(I was once legally blind, still not a fan of cars myself. Though I understand the appeal when externalities are out of the picture.)
Making a car-centric society meaningfully less car-centric requires the enthusiastic support of that society, along with competent political leadership, and probably a fair chunk of taxpayer cash too. Suburbs with huge lots make for long walks to the transit stop - but densifying those suburbs is not easy.
I don't own a car; I travel everywhere by bicycle and public transport - but the public transport I use was all built in the 1850s. Some time between then and now my society reorganised into a form that has a lot of difficulty delivering public transport projects.
Politicians (and grifters alike) like to point to a future technology to solve an existing problem only to delay existing solutions which they don’t want to implement, most often for political reasons.
How do you manage to discover Hacker News and not know Waymos are real? I'm truly fascinated by this new level of ignorance.
The drug addicts are also much less of an issue than a lot of media makes them seem. I'm not sure what would happen if I tried to shove my way through the crowd at 12th and Jackson, but mostly those "zombies" aren't paying much attention to passersby.
I do disagree with you vehemently about Seattle’s light rail being inferior to Portland’s. That may have been true 10 years ago, but it for sure is not true today, especially after the East link opened earlier this year.
That said, Your parent is wildly off the mark (and honestly quite reactionary) in describing harassment from fentanyl addicts. Such harassment is extremely rare, and in the few cases where it does happen it is a failure of public health policy, not transit and accessibility policy.
Public transit is better, but building it outside of dense metro areas to the extent it becomes competitive is probably even more difficult than building a self-driving car.
Population density plays a big part. People think of Europe as a public transportation paradise, but a car makes your life easier outside Berlin, Paris, and other major cities. I live on the edge of Copenhagen and public transportation sucks the further you go from the downtown since the major city turn into a giant suburb really fast. Yes, people bike, but many do drive a car.
Much of the world requires a car. Maybe someday it won't, but today it absolutely does.
And before anyone points this out, if your local government does not offer these solutions that is a political choice of your local politicians. Plenty of local governments all over the world (even in dictatorships) are able to provide these, and changing the policy of your local government should in theory be easier then to roll out technology that does not exist.
I want to drive. I want to bring my cat and bring some stuff back from my dad's house. My parents just drove up here to visit me, I would like to do the same. Not take a train. Not take a plane. I want to hop in a robocar and drive to Florida. The same thing that every other person with a car can do whenever they want to. Freedom.
I can buy a robotic car, once they're available. I am nowhere near rich enough to afford even one politician, much less enough to get public transit to happen in California.
Political choices also take time. You have to get people to vote on a budget, you have to actually build the infrastructure, etc. - even busses require bus stops and drivers and maintenance facilities.
Given that robotic cars already exist today, and are planning to expand, basically every reasonable expectation says that robotic cars will happen before politicians change tack on public transit (especially in the USA, where Trump is currently our president - he does not seem gung-ho on public transit)
And no, robotic cars do not exist. A very limited version of robotaxis do, but they are nowhere near ready for public rollout on all public roads for the consumer market.
