[queenkjuul]

See where i live my car is drastically less convenient than walking, biking, or taking the bus for basically any trip under ~5 miles. The effort to get out of my garage and out of the neighborhood and sitting in traffic and finding parking on the other end means biking is basically always faster, and for anything within a half mile (which covers most things i need day to day) walking is just easier.

I enjoy having a car for when i want to go on road trips or move something big or go to some specialty shop of the clear other side of town, but it is not at all convenient for ~90% of the places I go.

[taeric]

5 miles is a ridiculously short radius. Even keeping to that, though, the elementary school is 2.5 miles away, with 250 feet of climb. 20 minutes down to about 5 if I consider bike to car. (And that is at speeds I can keep on that climb. The kids are almost certainly taking longer than 20 minutes on a bike.)

Back when I was in Seattle proper, I can agree. As I say elsewhere, I'm actually a major fan/proponent of transit and walking. Thought it was amazing that the elementary school would walk the kids to the science center for field trips. But I couldn't not see that as you get people that can afford a car and home to park it, they used their car more.

[queenkjuul]

5 miles covers everything from my house to downtown? That's not a small area lol. There's elementary schools within a few hundred feet of my house, high schools within a mile.

My point: cars are not always convenient, you just live in a place specifically designed to make them so, whereas i don't.

Edit to add: 5 mile radius is what like 75 sq mi? That's half the entire area of the city. A full one half of the entire city i can access quickly and easily without touching a car. And i can still take trains to the other half while anyone driving that far will be making a terrifying trip on the expressway.

[taeric]

I agree it can be workable. It can be amusing to consider how much more area people cover today than in history. I specifically remember walking 5 miles to a friends house somewhat regularly from back in the day.

For the kinds of people that want space, though, it is a very short radius. For families with kids that they want to do activities, it can be crippling.

I think it is fair to argue that many of the things that make me support that statement are themselves very problematic. I largely agree. But that is also largely against the point I was intending.

My point is only that you will get more and more people actively driving as long as you don't take steps to keep it specifically expensive to do so. NYC is the poster child example for what I mean, here. Has good transit by US standards. Still saw measurable increases in use from congestion pricing for tolls.

Being more clear, here. My point is not that you can replace design considerations with pricing strategy. My assertion is that you can't ignore pricing strategy with design considerations. And the opportunity/convenience cost of vehicles is such that you have to be somewhat aggressive on that control, as you have to cut into the natural benefits of a modern car.

My template for this thought is largely NYC's congestion pricing success. And knowing that Tokyo does a pretty aggressive policy of not letting you register a car if you don't have off street parking. Which is very expensive.