As public transport improves, traffic decreases, and the value a car provides increases.
A 20 minute commute with no traffic and parking right in front because everyone else took the bus/train? Sign me up.
The point about equilibrium you're not thinking through fully. If you'd have the 20 minute commute with no traffic and parking right in front of whoever you're going, everyone would do it and you'd just wind up with, well, not that.
But as transit* improves you are able to do more with less, and instead of spending insane amounts of money on 5-lane highways and McDonald's for all and the extractive economics that come with that, you can maintain your existing infrastructure and give folks who can't, shouldn't or would prefer to not drive the option to get to whoever they are going without doing so. That frees up the existing highway infrastructure a little bit, reduces costs across the board, and has a lot of other nice benefits.
You are effectively arguing against other transit methods and models because you'd rather sit in traffic, because without the introduction of alternatives that's what you are advocating for - again because everyone will be in the car and you'll never alleviate traffic and you'll never have a 20 minute commute with free and easy parking.
* We should move away from the "public transportation" frame of reference. Highways are public transportation too, fully funded by taxpayers (in general, it maybe be uniquely different in some countries) and are an entrenched lobbying group that justify projects at the expense of the public too.
The above plays out over decades of course, and there are lots of competing factors.
Generally speaking, cars are at odds with such extreme density, simply due to geometry (i.e. how much space driving requires); it’s super easy to saturate driving supply in such places.
Think of mass transit and driving as being in an equilibrium with each other. Depending on where the bottleneck is in driving supply, shifting driving demand to transit demand (via improved transit infrastructure) should most often improve driving.
Extreme density like the places you mentioned is challenging just because space is at such an extreme premium. I would argue (and I’m not alone here) that it’s especially challenging because driving is consistently underpriced; the fair value of driving there is likely far higher than the cost that drivers pay. In such circumstances, oversubscribed car infrastructure is the natural outcome.
But anyways, the order of causation is probably reversed. Cities with high density are forced to invest in good public transport by sheer public demand and pressure.
You're also using the type of phrasing hyperbole that the anti-bike-lane zealots use.
Indeed. I am not a people person so the idea of a solitary commute is massively appealing to me no matter the mode.