I think it’s more troubling to view owning a car as a base right that everyone should have. It’s better as a luxury. We want fewer cars and for people to live in walkable areas where cars are not needed.
100% agree. But…. how do we get there? A LOT of people in the US living in very (gross) spread-out areas where there is horrible pedestrian infrastructure. The infrastructure that does exist seems like it was put in place to mock those without cars (sidewalks on extremely loud stroads). I currently live in such a place.
The end-point I want is for people to live in dense walkable areas by default. But people don’t live there and the few places that exist like that are disgustingly expensive because they are (surprise surprise) desirable patterns of building cities. So we need to build more of it. It will be a very big very energy intensive build-out program that will take decades. So the question is: Is it better or worse for the environment to move people to ICE so they can live in their existing buildings or is it better to build entirely new infrastructure so they can walk.
Maybe my thinking is too black and white. I want the latter but I’m not sure the costs to the environment in the short term are justified. Maybe the long term benefit justifies it. I don’t know.
I think there are two key moves: one is removing the subsidies for private car usage so the true costs are more visible and people can make better choices (c.f. The High Cost of Free Parking), and another would be removing low-density requirements – most expensive cities could increase density rapidly if, say, every homeowner had the ability by-right to add an ADU or convert a single house into a multi-family without decades of recreational lawsuits from the neighborhood NIMBYs. Anywhere built before 1950 probably has a bunch of neighborhoods with little business zones which are marginally profitable because there isn’t quite enough local business but would do well if the density went up by 20-30%, and the profits would probably encourage a virtuous cycle of other neighbors upgrading.
I am homeless and live in a 2001 Dodge grand Caravan. So they’re not even thinking about people like me. Nor the hundreds of people I see parked out in the deserts of Arizona because they can’t afford housing.
If they want EV adoption, they also have to Provide housing.
That's a great position to have—anywhere in the developed world but the USA.
Here, it's a great aspirational position to have, but wholly impractical in the short or medium term.
Perhaps, if the Republican Party genuinely collapses within the next couple of years, it might become possible to pass the kinds of massive infrastructure overhauls required to make owning a car anything but a necessity in the vast majority of this country. Until and unless something that drastic happens, their adamant resistance to that kind of measure makes it very clearly impossible.
In short, high density housing, apartments. Not everyone wants to rent a little apartment the rest of their lives, particularly with the incredible limitations they bring with what you can do at home. There's a whole world out there that apartment dwellers can't participate in, and most people would prefer not to live in an apartment if given the choice and the financial means.
