If you want to get rid of the space taken up by 5 lane highways you need to convert roads into walkways for pedestrians, bike lanes, and bus lanes.
There can still exist space for cars but they need to be last in priority rather than the first, second, and third consideration cars have today when it comes to infrastructure.
I challenge anyone who seriously proposes this to first spend a month in a wheelchair. You quickly discover that your sense of scale and freedom of movement is largely a function of your physical capability and financial comfort.
I’m confused by this. Making public infrastructure people first, not car first, in your opinion would make things more difficult and expensive for handicap people?
The town I live in has many streets without sidewalks, and even the ones with sidewalks, many of those are entirely unsuitable for wheelchairs. Designing the streets to have pedestrian needs prioritized over cars would make the streets more handicap accessible not less.
People. As in people walking. My town is not designed in a way that is conducive towards walking. It isn’t safe, there is either no sidewalks, the sidewalks are in disrepair, are not wide enough for two people to pass each other, or set back far enough from the road to not feel like someone could run you over.
But the roads and dozens upon dozens of acres of parking lots? Perfectly fine. Millions spent every year maintaining them while sidewalks are neglected, there are no bike lanes or paths, and it could take twice as long to take a bus as it would be to just walk on the dangerous roads.
I just would think I should be able to walk to a restaurant or the library with my kid safely but I guess because I can do it in a car I should shut up and stop worrying about everybody getting excited about autonomous vehicles making infrastructure even more car centric.
There can still exist space for cars but they need to be last in priority rather than the first, second, and third consideration cars have today when it comes to infrastructure.