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by david-gpu 1097 days ago
Sure, we should do both in the same sense that we should floss twice a day and we should stop kicking children. One of them is more urgent and makes a bigger difference, so efforts should be focused on that one.
2 comments

That seems like a good example because I can't see how resources are being kept away from "stop child kicking" in order to promote flossing. Doing both is entirely reasonable.
The resource that is in conflict is political attention. The more politicians and voters focus on EVs, the less is done to improve the walkability and public transit in our cities. EVs distract us from the real enemy: traffic.
Traffic is bad, but fossil traffic is strictly worse than EV traffic. So again, it seems possible to advocate both less traffic and that the remaining traffic should be better.
Perfect is the enemy of good. Even the Bay Area cannot get together and make meaningful improvements to non-car commuting infrastructure. I recall how many years it took just to get the dang bus lane from Richmond district to downtown. I will take any incremental positive changes I can get.