Jfc, building out more public transit, encouraging alternate forms of transportation, and mildly discouraging car use through a fee isn’t “losing your freedoms”. You have completely lost touch with reality.
You've lost touch with the context. "building out more public transit, encouraging alternate forms of transportation, and mildly discouraging car use through a fee" wasn't at issue
The claim was: "The only inconvenience [of not having a car and only using public transportation in a dense city] is that sometimes where you're going is a bit of a walk."
This was refuted with examples of other sources of inconvenience like: "Bit of a walk" is a nice way of saying it but in reality it means you are very limited with things like shopping. You're kind of stuck with the nearest walkable grocer." which was followed by "My point is that having a car is nice and I want people to have nice things." and that pushing public transportation for the sake of public transportation (ignoring the limitations it would bring to people's lives) doesn't make sense, which brought us to "lose your freedoms because it's better for you and less ugly"
Having a car means being able to go where you want, when you want, how you want.
It means you can shop at stores that are out of walking range. It means you can pile your two Mastiffs into a car to take them to the vet. It means you can go to visit a loved one at times when public transportation doesn't run, travel to places it doesn't reach, and avoid adding large amounts of travel time (either waiting or walking) to your trips.
Giving up cars would very obviously mean a huge loss in people's freedom, and introduce large impositions on their time. That's a hard sell when the argument is just "it'll be better for your health, less harmful to the environment, and cities will look prettier"
Public health and environmental concerns are good things to address, but cars solve a lot of problems too, including many that public transportation doesn't solve, and public transportation introduces other problems that cars don't have. If you care about encouraging the use of public transportation it'd be very worthwhile to acknowledge those things and take them into account.
The claim was: "The only inconvenience [of not having a car and only using public transportation in a dense city] is that sometimes where you're going is a bit of a walk."
This was refuted with examples of other sources of inconvenience like: "Bit of a walk" is a nice way of saying it but in reality it means you are very limited with things like shopping. You're kind of stuck with the nearest walkable grocer." which was followed by "My point is that having a car is nice and I want people to have nice things." and that pushing public transportation for the sake of public transportation (ignoring the limitations it would bring to people's lives) doesn't make sense, which brought us to "lose your freedoms because it's better for you and less ugly"
Having a car means being able to go where you want, when you want, how you want. It means you can shop at stores that are out of walking range. It means you can pile your two Mastiffs into a car to take them to the vet. It means you can go to visit a loved one at times when public transportation doesn't run, travel to places it doesn't reach, and avoid adding large amounts of travel time (either waiting or walking) to your trips.
Giving up cars would very obviously mean a huge loss in people's freedom, and introduce large impositions on their time. That's a hard sell when the argument is just "it'll be better for your health, less harmful to the environment, and cities will look prettier"
Public health and environmental concerns are good things to address, but cars solve a lot of problems too, including many that public transportation doesn't solve, and public transportation introduces other problems that cars don't have. If you care about encouraging the use of public transportation it'd be very worthwhile to acknowledge those things and take them into account.