[dsfyu404ed]

>Income gets reinvested in the transport infrastructure, e.g. public transport.

Money is fungible. People said the same thing you're saying in defense of seizing assets from drug dealers and punitive sin taxes. Why is it going to be different this time?

>Ultimately, only public transport can "solve" congestion and air pollution

Congestion is a supply and demand problem. Acting like a gridlocked highway is congestion but a packed subway train isn't is simply an exercise in broadcasting cognitive dissonance. No realistic transit system of any type can deal with peak demand without some amount of congestion regardless of the form said congestion takes. Increasing the overall bandwidth of the system reduces the length of time the congestion occurs.

[Schroedingersat]

> Acting like a gridlocked highway is congestion but a packed subway train isn't is simply an exercise in broadcasting cognitive dissonance.

The difference is when the subway is full you can add another line or bike lanes or footpaths or trams.

Once the 12 lane highway and 10km^2 of parking you need to provide the same capacity as the subway or ten bike lanes is full there's nowhere to go because adding more car infrastructure displaces productive land use. There is no amount of car infrastructure you can have which will meet demand in a major city, it just forces people to spend more time driving and makes the city worse.

[hollowdene]

Car congestion makes public transport and other less polluting forms transport (e.g. walking, cycling) less effective / attractive.

Public transport is the most efficient way to increase bandwidth.