I actually own a car in NYC and think these would make things more practical. I would happily trade time spent looking for parking for a minor fee and would happily trade time spent in traffic for a toll.
I see these changes as expanding freedom, not reducing it. Car ownership costs thousands annually, which many young and low-income New Yorkers can't afford. Improving buses, creating safe bike lanes, and making parking more efficient gives everyone more affordable transportation choices. From my perspective, the current system restricts freedom, which excludes precisely the young and less affluent.
Do not act like cars are the only way for transport. Less cars means more modes of transport. More options means mobility. Cars and their parking and road infra exceed at providing ON DEMAND transportation. Beyond that their storage and use and prioritization makes other modes of transportation less able. - So its the other way around. Less cars, more mobility
In car-choked cities the average car speed taking into account congestion may be lower than walking or cycling. So less of them will increase mobility for sure, both for those in cars and those using other tranportation means.
Good point. For me the issue is the variance which governs the time that I have to leave. For the subway, if I give myself a 10 minute margin beyond the median time, I'm quite likely to be on time, for walking or biking if I give myself a 5 minute margin, I'll almost certainly be on time. For driving on the other hand... as per the article, a trip with a median travel time of 17 minutes can take me over an hour when traffic backs up.
Cars are truly one of the worst possible options when compared against most other forms of inter-city transit.
A car is a great tool when you need to haul a large amount of things over a very long distance (100+ miles). Or you need to go more than ~30 miles in a day (while the US average is above this, most metros are far below).
It's absolutely asinine to think that a car is the right tool for things like simple trips to stores, day to day errands, work commutes, or any other intercity activity.
Those should all be easy and convenient with safe, low cost solutions for all people in a metro, and cars have - again and again - utterly failed at that. They're slow, expensive, unusable by children and the elderly. They actively make the area worse with parking requirements that often emphasize sprawl over density (that parking lot could be housing...). They pollute at an incredible rate and are a leading cause of death.
Wanting a car is fine. Wanting to always drive a car in a dense urban area is fucking dumb.
The lack of understanding in your comment seems pretty intentional.