is STILL trying to get it working today. The latest news out of the new LRT project is that they are delayed - nobody is saying by how long but one city Councillor is estimating that they are at least a year behind.
If the new bus routes go in and they don't maintain service between my area and downtown, it's quite likely that I will need to start driving again. I don't want to do this, but I'm not going to spend two hours for a trip that was previously 45 minutes either.
Once the new LRT line is up and running I'll adapt to the differences. Yes, it will be worse than what's currently here, but adapting to it won't present nearly the same hardship that moving would.
It's the unknown time between the bus routes changing and the LRT line opening that I'm most concerned about. If this is just a three-month gap, I can deal with driving for that period. If, like other LRT projects, this three-month gap turns into a year and a half then I'll have to think about other options.
Hopefully the city will do a phased implementation where they implement the new bus routes but keep the express routes that are being replaced by the LRT until the LRT is ready. This seems like the obvious solution, but for some reason the city is keeping quiet on what they're doing for that interim period.
It's rather bad for the user to have such big routes changes with no visibility though... And makes moving a gamble
All those things you cited are all exacerbated by the car. Electric cars will solve the pollution issue, but they are still cars, with all the issues they bring.
They are entrenched for a reason: because they are extremely useful. Without cars and the individual transport methods they superseded, many of our cities wouldn't even exist.
What this and many other articles do, is to decide first what the problem should be and then build a case around it to show it in a bad light. That's not how you improve life in cities, it's just how you get rid of cars and with them all the benefits you've overlooked. Proof: you can get all the benefits of cars without the drawbacks by putting all the infrastructure for cars underground and using EV. None of these "visionaries" consider that, because they hate cars.
Cars are useful yes, doesn't mean we shouldn't question them. Just like we should question trains, bikes etc.
Re putting cars underground. Yes you could, are you going to support the taxes to pay for it?
"What this and many other articles do, is to decide first what the problem should be and then build a case around it to show it in a bad light."
Why don't you decide on the merits of the argument rather than perceived motivation?
"but one can just relocate near the new job!" - yes, if you are a single income family, otherwise the partner has to change job too (and even then changing school to children mid year isn't optimal)
and the dual applies: want to grow your family? you cannot switch home freely, you're limited to pick those on some transit to both the couple existing jobs.
I did say "Its just cars are so entrenched in western cultures that its easy to overlook all the problems" Eg in a society dominated by cars, there are going to be people without cars that can't easily get to work. You didn't have that problem pre car, and no one complains about not being able to get to work easily because they don't have a helicopter. Cars create sprawl, and create a situation where you need a car.
"pre car" people would walk or ride horses/bicycles for hours to work. You can still do that now, or go faster by bus.
> Cars create sprawl,
Growing cities create sprawl. Necessary infrastructure for large cities (yes, you need fire trucks, garbage trucks, buses) as well as parking space for convenient door-to-door transport slightly increases it.
Poor policies and the car create sprawl, not growth. Visit a city that developed pre car, no sprawl. New York was designed with massively wide streets, space for all the things you cite and didn't suffer from sprawl.
"parking space for convenient door-to-door transport slightly increases it." Slightly? I can't think of any shop with dedicated parking where the shop is bigger than the car park. Then think of all the houses with a driveway that you pass on the way to work. Each drive is an extra 8ft of frontage, that's an extra 8ft road to be built, and that you need to drive back and forth every day, and that's just the ones you can see.
"Slightly? I can't think of any shop with dedicated parking where the shop is bigger than the car park."
WalMart? Home Depot? Kroger? IKEA? I can show google maps if desired, but that's definitely not uncommon in the U.S.
That extra 8ft of frontage is also extra backyard, which many people enjoy. I don't think people choose to live so far apart because they have cars, they live so far apart because they want to, and the car makes it possible. I suspect many would love to live even further apart if they could.
You can make other options less bad in this regard though. And do things to reduce the problems.
You assertion on public transport costs is heavily dependent on unstated assumptions though.