[Symmetry]

Streetcars, combining the routing inflexibility of trains with the vulnerability to traffic of busses. We could have saved them if we'd banned cars from city centers and you can argue that if you want to but it wasn't GM that did them in.

[woodruffw]

"Vulnerability to traffic" can be alternately expressed as "right of way violated by individual cars." The history of the decline of streetcars in the US is the history of automotive companies convincing the public that cars take priority over all other forms of transportation, consequences for the commons be damned.

[amanaplanacanal]

The same reason they invented the crime of “jaywalking”.

[saimiam]

I’d argue Jaywalking is probably one of biggest reasons traffic in India is so chaotic.

People simply walk on the street and it wrecks traffic flow, reducing all flow to stop and go with accompanying honking.

I, for one, wish jaywalking were treated as a crime on Indian streets.

Maybe then we’d fight to take back the pavements currently used by hawkers and for parking.

Side note: how does one reverse the tragedy of the commons? How do we make people treat roads and public areas like a shared resource?

[dvfjsdhgfv]

Some European cities, especially in the Netherlands, found a solution, and I think it works quite well.

[saimiam]

You mean bikes? India is usually too hot to cycle.

Here’s another statistic which amazed me when I first heard - apparently 70% of working age Mumbaikars (Mumbai-ites?) walk to work.

That could be another reason why there are so many people on the road all the time.

[woodruffw]

I think they probably meant the Netherlands' general urban planning principles. Cycling access is one small part, but there are lots of other things that can be copied: making it impractical to drive in city centers, restricting commercial traffic to highways and off-hours stops, fully separating pedestrian and cycling crossings, etc.