I do think cars have their place, but I don't understand how people have come to believe that cars in, say, Manhattan or the center of Paris, make a lot of sense.
People have come to believe it because they believed it when cars first came on the scene.
They believed it then because before cars major dense urban areas were not low traffic pedestrian safe areas that got ruined by cars. They were areas full of heavy horse and horse drawn vehicle traffic with pedestrian fatality rates from horse and horse drawn vehicle accidents comparable to modern pedestrian fatality rates from cars in those cities in modern times.
NYC for instance in 1900 actually had a higher pedestrian fatality rate from horse accidents than from car accidents in 2003 [1]. In England and Wales the car rate is a little higher than the horse rate [2]. Here are some accounts of what horse accidents were like [3].
(As noted in the BMJ article, a direct comparison of fatality rates might not be the right comparison because we have much better treatment for injuries nowadays. Many accidents that were fatal back then would be survivable today).
From that BMJ article:
> Motor vehicles were welcomed because they were faster, safer, unlikely to swerve or bolt, better able brake in an emergency, and took up less room: a single large lorry could pull a load that would take several teams of horses and wagons – and do so without producing any dung.
So of course people accepted cars in their city centers. They were a big improvement over what they had before.
[1] https://legallysociable.com/2012/09/07/figures-more-deaths-p...
[2] https://www.bmj.com/rapid-response/2011/10/31/cars-and-horse...
[3] https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/local/exeter-news-...
Cars are safer and more convenient than any public transportation for most of the world.
Humans interrupt traffic in my city far more than cars do.
Cars are easily contained, humans are not therefore humans are the actual problem.
What mostly hinders public transport experience is a chicken-and-egg problem, basically, with more passengers we would have more routes, and more buses/trains on them.
Buses and Trains in my city are dangerous and are rarely on time.
2. How is a car safer than a train or bus? Definitely agree cars are more convenient given the current design of American cities. But consider if you had a nearby train station with an express line to downtown. By taking the train, you avoid sitting in traffic, get there quicker, don’t have to worry about parking, don’t have to worry about how much alcohol you consume before driving, and help your health by walking a bit more. Of course, few American cities have public transit that good, but that’s because American cities are designed for cars, not because public transit has an inherit problem.
3/4. You’re thinking about this from a car-centric point of view. But that’s totally arbitrary. What actually matters when considering city policies and society? Hunks of metal? No, people matter. The quality of life for people living in the city should be the utmost priority. Why is the person crossing the road? Well, it turns out that you need to walk to places even after you get out of your car. The problem is that humans don’t have a convenient transit option from one side of the street to the other, because cities aren’t designed to promote walking, despite walking being the most space, time, health, and energy efficient transit option for short distances.
Containment is totally irrelevant, imo. Sure, highways must be separate for effective transit. But it’s absolutely impossible to design highways to every single location, especially in extremely location-dense areas. We’ve attempted to do that with the so-called “stroad,” and it has been a massive failure. Those multi-lane roads by strip malls and chain stores are very dangerous for drivers because cars can’t be contained, and that’s without hardly any people walking around. To avoid that, you need to design walkable areas for “destinations,” which completely deprioritize cars.
Also, traffic is irrelevant. The purpose of transit is to allow people to get from A to B. car traffic exists to allow that transit. Forms of transit with large vehicles self-create their own congestion. (Like cars) Some, like buses and trains, can be scheduled to avoid that problem. But individual people walking or biking can saturate a given space with significantly more people per second without creating severe congestion. This is crucial for cities, which is why it’s ridiculous that cars have been prioritized in city centers for so long. It’s such an inefficient transit option for dense areas in basically any way you look at it. It’s not even that good for drivers, since city driving is always dangerous, stressful, and congested.
Keep cars to the highways for medium/long-distance trips. But there are many better options for dense areas, and that’s where big cars killing people is a problem.
There is no legitimate comparason between the two.
When people create the problem by obliviously walking out into the street or if they're on a bicycle being reckless - cars are not the problem.
The sense of entitlement among some drivers just beggars belief. The other day I crossed the street with the pedestrian signal. Beyond the traffic signal (to my right) there were two police cars with lights on blocking one lane to cordon the scene of a recent accident and redirect traffic. While I was crossing a vehicle just casually ran the red light and nearly hit me. When I angrily pointed to the light indicating I had the right of way, they angrily pointed at the police cars, as if their presence somehow superseded the existence of the intervening traffic light.
Either way, there's nothing wrong with trying to make cars safer for pedestrians too.
This is probably closer to the rational solution than your previous statement (about "pedestrians and cyclists being mindful of where they are"). With proper road design, cars are moving slow enough near pedestrians so they can stop within time. Separated bike lanes save the lives of cyclists and lead to less traffic on the road.
North America has been designed to the benefit of cars over pedestrians essentially everywhere, to the great detriment of the local population.
If you walk in the designated areas there is no way you'd be legally confined anywhere.
That you place the lion's share of the blame on pedestrians is specious.
They're 95% of the problem in my city (San Francisco).