They also don’t need to make non-car options more convenient for all people, or even most people. The larger the share of non-car trips the better things get even for those who still drive, even if that share is going from 10% to 20%. Less congestion and pollution. Fewer traffic accidents. More density of housing in places that have high demand, reducing housing costs.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this. Essentially, my assertion is that you get more people out of cars by making them expensive than you do with city design. (Unless, of course, you consider parking costs part of city design?)
I know affluent people in Copenhagen. They own cars. They are basically only used on the weekend, for travel outside of Copenhagen.
Amsterdam has 0.45 cars per household. So lots of households own cars, even in Amsterdam. But the miles driven per household per day is less than a quarter of what it is in the States.
Again, I'm largely inline with what you are speaking towards. The only change I'm making to the discourse is that, if you want fewer people owning cars, you pretty much have to make it more expensive. You can't just make the city more walkable. You have to make it expensive to own cars.
As I say downthread, this is inline with cheaper dense housing. If you want cheaper dense housing, you wind up with smaller living units. Often without dedicated parking allotments for all residents.
Owning a car in Denmark is incredibly expensive. That does significantly impact the ownership rate. And of course if fewer people own cars the miles driven by cars does go down. But lowering the ownership rate is a means to the end, not the end itself.
Absolutely. The amount of space taken up by parking, and its related cost, and things like congestion charges, are part of city planning.
And you can still significantly reduce the number of cars and car-trips without eliminating car ownership. A household with one car used occasionally when it’s convenient needs less parking and driving space than one with two cars driven daily.
Yes the financial component is part of it. Building dense walkable urban developments makes car ownership more expensive and non-car options cheaper and more convenient.
Some would argue that in many places car ownership is being subsidized by the way we develop and tax.
Some households will still have cars, but households are not the same as individual people.
And I think there are plenty of places where the majority of households don’t own cars. You can say they would if it was cheap and convenient enough, but that’s the whole point we’re discussing. Not dedicating so much development and infrastructure to cars will make them less convenient and more expensive options than the alternatives for at least some of the population.
Make a city that doesn't require a car, and people that aren't compelled to use one won't.
